No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 406: John Wood

Episode Date: March 3, 2021

Former caddie and current NBC/Golf Channel broadcaster John Wood joins us to answer basically any question you could ever throw at a caddie, including hirings/firings, caddie pay, travel arrangements, best and worst advice he's given, and funny things he's heard tour pros complain about. He chats about being on the bag for the 2010 Ryder Cup with Hunter Mahan, how the Kuchar/El Tucan situation played out, moving on from Kuchar's bag, and so much more. Absolutely loved this one, and appreciate Woody's 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. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang up podcast, Sully here. I apologize. I do have a bit of a cold. I am so jacked up for today's podcast.

John Wood is our guest, longtime caddy on the tour now, a broadcaster with NBC. He tells all the stories man He names a couple names and in a couple of these stories, which usually caddies don't do But as he mentions here you want the former caddies to come on the podcast and tell the stories They can loosen up a little bit But man incredible perspective on the game. I I love this one. I can't wait to have John back on I have a feeling he's gonna be a somewhat regular guest on this podcast on the future Of course no laying up is brought to you by our friends

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finer of the NX 9 slope. Swing with confidence, hit more greens with precision pro golf let's get to John Wood. All right I'm going to pin you down you have to pick one you have to answer either or on this question are you a caddy or are you a broadcaster. Woo at this point I would say broadcaster. Oh that's different than bones would say I think think. Well, I just, if I jumped in, you know, and, and, and was having more full time bags again, obviously I'd switch, but at this point, I think I've made the transition. What's the transition been like? You know, it's been great. Um, the guys I'm working with are so helpful, you know, from bones and, no, to Gary Koch, Zinger and Justin Leonard and Tommy

Roy and Tom Randolph are. They're so easy to work for and it's like, you know, it's a bigger team than I'm used to because usually it's just you and your player. But man, I'm having a good time. Well, you and I don't really know each other, but, you know, I've long read your stuff. You've published for golf.com and kind of just always viewed you as an overall insightful person in golf. And I don't know if you are, I, when the news came out that you were going

joining NBC and golf channel, I threw out a challenge on the podcast. I was like, you know what? I want this guy to go and like, be him, don't do an impression of a broadcaster. Like go be yourself out there, be the catty. And I feel like you've taken a true catty's approach to calling golf. You're

not necessarily doing all the play by play stuff. You are talking about, hey, as a caddy, this is what I'm telling my player here. I'm assuming that's a conscious thing. No question, Sully. I think that's why Tommy Roy brought me in to begin with to have those discussions about what I would be thinking as a caddy or a player or what goes into these decisions because a lot of times on the air, it's just you get a number and you think, oh yeah, it's that club, but there's really so much that goes so much more that goes into those decisions and I'm just trying to bring those to light and a lot of times, you know, you get in such a routine as a player caddy team, a lot of these things are glossed over and you don't

have to talk about them anymore, but they're all there. And hopefully, if I've got time during the broadcast, I love to bring in everything that they're really thinking about. Is it hard to be on the spot, though, on a broadcast? Like, hey, you've got 10, 15 seconds here, say something witty and insightful and get out? Is that seems challenging to me? It's a great challenge. It is. And there are times when you know, Is that, that seems challenging to me. It's a great challenge. It is.

And there are times when you know, you know, you know, they're coming to you. You're not quite sure how much time you're going to have. So you've kind of got an A answer and a B answer. You know, if you've got time or, and you know, you've got 30 seconds or 25 seconds, you can get your complete thought in and everything that goes with it.

Other times it gets delayed, whether, you know, somebody's just hit a shot, they wanna stay on for a little longer, or there's a comment they need to get in, and they come to you, and you've got all of a sudden, you've got eight seconds. So that quick, okay, how do I chop this 25 seconds town to the eight most important seconds?

What do I wanna say quickly and get out? So that's a great challenge, and I'm still dealing with it. Sometimes I could be a little verbose, and trying to cut those answers down is a challenge for me right now. That's, you know, we are critiques of almost all aspects of a broadcast, but I still have no interest in doing it. It just takes me like two hours after a week of golf to get all my thoughts out.

Like to get it in and out in a quick window is not be a skill of mine. But can we back up for listeners, give a bit of background, how you got into cattying, assuming, I mean, almost assume people haven't heard of you, who have you worked for in the past and kind of how we got to where we are today. I started with Kevin Sutherland back in 1998, who just one last week at Tucson National,

which was great to see. I knew Kevin and his teacher very well and from Sacramento and his second year on tour, he hadn't really settled on a caddy and we were just out hitting balls one day and he and his coach Don Backe, I'm asked if I'd be interested in coming out and trying it and and gosh, I thought well, why not? I mean, I honestly figured it'd be like a one or two year deal and I'd get back to the real world. But I was managing a bookstore in Sacramento, believe it or not. So you gloss passed your college golf bonafide, though.

Well, because in real life, I gloss passed it. I stopped at Cal Berkeley for a cup of coffee and played there for my freshman year, but didn't get beyond that. I kind of got burned out on a lot of things and left Berkeley after that. But I did play there for a year, which was, you know, I had a lot of good times on the golf course. Off the golf course, I wasn't super successful. So I played, yeah, I played high school, I played college golf at Cal Berkeley, and then, you know, I played for a long time after that, never thinking about turning professional or, you know or heavily into the amateurs, just kind of buddy, buddy golf at that point. That's kind of how I got into cattying with

Kevin. Kevin and I were together for seven years. And then I had a brief half a year with Chris Riley, Mark Calcovechia. And then I went to Hunter Mayhan. We had nine great years together. And most recently, five with coach and just a few tournaments this fall with Cameron champ. Yeah, there's a lot, a lot, a lot of what I want to uncover there. But the first, the most important question, you know, if you technically played college golf, are you a great player in your own right and one, why do broadcasters always say that about cat?

Why does it, why does it always fall up within his own right? I think it's by comparison to the guy they're carrying the bag for because it's never even close. There was a time I could I could play a little bit. Honestly, Sully, these days I hardly ever play. I've played once in the last five years, probably just because when I get time off, you know, I'd rather not be on a golf course to be perfectly honest with you. I'd rather do other things. So, you know, I still enjoy going out and hitting balls

for an hour here or there, or chipping and putting, but in terms of playing golf, I just don't play a lot anymore. So, I definitely would not qualify for that great player in my own right. Maybe in my own head, in my own history, but certainly not in my own right. Somebody pointed that out to us and said,

that's the question is, that's the why they always say in his own right or in her own right. and it sticks out to me, and we make fun of it all the time now. But how important is it to be a good player as a caddy? And I know that there's a wide range of, you know, there's former Tor Pros that caddy on Tor and there's 20 handy caps that caddy on Tor,

all of which have been trusted to help make decisions for their Tor Pros. So how does that work? Because sometimes I wonder if being a good player, do you see shots your own way instead of your players way versus the not good players, only see shots the way their player hits it? I'm wondering if you could kind of speak to that.

No, that's a great question. I think it helps, I don't think it's crucial. It helps in that, you know, Kevin Sutherland and you know, about halfway through our first year, he was so great and patient with me learning on the job, because you can think you know golf, you know, playing a lot of, you know, high college or amateur events, but until you get out here

and really know what happens, it's overwhelming what really goes into it. But Kevin about halfway through our first year told me, hey, I'm not paying you to agree with me. I'm not paying you to look at this like a caddy. I'm paying you, I want you to look at these shots like you were playing them and tell me what you would do in this situation if I ask you.

And that was a great, ever since then, I've really kind of taken that to heart and that look at it like a player. But think ahead and have more things in your head than a player, because a lot of times, I think a player is so wrapped up in swing thoughts or what am I working on? And a caddy, we don't have to worry about that.

We are much more big picture looking at all the options, knowing what strengths our players have, what shots they like players have, what shots they like to hit, what they don't like to hit. And I always say a good caddy has the answers to 10 questions that never get asked because you try and stay ahead of the game. But getting back to your original question, which was, I've talked so long ago, I forget what it was.

I think it was something along the lines of just, you know, how important it is to be a good player or, you know, how the guys that aren't good players, how they, you know, are able to be trusted to give advice in under extreme circumstances, you know, sure guys that aren't great players. I think they're very organized. They do their homework. They're way ahead of the game. And they know what their players are capable of. It's not important that. ahead of the game and they know what their players are capable of. It's not important that, you know, if I'm cutting for Bryson D. Shambot, I can't hit a nine iron, 190 yards, but I don't need to. I know that he can. And as long as I know what his limitations are, what his preferences are,

and I'm organized, and you're confident, I really think that it's not important that you get your great player. You just need to know that what your player is capable of, you know, through the bag. I wanna talk a little bit about homework there, you mentioned that, and I wanna look at this through the lens of one of what we just saw last week at Concession, I know you're working for TV now.

I don't know if you've seen that golf course before, but let's assume you hadn't, and you were cutting in that event. When does the homework start for you? Are you out walking that golf course so that when you go with your player for the first practice round you already have this information? Or are you kind of discovering it with the player in the practice round? Does that very week to week and kind of you know what what what do you have to like check off on a list when you're seeing a golf course for the first time as a caddy? on a list when you're seeing a golf course for the first time as a caddy. Personally, I never would let go into a practice round with my player not having seen the course.

I just felt like that was a waste of time. If you were both looking at it for the first time and looking in the yardage book trying to figure it out for the first time, I thought that was a waste of time and energy. So I always, and I think most guys on a new course, always want to see a course before their players do. Just so the practice round, you're not guessing. You've got some ideas. They might not all be correct ideas,

and they might change throughout the practice round or even during the tournament, but you have an idea. And the first thing I would do is for the new course is, you know, for example, this one, we wouldn't have gone out there on Monday as a player, but I would have. I would have gone out Monday. I would have looked at greens. I would have charted what I thought possible pin locations would be. I would have looked at the weather forecast.

What is the win going to do for the week? Is it going to change around? Is it going to be one certain win all week? Because that's, you know, t-shirts and holes completely change in their makeup and how you're going to play them with a different win direction. I would do that and kind of note, okay, if we've got a north wind, we're going to hit this club off the tee. If it turns around to the south, it's most likely this one. And here's why. So you can, you know, have reasons to present to your player that you're not guessing, that he knows you've done the work

and he's gonna be confident in your decision that you've done the work. A great example of that, I think, was Ricky Elliott and Brooks this week. I think Brooks said he hadn't even seen the back nine going into Thursday and Ricky had done his work and they played it fine with no issues. Had Ricky not done that work

and, or if Brooks didn't have confidence in him, they would have been a circus out there. So I'll look at pin locations, I'll note, okay, if we've got this whole location, we cannot miss it here. And I won't present it to my player like you can't miss it here. I'll say instead of, you can't miss left,

I'll say, hey, plenty of room to the right on this on this whole location. A lot of that is for when you get in trouble off T's to be perfectly honest with you. A lot of these guys are so good if they're in the fairway most of the time they'll be able to control their iron no matter what and hit it in the right spot. But when you get in trouble off T's, you've got to know, OK, we can't hit this green. Or we don't want to hit this green. We want to hit it right.

Or you've got to leave this one short. A great example of that was 13 on Saturday. I mean, that was a brutal whole location. And I think we saw the carnage all day long. And I think I said it on the air at one point. I think Patrick Reed had gone long left, or short right into the bunker, and then hit that long left, a guy with a great short game.

I would have had that discussion with my player before the round saying, hey, I know you can hit a five iron on this green, but it's probably, in my mind, it's one out of 20. Let's not even try and hit this green. Let's hit seven iron iron short left of it. So we've got a great chance at four, taking the big numbers out of play.

I always like to just have those discussions with the player, you know, on the driving arranges they're warming up. Just so you plant that seed so they get there and they aren't surprised that you're trying to tell them don't hit this screen with a five iron. Because, you know, they're so good. And what God, I'm here is that expertise and that confidence and they're going to look at you if

you haven't, you know, gone to them, pre-round and say, what do you mean I can't hit five iron on the screen? I got my name on my bag, you know? So that's kind of what I look at when I'm walking, of course, before, before round or before the whole tournament. At that level, I guess when I go to a go to an event, I'm always kind of not stunned, but always just a little surprise that how often caddies and players are in their books and how much of the game at that level is decided between those pages or how much reliance is there. And it makes sense when you know where the ball is going,

which real, I mean, obviously no one knows more than the PJ Torpors, where the ball is going. How important it is mean, obviously no one knows more than the PJ Torpos, where the ball is going. How important it is, like if I'm playing my own game, my variance is so high that like, kind of just, I kind of just go up with what I'm feeling on the tea, like, you know what, I'm kind of feeling the driver here, but with these guys, like, it's so, you know how far it flies, you know what your misranges, blah, blah, blah, that so much is decided, you know, but, you know, with all the notes in there, and I'm always just curious as to what are people looking at in that yardage book, right?

I mean, for golf course, I'm sure it varies for golf courses you've been going to for 10, 20 years and stuff, but when you're that good, how, I guess a little surprise at how frequently guys will open up those books, even after a shot trying to understand, you know, what are they looking at, I guess, when they're opening up their books? Yeah, it's a great question. It's funny when I started out here, the books were so basic, what they've gone to now is incredible.

Mark Long, who used to carry for Fred Funk, does most of the books for almost every tournament these days. They're so detailed that I honestly wouldn't be afraid at this point to go on to a course without having seen it with Mark's yardage books. I almost think they're too good that you don't have to do the homework that maybe you had to do in years past to figure everything out. But what we're looking at a lot of times when these decisions get made are, okay, I know

how far it is to the pin. That's easy. But a lot of the times is completely irrelevant. I want to, the players and the Maccaddies want to know how far is it up onto the swale right in front of the pin? How much room do I have behind it? You know, what exactly is left of this green and can I get it up and down if I hit it there? Let's say, for example, I've got a player who hits an 8 iron 165. And we've got a pin that's 162 162 to the pin maybe 158 up top

of a swale. So an 8 iron you know a normal 8 iron is going to fly a little long but if I know we've got 8 yards behind this pin which I've noted in my book or I can tell him hey you've got all the room in the world behind this pin you can hit this all day and it's never going to go over the green. It gives him that little bit of extra confidence. And I think most of the, I think most of the bad shots on the PGA tour because of indecision and not fully committed to the shot, but if you can give him that last bit of information that he goes, oh, well, I don't have to take much off this eight iron, you know, which, you know, when you're trying to do something special with a shot, take a little bit off or cut it or draw it or something you're not used to, that's when that little seed of doubt can be introduced. But if you tell him,

there is no way you can hit this eight iron over the green. And even though it's probably going to land 12 to 15 feet past the hole, that's fine. So it gives them that extra bit of clarity in terms of stepping into the shot. And, you know, if they know they have the right club, if they know they, that it can't go anywhere really bad, if they execute, you know, they're so good that they, they go into a shot with no fear whatsoever. Yeah, I played a pro-end with Adam Hadwin a few years ago and his caddy Joe was, I just, I was really just taking notes at the numbers he gave him. Just a standard middle of fairway shot, I just remember him saying, 112-130. And I was just like, man, that's a pretty big range. What do you mean? It's either right somewhere between 112 and 130.

And he's like, no, that's front number and pin. That's the numbers he needs. And I was just like, whoa, that is a great, I don't know how it's taking me this long to learn this, but it's probably a great way to look at approach. I have 18 yards in which to land this. How much better do I feel standing over that shot rather than this needs to go 130, not 131, not 129? It's kind of that kind of way of charting around golf courses.

Again, when you have a variance that is very trackable and very understandable, that just kind of learning about that process of what goes on there has been really fascinating to me. So, no question. There's a great old story of a catty named Lin Strickler who worked for Crenshaw for a long time. And he was, I can't remember the player,

but he had a week off from Crenshaw, and he was working for somebody else, and they get on the first hole, and Lin gives him, you know, 155, and they get on the first hole and Lynn gives him, you know, 155 and they get on the next hole and he gives him 170 and he gives it on the next hole it gives him 140 and the player said, hey Lynn, I'm noticing all your numbers are ending in zero or five. Is that just coincidence? And Lynn goes, no, I just don't think you guys are that good.

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I've got all kinds of podcasts and information about how this tool can improve your life. It's improved all of ours. I love my woop. Woop.com. Use promo code, no laying up at checkout for 15% off. Let's get back to John Wood. For listeners that might not have ever heard us discuss this or cover it with other caddies or players we've had on

I'm wondering can you lay out what what a typical pay structure is for a tour caddy I think a lot of people just assume it's 10% of earnings But you know that's really only part of it who's responsible for airfare Combinations do you stay with the player when you travel kind of help us set that scene it varies But I would say on average, you know almost you get a salary salary. And that you're going to receive no matter what, whether you make the cut, whether you win anything in between, you get paid a salary. And as a caddy, you can pretty much take care of your expenses out of that salary. Hotel, rental car, airfare, and you take care of that on your own from your salary, obviously.

And then on top of that typically you'll receive percentage of what the player earns. I would say on average it's 5% of most most earnings 7 to 8% of a top 10 and 10% of a win. Obviously that that varies between you know players out there some it's more some it's less but, but that's a pretty basic pay structure. So the fact that you get that salary, you're not really going to lose money if you're smart about it. The one exception I would say is when you go overseas, a lot of times, guys will have that agreement with their player that they will take care of the airfare to go to an open

championship or to go to Asia, because those tickets are typically a lot more and you can off your normal salary, you can lose money in a heartbeat, especially if your guy misses the cut. So that's kind of a basic pay structure that's the average out there. And it seems like Caddy's will tend to go in on houses together during weeks or look for host stay or things like that. It seems, I always picked before I got into golf. I pictured that the Caddy's airfare and everything would be paid for. But I guess it kind of somewhat is through the salary you're talking about.

But it's not uncommon for caddies to bunk up together and stuff on the road during tournament weeks. Right, absolutely. Especially during majors, I'm telling you what, if there was some way that you could have golf channel could have just put a microphone in some of the rooms we had watching the golf at majors for about 10 years in a row. Me, bones, Joe LeCava, and fluff stayed together at the masters in the same house. And I'm not kidding yet. The commentary watching the golf after you got home in the afternoon was like, you know, you couldn't pay for that much comedy.

It was so funny. Yeah, gosh. Yeah. That's it. Everyone always tells us, you know, you couldn't pay for that much comedy. It was so funny. Yeah, gosh, yeah. That's, everyone always tells us, you know, you gotta have more caddies on. Gotta have caddies on, gotta have caddies on. I'm like, you don't get it. It's the former caddies you wanna have on. Because the current caddies are,

that, that, to speak about that, right? You're trying to, you're basically doing all you can to not have yourself be the show or draw any special attention to you. Is that fair to say? Sure. You want to, you know, you want to be great at your job, but really, you only care if your player thinks you're great at your job. Your peers know, I mean, the peers know who the really good caddies are and the guys who you might not think are the best caddies, but you really, you know it's the name on the bag. And the best sports analogy I could come up with is you're kind of a jockey.

You can be the greatest jockey in the world, but if you're on a donkey, you're going to finish last every week. And the vice versa. If you're not a great caddy, but you've got a guy who's a stud, you're still going to be up there pretty good. So I feel like a caddy is very similar to a jockey in that respect. What's it like?

And I would say a fairly large, there's a fairly large uncertainty as to how a financial year is gonna go for a caddy. And you can speak on this in terms of, just caddies in general and your own personal experience. I'm not sure which way you wanna go with this, but injuries happen to players, wins happen. I was wondered how hard it is to play in financially

in a job like that, right? You could have, it could be a great year, it could be, you know, an injury riddled year for your player. And I just wondered how, if you have any kind of perspective on that. There's a lot of, a lot of people don't really fully have grasp

like the different aspects of pro caddy life, right? I mean, there's LPGA, there's core fairy tour, there's European tour, obviously there's just many different aspects of Cadi life, but the uncertainty of that job always kind of, you know, mystifies me a little bit. And I'm wondering if you can speak to that with your experience. No question about it. I've been extremely lucky to work for good guys and successful guys. The guys who aren't on bags, you guys who are finishing top 10 every week or even top 20 and missing a lot of cuts, it's a struggle. There's no question about it. It can be a struggle, especially on the lower tours. I think on those tours, you really have to love your job.

In your mind, you're always working towards moving up a level, moving up a level, moving up a level and getting to that top tier of the PGA tour. But it is so difficult for a guy, you look at the purses and you're not getting a portion of that purse, but the purses are pretty small compared to what the PGA-2er offers. So you just gotta be a lot smarter and you kind of buy your time and say, okay, I'm gonna budget this much money. This is my salary and I don't wanna spend any more

than this every week, no matter what. I mean, if you become very successful and you've got a guy who's consistent week in, week out, obviously you can start, you know, living a little nicer on tour and having, you know, your own hotel room every week. But a lot of times I think early on or on different tours you've got to say, especially if you got a family at home, that I'm going to, if my salary is 2,000 a week, I've got air fair, I've got a rental car, I've got a hotel room, and I've got food.

How can I spend as little as possible of that, in case we do miss the cut? I don't want everyone to be put in the position where even if you miss a series of cuts in a row where you're losing money. So you got to be very, very smart and there are times when you got to be extremely thrifty about it and say, I'm gonna eat it the course. I'm gonna eat breakfast at the course. I'm gonna eat lunch at the course and I'm gonna share a hotel room for the week.

So, different levels, different players, it varies a lot. Yeah, no, I think about that too. I mean, obviously when guys miss cuts, you think of the player like, oh, that sucks, he doesn't make any money this week, he's going home blah, blah, blah. But I look at player like, oh, that sucks. He doesn't make any money this week. He's going home blah, blah, blah. But I look at it like, God, that sucks for the caddy.

Like, is it really disheartening to miss a cut as a caddy, right? I mean, when you have that uncertainty, you know, from week to week, what is it like emotionally when you're when your player misses a cut? I, it's the worst. Missing a cut, especially close when you're close. If you're in the middle of the round on on Friday and you're Seven out you're fine. It's like okay. Well, we're gonna miss cuts. It's gonna happen

But when you you know when it's close on Friday and you end up missing by one it kills you because you just don't know what could It happened on the weekend not only for that week You know you can go out and shoot 65 65 on the weekend and end up finishing 10th and it's a completely different ball game. And not only that, but you know, two more days, if you guys struggle in two more days in competition, he might find it. You know, and it might be very late on Sunday, not that your position changes that much, but he might find something on the 15th hole on Sunday that puts you on a run for the next five weeks. So yeah, missing a cut, especially at big events, the players, the majors, it crushes you. The masters is the worst because you know, it's, you know, it's 50 in ties and it's a small field and you shouldn't be able to make it. I mean, if you play just decent, but that was really one of the only tournaments where

I was nervous on the first hole on Thursday because you wanted to get off to a good start. Being at Augusta National for the Masters on the weekend, no matter where you are in the field, it's so special. Luckily, I haven't missed many cuts there, but that was the one all year long, or if I could circle one and say, that's the one I definitely want to make, that would be it. And going back to kind of the pay structure of things and how a lot of people assume things are 10%, but you mentioned it being 10% typically for a win. I think inherently built into that is kind of like a,

that's the upside for being a caddy, is you stick with a guy for a long time, you can get that big reward at the end and it is not always necessarily, I'm transitioning then, you know, your recent years cadding for Matt Kutcher, at least, you know, a lot of our audience knows you for that. Yet if you Google Matt Kutcher Caddy,

a very different story comes up and you were Matt's full-time caddy when all that went down in Mexico. What was it like to be Kutcher's caddy at that time? Did you have any conversations with him about how that all went down, how it was handled? I'm just wondering if you could kind of provide perspective on where what his mindset was, having a guest caddy on the bag that week in Mexico versus having a full-time caddy.

Sure. We talked about it after the fact and coach regrets how he handled that so much. And I feel bad for him because he did not want it to happen like that and it was unfortunate that it did. What happened once he was never planning on playing that event? And I had a bunch of actual little league buddies who had called me earlier in the year and said, Hey, we want to have a little reunion in Sacramento. What week are you definitely going to be home? And that's the week I gave him. Because it was never on the schedule. And then we were actually in Vegas the week before and Cooch said, Hey, I think I'm close here. I want to I want to play next week and you know,

I explained the situation to him and he was fine with it and said that you look, you don't need to come. You've had this plan forever, you know, don't worry about it. So he ends up and going in the win and win in the tournament. And that was awesome. Obviously, he didn't handle it initially how he should. This is just my opinion, nobody else's. Did he deserve the full 10%? I don't know that because I don't think he did a lot of the work in terms of helping coach on the course.

It was more of carrying the bag for the week. At the same time, when Coach did end up winning, I think it took him a while, but I think Coach eventually got to the point where he goes, yeah, I really screwed this up and I want to fix it. And he did. And I don't think it was knowing Coach like I do and knowing his family, I don't really don't think it was for PR purposes or to save his reputation at all, to go in and fix it. I think he wanted to fix it because he realized he'd made a mistake. And a lot of people don't know this, but later that year, when we played the WGC event

in Mexico City, he flew L2 can in. And he said, look, I want to, at that point, he had already-2 can in and you know he said look I want to it was at that point he had already fixed it monetarily but he wanted to sit down and have a conversation with them and say I regret how this all came out and you know I apologized and I didn't want it to happen this way and you know he stayed all weak and followed us around and he was great so I think it just it got into a situation that could have been avoidable So I think it just, it got into a situation that could have been avoidable.

And I think looking back, it's one of Kuch's biggest regrets. And I don't know, people still on him about it, but I don't know what else he could do with this point. It was an honest and sincere apology. He fixed it monetarily. And he's done a lot of stuff behind the scenes that nobody knows about to make that whole situation better.

So it was unfortunate to see Matt go through that because I think his heart is generally in the right place and I think it affected him on the golf course a little bit for a while. At this point, I don't know what else he could have done after the fact when he admitted the mistake. It'd be an all-time caddy blame if he could somehow twist us on you and blame you for not being there for all this all is happening. No, I think that perspective is important. I think it, you know, some people out there were quite confused and just assumed it should

be 10%. But I'm with you in terms of exactly what you're talking about, the level of detail that you're talking about for the work you put in for a tournament week and the week-to-week travel that you make, that goes into that 10%. That's where you've earned that. More so than just kind of probably pretty basic caddy advice and what not carrying the bag doesn't necessarily translate to 10%. But there is a middle ground that I think what you just mentioned, he needed to end up at and we eventually did end up at that. It's just hard for grass to grass for a lot of golf fans. And I do agree that the moniker is really stuck with him

for probably longer than it needs to. But yeah, I just was curious to get your perspective on that. And I also want to know, understanding the dynamics of player-cadi relationships on tour, how relationships end and begin and end and begin a lot on tour. And I kind of pictured it before getting into golf that it'd be a lot like seeing an ex-girlfriend out on tour

for somebody you used to work with that you no longer work with, but I really don't get that vibe anymore. When a player in Catti split, how often is it that the player ends up firing the Catti? How often is it that the Catti moves on from the player? I'm wondering if you can kind of just talk about the dynamic of, you know, the ever changing, you know,

every evolving shuffle of different caddies on different players' bags. Sure. I'd say the majority of time it's the player initiating the change and letting someone go. And it might not even be because of anything that the caddy's done. It might just be, I need to look at somebody else. I need to find a new routine because this isn't working right now.

So I'd say, both the time it goes that way, the player firing the caddy. But it goes both ways. There's a lot of times that caddies just feel like, you know, I've had enough of this relationship. I'm not enjoying it. I don't feel like I'm helping. And I think it'd be better for both of us to move on.

And you know, you said it right. It is kind of seeing like an ex-girlfriend. That first time you see him at a course, you know, or get paired with him is always, you hope that first 10 minutes isn't that awkward. Once you get past that, it's fine. Every player that I've worked for, I still have great relationships with from Mark Calgabecchia, Kevin Sutherland, Hunter, and Coach, and I have great relationships with all of them, thankfully.

It can go the other way, and where it does get ugly, you know, you just, at that point, you hope not to get paired with them. You hope not to be in the same rotation of them, because it just becomes awkward and you don't wanna have to deal with it. Yet almost everyone out there is on a different bag than the one they started on. It's every 100%.

Almost every player and every caddy has gone through it in some way. I've found more often than not the, especially the caddies too, just the understanding of the nature of it. They usually don't take it too personally, it doesn't seem to be, you know, it's like you said, it can be just a, I think it's a player too, and I'm obviously not a tour player, but I think it's a player you can, you kind of know with a caddy, it's like, dude, this guy, it's not his fault, but it's not working for me, right? It's, and I think that there's probably a ton of that, especially at that level, where

like, hey, I kind of need my vibe to be perfect right now. And it's not right now, so I need to kind of sum the different. Is that kind of what you think leads to a decent amount of breakups? 100%. You know, you can be a guy who, you know, a caddy who absolutely knows every yardage on the course, who knows every break, who's very business-like

and professional, but, you know, there's a time when maybe the player needs somebody who's going to make him laugh, you know, who's a little goof you're out there and may not have all the answers, but I was going to, you know, relax him a little bit. So a lot of times it's got nothing to do with the job he's doing. It's just I need Calc was be the first one to tell you that. Calc was, for a long time, used a rotation of guys. Never had a full-time caddy for probably five years. He would bring in bones for a week when Phil wasn't playing. He'd bring in Joe LeCava when Fred wasn't playing.

He'd bring in me if Kevin wasn't playing. So he knew who he was personally, and he wanted to look at somebody else every week, and it's not like he didn't depend on it. He'd get guys he trusted. He didn't want that same routine week in, week out, where it was the same conversations, it was the same things and he knew himself. So I think it was a great way to do it for him.

Yeah. And so when it comes to you transitioning into into TV, what was kind of your reasoning for it? If I understand it right, you were you were the one that left Matt's bag versus the other way around. But you've also floated that you're, you're open to continuing as a tour caddy if another opportunity comes along. I believe that quote is from from golf.com. What was kind of your, your thought process on this transition, right? And, and, you know, after cadding for so many successful players, what's your barrier to entry in terms of potentially picking up another bag in the future?

Well, I think it was just, I felt like it was time to do something else. I was still enjoying most of the cadding, but some of the day to day stuff, I felt myself not, not enjoying it as much as I used to, you know, the homework and, you know, being there early Tuesday mornings and, and the programs and, you know, being their early Tuesday mornings and the programs and it's repetitive. Yeah. Once I got inside the ropes on Thursday, I loved it as much as ever and I still miss it and I probably will miss it for a long time.

But this opportunity was there and I thought, you know, will it, if I keep chatting for the other five years, will this opportunity still be there? And so I decided it was, I really enjoyed the commentating opportunity that Tommy Roy gave me at the McGladdery a few years back. And I always kept it in the back of my mind if that came as a full-time opportunity, I wanted to really think about it and was interested in it.

And when it did present itself, I just felt like it was the time to do it. And, you know, I feel like I just felt like it was time for me to, for a new challenge. And, and, you know, I don't have any plans whatsoever to go back to full-time cadding at this point. If, if something were to happen three, four, five years years down the road where I felt like there was another opportunity maybe, but I'm fully committed to this right now and there's not much

that could get me out of this job right now. I'm really enjoying it. What has happened more often in your career? Has it been you leaving a player's bag or a player? Is firing the right word? Is that too harsh of a word? It's a breakup. It's not you. It's me. It really does seem like it's not you. It's me situation more often than not,

though. Yeah. Yeah. For the most part in my career, it's been me who decided to move on for a variety of reasons. I take it really hard, but I don't feel like I'm helping a player. All of your bag of tricks isn't working. You know, this used to work when I talked to him about this. Or this pep talk, he used to really take the heart and start playing better golf. And when those stop working, you almost feel like I am not helping this guy at all. And when you get to that point, you're not enjoying it. He's not enjoying it.

Yeah, yeah. So you know, it's, you just get the feeling like I think we both need to do something else right now. And I've never shut the door if I've left somebody on working with them again, and picking up that relationship. But yeah, I think you need to look at it. It's a business at the end of the day. It is a business. And caddies are just as much businessmen as players are. And when you're not happy, if you're not successful, you can't be afraid to move on.

Well, I hate putting people on the spot. So I actually sent some of these over to you last night. Everyone's always like, what's your best story you've ever heard? And I hate that. I hate that. I can never think of it. But I gave you a kind of a hint last night that I was going to ask you some of these questions. But we love to tease the pampered tour pros about, you know, a lot of, you know, things they say or things like that. I want to know something you've heard. Like the wildest complaint you've ever heard from a tour player. It could be something you were on the bag for. It could be, you know, some of you're in the same

group of, you don't have to name names. Something that just blew your mind or stuck out is a crazy thing that you didn't know somebody could complain about. It was a great question and I've got two of them. Yes. I think they'd both be okay with me mentioning their names. So I'll go ahead and do it. One year, I think it was 05 open

championship at St Andrews, and I was cutting for Calc and you know, they have a way of trying to put really fast players out early, just to kind of set the tone for the round. It's a great way to do it. So Calc, and I believe Simon Dyson and Rory Sabatini were first off. And first off at an open championship is, you know, G640 or something, it's an early time. So we get out there and we got around to, I'm trying to think of the double green is 13 and 15.

Yeah, 13 and five is a double green. And we got around to 13 and I don't know if you know, but an early tea time at an open championship is the greatest gift you could be given because you're gonna be done by 11 o'clock in the morning and if there's gonna be wind you've probably missed all of it. So we got around to 13 and we had to wave up a group on five because it was a double green and the flags were the pins were fairly close to each other and Sabatini did not like the fact that we had to wave up a group on five because it was a double green. The flags were, the pins were fairly close to each other. And Sabatini did not like the fact that we had to wave this group up.

And he started complaining a little bit. And I was laughing initially. And how can we have to change the rules of golf and wave people up on a whole or not even playing and this and that. It was funny and Roy and I have a great relationship now. But you know, he went on and on and on. And I finally said, Hey, Roy, you know, there are probably a hundred million people who would cut off their right hand to play an open championship at St Andrews.

And if you don't like it, maybe you go play Quad Cities next year. And he was kind of taken it back initially, but then he laughed and said, Yeah, you're right. You're right. I shouldn't put myself in that place. So he was kind of taking it back initially, but then he laughed and said, yeah, you're right. You're right. I shouldn't put myself in that place. So he was great about it. The other one was kind of similar. And we laugh about it every time we see each other. And this was Bryson D. Shembo at the US Open at Shinnokok.

And the first day, it was just brutal. It was hard and fast. And usually US Open, they kind of eased their way into it. They kind of make it playable on the first day and get it hard and hard as you go along. But it was, it was blowing sideways and hard and the greens were so tricky. Every shot was, you know, hanging on by the skin of your teeth. And Bryson wasn't playing very well. He wasn't happy. And, you, and he got on a little bit of a complaint train for a few holes, and I usually could care less

if another player in my group is doing that. But it was going so bad that he was starting to affect his playing partners. And we were walking to the 14th tee, and I looked at Coach and said, Coach, I gotta say something, because this is affecting everybody in the group. And he said, yeah, you do what you need to do. And we got on the tee and he was, you know, talking about the

conditions and I turned around and said, hey, Bryson, this is normal, hard, US open conditions, you know, and I don't compare, I don't care that you're complaining, but you're affecting your playing partners at this point. And, and you need to stop. And initially he was a little taken aback, but when we finished the round and to this day, he'll come up to me and say, you were right. I didn't know I was affecting my playing partners and you were right to say something and look at him, he goes and wins the US Open

a couple of years later. So I tell him all the time, I take credit, I should give you a little percentage for that US open win of his. You got some balls on you. Well, it's happened twice in 24 years, honestly. And never ever said anything else to a player. But they both took it so well. And it was just at a moment in the round where I'm like,

look, he's affecting my player. And that's when it gets on me. I think everyone playing golf has a moment. You know, if you really set out loud what you're kind of bothered by, it would sound so ridiculous, you know? Yeah. I can't believe they're working on that house. Like, a thousand yards away.

They're so loud over there. It's like, hey, man, life is kind of going on around you while you're trying to get a little ball on the hall. Yeah. Exactly. And you may have already given the answer. What's the best or ball-seous move you've ever made as a cat? He could be talking to somebody off a shot and insisting on something.

I want to know when you're most prideful moment as a cat, he was. Probably Hunter's first win in Hartford. He played great all week and was in control most of Sunday but made a couple mistakes late and all of a sudden we're standing on an 18T and we're one back of Jay Williamson. In a tournament that it never felt like we weren't gonna win. Hit a good drive out there.

And the win was sideways, hurt and sideways helping, sideways hurting, and it was just a tough one to figure out We were right in between eight nine iron and and you kind of knew at that point that he needed to make birdie to get into a playoff so We went back and forth and back and forth and I was you know Initially not doing a good job because I wasn't being decisive either You know, we had eight iron out and the wind all of a sudden didn't feel like it was hurting and it kind of became really clear to me that I needed to clear the slight here

or else he was going to hit a bad shot. And I said, hey, stop, come over here. Put the club away and we're going to start this all over. Went through all the numbers, decided what the wind was doing and you know, kind of set at that point we decided on hitting a hard nine rather than a little eight and I said hey if the win's not what you like wait for the win you like and rip it and it kind of clean the slate got him clear the shot he wanted to hit and he you know he

stuffed a nine iron made birdie to get into the playoff and then birdie the hole again in the first playoff hole to win the tournament. So that was probably one of my biggest, you know, single moments. Probably my proudest caddy day, honestly, was probably working for Bill Haas at the President's Cup in Korea.

He was put out last, which was shocking to me, because, you know, he was under a lot of pressure already as dads, the captain, they do those picks and were watching Saturday night and it keeps going and keeps going. I'm like, oh my God, they're going to put Bill out last year. And Bill was, he was playing great, but he was nervous as gosh, your dad's the captain and you're put out in the anchor position in a match that could decide at all, which it ultimately ended up deciding

it all. So, you know, he got up early in his match and, you know, we were making the turn and I could hear Bill talk about looking at the leaderboard going, come on guys, get this done, come on, you know, not hoping that it did not come down to him. And I remember walking off the 10th tee and I got right in his face and I said, hey,, I want you to look at me and I want you to listen to me, it's going to come down to this match. I want you to know that right now just because I don't want you to be surprised or nervous about it at the end.

You're going to be nervous about it. I'm saying this to myself, but I don't want you to be surprised all of a sudden when we got three or four holes left and it's us. It's going to be us and I know it's a tough position to be him, you know, I had been there before and, and you know, with Hunter, you know, in 2010, the Ryder Cup, unfortunately, when he lost to, to Graham McDowell, but that experience of being there in the last group with everybody watching, knowing the whole thing came down to you, helped me a lot. And I felt like Bill, I could tell Bill, hey, look, I've been here before. Talk it all out with me. Don't hold anything inside. If you're scared to death about hitting

shot, you need to tell me so I know about it too. And he played so good coming down the stretch to, you know, to close out his match on 18 with every single player, every caddy and every fan on that 18th hole, you know, he came through. And that was probably one of my proudest moments to see, you know, him and his dad hugging at the end of the match and knowing that his son got the winning point for him in his in his cap can see that was probably one of my proudest days as a caddy. Yeah, as I was getting ready for this last night, you night, I kept uncovering all these moments in golf that you've been a part of, right? And I hadn't even processed the Mayhann 2010 rider cup moment.

And not to dwell on the opposite end of that. But what can you possibly say to a player after all that? And if I may say before that happens, you know, everyone likes to point at the at the chunk chip, but it needed to go in the hole, right? I mean, he needed to hold that. It wasn't like he needed to get it up and down for that to really, you know, affect the rider cup. I think he gets an unfair amount of, you know, blame or attention on that and where's it very heavy, but people kind of forget the situation. Maybe I forgot the situation, but that's how I remember it. Yeah, he didn't need the chip it in

because at that point, I think Graham had about six footer for par. So, you know, it looked like a par might win the hole anyways and we could carry on with a match. But I felt horrible for Hunter because he played so well that whole week and didn't get as good a results as maybe he should have. Match play is match play. You can shoot 63 and lose. But that last Sunday, we were, again, we were last off and he had striped it all day and not made a thing and Graham made some huge

clutch puts, especially on that back nine. We birdied 16 to get within one. We were one down after 16. And you know, at that point, if you're last off in one of those team events, after you get past the first tee, a lot of your day is spent in solitude. Because the rest of the groups, all the fans are up front. They're watching the first four, five, six groups out. And only until you get late in your match, do the fans start percolating back to you. And at that moment, we got to 16T and literally every other player, every other assistant, every other caddy, and every fan on the course was with this group. And it was an amazing, huge amount of pressure, especially on the road playing in Europe.

And he had played, like I said, he played great that week. He got 16, made birdie on 16 to get within one. And then I think that's how it worked. And then he had this chip shot. And, you know, Hunter would be the first to admit that chipping was never the strongest part of his game. And, you know, I never really felt like that was a situational bad chip because he was, you know, just as likely to hit that chip on Tuesday as he was, you know, on Sunday

at a rider cut. My one regret there is that, you know, when I saw him pull Sandwich out of the bag, I almost, I felt like I was torn between saying, hey, hey, Hunter, we can put this. Let's get it up there close to the hole, you know, roll it up there. But he was so decisive in taking sandwich out of the bag I didn't feel like I wanted to put that doubt in his head So you know I let him go ahead with the chip if I could you know in hindsight

I wish I would have said hey we can put this let's just you know running up there and put some make gram make this six footer but After the fact, you know, I think Hunter and I both went into a shell for a few hours. You saw, you remember Hunter's press conference there and we were born kind of torn up about it because weekend, week out, you know, if you lose or you do something dumb, you're letting your player down or he's letting me down or, you know, that was, you know, the way to the world because you were letting down, you know, all the other players, You felt like it. You felt like you were letting down the other players, the other caddies, the other captains, the assistants,

and really your whole country. So he took that so hard and I kind of let him do his own thing. But then when we got to the back of the hotel, got to the team room and every's kind of hanging out and letting things go, I just sat with him for a while and we just chatted about things. And obviously, if I could change the outcome, I would change it in a heartbeat,

but I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. I mean, not many people get to spend the last hour of a Ryder Cup, no one that it's all on your shoulder. So just to have that experience, I wouldn't trade it for the world. Maybe this is just revisionist history in my mind, but I look at that moment and the aftermath of that and that press conference with, I don't know, prides the right word, but just like appreciation for the game of golf and like what Hunter had to go through and that he cared enough to like, that sounds kind of, you know,

like it sounds kind of a lame way to say it. Of course, he's got his care, but like just seeing that, how much it mattered to him. And I'd never remember feeling blamed towards him. I never remember feeling like this is your fault, this is, it all came down to you, what happened here, man, but he had to be feeling that. And I don't know.

I look at that with just like, it rips my heart out a little bit to see a player going through that. So publicly when the pressure is just unmatchable, you can't, there's nothing you can do in your life to prepare you to hit those kind of shots under that kind of pressure. Like, there's just nothing. There's not one thing you can do in practice.

You know, there's not any thing you can do in your professional golf career to prepare you for that moment. And just the spotlight on that moment and to see that happen is, I mean, we need to get him on the podcast to talk about it. It's been a long time since it happened.

I love to hear his perspective on it. But, sure. No, you're 100% right. There is, it's so, it feels so much bigger than golf at that point, you know. So yeah, you're right. You just can't prepare for it no matter what. What's the worst mistake you've made as a catty?

Could be bad numbers, something you said you shouldn't have bad advice, anything like that. Yeah, you sent me this one last night. This is the easiest answer I could ever give. 2014 US Open at Pinehurst, Hunter was playing well. And we got to our ninth hole, which was the 18th. And it's kind of a blind tee shot. You hit up a hill.

You don't see your ball land. And we were playing with Jamie Donaldson. And for some reason, and I've never seen anybody before or since used this marking on a golf ball, but both of them put kind of a slash through the number on their ball. Both playing titleists, and they they both put that slash through and Hunter hit his drive first and it looked like it was just dead down the middle

and perfect drive and then Jamie hit second and it looked like kind of left edge of the fairway and so everybody kind of left the tee, no worries and I got up top of the hill and saw the two balls one on the left edge, one in the center went to the one in the center which checked it real quick and had to slash on the number. And I go, okay, we're good. Hit our shot up to the green. And then Jamie and his caddy did all their work. Look, the ball hit their shot up to the green.

And we got up to the green, which was kind of blind as well. You couldn't see the surface from the fairway. And we're looking at the balls going, this shouldn't be here. This shouldn't be here. And through talking with a few fans and a few officials discovered that they'd hit the wrong ball. And I took that because I was the first one there, I was the one that went straight to one ball

and got the yardage gave Hunter. I personally, I felt like it was mostly my fault. Now, did everybody else have some sort of complicity in it? Certainly, because Hunter could have checked it, Jamie could have checked it, his caddy could have checked it, but I felt like I needed to take most of the heat there because I was the first one to it

and gave no reason why anybody could have gone to the wrong ball. That was the biggest mistake I made. And the irony of it is, their balls ended up about 15 feet apart on the putting green. And had their balls ended up close together? You're never noticed. Anybody, nobody would have ever known,

which is to this day you wouldn't have known. But I feel like that was the biggest mistake I ever made as a caddy. Yep. You had an interesting take a couple of weeks ago on range finders when the PGA America announced for the PGA Championship, they'll be allowed. And maybe the highest compliment I can pay you

is that you're one of the few guys in the golf world that you can get me to immediately change my opinion on something just because I think this is definitely an area you would know more on the me, but I always thought rangefinders would speed up play, but in a series of three tweets, you convinced me that it would not. So I'm wondering if you could kind of share your thought process on you being

against range fighters at the pro level. Sure. Um, first of all, I don't think anybody was clamoring for it. I just don't think anybody was talking about it, that it would speed up play or anything. And it was just a surprise announcement to have come out and just say it. Um, it would help in very limited, very specific circumstances. If your ball is so far offline that, um so far offline that there's no way you can get the right angle, there's no marker close to where your ball is, and that's a moment when it would help. But for the most part, the number to pin is not the number that we want.

It's not the number that the players want. They want the cover of a bunker. They want the front edge of a green. They want how far is it to the top of the soil? How far is it, you know, to the back edge? None of those numbers which you can get with a rangefinder. My feeling is that guys will still do all the exact same work they do and then maybe at the end double check with a rangefinder. And that, you know, that last check probably won't affect things too much, but there are times when range finders are not perfect. They're fine for me and they're fine for any other amateur

who's not a perfect ball striker, but with these guys, they're not perfect. I can stand there with the most, the best range findfinder in the world and shoot it one time and get 91 yards and shoot it again and get 87. Now, to you and me, who cares? I mean, I'm not good enough to know

the difference between 87 and 91. These guys are. And when you get in those situations, it's gonna be like, well, which numbers right? Now, we gotta go through them all again, double check it everything. And it's gonna create that like, well, which numbers right? Now, we got to go through them all again, double check it, everything, and it's going to create that doubt in their head. For that reason, alone, I don't think you need them,

and I don't think it's going to speed up play. I really don't. I think if anything, it will slow it down and touch at the highest level. Yeah. It's interesting. I think I've come to the conclusion. I've tried to study slow play as much as I can. I've come to the conclusion. I've tried to study slow play as much as I can. I've come to the conclusion that almost entirely all of golf's slow play issues happen on the putting green,

especially in three sims. The whole is basically a toll booth and three lanes come down to one because only one person can hold out at a time. And that just, it seems to be, you're always waiting for greens to clear. You're not always waiting for guys. Very rarely are you, as a group have space in front of them and you get to the tee and they're still in the fairway waiting to hit their shot. They might be there because they waited on the group in front of them. So I guess in my mind, it doesn't matter too, too much if you're slowing down other aspects of play that don't include putting. But I'm wondering if you think that there was a way to address slow play on tour, maybe that we're potentially

missing. That's a great way of putting it, honestly, that three lanes into one. I think that's a great analogy. Paul Goidos, who I used to play, you know, be around a lot because he and Kevin played a lot of practice rounds together. He says it perfectly and most succinctly and most correct. You know what causes slow play? Slow players. It's not a root, you know, matter what you do, there's going to be 15 guys in the field who play

as slowly as they can. And there's no incentive for the other guys to try and play fast because they know they're just going to wait if they do. So it's unfortunate that instead of coming on tour and learning how to play faster, guys come on tour and learn how to play slower. One of the biggest things I think is green speeds. They're so fast, you know, for the most part these days, that there's a lot more care into it. If I'm watching an old golf, you know, from, let's say, I don't know, 80s and back, you watch, guys will hit their puts up to the hole,

and even if it's two or three feet, they'll just walk up and take a quick look and knock it in. Now it is rare that guys don't mark, you know, one foot putts, which is that if you think about that, if every player in the field is marking a one footer or two footer every single hole, that's another minute a player, every hole. There's sometimes I'm going just finish it, you know, in my own's sometimes I'm going just finish it. You know, in my own mind, I'm like, what are you waiting for?

Because you know that's an extra minute. And it might sound like nothing, but add it up, you know, 156 players for two days, and then it adds up to a lot. So I think that last, I've got to stick to my routine no matter what, as really slow things down. You want to hear what I can promise you

is a very bad idea and that no one is gonna wanna get on board with, but I've thought about and consider for quite some time. If you were to tell me, what is the toer average putting percentage from three feet? What do you think it is? For these guys on toer, three feet, 98%.

99.4% right now on toer. What if from, let's say, 24 inches or 30 inches and in, scoop it. You put a little chalk, you put a chalk line, you put a chalk line around every hole that's very faint and if you get it inside that chalk line, you're good. Next one's good. I love it. I mean, I would speed up play. Would it not? Oh my God, you have no idea how much it would speed up play. And I know it goes against everything golf is supposed to be about, but we're talking about 99.4% from inside three feet.

We're going to have a range that truly you only miss it when you're trying to tap it in and you are lazy at it. Right. I think that would be interesting if you got, I won't say any names, but certain guys who have a reputation for fudge in the mark, if you know, they put it up there, it was in-ch outside when they replaced it all because that was inside. How did that happen? I didn't realize that was good. Oh, it's a, I feel for the rules officials because it's just what do you do?

It just, it seems like no matter what happens, there's going to be, like I said, 15 guys in the field who are going to slow it down no matter what happens, there's going to be like I said, 15 guys in the field who are going to slow it down no matter what. Well, I'm going to save some of these questions I still have for future episodes, but a couple more before we let you go here. But what's the most exotic or wildest place golf is taking you? Just somewhere where you looked up and said, wow, I never thought I'd be here in my life and here I am.

I would say Kate Kiddinappers and Calgary Cliffs who used the island. When they first started, they had this kind of what they call the Young Guns Challenge. And it was just four guys each year in there. I think they're all 25 or less men. This piece of property, I always thought there were certain courses I loved and were beautiful,

but this piece of property, those two courses were on, were so special, so phenomenal. I remember a few times just standing out there going, how did I get here? If I remember that right, it was, was it Hunter, Camilo, Sean O'Hare and Anthony Kim? You got it.

No, I think the first year it wasn't Camilo. Oh, okay. The first year was Adam Scott. And the second year it was Camilo, yeah, yeah. But that was a fun, unbelievable experience. I remember that win, one of the years, the win just absolutely hailing. Yeah. The 15th-Holot kidnappers is like 630 yards.

And I think Anthony Kim hit Nini or an over-the-green or something like that. It was, yeah. And it was funny. Good memory on your part, but that T t-shot you were up on this this cliff Border in the ocean and it was blowing this is right before they stopped play and and it was howling into us 40 miles an hour And I'll never forget Sean O'Hare looked over at Paul Tassori and said very seriously, do you like the low one here? We all just cracked up, you know no, put this one as high as

you can into this 40 mile or wind and let's see what happens to it. But, yeah, that was a fun, fun place to be. Awesome. Well, we'll let you out of there on that. Best of luck, you know, with the coming NBC season, we're excited to, excited to hear from you more often. And we got to, got to have you back for some more caddy stories in the future. Really greatly appreciate the time, John and greatly appreciate the insight. Anytime, Saul, I really enjoy your guys' work and keep up the good work and I'll come back anytime. Appreciate it. Cheers, ma'am. You got it.

Good right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most.