No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 335: Joel Dahmen

Episode Date: July 29, 2020

About to tee it up in his first WGC, Joel Dahmen shares some insight as to what got him there, stats in golf, strategy, how often he thinks about money when he plays, course setups, shooting 58, not practicing for three months, Trackman, and so much more. This one has a ton in it and you're going to really enjoy it.  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. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang Up Podcast. Recorded this last night with Joel Damon. And I meet like five minutes into it. I was like, how do we not have this dude on pretty much every week?

It's basically any question you'd want to ask a tour player. You can feel very comfortable asking him. We talk a lot about money, about the thoughts that go through your round. You know, would you play golf if you won the lottery? Like would you still play professional golf? There's going to be, there's a lot in this. He put some really thoughtful answers into it. We really appreciate the time.

I'm not going to delay much more to get into it. We've talked also a lot about them in recent weeks, months, years, even. They are that much fun to use around the greens. The jaws, MD5 wedges, they are previously only available and that kind of that blingy, chrome finish and a Tor Grey finish. You can now get them in the raw finish. It reduces the glare and has the matte look

that a lot of Tor players look for. And not only that is the new finish available, there's a new grind, the T grind has a higher center of gravity for a more controlled ball flight. One time we talked about Wesley Bryan giving some education instruction about and hitting a low checking shot with an open face. The T-Gryne is ideal for that kind of shot.

So you can check out the jaws MD5 raw wedges today at calwaygolf.com. That's calwaygolf.com to see the jaws MD5 raw wedges. I have someone order I cannot wait for them to arrive. Gonna be using them here for our first real big trip that we've made this year coming up shortly. So on the subject of Callaway shout out to listener Tanner Harley. Harley, I think I got that right. For picking up a Maverick driver and in his words, not ours, he gained 10 to 20 yards on his XR driver. So sounds like I made the right choice, Tanner. And thank you very much for listening. Voughtney further delay here is our episode with Joel Damon. I would be remiss

if I didn't start this by saying morning Damon. Are you in on that at all? Do you have an idea? Well, I don't know, but Trond is obviously from Damon Hack on the golf channel, right? Or golf that the morning's golf thing and the Gary player thing. Are you familiar with it? I'm not. okay. So it's a chamber It's our favorite audio clip ever. It's a chambers Bay US open and they these Gary player comes on morning drive and There's like hey good morning, mr. Player. How are you? And he just good morning Damon and then for two straight minutes He just lambast the golf course and we've watched it so many times that we just start conversing.

We still winning each other in the morning. We say morning Damon. So now when we see Joel Damon, that's our go to. That makes, okay. So it's Mr. Player saying hello to Damon Hack, not so much Damon. Correct. Now that I'm now saying it, explaining it out loud, it sounds even dumber than I think. No, but that's what makes the inside jokes is all your friends great.

Yeah. Is this your first WGC by my count? It is my very first one. it sounds even dumber than I that's what makes the yeah. Is this your first it is my very first one. Just barely on the world I wasn't sure how it all shake out. So yeah, happy this golf course off when it's a good test and it

doesn't necessarily favor any particular player. So excited to be in the W G C and then major next week. So a couple of big weeks. Have you looked up what the minimum amount amount is that you're going to make this week? Of course I did. It's the first thing I did. What is it? I actually don't know. I'm pretty sure it's 30. It might be 35, but I think it's 30. Oh, that's low. That's lower than I guess they expanded the field. I thought it was going to be 40. So I mean,

disappointed is a wrong word, but I immediately looked at what place it was to get 100,000, because six digits is really fun. So I think it's like a 20 second or 23rd maybe. So we're shooting for top 15. That's our goal. Is it that different when you go to tee it up at a no-cut event?

Starting out on Thursday morning, does it feel completely different? I've only played in a couple. I played in the Asia swing. at a no-cut event starting out on Thursday morning. Does it feel completely different? I've only played in a couple. I played in the ages swing. Those are no-cut and I haven't played great. I was just chatting actually with a couple of people. My coach and Cadi over the weekend. Instead of like the golf term is normally like 36 holes you try to make the cut, you know, and you position yourself and then it's, you know, 36 hole weekend where I think you can be really patient. Thursday, Friday, knowing that you're not trying to track, you know, you're trying to chase down the cut, or if you get off to a bad start, you can just kind of be more patient and understanding of maybe getting off to a slow start and just knowing that you have the extra 30s of tools regardless. That makes a lot of sense.

You've played, you've had a good run I guess in the last year or so since you've been on the pod. Has anything really been different or what's been the big contributor to that? Just kind of pouring over your stroke's and stuff. It's you're remarkably consistent across all categories basically a year to year, but in your mind, what's different? What's what's especially working for you? Yeah, I'm certainly I think my iron play this year has been up to two to greens. Always been okay, but my iron play this year has been a lot better. I think of just this little more consistent. I haven't necessarily been, you know, you're always

working on little things in your golfing, but I've always been able to hit it okay. My wedges and chipping were better for a while. I think since quarantine, they haven't been so great. Not practicing for three months is not a great idea, but I think that's slowed down. But for me, also, I think the other side is just not freaking out when I see my name on the leaderboard. Like, I believe I'm supposed to be there now and I expect myself to be there more often than not. So, you know, instead of just trying to hold on or just, you know, if I'm around the cut line, now I'm trying to, you know, get into top 25 and then I'm trying to get into top 20 and then top 10. So, doing that and just being more comfortable seeing my name on the board and, you know,

having that freedom, I guess, has been good. You really not practice for three months? Well practice. I know I played plenty golf. I played two or three times a week, but I didn't hit a shot on track man until the Monday of colonial. And I never saw my coach, never played a sober round of golf in three months. So yeah, well, no, that's not true. I played nine holes with a couple juniors during quarantine where I had to walk. And that was the only time I didn't have at least one beverage. Do you play better when you're having some beverages? I did shoot 58. That was that was multiple. I think we had, you know, a standard is three or four on each nine.

So that's pretty standard for us at Mason Country Club Club. Well, yeah, I was gonna say like a blackout is when you're, you know, you're taking it super deep, but if you're drinking while having a blackout, taking a deep, is that a double blackout? Yeah, I think so. There's definitely some browning out going on there. I do remember I had a new something cool was happening on this 17th hole. I actually drank some water That's pretty rare, but I did I actually like chugged about a lot on 17 and 18 And as in the fairly at 18, I'm like, oh no, did I like ruined this whole thing by having water? But obviously I

Didn't luckily in the end so I'm guessing the the alcohol there there is one thing that separates it out, but I was curious in how you describe or define practice. Because even I would think, you know, when you're not in tournament week or whatnot playing golf in some way is practicing, but I feel, it seems like the way you just defined it is, practice is different than playing. For me, it is. I don't spend a ton.

I'm not a rain track, and I'm not gonna go be balls until my hands bleed And I'm not gonna work on a ton of things all the time So I do work with my coach Robert Shell. He's head of instruction at TPC Scottsdale So when I'm there with him I'm putting in two or three hours that is like solid You know we have data we have trackman or we have video or whatever it is or we're really consciously working on things But yeah, I mean there's at Mesa where I played it's small tree line real long. So you have to hit driver accurate and then you go work a lot on your wedges. So for me, even though I'm not, you know, practicing per se, I still get to hit 10 or 12 wedges around, which is good practice for me, you know, and just control and try and do those things.

So yeah, I mean, I guess I just find practice would be you can practice playing. I enjoy playing for, you know, a little bit of money, you know, you get a good, a good, a nice, I'll game something like that. And that's always fun. But for me, my practice has always done mostly with a coach and some feedback rather than just, you know, going and playing 18 holes.

So do you take that, the track man out on your own? And we'll work, will you work on that on your own? And, and, and, almost never, I have, I was just, I can't picture you operating that yeah I actually don't really know how that well It's always kind of a if I'm setting it up luckily Gina my caddy

Understands a better me so he sets it up You know, and we'll go through whatever you know on working on that I have a distance troll or you know working on facing path or So yeah, that's Gina sets it up or obviously work with my coach and he has his and that's how we do I don't know if I've ever really taken it out on my own to set it up I'm trying to think of how to ask this question about distance control and I hear I hear pros talk about that so often And I think it's just something that a lot of amateur golfers can't relate to that well If trouble hitting it the same distance with a lot of clubs. Yes It's something that I'm just now starting to learn

for myself personally how important it is. But I guess, can you explain your relationship with distance control when you started to realize how important it is and why it's something that, you know, pros are stressing like weekend and week out whenever they get a chance to talk about what they're working on that seems like something I hear all the time.

Yeah, that's a good question. And I don't, I mean anytime at the pro level, as you said, I think for me, the corn fairy was when I really realized I needed to be better, especially, and it's almost when it's firmer. When we say disc control, it doesn't mean that you're always trying to hit a whole high. So I'm not trying to land it five yards short. I think Mirfield is a great example of it because to make the courses more difficult to Troy, I haven't played there, but they just have old school big round greens.

They're mostly just round. Mirror Field has offset greens and they're angled away from you a little bit like I think like the Part 312th hole. Obviously, everyone talks about it. I guess it's a lot like the one with the masters. The way that it's angled forces you to perfectly control your golf ball, because you're off by five yards one or another, you're probably making bogey or double.

And so, you just have to be able to hit your spots and that's understanding that's like flying it lower, sometimes in the wind, maybe hitting it higher, phase of draws, you have to understand all those little things and maybe that takes off five yards on a shot, or sometimes you're trying to get a couple more out of it. So, mirror field super, it exposes you and it exposes me back to back weeks of just not,

I was struggling with my ball striking anyways and then if you're mishitting it, then your distance rolls bad and then it's just gonna really expose you like mirror field where I think Detroit, you can get away with it or a golf course like Detroit or just big round greens. You can, don't have to be precise because your miss is still going to be on the green most of time and it's kind of an interesting way to look at golf course but Mirfield's exposed almost every hole.

You have to absolutely dial in whether it's landing it short or using ridges or slopes or whatever it is but it's just understanding it. Exactly how far your ball is going to go and and obviously the best, like Tigers the best ever at it. And you see, like, I think Justin Thomas improved his weight as well as a ton in the last couple of years, and watching him be able to hit different shots. I mean, the shot he hit into 18 at Cap Allua to get into the playoff, like he was, he had like three

different shots, he could hit it with a wind blowing and the slope with the green and how to manage his spin. And that conversation he had with the caddy Jimmy was awesome. And then for him to pull it off into five feet was even better. But people just think it's hitting it whole high and for pros it's changing trajectory, you know, maybe shaping it both ways and you know, just trying to always land it whatever you're trying to land it. Yeah, and I think that you know is something you see, like I've seen, I've seen with

Rory a ton just him hitting wedges that, you know, maybe in you see, like I've seen, effectively seen with Rory a ton, just him hitting wedges that, you know, maybe in past years that he thinks that he's stuffed it in just as so confused as to how it goes long. And I listened to JT talk about it on the, he was on the Earn Your Edge podcast with Cameron McCormick and Cory Lumberg just talking about how he used Trackman with wedges

and it was something I just never really thought of with like actually, you know, looking at RPMs, I always understood how that works with driver distance and getting the ball to carry and how you want like, actually, you know, looking at RPMs, I always understood how that works with driver distance and getting the ball to carry and how you want it to spin. You know, you don't want it to spinny, you don't want it not spinning enough, but how he would, you know, a draw lob wedge from 72 yards might be different

than like a cut sand wedge from 75 yards and learning how much those balls both spin. Is that like how granular you get with track man? Most guys, yeah. It is, yeah, especially at this level, you know, I'm starting to kind of creep towards that top 15 in the world and start to knock on the door a little more. And that's just like just understanding little things

a little more and just being here better. I mean, because you're not gonna, it's like you're gonna gain a stroke like overnight. You're just trying to get tens of strokes and even sometimes hundreds of strokes. So with that is, yes, and that's what it's, we pay attention to them, like, I actually switched wedges maybe a month ago,

and it was getting, you know, my, my lob and sand wedge were getting, they weren't spinning as much. So we switched the immediately skyrocket back up, but with the new wedge, when they spin so much, they're gonna come out lower, and they're gonna spin more lower and they're gonna spin more so they're not gonna fly as far.

So now the ball's flying shorter and spinning more. So I have to consciously try to, my wide just a little bit higher to bring the spin down and that's also gonna make it kind of sit and stop where it is instead of like ripping. You know, see a lot of guys just ripping the ball at 20 to 30 feet sometimes. And that's, you know, so it's understanding the spin on that.

And it's like, yeah, when I hit this show with my, when I'm hitting them, you know, I'm hitting them well or my stock one is spinning it, you know, let's say, 8,500 or 9,000, you know, and then knowing it's a back pin so I can hit the sandwich back there and hit it lower and it's still going to be able to stop, but it's not going to spin as much obviously. So I'm just scratching the surface on that. It is something my coach has pretty gotten his attention to. We actually just talked about,

I just worked with him on Saturday. So it was kind of interesting and seeing that and then which is a whole nother level, which is kind of getting the fill probably is like from you to turf versus, you know, bent grass versus Poe and how it's all going to react differently and how the ball is going to play and the spinur versus you know, bent grass versus Poe and how it's all gonna react differently and how the ball's gonna play and the spin and you know,

then you get into humidity versus hot drive versus you know cold weather. It's this whole like stuff that's a little beyond me and I think we most players just kind of know it intuitively by just kind of playing through the years but you know, you get those guys with super details. I think if like Phil and obviously D-Shembo kind of has a lot of that stuff. But yeah, at the best of the world and JT talking about that,

yeah, I'm sure he's he understands it, but it's not something you don't understand. It's something you're able to do it and something you're able to do it on Sunday and in the pressure. A quick break here to talk about what we've been talking about for the past several months to each other. And now we get to finally share it with you. Our friends at Woop, if you don't know what it is, it's a fitness wearable. It provides you personalized insights on performance on your sleep, how your body recovers, how much stress you put on your body throughout the day from your workouts and just the normal stressors of life.

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That's 15% off the entire 18 month membership. So that is huge, huge savings. It's not just for the first month. So again, 18 months of savings, 15% off, using promo code no laying up at woop.com. Let's get back to Joel Damon. Well, what is your relationship been like with statistics? You talked about, you know,

tens of strokes, hundreds of strokes. Is that kind of walk us through what that learning curve has looked like when that started to click with you and kind of what you are still learning and picking up on as you go along. Yeah, it's kind of a hot topic, Mr. actually worked with Mr. Scott Fawcett and learned his decade stuff, which I agree with, I think, understanding where your actual pattern of golf shots, when you hit 10 shots or 20 shots, what the actual result instead of just a one shot. And I think that helped me out a ton. And obviously, you say,

play conservative, play to the fat side of the green, you know, my dad taught me that, right, when I'm 10 years old. So like sometimes you do it, but it's another thing to actually have like why you're doing it. Like, you know, it's really dialed in with everything and goes, hey, we're going six left of this. And it's like, okay, so we just pick a target that's six left, but we know we're going there because there's a bunker there. There's a water. Instead of just aiming, you know, left to the hole. Now there's a Y for it, and that's helped me out a ton. I have, you know, kind of massage it a bit myself. I've worked with the golf IQs and other one, John Rehorn. I've worked with a lot. He's a head coach at Oregon State, and he does a lot of my stats now, and we work on that stuff.

And he's, you know, so there's maybe sometimes it's instead of having a 40-foot punt that's downhill, maybe it's you can attack the pin because you are just gonna be chipping back up the hill and it's an easier chip. So we've done a little bit of those things but for me, many tours in Canada, I was doing that for five or six years, I got, you know, when you're playing well, you get away with it, but as soon as you get, you know, for me it's a corn fairy like, there was just weeks I couldn't get away with it. I know those courses are even easier. So then the rookie year out here, I was exposed for just not understanding, not to say where to miss, but just understanding why I'm hitting shots and being safe and understanding parts are okay. So not all thing. And then every

one of my metrics the last four years has gotten better. I mean, punting is still not great, but it's improving in the areas slowly but surely. Um, everything has just gotten slightly better. That's something we always pay attention to. And there's a lot of guys out there from Richie three Jack does this whole, um, he did the whole golf book at the end of the year. It's just one to look at and data golf is something that we kind of do. So then too. So I've, I've looked at it all through the years and just kind of understand where I need to be and it's pretty understanding. I need to chip and put better. It's kind of

and then we look at course by course like Southland this week TVC should be a good golf course for me. Hilton had colonial those travelers those golf courses aren't there to bombers paradise. And so they favor me a little bit. So it's yeah, we look at everything week to week and try to pick out a game plan. Is it I feel like whenever I'm really aiming conservatively with irons, at the end of the day, I end up with like a very score that I'm pretty, I'm very happy with, but also like a lack of gratification that comes with it. Like it feels a hundred percent. A bit boring. Am I on to something? Yeah. You're totally nailed it.

And that's what's really hard. And it's hard to stay disciplined with it. It's like sometimes you know it just sets up perfect, you know, to take a little bit off the air and cut it in there. And if you pull it off, you're just going to, you know, you're going to be inside of five, six weeks because it's perfect. But if you miss it, you're probably going to, you know, you could make a bogey right away. So then you're really upset that you made yourself a bogey and you know you could just hit it over there

and you're probably guaranteed a four. But I have a hard time transitioning when I'm home with buddies, I go after every single pen. I don't care if I'm like slicing three woods out of trees. Like I'm just gonna try to make every shot. So to come back out here and then be like, all right, super patient.

But then also, let's say you're hitting them all really well, and you are hitting it to 20 feet all the time because you're actually hitting your target instead of, and then all of a sudden you try to creep on over towards the pan and you try to hold it or you try to hit something like, and then you make a bogey and you're frustrated there. But or you hit it at your target all day, 20 feet in your mat because you should be aiming at the pan all day. It's just, it's a constant battle.

It's really hard for me to not try to kind of like on the downsling, but I'm going to fade it to yards just to get closer to the hole. Like, that's not how that works. You just pick your target, you hit it, and you hope that, you know, over the course of 72 holes is going to work out for you. And it's a great way, I think, like Charles Howell, you know, just top 10, top 12, nice, coocher. Like like, let's pick it apart and they're really going to be in patient

where I don't have that patient. So I just want to make a birdie on every hole. Is it something that you, I mean, on top of like all the data and everything? Is it something you can really see in other people that you play with? Just like, he's cutting a shot off me there. He's cutting a, you know, or you know, two tenths of the shot off of me there. Is it, is it something that's noticeable to you? Yeah. So I tried not to look into that because anytime I play with a guy, it's at long and straight.

Well, I'm like, that's like, this is miserable. So I gotta like beat him some other way, but you know, putting is a great equalizer. So I look at it a lot of times. I think for it, there's the second hole at Sony and Hawaii is kind of a tough driving hole and it's a really weird one Like the water jets in at two different parts and you see so many guys

Hit a three wood you either have to get hybrid short of the first one or you hit driver over it And you see so many guys know it's probably not a driver hole So you grab three wood and they fly it right in the lake where they'd hybrid they'd be short of it if they'd drive it They'd fly that little part and so you know We just look at each other sometimes, like, especially younger guys out here, maybe don't have like a great caddy or don't clearly don't think maybe the way that some of the best ones do. You just watch them just make mental air after mentally, and you're like, how can you ask, you just pull that you pulled the wrong club knowing you're just no where's going It's going in the water for sure when you pull that. So and it's interesting to watch Cady and players talk about, you know, you you'll have a Cady that yeah, we can go right at this one. I'm like, why are you aiming at this pin?

Like there's no way you can aim at this pin. And you'd see it from a lot of younger guys and I was that way. I'm sure people laughed at me in Geno for a while, but we're pretty sound in our decision making. He's really good. He doesn't want a motion to get involved. He just caddies and he just does it. And I somehow find a way to screw it up eventually through 72 holes, but I don't know.

That's part of the fun and that's, I'm getting better at it. The better I am, you know, honestly, with the more money I make, the more freedom I have to, you know, maybe do some of those things or it gives me freedom too, that I can just kind of over 72 holes,

I'm gonna be okay with it so just playing better at like it all loops into one thing of just being patient and trying to do what you're supposed to do but same time. That is probably the hardest thing about golf like you watch t-shambo she didn't really care so he's wacked three balls out of bounds like super entertaining but you would never do it if you like around the lead but um just really interesting to watch people do it different ways, I guess. What sense can you make of what Bryce and his done during quarantine and does it, I mean, you guys have very different playing styles,

but does it make you rethink the game at all, your game or what you think the future of the game looks like at all? Yeah, it's certainly, I don't know if he had to put on a weight to swing faster, like people forget, like he could already hit the golf ball really far. This isn't like some random thing. And I think he probably, I mean, you see other guys who bomb it, like none of them,

like are putting on crazy weights. I don't know if he had to do it. I respect what he's doing because he's outside the box and it's working for him. But yeah, it's like the thing that I think people don't realize, he led the field, he had the best putting week of his career in Detroit anyone Yeah, he drove it everywhere and he bombed it and it was cool But his wedges were average and he made everything is the game already turning that way of course it was with all the bombers do I I wish that

What was Max's Tweety Tweety to make fairways great again or something like that and I They'd like got off Twitter. Exactly. That was just so much. But I think Mirfield is a great example. Rough was pretty gnarly and the greens were fast and firm And that's all you need and any golf course becomes super difficult But the problem is people don't understand is a lot of times it's gonna rain or You know mother nature is a huge deal with it. So if you have wind and sun, it's gonna dry it out.

But I may be for maybe one golf ball for everybody. That'd be an interesting take. Every other sport has one ball. I don't know the logistics by hand. You know, companies are gonna lose so much money doing that. So I don't know how that would look, but I think it's certainly be something to explore down the road. The long player just still gonna be the longest,

but just, you know, maybe make the ball spin more, make it curve more if you miss it. I'm certainly a little more old school like that, but I appreciate it guys. I think hitting it far is a skill. So I have thought about maybe going down that road a little bit, but I also have so many things in my... If my putting in wedges and chipping and improve, I hit it good enough

to be top 30 in the world. So if I just improve on those things to get them to two or average, then I'm going to be right where I want to be. So I have thought about it, but I think I'm just going to, I hit it just long enough to be competitive. Yeah, I was not going to suggest it. It's like the, the biggest cautionary tale and the reason why I keep asking everyone about it is like it is that Ridiculous to have gained that much speed and distance in such a short period of time and do it that accurately Yeah, so somebody posted and I don't know how You know everything on Twitter

Somebody believes that I guess but most straight players who gained distance still maintain most of their accuracy Which I thought was interesting. Yeah, I mean for to do it that way You're not a bomber. Sorry. You're not a bomber still maintain most of their accuracy, which I thought was interesting. Yeah, I mean, for to do it that way. You're not a bomber, sorry, you're not a bomber, but like you gain shots on the field off the tee, like consistently right here. I, what I, the reason that is is, because let's say a lot of guys

will hit a two iron or hybrid to 150, I'll push my driver down to 100 yards, or you know, maybe they hit three wood and I hit my driver next to their three wood. So I hit driver way more often than most other guys It doesn't mean I'm not necessarily hitting a past them But there's gonna be a lot of points on around this week where guys are gonna be like hitting less club off the T and I'm just gonna help driver because it's my straightest club in my bag. It's straighter than my three wood on my hybrid

So I'm just gonna push it down there a little bit further than most guys on shorter holes, I guess you know par five obviously, they're long part fours, whoever is bombing it, but I'll be gaining strokes because they hit a pretty straight, and I hit driver more often than everybody else. If you could rig course setups to fit your style of play the best, what would a course setup look like?

Again, this is unrealistic, but this is, you get to set up the course so that you would succeed the best, what set up look like? Again, this is unrealistic, but you get to set up the course so that you would succeed the best. What would it look like? Yeah, I think Ferman fast. I don't necessarily like long rough because everyone's gonna hit it in the rough and if they hit it in the rough,

50 yards close to the green, that doesn't really work great for me. But Ferman fast, we have to control, where the ball still could roll in the rough, I guess. Like I played well at Riv this year as Ferman fast there. Bay Hill was crazy over the weekend. I kind of enjoy those two. I mean, I think of myself like a British open like be able to flight the ball low,

control it on the ground a little bit more, control the flight. I really like the idea of that. So I would go nothing like crazy, Nero. You don't have to go with Hilton head or colonial Nero, but I would long rough. Not too long, I guess, just enough to be penal. And then, firming fast with small greens. That just makes everything, I don't care who you are, it makes it really hard to, you

know, you have to hit two good shots, you can't just well away off to you and then hit another one. So, with the firm greens, small greens, preferably, that just makes it that much tougher. And then, separate question. If you could rig setups that would create the most entertaining television product, what would that look like? It would be a lot of short par threes with trouble all around short par fours that make you think, you know, you can't just blast it anywhere around the green, but I think the best holes in the world are short par threes and short par fours are the most memorable. Par five, like I think I think every par five should be very generous off the tee and they should be now most people can all get there.

They should be very difficult in the greens and most par fives are. I think we need shorter par threes. There's no reason we need to be playing two twenty five par threes. So it's just dumb like that's lame. Because then most time there's nothing around the greens. They're just kind of You know if you whack it up there somewhere you can most likely have an easy up and down It's even dumber when you have 225 with like water and deep bunkers and that's just ridiculous. So I'd say though If with the current driving with how often guys are hitting wedges into par fours That's the reason you need the 225 par three is now is so you're at least testing Yeah, that's what I'd say. I would say test, you could test long irons

into the par five, this is basically what's happening now, but make the par five is brutal on that second shot. So I love short par three is with crazy stuff around the greens and short par four is with like dry, I mean, there's nothing more fun than trying to drive a par four. I think that's, or the second shot in the part five so that'd be super entertaining. And it would still. You know show everybody could be able to do i think the fifteen total travelers is incredible.

Um i don't know i don't like the rough there but it would be. To penal maybe i think you would see to you guys lay up. If they saw for the left edge of hair, and no rough, I would be okay with that. I even flew a ball in the rough that plugged in. I'm like, this is ridiculous that it stayed up, but also I saw too many good shots that were actually like at one point,

you know, middle-ish of the green that had a little too much speed and would almost go in the water, and that would just be two-pinal. But I think it's a great hole. My take on that was basically like you're saying, it would change the decision-making process, too much speed and would almost go in the water and that would just be too penal. But I think it's a great hole. My take on that was basically like you're saying, it would change the decision making process and that's the whole point.

As of right now, it's full send for everyone in the field. Maybe there was a couple layups, but almost everyone is full send. Whereas when they moved the tee up on 14-amera-filled village, that was a true decision coming down the stretch. For a lot of guys, it wasn't, it was an easy layup, but watching Colin Moore, Cal, Pull Driver, and the final round at the work day, and putting a threading an eight yard gap

was way more interesting than just like everyone sending one. That was my total... I totally agree with that as well. Every, yeah, I guess it, I mean, Traveler is basically a long parthirick as everyone's hitting most people hitting three with. But it's just so tough around the greens to hit precise up and downs when you can't get in a bad spot where I think if they even just took the water out of play at and just

whatever there was no water there, it would still be, it would almost be a better hole I think. So you can make it because now and you make it more of a big collection area over there and maybe some mounting or something, but now everyone's going, but now the short, all it matters, because you can almost, very rarely do you actually get it on the green, so it'd be very entertaining for the shots around the greens, which is more fun. I'd be down with that. Yeah, if balls are rolling way down there and you got to chip off short grass to elevated green like that That's so fun. I mean, you don't want to be down there

That's right exactly right exactly so you just be trying to get the next on green which I think is Would be more it would make the whole better I think than other than water because most of the just you're gonna Water you take your drop you chip up your most time you make five where You could really see some numbers If there's a you know, it's deep slope you're trying to clip one of you trying to hit a risky shot for birdie, that'd be fun, but it could roll back to on your feet, which would also be awesome. That'd be very fun and entertaining. What was it like playing the same golf course two weeks in a row? I like Mirfield. I should play well there. I haven't yet. I don't know why,

but well, distance control for me. It just hasn't been great and it exposed me in like greens. But everyone says those fairways are wide and they're not that wide. For a guy who flies at 282.85, if you fly at 300, you could take a lot of the corners, a lot of bunkers out of the plier, even now it's 310, 315. So that changes a ton. So the fairways just aren't that wide. And the part of I was a little goofy, but I think it's, I enjoyed it, especially because amazingly the setup did change quite a bit.

It went from soft, you know, and kind of mushy to, you know, and I don't see mother nature help us out of ton on Sunday with the wind blowing, but to get it that firm and fast for a couple days was a ton of fun and I was pretty impressed with it. I mean, I think they could do it. There's not too many courses they would do it because you have to have sub-air and you have to have so many things go in your favor, but I didn't mind at all and Mirfield was a good spot for it. Mirfield Village seems about, and I said this on the pod last week, but about pretty much the best or one of the best execution tests on the PGA tour

and that there is so much shot value and kind of what you're talking about with wide fairways there or not being wide fairways is that like you got to be straight off those T's you if you miss in the rough there you are paying a price and there's a lot of golf courses where it feels like missing just barely in the rough is in a lot of penalty Whereas at Mirfield village it's like if you're doing that on repeat you're losing some of those tens of strokes that we were talking about. Absolutely. And, you know, it could be if you're on the wrong side of the fairway, it's then you can't even hit the green. So then you're trying to get your next one in position, just maybe having up and down. And the other thing that I don't know if was talked enough, maybe it was, I don't listen to broadcast too much, but the bunkers are really deep off the tee.

So a lot of times you're not going to be able to get to the green. And then all the bunkers around the greens are so steep and they're, they all, the ball rolls almost always to the down slope of the bunker or to the flat spot. You almost never have an uphill bunker shot. And so that's what makes it so difficult and so great, I think, around the oilfield for B. Like if you hit, if you hit good golf shots, you can use the slopes and you get the ball close to the hole. But if you miss a little bit on those slopes, you're almost always making Voguey. That's a great golf course. And I think that's why you see so many great players when they're consistently.

You know, you don't have too many flutes showing up and winning at Mirfield. Yeah, they've messed with those bunkers so much over the years. And then that was famously where they went to the wide cone right to give guys bad lies. And Jack's always been burying those bunkers deeper and deeper, which you know, if it's I would say bunker shots on tour are pretty much not always straightforward, but are not what you guys would view as difficult golf shots. Yeah, a lot of the route for the ball to go in the bunker.

Like, we can control it out of there. The sand's nearly perfect every week. It's very consistent for us. So especially part five, like, you know, if you get some basketball, I think I'll listen it out of there. The sands nearly perfect every week. It's very consistent for us. So essentially part five, like, you know, if you get some basketball, I think all of a sudden the bunker and you'll almost always get inside of eight feet, unless, you know, especially if you're a decent bunker player. So, yeah, most of the time we're just used to, oh, it's been a bunker. It's not that big of a deal. You just splashed out. But Mirafield definitely penalizes the bunkers.

Can we talk about it? It's going to get changed. So, are we allowed to talk about how bad the 16th hole is at Mirfold Village? Yeah, it's, I heard Jack was telling somebody over lunch that when they redid it, something with the soil and something happened where it doesn't hold any water. No matter how much water they put on it, it just doesn't hold it. I don't know if it was, it might have been Thursday.

There's a back pin and it's straight downwind and I think less than 10 people hit the green or maybe 12 for 13 people hit the green out of 132 guys or whatever the field was. It's absolutely comical. It's just too severe. It's too long, so the 70th hole at Wells Fargo, they took out the back tee, and I think they made it like 180 for its longest, which is great, because the greens, it's big, but there's enough slope on it and it all slips towards the water. Where Mirafield, they could give us a, the drop zone shot. I hit it in there on the water on Sunday. I had 100 yards left to the pin.

I'm like, I have no idea how I'm going to get this close from 100 yards. So they could make that thing 100 yard hole and almost be better than from whatever we played in that 200 yards at times. I might have this wrong. I think people, a couple of people were tweeting at us that did you get paired with Sun Kang on the weekend at the charity open? We were on pace for it and Mr. Scepts struck us out like 45 on the back nine to swoop in and clip Mr. Kang. So that was a bend. That was our closest time to potentially hanging out again for 18 holes. The tour has done a very good job of keeping us, so he won so he's already in a different category. But he is almost always opposite side of the draw.

So even if we do tie over the first two days, it's pretty where we'd be paired together. I'm sure it's a very conscious thing the first year. They try to keep, I think people don't realize that the pairings are actually hand done. Obviously there's groups and there's categories, but you can't go in the same, you can't have like a mooring an afternoon wave more than two weeks in a row. Maybe you can go three weeks, but you can't do four. So they're going to flip-flop you there and then, you know, they shelf you through the category. So I know there's one player for sure who has been complained about so much and my buddy kept getting paired with him like way too often in the first two rounds. And he finally called him off. He's like, what's going on?

So I go almost everybody else in the category. I complain about playing in this fellow. And so he's like, there's only so many people left that we could pair him with often because he was was complaining which is pretty funny actually. Well, this pod's going to get cut about 30 minutes short because I'm going to, I can't wait to find out who that is. Yeah. So it's pretty funny how that happens, but obviously I haven't seen Mr. King much. We didn't have a relationship before and we don't have one now, which is just fine.

Well, remind me, I might get this wrong also, but you got the an open championship spot at Bay Hill. Is that right? Correct. In thanks in part to a three putty had coming down the stretch. That is potentially true. I might have been in a locker room having a cocktail when it happened. Uh, yeah, it was, uh, yeah, I mean, I was, you know, rude against anybody, but I was

certainly happy to get my open spot. Is that, is that transferable to next year for sure? It is. Yeah, they've already locked it in. So it's very cool. So John Rom said something, not to keep pardon on your field village, but after, yeah, it was, it was in a post-round interview shortly after the round. He just shot 68 on that Saturday in Memorial. And he had said, you know, a scratch player wouldn't break 90 out here. And then he said, four scratch players

Would not have broken par in a scramble at your field village. What do you think of that statement? That is so wrong Okay, good People don't realize like so Geno Mike had a his a scratch golfer. He's a good player. Obviously scratches are great players But in his own right in his own right. Yeah, I think I don't know if Nance or Ian Baker's quite called him out yet. I need to play better for him to do that. It's fun because he would, if he had four shots on every hole, he would maybe make one bow in 72 holes

and he would make five or six birdies a day. And he would never lose a PJ Tourment. He would touch the major when it's even harder. He would shoot 66 every day and cruise around and maybe he out of bad day, he shot. But you're going to give this guy four pots, like a scratch golfer from 20 feet after at four pots, like he's going to start sniffing a lot of those and you're almost never missing sight of 10 feet. And a scratch player is going to three putt every now and then from 20 feet in normal format.

Right. That's the thing is both of these things can be true that the gap between top level Torpro and scratch is enormous. Right. And it would get exposed in a 72 hole stroke play event, but a scramble like you said, it's just such an easy, incredibly easy format that it just blows my mind when some of these things get discussed. I totally agree. And it's I know was it.

Oh, eight Torrey Pines, when they had like four randoms play, like ahead of time, like, I think maybe that Rossis Burger play, but they had a couple like Randy, you know, maybe golf digested something where like a eight-handy cap play and a scratch and a 20-play or something like that. But I, every week, you know, it's,

it's funny. He plays a imaginary of golf almost every day in his head. And he manages to always shoot a couple under par. And I'm like, man, you are so good. And then we'll go play like down the road. And it's kind of hard to golf. Maybe shoot 75, 76.

And I was like, Gino, how are you always shooting in the 60s on every tour setup? But you can't quite get her done when we're actually paired together. But I wish that every Monday, there should be a couple local people get a play the same setup that we played on Monday. And no link up can broadcast it. It would be incredible to watch.

You get the club champion, you get another guy who's spouting off, who thinks he's good, and then you're throwing a 90 cap and maybe an 18-honey cap. And you're just watching. Most of the time, shoot a million. But also, then you could switch it up and just do, here, four-man's gamble, go play on Monday, and they would do just fine. What do you play off of at home when you're playing games? Plus five. There's five part five that makes it, so I play the plus five. I try to negotiate to a plus four with the most courses. I A lot of in the game sometimes you have to give back strokes on the easiest hole So and they're always part three so I'm like this is ridiculous that I have to give like three back on these part three

Where we're hitting a wedge? So I try to negotiate the part five. I should make birdie there and then maybe if there's a drivable hole I'll maybe take another one there. So four or five is typically what I'm at. What, uh, so what is it? What's it been like playing on tour in this, in this COVID or return to golf? Compared to everything before, what's, obviously, we know like what the differences are. No fans, but what's, what's it been like for you? What's, what's your experience been like? It's been really good for the most part. I was, I wouldn't say concerned, but I was like, I wouldn't say concerned,

but I was like, I wonder how this is all gonna go down. There's just so many moving parts and we're traveling all over the country and the tour is done in absolutely incredible job. I don't know, maybe we've had seven, maybe eight positive tests out of whatever, how many, that's pretty good. Most of those are linked back.

You can check that those guys went home in between events or took a week off and came back. So the bubbles, quote unquote, the bubble is super safe. One thing I love about two is just hanging out with the guys, right? And you're just kind of like always hanging out and maybe just haven't lunch or just kind of be messing on the range and stuff. That just doesn't happen quite as much. Obviously we're trying to social distance and we're trying to, I miss going to dinner

all the time. Like I love eating good food, and I love sharing a cocktail in the evenings, and I hang out with quite a few different people, so it's fun to meet new guys, and I miss doing that for three months, obviously during quarantine, and then when we came back, Hartford was really tough,

because I've rented a house every other week, so it's been okay, we can get by, cook on meals, or you can have multiple people in the house. But harford, I was sitting in the hotel room for a week. It was the is a third week in a row. And I was just miserable. I'm like, I'm never doing it. Which hell again during this quarantine time. It's been tough. Cause I, I just like hanging out with people I

like BS and at dinners and going out to dinner, like trying new foods at like, you know, local places as well, such as the here in Memphis this week, they have a couple incredible barbecue spots that you know, you get to takeout, but it's just not the same. After you get it, you take it home 20 minutes later. So that part's been tough for me, and I think tough for a lot of guys, but I'm impressed overall with it.

I'm pretty impressed with what the tour has been able to do and the whole process of it all. Have you seen an evolution in how the Taurus handled things and how players have handled things from week one to some of the more recent weeks on Taurus? Yeah, clearly there was a couple things that needed adjusted in the protocols from Colonial and I think they did a good job of that kind of niffing in the butt early and we all knew there would be growing pains.

No one's – I haven't been through this before, but I'm pretty happy with the quick changes. Obviously, maybe some of those looked like they should have been like, how would you not have that a role to begin in type of a thing? Like, how could you miss that? But with that, I think the players, the first week, we were a little willy-nilly probably, definitely not

taking it as seriously. I don't think any of us are really afraid of actually getting sick, right? I think it's proven that if you're young and healthy, you'll be sick or you'll get through it most of the time. But we just want to miss two weeks, especially this time of year. We have WDC in a major and then the playoffs coming up and you can't afford to miss two weeks right now.

So people are taking it more and more serious as the time on of the mass-wearing, really not touching each other and really separating. I think that's the biggest thing. If I miss two weeks right now, I kind of ruined my season. I don't have a chance to make an East Lake. I don't have a chance competing in these big events. So I think you've seen more people just more concerned about that towards it, which has been good.

But yeah, I think the entire world's sick of this whole thing. We want it over. We want it to go the entire world's sick of this whole thing. You know, we want it over. We want to go quote unquote back to normal, you know, kind of whatever that means. But I've seen the players definitely from week one to now. Everyone's done a pretty good job of following all the rules. And you just try to, I always say you just try not to be the asshole that gets sick. So you don't want to be, you know, you don't want to be the guy. So you just follow all the rules and hopefully you don't get it.

Well, how would you say, you know, this has affected you overall in terms of, you know, there's been different effects, right? I mean, the corn fairy guys have no chance to make the PGA tour this year. Where do you kind of net out on this? Where, you know, do you feel like you're getting screwed out of anything in particular or things didn't fall out great for you or do you think things fell out great for you for someone at your level? How do you view overall how, you know, I don't want to say benefit. Nobody's like benefiting from this, but how things have shook out for you specifically. I would say that it probably benefited me this year. I played well pretty well, especially right before COVID hit. So I was, I was around 30th on the FedEx Cup, I think.

And when you take away 10 or 12 events or whatever it was, that just shortens its like, instead of, you know, having a longer, I didn't have events to, obviously I could have played well or could have, you know, done great in those 12 events, you know, but also it just shortened the number for me to get to a championship or to stay close to the 30 or, you know, stay in that top 50 or world ranking points. Like all of those, I didn't have an option to go backwards I guess, which kind of the

spot I was at was great. Obviously you always want to have potential to go forward and you want to do those things. But for me it worked out great. It just shortened the ability most for a lot of guys to catch up to me I guess because I got off to a fast start. So it just, they didn't have as much time to catch up how I put it. So if you played well early in the year, that's great. Like Nick Taylor, I'm not sure where he is on the FX Cup,

but I think he's probably around 20ish right now or like for a guy like that who's trying to make it to a two or championship for the first time for him to win early and play well. Like that's huge that all those guys didn't have as many events to win and catch up and take him on the same like streaming. The streaming's played great. And he's, you know, I think he's almost like the two championship thing. We're 12 more events.

You have to play, you know, a great for another two or three events to lock his guard to lock up the two championship. So kind of depends where you're at. I mean, now, if you're on the bottom end, you know, if somebody who really struggled this year and like, man, that totally kind of screwed me. Like I needed every event possible to have that one week where I played well or multiple weeks.

So for me, I think I netted out on the positive side of it. I realized I could probably be retired. I'm really good at doing nothing. I love playing golf my buddies at home. Like that's, I almost enjoy it more than, I certainly enjoy it more than Tuesday, Wednesdays out here. Obviously the competition and playing, you know, teaming up on Thursday is great, but I just love golf

with the buddies and playing some music and hanging out and enjoy that aspect of it all. So for me, I netted out positive. I could be retired if I hit the lottery tomorrow. That would be great. I don't know if I'd actually play golf. I might just two other things. I wouldn't play golf on two or any more. I don't think so I'd actually play golf. I might just do other things. I wouldn't play golf on two or any more, I don't think.

So I figured that out. So would you say you do play golf for the money then? A hundred percent. I have always said if I could make this much money, doing something else, I would do it. Interesting. I don't enjoy traveling that much, and I really enjoy, I love competition though, so, but I

could just find that in, you know, at home with some of my buddies and that'd be enough and I don't know what else I would do, but I definitely like all for the money. I respect someone that will say that. I think that's, I guess that's a better question. Is that something you think a lot of guys would, could say on tour, but maybe aren't willing to say? Yeah, totally. I mean, that's why on Sunday evenings where I was talking about how much money we made

that week. Oh man, great. You know, what Max, back like, 250 and change or something like that. Like, that's a huge deal. Like, that's a lot of money and that's awesome. Obviously, guys, and they say they want to play for trophies. Yeah, I want to win too. You know what else comes with a win?

A million dollar check. Like, that's what I want. Like, I don to win too. You know what else comes with a win? A million dollar check. Like, that's what I want. Like, I don't want a trophy. You like, give me a check. So like, and it's so much fun to compete. Like, that's, that's what, you know, and most of them go off your competing against yourself. It's kind of interesting to think about it.

The more I compete against myself, the better I do. Instead of worrying about the leaderboard, but that's a whole other story. But yeah. It's, it's a, I mean,, I got I've said this a million times in this pie, but lifestyle wise, wise at least, you know, when I was a very casual fan, I would look at him, like, this is the greatest life in the world. Oh my God, this is amazing. I would love to be a tour pro. The more I've seen of it, it's like, dude, it is stressful.

And sure, if you do pretty well, you know, the money's pretty great, but you know, when it's even when it's not going great and you got a ton of money, like, you're away from home for a long period of time, and it's kind of lonely at times. And I don't know, do you feel any of that? Is that kind of what contributes to saying you saying like you wouldn't play if it wasn't for you? Yeah, exactly. And I don't, I don't want anybody miscontrude that I'm ungrateful that I'm, you know, don't think. I mean, what we get to do is awesome. Like, we get to play the best golfers. We travel, which is great. I just, I'm kind of do is awesome. Like, we get to play the best golfers. We travel, which is great.

I just, I'm kind of a homebody. Like, I enjoy being home. Like, I don't have kids yet, but, you know, hopefully we have a family, we can sort of family soon. Like, I would love that. Now, you can travel with them on the road. I know we can do all that, but it's really hard. Like, I mean, I have a dog that I'm in love with

and I have to leave home for two weeks. And like, that sucks. I can't leave him for two weeks and like that socks I can't imagine like seeing your kid like chase after you in the driveway and say like daddy don't go like that's So hard now the upside is incredible. We only work half the time You know, and we make a ton of money, but the stress is really high and the stress on people around you is really high Like my wife she worked two jobs and I was on the miniatures the pair of rent I had zero dollars. She was working two jobs, at one point she had three and she's, she really has no control over this. And so that's really hard for her. And it's been great for the last

couple of years. But there's a lot of lean times in between that. We weren't so pretty. And you think it got like Michael Thompson who won early in his career, kind of struggled in the middle. I think he actually had to go back to the web finals at one time. You know, that whole struggle. So like, that's, yeah, it's incredible. And he's always kind of kept his card and and and got by. But there was a lot of stressful times that guarantee you in that house for him. And it's just, I mean, that's, I guess that's what makes this game so great is,

is seeing it on the back end. But yeah, I think I challenged people is comes a comes a cost wrong, I don't know how, but an average fan came out for a week, they would be absolutely exhausted at the end of the week, and they'd be like, okay, get on a plane, we're doing a good next week, get on a plane, we're doing a good next week, they just can't fathom how taxing it is

to go through a week and like really grind on Tuesday and Wednesday, and competition you're out there, you know, and competition you're out there for five hours and people just don't understand the mental toll it takes on you. Obviously, almost anybody can walk, but that also takes a toll on as well. And people just will never understand. It's actually week after week and then I can't imagine guys are doing it for 10 to 15 years out here. I'm on year four and I'm like, wow, I can't believe, you know, I can do this for another 10 years, something. Yeah, it's, it's, especially when things don't go great,

I imagine even if it's not necessarily a miss cut, but when you're not playing great, it's gotta be so hard to not just wanna like be on your couch at home, you know? Almost immediately, just like, hey, take me home. I just wanna, I don't wanna commute. I don't wanna fly three different planes or whatever it takes me to get back home.

I just want to be home right now. I think that's one of the most incredible things about Mr. Homa is how low he was, how high he was, how good of an amatory was. He got off to a good start in his pro career and to go that hit rock bottom basically and to come back to where he's at now. Like people don't understand like getting up every day to go to the range

to work on something and then like to every day get feedback that you suck, like you stink. You're not getting better golf. Like that is so hard to do and I mean, luckily I haven't had any like real slumps. I struggled obviously multiple times, but last week when the first week when I missed a cut at the workday, I shot 7981. I'm like, I don't know if I'm ever going to break 80 again. Like,

it's just that's the game of golf and it's so hard, but yeah, there's times when you're unsure if you're ever going to break Park. How often do you think about money when you are playing in a Tor event. I used to think about it almost every shot and I'm not going to work out. Obviously not too well. And now that I'm financially free, is it right word or secure, I guess? You're freed up. You're freed up completely. I don't have to worry about paying the mortgage or paying next week's grocery bill or whatever it is So that helps a ton. I do a really job of not thinking about it until most of the time this 72nd hole

Or sometimes if I'm not playing if I'm kind of middle of the pack we got nine to play. I'm like Gene Let's go man. Like let's like a lot of like three or four breweries and go let's go make ourselves 50 grand right here or If it's you know, you're really struggling and you're kind of back in the pack, it's like, all right, every birdie you make, it's $100 the next one's $250, the next one's $1,000, the next one's like $5,000. You start thinking in a little ways, like that's what motivates me

when things aren't going so great. Obviously, when you're in the top five or top 10, you don't worry about it. You're just trying to play great golf. But it's a great motivator when you have, you know, maybe nine holes of play. And you know, if you shoot 32 or 33, you're going to make yourself an extra 25 to 50 K. That's pretty fun.

Have you followed the PGL discussion at all or thought about how that might potentially affect your career in any way? Well, I kind of thought it went away. And obviously, just this last week, it sounds like eight or nine guys requested some info about it and kind of ran wrap back up. But I haven't, I've only watched one episode of the, the, the formula one. And I guess it's going to take on that same thing, right? Where you're going to have some owners and they're going to draft a team. And I'm like, let's say that, you know, I'm, I'm kind of on the edge, probably a baby being picked. That'd be very fringe. Yeah. I was like, I

wonder if they, you know, I go off with guaranteed money. I don't know., yeah. I was like, I wonder if they, you know, I don't want to have guaranteed money. I don't know, like, what I do that, like, it's interesting. I don't really know. I haven't followed enough about it, but it's be so I would certainly entertain the idea of it. Like, if you're going to tell me I could like all for money, like, I'm certainly going to take a peek into it. And it's certainly interesting. I know some of the worries, like, I don't want somebody to tell me where I have to play and when I have to be there. Which is a great thing about our schedule now, but it'd be certainly, I'm certainly interested in it, absolutely. Where I come out on that is if you're going to make maybe 4X what you're making, I think you could be where somebody wants you to be on certain days. You know, I don't know.

It's an interesting concept. I think a lot of, you know, myself included of, I think I got off on the wrong foot with a lot of people and the more that comes out about it is it's interesting to say the least and that I think golf being reimagined as far as how it's produced for entertainment is would be far from the worst thing in the world. Totally. I think that you've even seen a change post-quarantine. I think they've done a good job on a couple things.

And I know you guys are love to chat about that on the weekends. But I don't know enough about it. But I do think, yeah, like there's plenty of tweaks they could do to make it better. And if that takes some other to work coming in and shaking things up, then I'll be it. I mean, competition creates better things. So however, however it works out, I don't know, but certainly I'll be I'll be following the discussions closely for sure. What do you as a tour player, what do you hear on the internet or from from idiots like ourselves that just makes you shake your head or something that people out there just like maybe don't quite understand or

struggle to you know get that understand a concept what what comes to mind. The first one well the big one for a while was backstopping. I agree that and I was maybe a little bit on Jimmy Walker's side I think almost all that you were was you know when it I was like, yeah, like, I'm gonna mark the ball for Sun Kang and maybe leave it for Max. Oh, you know, fair. But I didn't really like just, it was brought to light and started like, oh man, this is like a thing kind of actually. Yeah, you're like, okay, so now pretty conscious of making sure all balls are marked. And I think everybody is doing a great job of that. But through the comments, it'd be like, if he was good enough to hit the ball, why don't you just hit the pin? Guys, that's not what it's about.

And it would just drive me up a wall. And I think I probably sent out like 15, I think I just like drafted a tweet and I just hit like copy and paste to all these like for like a week. And I realized that it didn't go anywhere and didn't do anything. So I gave up on that one. But that one was to me, it was like, yeah, no, we're not aiming at the other ball, but it's just like another backstop.

And just some people just don't understand that. Or people don't understand like, they just think that, they think that pros never miss a golf shot. And I go, actually, we miss it more than we hit perfect, like exactly what we're trying to do. And people just don't, and toward a land, just don't understand that. Like, it's very interesting to me that

people just don't understand the pros miss golf shots. Plenty. Bad sometimes too. Yeah, very bad. The idea, but the thing that, you know, changes is you get to go hit the next one. When I hit a bad one, I've got to go hit the next one. So it's probably needed to bogey where, you know where when you guys hit one horribly offline, it still takes some more bad shots to make Bogey. Right. Sorry, you're gonna say something.

Well, I was gonna say the backstopping thing's been a fun one. I think Tron and I have been yelling at each other a little bit about it. But, and, oh, everybody's like, oh, when they come back and no fans, like the scores are gonna go way, you know, they're gonna be way worse because, you know, who's not,

they're gonna find a ball, they're not gonna be kicking balls back in the fairway. And I was like, it's just happened so rarely. Like, it's not a thing. And even there's been a couple times where they still have around like nine and 18 and some holes they'll have, you know, like a big basically signage of whatever it's at, you know, work day or whatever the main sponsor is. So you're still going to have some of that stuff. But obviously, if they're not there, but we don't rarely, super rarely are we actually attempting

to hit a ball on the grandstand. Yes, dude, a lot of time does the drop benefit us from where obviously the ball would end it up? No grandstands, but that's just part of two or golf, and that's what it is. But we don't aim for grandstands and try to bank them off them. See, for me though, that's the same as the backstopping.

You're not aiming for the ball either, but if it's a back pin and there is a grandstand, you know, 10 yards behind that pin, you're not as apprehensive to go at that flag if you know the ball can't go more than 10 yards over the green. You're correct if there's something back there. I just can't, like, there's so few times. The only time that I can think of where it was like a real thing was 18 and soni when they read out the green and state is terrible redo. And the grandstands were right there because it's a small old school, but they're just

no room. So all four days we just banked a hybrid off the back and I got up and down all four times. So that was one. But you know, there's something that we're not, yeah, to do catch a flyer sometimes it's nice that it thanks into those, but we're not trying to hit it in my sense. Right. But you know, a bumper is a good thing, even for pros.

Pros want to know where they can miss, right? A hundred percent. Yeah, so exactly. In that, there were a couple, I know it Schwab that, you know, balls that were hitting up close to that putting green, guys coming into nine, that I'm like, well, that wouldn't have been there. That wouldn't have ended up there if there was a grandstand or they might have got to drop it out of it. So it's not like it's not raising the scoring average two shots per round or something like that. But yes, it might play a factor from time to time. So there's

a couple around for sure, but per tournament, I guess, not per person. Last one. Was raw was what happened to Ram on 16 at Memorial? Was that a penalty? No, not at all. If that's a penalty, then that's going to happen a hundred times throughout the event. Did his ball move a dimple? Yes. Does the camera super close and, you know, assumed in an HD? Like, I just can't imagine you could see it with the naked eye, especially, you you know when everyone's saying that he's madding down the grass by it not It's like his everybody does it when it's fairly, you know

You have the waggles and you're looking up at your target and you're doing all this stuff like He's not like madding down the grass like D-shambo was before his drop or Patrick Reed mashing down and also magically hitting a three instead of a seven like That's like happens on every single rough shot on every single shot that was hit for two weeks in Mirfield, but, and if that's case, like if everybody had that same camera look on every shot, you would see it probably often.

You just, to a naked eye, like you don't, and you're not always just staring at the golf ball, just mashing down the grass. Most of the time when the club hits the ground, is when you're looking up at your target. That's just opening up a whole can of worms that I thought they actually fixed with that. There was some type of rule, right, that if you didn't see it with a naked eye, then it wasn't with the camera.

You know, they can't call in or whatever it is anymore. So. It's if it's not reasonable that you could have seen it with a naked eye. Right. And I just like, it's tough. Gosh, it is a tough one, right? Because everyone that says, you know, it's disadvantaged all the leaders and then the zoomed in camera.

I like it, you know, not every shot is filmed blah, blah, blah. I agree with all that, but at the same time, the ball did move. And I and he caused it. So it's like gosh, it'd be so, it'd be harder if you made the rule that the ball is allowed to move a little bit. Like how do you define that? You're right. Then you're opening up a whole can of words of like, well is allowed to move a little bit like how do you define that? You're right now. You're opening up a whole can of words of like well, that's only a little bit like well What is a little bit if his club never touched the ground the ball wouldn't have moved so he caused the ball to move but I guess

One big thing I wish that they would put into the rule book somewhere is did the player gain a competitive advantage There's no way that Rob has gained an advantage by doing it by his ball moving. All these things could just be like, did he gain an advantage? No, okay, it's kind of like when they change a role of a double chip or a double hit, I'm not gonna penalize you again

because that ball's probably not going in a good spot anyways. So you didn't gain an advantage by doing this, so we're not gonna penalize you anymore. And a lot of times it's like, throughout the course course of events because a couple of times things are happening like well There's definitely no advantage game like And we don't we wasn't sure if he broke a rule or not or he wasn't sure this happened so we should always default to No, no penalty, I think Yeah, I think that'd be tough to define with that, but one thing. It's easy. I think it shouldn't be two shots like that is

that'd be tough to define with that, but one thing it's easy, I think it shouldn't be two shots. That is, and it should be one. I gave it just kind of like a stroke, if anything. I mean, that's- I would be okay with that. Then you could say, you're ball-moved and you hit it, add one. Like, okay, that's fine. I would say, yeah, two strokes is like, you almost, it's like, he didn't, he clearly didn't

intentionally do it, and I really don't think he had any ideas ball moves. I mean, it's just right to know I agree with that. Yeah. So I just it's it is a tough situation. It's too bad because people have no idea how ridiculous is really good that shot is. Like it's just so filthy. I disagree. Like it makes the shot even better.

Like if he if it was a two shot penalty and that chips for Bogey now, he needed that more than he realized. Right. But at the time, I guess he didn't know that he was getting two shots. But that's true. You know, if he was like, I think my ball move, two-stroke penalty, oh crap, now we're what's he won up and then he hoops it, like that would be even more ridiculous.

But people just, the way it landed so it's often just trickled in, there was, it's not like it's smoked the pin. All right, man, we'll let you get to it. I know it's big couple of weeks for you. Best of luck. This was excellent, excellent man. We'll let you get to it. I know it's big couple of weeks for you. Best of luck. This was excellent, excellent stuff. We really appreciate you sharing some insights

and be rooting for you this week and out at Harding. Yeah, thanks guys. Appreciate it. And we'll see you guys on the road. Sounds good. Cheers. Be the right club. Be the right club today.

Yes. That's right club today. Yes! That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different.