No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 617: Mike Clayton

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

Mike Clayton joins the pod for a wide ranging discussion covering his latest course design at 7 Mile Beach and his views of how the modern game and equipment interacts with the great architects of prior generations. We also chat about the equipment rollback debate and the Australian perspective on LIV and how the PGA Tour has affected the professional game in his home country.   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 got a great interview with Mike Clayton coming shortly. He was on the podcast. I think around December 2017, if I remember right, when we were in Melbourne for a tour of

saw season one, can you believe it? It's been that long ago. So look, I'm sure not a lot of the topics that. Can you believe it? It's been that long ago. So look, I'm sure not a lot of the topics that were on that podcast or top of mind for a lot of listeners. So we may revisit a couple of things on distance debate, equipment and things like that as the golf world has evolved on that front. Some since then, I had a great conversation about that. And what he's up to at seven mile beach, we get into great detail about that and ask him for his Australian perspective on on live and what's going on in the great detail about that and ask him for his Australian perspective on

on live and what's going on in the golf world as a whole. So I'm not going to delay you too long before we get to it, but I got to tell you, I got I shouldn't say tell you I got to remind you about our friends at rowback who have been incredible supporters of our content this past year. You all know rowback. You see them everywhere because I am seeing them everywhere. They understand quality. There's only one way to describe rowback.

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They just dropped some joggers as well. I'm actually wearing some of their shorts right now too. Big fan of rowback, thanks for their support code NLU for 20% off. Here's Mike Clayton. Michael Clayton, it has been a while, my friend. What's going on in your part of the world? Well, we're building a golf course at 7 Mile Beach in Hobart for Matt Goggan, who was famous for... Well, not famous for, but he was playing with Tom Watson

the last round at Turnberry, that fateful day. He was either in the lead or one off the lead from the 14th hole, so he'd let a chance slip as well, really. So he's doing this golf course in Hobart, which he told me 25 years ago he was going to build a golf course on this strip of land by Hobart Airport. So we're doing that. So I'm off there this morning.

Actually, it's kind of early here. It's time is at 6 o'clock. So I'm off there this morning, which will be fun. Because I've been sitting for a while. In England and America for I was away for a month so I only got back last week so it's the first chance I've had to get back there for five weeks. Well if we're going to do in a podcast with somebody from Australia, one of us is going to have to wake up really early to do it. So we thank you for for being the one to do it but I know you got some jet lag here but you're already and I had a feeling this might

be the case you're already kind of selling a short on exactly what's going on here at seven mile beach because I've been following it on Instagram and Twitter, seeing the pictures and have been following the project in great detail. And by all accounts and everything I've heard, this looks to be potentially one of the great golf sites ever in the world when it comes to it. You've seen a lot of places, been a lot of places. You may be a little hesitant to put that kind of hype on it, but give us your perspective on how this ranks with other places you've seen as far as sight-wise.

Well, I think it's, I mean, obviously, it's really good. It's right on the edge of the water. It's all sand dunes. It's a great shape. So there's, at Bone Bougal, the original course there just went up and down the narrow strip of June between the sea and the farm. So it was literally, you know, it was a synandria's type, very narrowed links, but this is much whiter. So we can change direction a lot more than we did there. All this great remote golf sand hills and sand valley and Scussell's stewat and bandin and all these places, we're all a long way from anywhere.

And of course Australia's a long way from anywhere as well, but this is 10 minutes from Hobart Airport. Hobart's a decent sized city. It's got 300,000 people. It's an hour's flight from Melbourne and Sydney, so it's not as remote as any of these other places. It's really a big city right on a store step. So hopefully it attracts local golfers as well as traveling golfers, which is what all

these places rely on is people traveling a long way to get there. So Hobart really, it's got a couple of reasonable 18-hole courses, but nothing in the top 85 in Australia. So this one's going to bump up Hobart's golf quite a way, I think. But yeah, look, it's a great site. We've got a pretty good routing. Muck DeVese is living down there. He's been there for since Christmas.

So he's out there every day on a dose. It's just feeding his bulldozer habit, as he says. Well, it looks like a site that's meant for golf was born for golf now. It does after you've done a lot of clearing of trees because I've seen the before and after photos of this location. What is that process like? And how do you visualize a golf course

without the clear sight lines? I'm always so curious about that. The places where you need to go in and clear trees to even really see the shape of the ground underneath it. I know there's topo maps and all kinds of things you can do. But how do you go about visualizing something like this without being able to put your feet on the ground and see it with your own eyes?

Well, we've been going down that for 10 years. We first went down there in 2010, so it doesn't years ago. So we had a decent idea of what the site was like, but you couldn't, not from the first hole, which was pretty clear. You couldn't see more than 15 feet in front of you in most places. So you were kind of going through the pine forest, feeling the land with your feet, looking at it, and trying to figure out, well, I think there's a hole here.

And so once we cleared it, we changed it, not a lot. But we moved the fourth green, 100 yards, because once the pines came off, it was obvious. It was a way better hole over there. So moving the fourth green, meant the fifth tea came back 100 yards, which actually made that a better hole. Uncovered two great green sides at the eighth, so we built them both. The 13th green, we moved 150 yards to the left, which changed the 4th a bit, which was always going to be a part three. It's just finished up in a different part three.

But I always say it's a great sight for golf, because it's on the water, it's unlimited sand, it's lots of space, but it's not great land for golf, it's incredibly choppy. So, you know, Mike and Lucas Michelle, who, you know, Lucas, he's been on your pot, I think, when the mid-Ammeteric up years ago, I mean, Lucas especially has spent all year on a doser just flattening sand used to make it

at least playable, because it's incredibly choppy unlike the courses at the National Institute where you just plow the grass and moat it and build some bunkers and greens you really have to manipulate the ground to make the golf playable. So we've moved lots of sand to make it so you can actually play golf on it but the trick is to make it look like you haven't moved any sand so I think when people go there they won't get any concept of what it was like before we started, which is why the before and after photos are so much fun to look at. Because people won't believe that crazy,

some of the lamb was before we started moving it around so we could play golf on it. I think it's got a lot of really good holes. It's going to be one of the better courses in Australia. And it needs to be because it's a public course in world terms that are in remote place, but it's an hour from Sydney and Melbourne and it's close to how about. But it needs to be great for people to want to go and play. That's why bamboo Google works so well because people go there and they have a great time

and so much of Richard's businesses, people going back year after year and booking the same weekend, they's go back again. So it needs to be the same model as that and work as well as that. I'm curious. The comparison that I just make again, just from pictures and seeing the before and after as well, a similar site over in New Zealand, which is Terri Edie. I don't know if it's the same kind of pines that were there or the same kind of ground, the same kind of sand, all the stuff that is way above my pay grade.

But I'm just curious at all if that model or the success they've had and continue to have it looks like with the building of two new courses going on there was kind of in some way a blueprint or even more, I guess, give you even more confidence to say this process, clearing all this, moving this land and building and growing fescue grass here is going to work great and it's people are going to want to come play it. I'm curious if I'm making a connection at all that has crossed your guys mind. Well, we, I mean Matt started long before Tyredi was even thought of. He's been going at this for 12 years, but I've never been down there.

Mike DeVice has been there. And we spoke about going there and thought we actually don't want to there, because we don't want to copy what they've done. But you're right, the photos look exactly the same. I think we can, our limit, we can build within 50 metres of the high water line. And I think they couldn't go quite as close. But it looks very similar, lad. It's rolling sand dunes, covered in pine trees.

The irony of seven mub Seven Mile Beach was they tore down the indigenous Eucalypt forest to plant a plime plantation. And if they'd never taken out the indigenous Eucalypt, there was no chance you would have got a permit to build the golf course. Right. I mean, it took me a long time to get a permit anyway. But the only reason we got a permit to build the golf course

was that they'd torn down the forest of euclips that had been there forever and planted a lousy, cheap, fast-growing radiator out of pine crop that they just harvest it every year. And as you come in, there were lots of people who didn't want the project to happen, because people just don't want golf to happen in a lot of places. People who don't play golf don't necessarily like it. As you drive in, there's a sand mine there. So they're mounting the dunes for sand. So they couldn't really argue that we were trashing the sand dunes because

five minutes down the drive, they were destroying the sand dunes for a sand mine. So at least golf was kind of in their way preserving the dunes. And there was no value to the trees that run the site. So golf course was certainly improving it. What has been, you know, we may have touched on it already with the clearing of the land, but if, you know, what would be next on the list, I guess, as far as biggest challenges, if that's the biggest one, what have you been your biggest challenges? I know there's been, look like in the past month or so,

there's actually been some vandals that have set you guys back out there on this location. Yeah, I mean, they come in at the middle of the night. They're a lock gate, so you can't just go in the driveway and get in. So you've got to actually get on to the beach in a four wheel drive drive down the beach. Come up the sand dunes and come in to the back of the golf course. So I mean, you don't have anything better to do at midnight than to take your four wheel drive and spin it over a growing golf course on a wreck it You know so you know Mike spent the last two weeks just fixing up the greens

They tracked which is incredibly frustrating, but you know it is what it is But one of the biggest challenges was actually burning the trees there were 300 piles of pine trees and the permit Let us burn them if when it was less than And the permit let us burn them, when it was less than 16 degrees, so 65 degrees. When the wind was from, I think, the northeast and after 10 o'clock at night. So the guys who were burning them were out there

in the middle of the night sitting five of these 300 piles of pine trees. So that took forever to burn the trees. But we didn't have to wait till they were all burnt. But there were times when Mike was held up because he wanted to work on a hole and there were trees all over it. But it got done eventually. I'm wondering if you can kind of give us a little bit of a teaser as to what maybe some features that they are we can look forward to. There aren't many people in the world that have the depth of knowledge that you do about golf courses, the things you've seen, and a blank slate like this, or, you know, I know you've got partners, you've of course

that you're working with, I'm not saying it's just you drawing whatever you want, but the ability to kind of, I guess, on a site like this to really display all of what I think you appreciate about golf course architecture, and I wish I could describe it as articulately as you usually do. But what can we look forward to? What have you drawn inspiration from to say, hey, this greeno, at this point, I'm going about golf course architecture and I wish I could describe it as articulately as you usually do. But what can we look forward to? What have you drawn inspiration from to say, hey, this greeno at this course really inspired me to this specific feature and the little details of something that make a golf experience

that much better? Question, I think when we all like in the fashion of modern design and the fashion of the golden age, the fairways are wide. Australia's never had narrow fairways bordered by long grass, which is what the PGA2's encouraged. I guess 38 white fairways and rough down the side. So we've always had white fairways in Australia, Royal Melbourne being the widest, because it's such a big site. So there's lots of Royal Melbourne there in the sense that it's wide.

On every whole week, could have made this strategy, if you drive to one half of the fairway, you can see the green. If you drive to the other half, you can't because you're going over a June. So we've used that a bit, but we could have done it on literally every long hole on the golf course. So for 14 holes, we could have made that the strategy, which would have got incredibly boring. And if you're a bad golfer you... well if you couldn't drive it to the right place or figure out where to drive it you'd have gone there and hated the golf course because every shot was blind. But we've used that without overusing it. I think Melbourne's got the Sandbelt's got the best group of sort of 300 yard holes in the world. There are probably 10 great driver

bullish short path for us that in this age when the ball's going so far they're actually they're the one hole that's more dangerous because you can drive it. 30 years ago, 40 years ago there are iron's off the tees and wedges. Now guys can drive it, they're taking driver and they they can drive it on but they can also get into a lot more trouble. So we've got a couple of those that I think are great holes. Alec Russell, you guys didn't get a power parameter, I don't think you've never been a power parameter in New Zealand. New Zealand's worth doing, you know, I listening to that pod you just did on Scandinavia and New Zealand is the one place you could do it. Do a very similar trip and find lots of great golf. But Alec Russell, who did the East Coast

at Royal Melbourne, did essentially three par threes with no bunkers. There were two really short bunkers on the second hole. No bunkers at five, no bunkers at 15. So we've got two par threes with no bunkers. The second hole was a uphill kind of really skyline green, really, really difficult hole. We started off with a back tee in a front bunker, and it was 165 yards uphill, and it just looked wildly difficult. So in the end, the wind blew the sand

into the front bunker and that filled in, and we just never put it back. And we got rid of the back tee. So it's now 140 yards to a skyline grain, which is a really cool little short part three, with no bunkers, but it's an a big green, but don't miss it. So that's a really cool hole. And it's almost the one shot on the golf course. I think the second shot to the first, T-shot from the back

left, T at the second. The only two shots on the course where you can't see the water. But you go to the three forward T's and there's a great view of the water behind it. So it's a cool looking, it's a sort of part three people falling in love with because it's just got a great view but it's also a great whole. There are three holes going along the beach, 6-11 and 16 go along the beach. So the strategy at 6-11 is very much down the boundary at Sinan, as close to your drive to the beach, it's a bit of the line, the further the safer you play, it's a much more difficult second shot into those holes. But it's a past 72, it's kind of 7,000 yards,

so it's a bit into that trap of what modern golf is. But at some point, the elephant in the room is, the Australian opens in the room is, the Australian opens in Melbourne this year, it's come back to Melbourne after 15 years in Sydney. So it's at Kingston Heathen, Victoria. It's a mixed open men and women, full fields, but it's been 50 years since the open was in Perth, Brisbane, one off in Adelaide in 1998, and Hobart.

So four of the biggest cities in the country haven't seen the Australian open for 50 years. And they can't go. I don't think they can go 100 years. They can't go another 50 years without taking the Australian open back around the country. And it's been hosted to the commercial interest of the sponsors who won at Melbourne or Sydney. But as I said, the elephant in the room is at one point, I think they're gonna play the Australian Open here. So you can't really build a call 6,000, 6,000, yeah, of course, because it's just too short. So in the back of our mind is like,

there's a chance in the next 50 years there's gonna be an open here. We need to make it so it's a reasonable link for those guys. But there are lots of teas. It's one of the things that my division emphasized was the transitions from green to teas. I doubt there's a hole that's got more than a 15-yard walk from the green to the tea because the site is so good that when we were routing it, once you found a green, you could

literally walk 10 yards and find the next great hole. And you just went around for 18 holes, finding one great hole after another. And we had a lot of roundings here. The trick was to kind of eliminate, but well, to try and find the absolute best rounding. And one of the prerequisites of that was, there was no excuse for finding something that was at the easiest walking course in the world.

Because you could literally step up every grain. You could have played the old rule where you tied up within two sublinks of the hole and played the next hole pretty much. Pretty much you could have done that. So it's incredibly walkable. So it's all those things. It's width, it's walkable, it's great shortfalls,

it's some cool long holes. It's a championship length, which is, I hate that cliche, but in the back of our mind, we've got one doubt out, they're going to play an Australian open here, because they can't not play for the bigger cities in Australia for a century and take the open there. So at some point, that's going to break and it's going to move, start moving around the country again, which it needs to. Quick break here to check them with our friends at Woop, the personalized digital fitness and health coach

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now. Get the 4.0 for free, and right now Woop is months left of membership on your account, you can upgrade now. Get the four.0 for free. And right now, whoop is offering 15% off when you use code NLU15 at checkout. Go to whoop.com, WHOP.com, enter code NLU15 at checkout to save 15%. Let's go back to my Clayton. Well, that, I honestly had something I never really thought

about as far as an advantage of building courses these days is being able to factor in modern technology in the walk actually, you know, and making sure that you don't have to walk backwards to T boxes and things like that, which is I think, you know, people are looking for ways to speed up the game of golf. That's one right there. It's, that, you know, it sounds like it doesn't take that long, but it does. And it rerouts maintenance. It does all kinds of things that just make golf slow down.

And I know we want to get into some of that here eventually, which I want to pick your brain on this. You said wide fairways, big feature of Australian golf, big features of Seven Mile Beach. A lot of people when they hear wide fairways, they think easier. So how do you, as a golf course designer and architect, how do you challenge people through the use

of wide fairways? Why does that add to a golfing experience yet at the same time? How can you provide a challenge? You mentioned some of the things about hiding views from certain parts of the fairway, but I'm just wondering what your philosophy is or how you would tell someone like, hey, why doesn't it necessarily mean easier? It's probably going to be more fun, but it doesn't necessarily mean easier. Well, I rule Melbourne's the great answer to that question.

I mean, rule Melbourne's an easy driving course if you just wanna hit the fairway, but you never fix a pitch market, rule Melbourne. There are no pitch marks in the Greens here anymore. They're so hard now that, so if you're playing from the wrong side of the fairway, it's so much more difficult to get the ball close

to the hole. It's difficult to get the ball close to the hole anyway, because on a soft windlass golf course from 170 yards, you've got to hit a seven-iron or whatever you hit. You've got to hit the same shot you hit in the practice field that lands by the hole and stops. And if you hit a good shot it's inside 10 feet. Royal Melbourne if you've got a factor in the wind, the bounce, the speed of the greens, it's incredibly difficult. It had a 170-yard shot within 10 feet of the hole. Incredibly difficult. So it has the advantage of firm greens, which are going to be a feature of Semmobbich, not as fast because it's fescue

versus bent, and the wind. So whilst Bimbogl is crazy windy because it's in a crazy windy part of northern Tasmania This side is apart from this time of the year, which is You know, it's windy in the spring for a site on the sea It's nowhere near as windy as you might think it is, but there's always going to be wind So the test of the driver is to flight the ball through the wind and use the wind so when it's downwind You know to use the wind to So when it's downwind, you know, to use the wind to, you know, sailable through the air, hold it in the crosswinds, rip it through the wind when you're into the wind. It's not a test of straight driving, but it's a test of accurate driving to a point that leaves you the easiest approach or the approach shot where you can see the green

versus where you can't. And, flooding it through the wind properly. So driving is, which is the test, it's an Android really. You know, it's gotten narrower over the years because they've grown rough on it. But, you know, essentially, that's a wide golf course to drive the ball on, but you've got to flight the ball through the wind. And you've got to figure out for yourself where to hit it. You're not told where to hit the ball,

which is the most depressing part of, you know, the US Open is the US Open and we've seen great US Open's and they're fun to watch because you're watching the best players in the world choke and hit bad shots. And, but you're pretty much told where to hit the ball. You must hit it here. You know, if you don't hit it here, it's a one-shot penalty or it's a half a shot penalty or whatever it is, which is not the case on causes that are wider. You've got to figure out if you're self-made to go. But for the crooked driver, they're not going to lose many balls. They've got some leeway. They can, and if they're smart, they'll, with multiple plays of the golf course, they'll figure out which side of the hole is better to play towards.

Well, and that's where a few things that everything, all the elements you're talking about lead to great fun for me playing golf is one, when I got a stand on a tee and I got to worry about my driver's stopping, I got to worry about a bunker running out at a certain curvature of the fairway or a pot bunker that, you know, sits left center of this fairway that's 270 out that is a factor here because that's where the best angle is into that green. If the green is firm, all those factors you talked about with the shape of the green, the wind, the firmness of the greens, that is what the challenge of the

golf hole is. So it can kind of be quote unquote, easy off the tee, yet you're just kind of you're you're in a way shaping the degree of challenge for the next shot. When people say it's a second shot golf course, that's kind of how I grow to understand that definition. It's just not something that's super easy to replicate. I always use Hazelteen as my example here because Hazelteen is, you know, long par fours, bunkers on both sides rough and fairways are shaped, you know, very predictably. And it's not like you can just take these principles and copy them right over if you don't have the same soil. So much of it comes down to soil and green design and wind design and all that stuff. And I don't know if I have a question on top of that other than I just I love

talking about that and I absolutely love playing courses like that. Well, and golf is and we used to use to it in Australia because we play on well well certainly in Melbourne, we play on Firmground where the ball bounces. So, so much of the fun of the game is what the ball does after it hits the ground. We play a fun game at Bamboogle where, apart from the seventh hole where you kind of have to hit the ball on the ground because it's 120 out of part three and you can't run it up. We play a fun game where you're not allowed to land the ball on the ground. You have to land it short of the ground and bounce it on. And it's so much fun playing shots like that that

you just that they're shots that you just don't see anymore because it's so much more of an aerial game. And for good players, the ball goes so far that so many of the holes are short on it's but when you're back playing longer clubs and trying to run two and three and four on it's into the green, the game is so much more interesting and so much more fun to play. Let's go to that now, because we've, like I said, we've probably not talked equipment on this podcast

since February or March, just we've been, so we've had two hour long podcasts every week because there's something else going on the golf world that I think we could also talk with you about, some of the backend, but at the same time, it's almost has felt like it's been on the back burner

in terms of the evolution of the backend, but at the same time, it's almost has felt like it's been on the back burner in terms of the evolution of the distance debate discussion or equipment changes from the USGA and RNA. I want to kind of start at square one here. I'll ask the question first and then ask kind of the, go ahead and ask the follow up to it now, but do you believe the ball goes too far? And I want to preface this already with one, I know what your answer is, but do you believe the ball goes too far? And I want to preface this already with one I know what your answer to this is, but also that doesn't necessarily mean we're only referring to ball technology here.

But also, there's just a lot of people out there that don't want to hear any of that or don't agree with that or just don't want to have the discussion. But so to many of this, many people will fall in deaf ears. But what is your go-to explanation for people that have not seen the light, I would consider myself a convert in this. I did not believe this way in 2014, but I have been able to see around the corner and understand exactly what the issues are. But how would you explain to someone that hasn't seen the light yet?

Not to say they have to believe this. I'm not forcing them into it, but I'm just curious how you would have that conversation. Okay, well, the first point is the ball doesn't go far enough for most people who play. If they could make a ball that went 50 yards further for the average woman player who hits the ball 130 yards in the air, how much better would they get? How much more fun would the game be for them? And for all guys. And so for a lot of people who play golf, the ball goes the exact right distance.

For a lot of people who play golf, the ball goes the exact right distance. For a lot of people who play it doesn't go far enough. But for the best players, it goes way too far. And my argument is because, and the problem is, Australia doesn't have a voice in the debate. It's such an American centric debate. But all our great courses, Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, the Australian Royal Sydney Royal Queens and Royal Lake Clarence, all the great courses for the best players play so short now, because one of the ball runs and two of it goes so far. So we've played

a victory there, in a little tournament we have. Pretty much every part four for those guys, the guys who play well, is a driving a wedge or a driving a short iron, driving a nine iron. So the great courses that were built to challenge the great, the best players in the country, same in America, same in Britain, to hold the important championships. Don't play remotely close to the way their architects envisaged them playing. So Mackenzie came back now and saw a type of wood a drivetrain of 9.9 under the second at Royal Melbourne. He'd think, well, this was, I built this as a 265 yard long two shot per five. So it wasn't a three

shot hole, but even back in 9.26, you had to rip a drivetrain, rip a three, which were to run it on to the green. And then since then they've moved the T-back 40 yards. That's a driver in a seven-line. Now I think Mackenzie would get, okay, it's going from a driver, it's going from 465 yards in a driver 3-wood, to 490 yards. I think he'd be okay with it being a driver in a four-line, but not a driver in a nine-line, and not all those great par-forzy built- being drives and wedges and not all the great par-forzes at St Andrews and wherever you want to go, Stalingdale and all the great causes, Mary and turning into holes that the great architects who built them wouldn't remotely recognize. I think that'd be fine with, as I said, three woods turning into four-irons but not

three woods turning into nine-irons and not three woods turning into nine irons. And that's kind of a generalization, but it's largely true that because the bull goes so far, how do you build a long path for it anymore? How do you build a hole? I was just in a podcast, I think it was Andy Johnson talking about Andrew Green saying, he's building 288 par threes now

because that's the only way to test the three would or a long line And that's you know that was a legitimate test the 16th at Karnos the other great long par threes in the game the third at Marion Fourth of a gust off the back to the great one of the great test in golf was a three would or a long line into a par three Now he's right. How do you do that anymore? And unless you build a hole that's torn at 80 yards long, and who wants to play that, who wants to build it, who wants to play it? You know, the average golfer doesn't want to play torn at 80 yards. They want to play torn at 80 yards per fours.

And perhaps the trick is to, you know, the 11th at LA Country Club, where there was a course within the course, and you can make it a really interesting two-shot hole for the average player while still making it a par three for a tournament. That's kind of an architecture trick that if you get the right bit land you can maybe do that. Plus I think the one thing that the amateurs who run the game I suspect they've never thought of it. I see so many really good young kids playing golf now techniques are better,

because they've grown up with a phone, so they can see their swing for, there's an article in a golf Australia magazine this month, Nick Price says, when I first saw my swing, I almost threw up. And it was the same, I was the same, our generation, we never saw our swing, we didn't know what we did.

So when we first saw Pixar was like, my God, I do that, it's horrible. I was even real, a thugble had a similar reaction I remember that. So this generation of growing up with swings on their phone, they've seen how tiger swings, they've seen Louis Ustaz and they've seen the great swings and their great imitators.

As all kids are great imitators, so there's so many great techniques out there now. The problem with the equipment I think is that there's now thousands of kids around the world who all want to be golf pros. And some of them are going to make it, but most of them aren't. And the more difficult you make the equipment to use for those guys, the more difficult the driver is to use, the more difficult it is to flight the ball through the wind, the more difficult it is to drive the ball 300 yards. The more you can differentiate the kids with real talent,

before they turn pro and enforce the life of roads and shitty motels and planning mini tours and losing their money and go and get a proper job in a real life rather than trying to chase this impossible dream. And I was lucky enough to play decently as a pro and make a living out of that. And I really enjoyed it. But, you know, I think that the equipment has become, the drivers become such an easy club to use. There are thousands of kids around the world who can

drive the ball with an wear distance of the green and shoot great scores. So they all think they could enough to be pros. And they the tremendous players But the biggest favor the RNA in the US shake and do the thousands of kids who all want to be golf pros is make the equipment more difficult to use So in my era Greg Sevier who was a great driver despite what people think necklace obviously Watson the great players Could flight the ball through the wind with a steel shafted specimen driver with a blower ball. So the great players could, they were just a step ahead because they were so much better with one club because it was really difficult to use that club in the win with that ball. Now it's, it's way easier to, well, you don't have to, you know,

you have to hammer the modern ball through the win with the graphite shafted head with the, you know, with the frying pan head on it is not particularly difficult. Relative to what it was 40 years ago. So the best players in the world always won the open. Trevino, Wyce Cough, when he was playing great, Miller, when he was having a great year. Neckos was always there, Watson, Norman, who never won it but played well in the open. Because they could fly that thing through the wind Difficult ball difficult head difficult shaft in terms of it was heavy Heb was heb was small that was one club with the best players could break out of the pack and

And the next lot of clubs was with the long lines those blade the blade one and two and three eyes Which you know, I can still see Savian and Greg and hitting those towering one eyes that the rest of us couldn't hit. So they could break out of the pack just with their skills with the long clubs. You jack the ball back 50 yards, make it more difficult to drive it in the wind,

and you can get away from this, the stounts of kids who all think they're good enough to play on the pro tour. When there are only, well, there are 150 spots on the PJ tour, and there are 100 spots on the European tour, and there are 125 spots on the WebDoc on the Corn Ferry tour, and there aren't that many jobs.

Well, and it's also, I've been trying to yell this from the mountain tops, and you're saying it in a different way, in a huge element from this perspective, is is how easy it is to hit it far. And I get that there's all the data out there that shows, hey, track me an optimization. People understand ball flights better. They're more fit. They're able to create more swing speed on it. And what I'm saying is they're heavily, and I believe you're saying they're heavily,

heavily incentivized to follow that route because relatively speaking, the risk of wailing on the ball is low. And so the benefit of getting the ball further down there, far outweighs the risk of it going way offline, which in your era was a totally different question of can you hit the screws of this club and make it like if you wail on one, you better hit it on the center.

If not, it is gonna fly ugly, really ugly, even for the top level of the game. And now it is just, hey, send it, send it, send it, send it, send it. And it now it's, it's risky to not go down that obvious path to improvement of hitting it far. We haven't really even seen the trickle down effect of all of this stuff, you know, of this impact so far to this point. And it just is going to lead to, and it already has lead to less and less diverse playing styles is how I would define it. Yeah.

A friend of mine sent me this note the other day. And I don't think he'd mind you, mind me sharing it. I launched with Bryson about a year ago. I seen him occasionally at Dallas National. We talk about all things golf. He knows my game quite well. We fit balls together, but I'd digress. He said, if he and I played a ball that spins, the equivalence, the old ball, the old ball out of ball. And he swings with as much effort and

speed as he does with a current ball. I win eight out of ten times. They're playing a handicap match. He's reasoning that my swing speed, that spin, I fought four to five balls out of play, and I don't think I can spot you eight to 10 shots. There's one of the best players in the world saying, I would play completely differently with a different ball. I would, I did the ball four to five, four to five times around, I'm hitting it where I can't play it. So the one that game is, so the equipment's fundamentally

changed the way they play. And it's fundamentally changed the way golf courses play and you can't we don't want to go on you know the guys that say we'll just go and build 48,000 yard golf courses. Well that was who's building who wants to build a golf course for one tour of the year. It's stretching out the dip that really that difference between the pro game where are these pro golf courses going to go and it tends to go to more boring golf courses, I would say the fact that some of the some of the courses you've named here are not suitable for the pro game and you get and that's where like you gave very specific reasons as to why they're not suitable for the pro game and more the driver wedge test is not what makes Kingston Heath a great golf course like Like, it's not. It's the variety of skills put to test. And, you know, I hear people just say, like, hey, things evolved, man.

Like, you gotta keep up with the times here, man. And it's like, there is an element of sustainability to it all. The most simple definition, and it's probably, it's not the technical definition of sustainability, but somebody said this to me once, like, hey, can you do this thing forever? This one thing, can you do this thing forever? This one thing, can you do it forever? And if the answer's no, that's by definition something it's unsustainable.

And it's like, yeah, the ball can't keep going further and you can't keep building golf courses and going back to ease and doing all that. And I get, yeah, I feel like I'm arguing with myself some of these times, but it's not a, the specific point of this is a variety of skills that should be tested on a golf course. And if you make everything driver wedge,

it is inherently makes the game less interesting, right? And I think that's a hard, it's a hard point to make. It's like, what should the pro, can I promise the pro game is gonna go way up in ratings if they dial everything back? I don't know if I can, but I know for for hardcore golf fans, this would make a pretty big difference

in watching the game. Is that enough to move the needle and inspire the change? And is that the question that the USGA and RNA are trying to figure out right now? How worth it is it to try to put some of the toothpaste back in the tube to answer these questions that, hey, these two golf sickos that are talking right now, everything they're saying to me makes a lot of sense, but hey, we're making

a different decision here. Our decision inputs are different here. How do you see that playing out? Well, I think you have to bifurcate it for start. Although, I go two ways on that. You bifurcate the game, so they should make a ball. If they can, make a ball that goes further for women and all guys, it would be great if they can make a ball, if they can, make a ball that goes further for women and all

guys. It would be great if they could make a, you know, take all the limits off and make a ball that goes 30 yards further, pull it back 10% for the pros. Because it's such an American centric debate, what almost every American doesn't understand is that we rolled the ball back in Australia and the rest of the world. 40 years ago when we adopted the Big Ball, we lost 25 yards in distance. No one complained about it really. Peter Thompson was why we blindly following America, which was a good point, but changing to the Big Ball fostered the great generation of international players,

because they were never going to be able to compete in America while they were changing back and forth from the Big Ball to the small ball. So Greg would come back to Australia, David Graham, they would come back and play with the Big Ball in Australia, but they were giving out 25 yards in distance. So inevitably they started swapping back and forward, that never worked. So, we've been through a rollback. And the evidence was, no one gave up golf, no one complained.

The golf was just as much fun. To me, the manufacturing lobby is a bit like the cigarette lobby or whatever lobby it is. They're always going to lobby for their own point of view and watch best for their business. Not what's necessarily best for the game. When the cigarette companies weren't lobbying for what was best for the health of Americans and Australians, they're arguing for what was best for their bottom line, when they well knew that cigarettes were killing people. But that's not what they're going to argue. So the government in that case, the administration, the case of golf, they've got to look past the self-interest of the manufacturers and what's best for the game. Clearly, I think, rolling the ball back and respecting the way the great architects wanted their golf courses to play.

And the great minds of the past, Nicklaus and, and how what they saw as the test of golf. You know, Hogan's one-on into the last at Marion was, you know, and now they've got a two-way back, so Justin Rose was in for-on, but Point remains that, you know, that's one of the great shots in golf. Was Hogan's one-on to a powerful greener? Now, where is a path for anywhere in the world that's a drivin or one on unless it's into a 50 mile an hour win? That doesn't exist anymore so I

I think People would find that game will be way more interesting to watch for the best players it will be way more interesting to play and the silence of the Players is bought by the manufacturers who I know they tell them stop talking about this This is not what we want you guys talking about. So none of them comment on it. But if you're a Roy McAroy,

or you're one of the, or Bryson De Chambel or Dustin Johnson or whoever, one of the best players in the world, I assume if you said to them, would you like the equipment more difficult to use? The best players by definition want the equipment to be more difficult to use because they've got a bigger advantage. Which is why Nick was had the advantage and why definition want the equipment to be more difficult to use because they've got a bigger advantage.

Which was why Nick was had the advantage and why Jones had the advantage because they were the better players. So the most difficult the equipment was to use the more advantage they had. That's the scary thing about Tiger is if the ball didn't change right around the time that he hit his peak, like that, who knows how much he would have been able to separate himself. I mean, it was, I mean, when he wanted at the Gusta in 97, that was with all what equipment for pretty much everyone. He wins by 12.

And by the time he was using the, he was no longer using the well and ball, I believe it pebble and he wins that by 15. And eventually people catch up and he won a ton of majors after that. But the margins of victory thinned out quite a bit, right? And that's, that's to your point of like the ability to truly separate now pretty much comes down to if you have an insanely hot putter, right? Because there's a bunch of dudes that hit it,

not exactly the same, but it's just really hard to be that much better than the second best guy. Yeah, I think we appreciated Tiger at the time. We did do me, but I don't, you know, I don't think we realized how great he was. That's what he did, but, you know, I think people are going to look back in 50 years and say, well, you saw Tiger Woods play golf, which was a bit like you saw, I mean, for me, you would love to see Bobby Jones, but I saw it's need play, but I never saw Hogan play. And, you know, you just

wish you could see those guys play at their best and it was, I saw Tiger play at Hoi Lake in that 2006 open which was phenomenal. I saw him win the last round of Beth's page 2002 which was shot 72 but the ball striking was off the charts great. And I saw him play at Royal Melbourne in the president's cup when he beat Ancer on the way to 1 or 3 and 2, but it was a, he was clearly the best player there, which I guess ties into the debate was when you've got a great course like Royal Melbourne, even though it played so short for him. He was clearly the best player there. He charred his way around that golf course so cleverly and brilliantly and he just hit every shot in the singles was just the exact same right shot to hit.

And there was no one, I mean, though, of course, a lot of fantastic players there, but on that golf course, he showed what he was the best player in the world. 15 years or 10 years after he was table beach in San Andreas in 2000. He was, it was 20 years later. And he was still the best player there.

And you could just see it activate something within M.Almost like this process slowed down a little bit, he's thinking his way through it. That was one of the great golf tournaments of the decade. Honestly, golf events of the decade was that president's cup at Roel Melbourne. And so yeah, what is going on now? With the USGA and RNA these days,

there was an update to their distance report, I believe, in February or March this past year. Do you get the sense that things are ready to change? Are going to change? What's the timeline looking like for that? How close are you keeping your finger on the pulse of this one? I don't have any insight, but I suspect if I was betting betting, I would bet that they're gonna roll the ball back. And what does that mean? For the best players, you take it back 10%.

The evidence of Australia and the rest of the world was, they didn't bifurcate it when they went back to, when they swapped from the small world to the big ball. So everyone lost distance and no one complained. So the question is, do you just do that? And the average player loses 10 yards or whatever he loses. For me, I drive it 250 yards maybe on a good day now. I'm not going to lose 25 yards,

Bryson is a shambles, but I'm not going to lose it. Because I didn't pick that up, so I'm not going to lose it. Or you just let us play with the ball the way it is. And you create a ball for top tournament play, which was what happened in Australia in the late 70s and early 80s when I won the Australian Amateur in 1978, which was not the point of the story, but I was the only guy in the field using the big ball because I'd figured out that if I want to be a golf pro, I'm going to have to learn to play with this ball. So mid-77, I threw all my small balls out and started playing with the big ball.

And within two years, all the best amateurs in Australia were playing with the big ball. So people say, what torments do you, what torments become, roll back ball torments and which ones don't? Well, it sorted itself out within a couple of years on the amateur circuit. The Australian amateur was mandated, big ball tournament. All the big amateur torments, most of the guys were playing a big ball.

It just kind of sorted itself out. Because amateur golf at that level is populated by kids who want to be pros. So if they want to be a pro, you're going to have to play with a pro ball. So that'll sort of self out really quickly, I think. Yeah, that's the big outstanding question. For me too, and I don't have a great answer for it because I think I'm in favor of bifurcation. But you had mid-AM tournaments.

Do you play a role back ball that they play in the pros or do you play the amateur funball? That's where the line needs to be drawn, but I still think an awkwardness around that is better than the alternative. That's what I see this too with the changes that are coming to the PGA tour and saying, well, look at the sponsors of the small events. And I just, to that, I'm screaming, you have to throw out the status quo, or you have to stop anchoring yourself to what is Current in this and that know that if you upset the apple cart. Yes

There's gonna be someone to pay somewhere to pay for this But that you have to weigh the pros and cons of doing that and I think like if the big question becomes who uses The rollback ball and who doesn't I think that's a better alternative than like hey This is like not really not sustainable and golf is getting kind of dumbed down to just a couple of skills. And I think my perspective on this changed right around 2019 into 2020. We were working on a documentary where I was going to try to practice and get as good as I could at golf and see if I could qualify for the US Open, we're going to film the whole thing.

COVID through a big curveball at that. But I was playing five, six times a week, way too much golf, and I started to play really good golf because I think I figured out that, I'm only gonna hit so many mid-Irns in a round. Let's figure out how to hit. I use the low spin ball.

We're gonna drive it to around this spot and we're gonna hit nine Irns and end down and I'm gonna master the 150 shot, the 160 shot and I kinda did and my scores dropped astronomically and it was kinda like, that was a light bulb going off for me of kinda like, oh, there's kind of a, I don't wanna say a cheat code here, but it's kind of a, I know exactly what need to work

on to improve by a lot and yeah, that was, that was an interesting kind of thing to go for because I think it's,'s got a million different ways We can go with this and and a million different reasons why you know the downstream effects this all has But the scale of the game is a big one to me like the answer to everything isn't just like playing a a hole with a rolled back ball at 420 is not the same as playing you know ball that goes forever at 470 and like the the cone of how you hit shots It's different. It's a totally different game

and it puts that much more emphasis on the driving skill. It really does it. That light bulb went off from me there when I played the backties at Pine Valley. And I like, you barely see the fairway on some of these holes. They're so far back there and I'm a pretty arant driver. And when you take my cone from way back when the fairway starts 200 yards away from me,

it all of a sudden brings a different element into the golf hole than that. Again, I don't have a question on that. So, thanks, Eddie Goughbuckchess. And the other point I continually make is the freaking one generation, all the way back to Ted Ray in the turn of the last century. The freaking one generation has always become the norm in the next. Through Jimmy Thompson, Sam Sneed, Nicholas, the last century. The Freaking One Generation has always become the norm in the next. Through Jimmy Thompson, Sam Sneed, Nicholas, Daily, Davis Love, probably Bryson now, they've always become

the norm in the next generation. So you know that there are a bunch of third-year-old kids out there looking at Bryson and Dustin and they're figuring out how to hit the ball 350 hours. They'll figure it out. It's all about speed and strength and the game isn't sustainable when it's populated by, I mean now it's at 320 hour drivers. When it's 30 to 350, the scale is the world. The game is so out of scale. When a 500-yard hole, which was formerly a long two-shot hole, becomes a drive and a short-line, the scale is completely out. And if McKenzie and Jones came back, they would be horrified at what's going on. And the question for the administration is how much respect do you have for those guys? Do you have any respect for the way Bobby Jones thought the game should be played?

And do you have any respect for the courses of Elsmeckens, the Indonor Ross and Tilling Haas and Tom Simpson and Harry Colt? Do you have any respect for what they did and the courses they designed and how they wanted those courses to be played? And if you have no respect for them and don't care that the first at St. Dales are driving a wedge now, then it doesn't matter. But if you respect the way the great minds of the past thought about the game and they wanted it to play, then you've got to do something about the ball. And driving should be, as it was, you know, in my generation, with Nicklas and Norman, as though all those guys, driving should be the ultimate test of, and the ultimate test is driving on a Lynxcrot guys, driving should be the ultimate test.

The ultimate test is driving on a Lynxcorks, which is why the open has always been the great different headshadowing. It was why the open always found the best bow in the world, because you had to drive that ball out of ball through the wind. It took a lot of skill to do that. The guys who dominated that tournament in the 60s and 70s and 80s were always the best drivers of the golf ball. Always the guys who could rip the ball through the wind. And just so we're given enough credit to all aspects of this too. I am at least of the stance

that the driver head size is too big or the sweet spots are too big. I don't know enough about the details, but I know it's giving permission for guys to whale on it as well. So I don't know if rolling the distance back in, adding spin to the ball addresses that. I really don't or if it's giving permission for guys to whale on it as well. So I don't know if we're rolling the distance back in, adding spin to the ball addresses that. I really don't, or if it's a little bit from each of those pieces to say, hey, let's make this just a little more, a little more challenging to do it. But yeah, I mean, I'm in the great ball drop was losing the case, the pin case.

That was the scary moment for the administration was we don't wanna take these manufacturers on cause it's gonna cost us a whole bunch of money. But it's hard to believe they were arguing about an infantestible measurement on a groove. When years later, they let the driver head size almost double. Yeah. How did you let that happen? years later, they let the driver head size almost double.

How did you let that happen? You know, you spent fortunes in a court arguing about the eighth of an inch on a groove or whatever it was. You let the driver go from the size of a standard per semen driver to what it is now. But how did you let that happen? Surely you can see what was going to happen. Or one of the results of that happening was that God's going to start swinging the

thing a lot harder than they do now. And of course, that's what happened. Well, and it doesn't feel ridiculous to pick up a 460 CC driver when you do it every day, but the couple rounds I've played with either Per Simmons or Hickrae's or something like that. The second you put the other one back in your hand, you're like, wait a second here. How do we, how do we come this far? But unless I know you got a lot going on here,

but we can't let you out here without talking about some of the, some of the changes that have gone on in the golf world this past year. But in particular, I wanted to get an Australian's view on this because I, we've seen several Australian players leave the PGA tour and DP World Tour for, for live. I'm, I'm wondering just to set the list. I know you, you've documented your takes on this in a lot of different places, but for listeners sake, what's your overall

reaction to the the shake up in the professional game this past year? Well, it's been the biggest topic of obviously. I think the average Australian golf fan is excited about live because I get to say the best players in the world play here. So they're going to play in Adelaide, I think, in April. Sounds like there's going to be an Asian to event mixed in with it the week before. So Australians are generally excited about the fact they're going to see the best players in the world play here. The thing that kind of annoys me is that people think the world to us Greg Norman's idea. It was Peter Thomson's idea.

Peter Thomson was writing about this in the 60s, and he not only wrote about it and spoke about it, he won the year past up an exemption to Augusta, to play in the Indian Open. So he essentially started the Asian Tour. He was a big part of promoting the game in Japan, played in Europe and Britain when he was the best non-American player in the world. He came back and played in Australia every year for no apparent... He never took any appearance money. So that is as much as I hate the phrase growing the game. That's what you do to nurture the game and grow the game outside of America. And Thompson recognized the game needed that because there weren't enough jobs in America. There weren't enough jobs for all the people who wanted to be pro golfers. There weren't enough jobs in the world.

So he said about promoting the game around the world and he did an amazing job at it. And of course there are lots of other players who contributed to that, but Bobby Locke and Tony Jacken and the great world-wide players. So this notion that Greg's createded the World Tour and the World Tour was his idea is completely wrong and this is for 48 players. It's not for Thomas was talking about tournaments that had the fields of a hundred or four, 144 fields that gave everyone a chance to play. So let's just wait ourselves with a notion that World Tour was Greg's idea. The one reason Australians are angry with America is that the rap around tour stopped our best players coming home to play out tour and it largely killed off our

tour. We really don't have a tour anymore. We've got a bunch of small $250,000 tournaments that have been cobbled together and the PGA in the open, we've got two really good tournaments, but even now they're playing for a million and half dollars or two million dollars, whatever it is, not in world terms, not that much. So the wrap round tour stopped all our best players coming home at the end of the year. So our tour kind of died because of that.

There's no love for the PGA tour in Australia, because and it's not their job to care about the rest of the world, but the wrap round tool killed off our tour. It really hurt the big tournaments in Japan. Europe spreading out into the early part of the year and the later part of the year. Their better players coming down to Australia. But it's really a small part of the debate really. You know, you can talk about Saudi Arabia and the human rights thing and they're appalling at that

and should they be taking their money, probably not would be my view, but it is what it is. But this notion that, you know, Gregg's a great businessman. I mean, Gregg's run some incredibly successful businesses, but I don't think you get any points for running a great business when a sovereign world fund gives you an unlimited budget.

Like I could start up any number of great businesses if someone gave me an unlimited budget. And you didn't need a return on it? I mean, I didn't need a no return on it. They claim they need a return on it, but that would, that's specifically to, you know, if you can't say the quiet part out loud and this is one big sports washing agent. Yeah, so it is what it is. As someone who doesn't really have a dog in the fight, you know, it's fascinating to watch the politics play out

and it's fascinating to see what's going to happen over the next few years. I mean, they keep saying that, you know, there are another bunch of guys about to sign up with them. Perhaps there are, perhaps there aren't. The Cameron Smith debate to me was interesting. My take would be, we all thought Jeff Ogrevey and Adam Scott were more than one major guys,

but they turned into one major guys. Cameron Smith is a tremendous player who's had a great year, brilliant year, really. On the players, Tournament Champions and the British Oatlands. That's amazing here. The question is for him is here one major guy, or is he a model major guy? Now, the unanswerable question is,

if someone's said, Jim Cameron, you can stay on the PJ tour, and I'll guarantee you win three or four majors, because you're playing against the best players in the world. Staying sharp, you're free of the distraction of all the live stuff. Or you can go and sign up for a hundred million plus dollars. But you're only going to win one major. That's going to be you're a one major guy. What does he do? Now a hundred million million is a lot of money. It sets up his family. Not this generation or wealth thing is, I'm sure you can read books about all the problems of generation or wealth.

There's gonna be a terrible thing to have generation or wealth. But it's a lot of money. Do you swap potentially two or three or four more majors for the $100 million? For me, there's only one answer to that question. Of course you don't. You take the masters on the US open

and you sit down when you're 50 years old and say that was a pretty substantial career. Or do you become a one major guy and take the money? He still might win, and I'm sure it's the decision he's made in his head that I still think I can win major championships, playing the lift to it. And that's the unanswered question, is how competitive are those guys gonna be?

Playing 14 times a year in no-cut, no pressure, no events. And you can say this pressure for the money, but what's Dustin Johnson made this year? $35 million? On does not have the upfront money, which is, yeah. Insanity. There's no pressure, not relative to major pressure. So how competitive do you stay in more than exhibitions, but there's

not the pressure of, well, I'm asking you maybe to speak for for more people than, than just yourself here. And I can certainly understand why an alternative to the status quo, the PGA tour dominance being the status quo. Yeah, absolutely. Why that would be appealing for Australians, any alternative? My question I guess is, do you think live is it, right? Because I have long clamored for an alternative to the PGA tour and what they provide from an entertainment standpoint.

And I have firmly planted my stake in that I do not think live is that for many different reasons. You put moral issues aside. Like, I just don't think this is the answer. The main thing being they're not going to get everyone because of who they are. And we're going to get a fracture golf world. So that's my question is, you know, there seems to be a lot of people, a fair amount of people, I should say, that are out there for an alternative and are desperate enough for one that they've convinced themselves that live is it.

So in your perspective, and what do you think for on behalf of Australian fans, is live going to be the answer on that entertainment front? Well, no, it's not because there aren't enough players in it and there aren't enough tournaments, but the alternative is a great world tour, what Thompson wanted. And it's the tiger effect. I mean, there was the Sevy generation created great torments outside of the United States in the 1980s, because Sevy felt a Lange Laal was them, Nick Price was short period and Greg,

when they played in Europe. The Australian PGA was a great torment. The Australian Open was a great torment. The Tahoe Masters and the Dunlop Phoenix, Nick Cassia were great great tournaments in Japan. There were great tournaments outside of America, but the Tiger Woods, Tiger was such a game-changing person. Both the way he played the game and the money exploded in America.

The generation following Sebi's generation, Westwood, Polter, Darren Clark to a lesser extent, McAroy obviously, Luke Donald decided that, and that were right, because all the money flowed to America. And why would you play in Europe for what they were playing for in Europe when you're one of the best players in the world, and you could play for so much more money in America. I mean, the money went nuts when Tiger came out and the person's exploded. So inevitably the game, the hub of the professional game, it was always in the United States, really. But it gravitated to America.

They dragged all the best players from around the world to America, Matt Siamma, all about Adam Scott, all the best Australians, Jeff Ogleby, they all went to America. And it kind of diminished the European tour certainly diminished the Japanese and he's straight into it But the alternative for the PGA too is a great world to out and if Greg was promoting Let's go and create 45 or 40 45 is too many gate golf needs an offseason these Thomas at the end of the America I mean who watched that thing last week in Bermuda? I mean, no one cares who wins that tournament. No one's watching it.

What it needs is a great circuit outside of the United States where you play around the world. You play what Thompson and Vigil, a great Japan open, a great New Zealand open, a great South African open, a great swing through the Middle East, a great swing through the European summer. It will be an amazing circuit.

So that was what Liv was trying to create. Then that would be the best thing for Golf ever. And that's what I think what Golf needs. Golf doesn't need a diminished European tour where their best 10 players on the main list go and play on the PGA tour the next year. How's that good for the European tour? The game needs to be vibrant outside of America.

That means creating a great world tour. And it was a chance missed and it wasn't their fault because you can't blame 25-year-old men for even thinking about it. But if someone had said to Sevy and Greg and Nick Price and that generation, we're going to create a great world tour. We're going to play for the equivalent prize money as America. We're going to go around the world and promote the game in our own countries. We're going to play in each other's countries and

create a great world tour. That would be the best tour in the world now because it would have had 40 years start. And you you emphasize playing great golf courses. You emphasize going to cities that love golf that want to see the best players in the world playing every year. But we've kind of done the opposite and live sort of You know, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying,

I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying,

I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've been saying, I've Scott, and I have no insight into what he's doing. Cameron, you're so, you're so, you're rising to shame.

You know, you get to watch some of the best players in the world playing some of their best courses. A big thing for me is the light bulb a bit going off this year of how, like what you just said, if the top players in the world have gotten in a room together and come up with a way to design a world tour Basically it would have been a great thing for golf But the key there being the top players not communicating enough with each other not coming up with a overall plan to Address any issues a lot of people a lot of the top guys the guys that have left have issues big or small with the PGA tour

How it's run with the DP world tour how it's's run, how the money's shared, how the decisions are made, all that. Yet there was never like a, the meeting in Delaware being that historic was like, the top players don't get in the same room and come to an agreement of how can we create value together? How can we do this? There's, they for a long time have not really realized the power that they hold within their own tours to push issues forward make changes within it because there's no unity. Phil can come to Jay Monhan and say, Hey, I believe this is the change. Bob, blah, blah. And Billy Horser can have his ear that's totally different in Kevin knock and have his ear and be totally different. James Han is saying something different to him and the way the tour is structured. There's no, there's no message. But look at when the top players got in the room together and said, Hey, Jay, make this

happen. Elevate these events for this and we're all going to play them. Make it happen. It happens. It's not done done deal, but it happens. So that's where I guess some of my, it's hard. I don't know where to lay the blame on an ability to get some of this stuff done because I hear exactly what you're saying on Australian players not be able to come back and play this

time of year in Australia and how the the wraparound season has has wrecked that. That's one of the things that's going away and the players are not going to be, it's not going to be the part of the FedEx cup season starting next year. How could we have gotten to that faster? So it happened before the got Australians went up and left. These came Smith and Leish, especially like we're almost there. If that was such a big part of the decision, which we all know money is a much bigger part of the decision.

But if that was one of them, how could we have gotten there as a group? I say we as if I'm one of the players and I'm not, but I just, my interests are always looking out for what I think to be the most entertaining golf, right? And I think the PJ Tours is through just so much stuff being shaken at them and so much stuff falling through. They've kind of cleaned out a lot of stuff hopefully and it will make a better product. Hopefully, I mean, TV is a different discussion.

But getting those guys together more often is gonna be a great thing. Now, is that at the expense of the DP World Tour, Australia Tour, Asian Tour? I would say yes. I think that's pretty obvious at this point, but does that give the world the most entertaining golf is, you know, an ever-evolving discussion?

I don't have a great answer to it. Yeah. And the other thing that people don't ever talk about is the influence of the managers. So of course, the player managers are going to push their guys to live because they're getting, I'm assuming, they're getting hopefully not more than 10%. If they're paying them 20% of these contracts, they're crazy.

But the European tool was strong. When the money in America exponentially wasn't the incredible amount of money they played for now. I mean, Curtis Stranger was the first guy to win a million dollars in 1989 or something or Tom Coyne made. I think it was Curtis. But the European players stayed in Europe and played in Europe because they were getting pretty good appearance fees. But the appearance fees they were making in Europe, once Tiger turned up, were dwarfed by the extra prize made they could play by by playing in America

So it's a you know the games Complicated and it's evolved and it's changed and the politics and what's gonna happen is this is the one of the most interesting times in golf ever It's fascinating what's gonna how it's all gonna play out But golf is not better when it's not strong around the world and one of the benefits of the live thing Seems to be they're gonna throw a trucker to cash at the Asian tour, which I played the Asian tour in the early 80s and it was a complete challenge.

There were 10 tournaments cobbled together. And apart from the Japanese who ran the last tournament incredibly well, they would make the same mistake every single week. There'd be something crazy that happened because they were just 10 tournaments cobbled together to make a circuit. But there's lots of money in Asia and there's lots of interesting golf in Asia and there

are some decent golf courses to play on and it should be a good touring Asia. So one of the benefits might be that the Asian Tour becomes the thriving tour. And if you're a young Australian player, do you go to the European tour school, the Asian tour school, that was never a question until now. Probably now they're better off going to the Asian tour school. So, you know, how this all plays out is, and the problem is that it's going to take 20 years before there's a clear answer. No one has a clear answer. No one's got really a vision of what's going to happen. We're all guessing. In 20 years we'll look back and go, well, he should have done that and Pelle should have done this and my hands should have done that and Norman should have done that and Bryson should have done that and Cameron Smith should

have stayed in the whatever. There are going to be a whole lot of unforeseen circumstances and consequences that no but no one knows what they are now. Which is why at the same time, it's fascinating, it's scary, it's all those things, it's the games in turmoil and how it all falls out will be fascinating to watch. And hopefully it comes out better at the end of it. I do think that there is, I'm surprised there's not more chatter around this. It felt like the co-sanctioned event between the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour at the Scottish

Open last year seemed like a great success. And I think more things along those lines, more strengthening the PGA Tour can have with any of the world tours seems like a win and that race to Dubai points were given out for that one. Cash was given out and FedEx cut points. And it was, it was, you know, you're simply watching that one tournament yet there's all kinds of sub races going on underneath it that were, you know, that combination seemed to work really well.

And, you know, if they're gonna start elevating events, why wouldn't some of these elevated events go to other places around the world to help support? Like, Hadecki Matsuyama's made an enormous commitment to the PGA tour and brought an entire market to the PGA tour How do they go about rewarding him for that and you know, does that All stuff that is above my pay grade, but It does seem like

There's a chance and you know is the answer now that this fall season is no longer a part of the the wraparound season does a Bunch of cash grab events in other countries, including Australia, including Korea, including Japan, and including the Middle East. Do those happen in the fall that are not optional? But hey, if you're going to put up 20, 25 million bucks, Roy McQuare is probably going to show up at the Australian Open if that was the case, if that was a co-section. I don't know. That's just where it's like, does this open up the fall season really give

an opportunity for World Golf to take off outside of live and I don't I don't know the answer of that. And we need I mean team's golf is great. I mean the most fun we had as kids was playing team golf. It was brilliant. You know in Australia there were always the six states played junior and senior matches amongst each other. So it was the first time that you know I met Wayne Gradian, played golf with Wayne Gradian, played a senior in. So team's golf is brilliant fun. So we need more team's golf, we need more match play, we need, we're serving up the same 7-2-Hole stroke play week after week gets pretty tiring and pretty boring and pretty old. And you know the people love the presence cup, they love the president's cup.

They love the runner cup way more than that other president's cup. But when the president's cup comes to Australia, I mean, perhaps it's not such a big deal in America, but the president's cup in Australia is a mess if 12 people love watching the president's cup. It's a great event. One of my takes is that it should go. It should never be in the US.

It should go around in America. You're right. It should never be in America. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It should never be in America. I It should go around America. You're right, it should never be in America. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It should never be in America. I see the other side to the argument, but I think it should be a mixed event.

I think with six women and six men, it would differentiate itself from the right of cup. I think it would be great for women's golf, and I think it would be really fun to watch. I think it would be a really cool event. So, and it's always gonna be the poor man's right of cut. But if they change it and make it a mixed event, then the international team

become the automatic favorites because the six, like guess six or seven of the best 10 women in the world would play on the international team. So, you know, I think that would be a compelling event. It would be great to watch. And I understand why people would have the opposite view. But for me, if I was arguing it, then that's a no brainer to make it a mixed event. And you're right. Don't play it in America. It doesn't

need to be in America. I'm assuming the money is the reason why I'm sure they make a ton of money off the domestic ones. But yeah, if you can bill it, if you really want to cater to American, American arrogance, you can bill it as the Americans taking their talents on the road to show the world or something like that. I don't know. Yeah, the state government here in Melbourne paid a PGI to a $30 million for President's Cup. So the events making plenty of money. I mean, there were plenty of, well, perhaps perhaps that's why it keeps coming back to Melbourne because it's the one government so the PGA too can find and keep paying for it. But it's in Canada. And the next time like Canada doesn't count, that's not going, that's not counting. It needs to go to Japan and

South Africa. It was great in South Africa. It's great and a straight. I was at the one in Korea, the last day in Korea was a brilliant day in Korea. So when it goes out, It's great in Australia. I was the one in Korea, the last day in Korea, it was a brilliant day in Korea. So when it goes outside of America, South Africa, Korea, and Australia, it's always a much more compelling event than it is when it's in America, I think. And partly, that's the home course

at the home town of Vanity American South when they're playing at home. It's not as easy for them playing outside, you know, playing away from home. Well, last topic here, I want to be respectful of your time as well, but you mentioned it earlier and I made sure we had to come back to this

one two of the Vic open. And I don't remember how many years now it's been where it's been a mixed tournament between men and women, two different tournaments going on at the same time on the same golf course, alternating pairings between the men's and women's tournament. tournaments going on at the same time, on the same golf course, alternating pairings between the men's

and women's tournament, watch that on a television. It's just fantastic television. The Australian Open this year is Kingston Heath and Victoria, as you mentioned, if you wanna go to our YouTube channel, we got videos we filmed there five years ago on those exact golf course, two of the best golf courses in the world.

Mixed event, same format, is that right? And it's two different tournaments for this as well, but it's men's and women's yet. Two different tournaments. So the players swap between Kinks and Heathen Victoria, the first two rounds, the weekend's up Victoria. The same deals to Vicko, except that it's not an LPJ event. So the Vicko event was great when it was an LPJ event,

because it's not all the best players come down, but lots of the best LPJ event. So the Vic Open was great when it was an LPJ event because the best, not all the best players come down, but lots of the best LPJ players come down. So the women's field is not going to be great this year because there are not very many LAT players coming down because I'd think it's the same week as the LPJ tour school. The Europeans have a week, and torment the week before, so they don't get here to choose day night. So they've got to play or see two courses on Wednesday before they play on Thursday. So the women's field is not going to be great. And for it to work, I think at some point

it needs to be an LPJ tournament. But the concept is really good. The courses are great, Camus is playing. So they're going to hang on Minji Lee who's top three in the world, Camus Smith who's top three in the world, Memorley who's great fun to play, Lee Schman, Adam Scott's playing.

So Young, he's gonna play, so the top end of the women's field is pretty decent, but once you get below 30 or 40 players, it's gonna be not that strong, which is gonna be a problem. And the question is, I mean, those courses, when you set them up for the women's open was the Victoria in 2014, I think, before it went to Adelaide, the trick is how you set those courses up, how hard do you make the greens? Because obviously the mannequin's spin it much easier

than the women can spin it. So if you're going to play concrete hard greens like those greens and all the own tournaments, how do you manage that when you're playing with when the women are playing who play a much different game? So that's going to be a trick. I think they'll manage it. Okay, I think they're not going to get the greens as crazy fast as they normally do, which is a good thing. So the concept is really good, but if it's going to grow and develop, I think we need to get a stronger women's field. I look forward to watching that though. I think again, it's delight. I mean, it just gives you a double the chance of having an exciting finish, right? If someone has a big lead on

the women's side, and then the men's side might be interesting or vice versa. And I just, it's, I was amazing how easy it is to watch two tournaments at once when it's, you know, all playing the same course. And you just saw all so and so play, you know, the men play this 13th hole. Now you see the final group of the women come through. It's just, it's really fun. Yeah, yeah. And the concept was great.

And it's a play Victoria. We played Victoria on, what's today? On Monday we played. The course looks fantastic. The weather's been terrible in here. We've had floods and it hasn't stopped raining. So the course is on the other side of the city, on the Clare. Three or four of them have been under water for three weeks. So the weather hasn't been great, but it's going to get better between now and the first week in December. So by the time the

storm comes around, the courses are going to look fantastic. It's the best time to see those courses. It's great fun, golf to watch. It's going to be really cool, I think. Exciting. Well, Mike, thanks so much for jumping on me. It was great to catch up with you. It's been a few years. I've been keeping up with you.

And all you've been up to, and we greatly appreciate you spending some time with us and sharing your perspectives. And we won't let five years go by again before we have you back on, if that's all right with you. OK, thanks Chris. I enjoyed it. And I sent an email to Pierre Falker there. They took it, you know, because he'd done that work at VIXP. I said, next year when I'm over, I'm coming over to see that course. I've got to see it because I always love playing at Scandinavia.

It was such a cool place to play golf. Yeah. You're going to wear that episode. It'll be out. The video will be out as, let's see, I can get the date. November 9th, I believe that one will be if, the video will be out as, let's see, I can get the date November, ninth I believe that one will be if this is. Great, so, yeah, so I Googled earth and thought, oh, that course looks amazing. So, you know, I know PSD not a lot of work on it, so I'm looking forward to seeing that next year, so great.

Yeah, all right, for you too. All right, thanks Mike, take care and we'll have you back soon. Cheers. Okay, thanks, mate. Get the right club. Be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. I thought it was better than most. Better than most.

Better than most. Expect anything different. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go.