No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 700: Padraig Harrington

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

Fresh off a top 30 finish in this year's US Open, three-time major champion Padraig Harrington joins Soly to offer his perspective on the setup at LACC, competing in golf's biggest events into his 50s, the ins and outs of his speed training and how it applies to golfers of all skill levels, plus his views on the PGA Tour - LIV news from a couple of weeks ago and its impact on the upcoming Ryder Cup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Sully here got a really fun interview with Patrick Harrington coming off a T27 this past week's US Open. We talk about LACC.

We talk about how he's gained speed. We talk about distance. We talk about live merger, major championships. You name it. I could talk to this We talk about live merger, major championships. You name it. I could talk to this guy about golf for many, many hours. And we were lucky enough to spend a little over an hour with him. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Precision Pro. They have the new No Laying Up rangefinder designs

and premium carrying case is available now on PrecisionProGolf.com slash and all you, you can get $20 off all the range finders right now. If you go to the website, it also got sick new speakers. If you go right to their homepage, PrecisionProGolf.com, you will see that my literally just came in the mail today with the custom carrying case and everything got it charging up right behind me. Very excited to take these out to the golf course.

We've been using the NX 10 range finder for almost a year now. This thing has everything you need and more at locks on the target quickly. It's lightning quick has additional features such as slope switch, HD optics, and a magnetic cart mount. It makes the NX 10 hour go to choice as a rangefinder. You also will not find a better customer care package in golf free battery replacements, industry leading customer service, and 90 day money back guarantee. There's a reason precision pro has been a trusted partner of ours for years.

They've been a sponsor of Taurus sauce They've been awesome to work with so I've had many many many great pieces of feedback from our listeners that have bought precision pro range finders precision pro golf dot com slash NLU to get the no-ling up nx 10 range finder in case today again precision pro golf dot com slash NLU Here's Patrick Harrington. Okay, we are coming fresh off US open week I think it's fair to say LACC was a bit of a controversial golf course amongst a lot of our readers and listeners. What did you think of LACC as a US Open venue? Cool.

Yeah, it came across as controversial, I think because of the crowds. There just wasn't enough crowds in there to create the atmosphere. I'm gonna say from a player's perspective, it worked seamlessly. It was very easy venue to get in and out for us. It was a great course.

There was a lot of variety in the golf course. They were easy, the best greens I've ever seen out of major, and especially our US Open. Normally, they let the greens go and they get burnt out. They were pure the whole week. Do you think that there is a place for wide fairways and with like this in major championship golf? I think so there's some criticism of that.

I know it's different than what we're used to out of the US open. What's your reaction to that? I prefer wide fairways and punishment for missing them. I think when you get to fairways too narrow, you just everybody just wings away and it's nearly a distance center to hit them right. If you remember a price and when it winged 40, he made that point. It just when you get the fairways

very narrow, you might as well just hit driver hit a further up, where there was severe punishment for missing the fairways last week. Probably the heaviest rough, it wasn't that was the heaviest in length. It just was the heaviest at the balls sat down to the bottom. Oftentimes you couldn't hit 80 yards in the air out of the roof. So yeah, I think I prefer wider fairways, ponnishup for missing it. And it is upset, I think I missed the fifth, the third fairway on Sunday. And like it's 60 yards wide. And I was like, it was an automatic bowie by missing the fairway

it was so obsessing to me mentally if you hit the fairway you got a great birdie chance to be a miss it disaster so I just I believe more in that I'd prefer a golf course that I actually hit driver and as we saw down the stretch you know like there was plenty of fairways missed on you know the last couple of holds 14 16 17 16, 17, when I was watching, you know, a lot of people will talk about 18, 18, stood out as unusually wide, and I do believe that it wasn't characteristic of an 18 to all at a US open, but taking that one hole out, the rest of them, yeah, there was some wide fairways, but you were under a lot of pressure to hit the fairways, like a simple hole, like number 12, you know, was a five wood gap wedge. But well, if you missed that fairway, you were in dire trouble. So yeah, I've got to say, much preferred,

that sort of test, narrow fairways. It just plays into the long-hittered times when you get the fairways very narrow. Yeah, I agree. I tend to agree with that a lot yet. At the same time, I struggled to marry up what happened on the 72nd hole with Windham Clark's drive. It felt like that deserved a bit of punishment on the 72nd hole over US Open.

And you confirm kind of my thoughts there on that 18th hole that just didn't seem like it quite worked. Yeah, you know, it was interesting because there was a bunker on the 18 to be two, 70 or something like that. And when you stood in the tee box, you assumed that that bunker was going to be like a 3-10 carry in practice. Like you just looked up to and you said, oh my god, this is going to be a nightmare hole. If you have to hit it right, it is bunker, because there's bushes down the right of aging. So if you had to hit it into that bottleneck,

it would have been the worst finish in whole ever. And then you got in the team, you go, what, it's only 270, I can wing it up over that. And it did open up a lot. Look, I think Wyndham exaggerated with it. If Wyndham held this finish and posed on 18, nobody would have been taken this as a big deal. The fact that he kind of reacted to it, I think that caused a lot of people to think he'd

hit it in trouble and clearly it was on the edge of the fair where it was all fine. But I will agree, it wasn't an 18-thole. I'm sure if you asked Math Fitz last year, how tough was this drive of a year and compared the this year? There was no comparison. Well, it feels like we've seen a really strong shift in US open setups basically since Chinatalk in 2018. It seems like the USGA is not no longer trying to make the score over par. It seems like they're talking about their setups a lot differently. How have you seen US open setups evolve? And as a player, it seems like guys are more satisfied

with the way this is trending. Yeah, look at a nice score to aim for is between four and eight on the par. You start trying to get the players to shoot around level par. You're going to have to trick the golf course. So players are going to get frustrated. And there were certainly several pin positions that we looked at in practice that would have been used 10 years ago in the US Open, but are not, they weren't used this time. And these were, as I said earlier, these were probably the best quality greens, even though they had them, they said they were high-turtains on the stiff meter. They never put it like they were extremely fast.

If anything players were struggling to get the ball to the hole up the hills, they just were beautiful grass on the greens. It was very easy to hold a tree for, not like normal US opens. And they just didn't go into those weird pin positions, like there was a pin on the back left of A.G. that we were looking at. No, they couldn't do it. But I'm guaranteeing, ten years ago, they would have used that pin and even the Sunday pin I'm sure could have gone

another four or five yards further rice in the old days so I the setup is better for the players it's it's producing a fairer test maybe for the spectators it takes a little bit of that erratic drama of it, but from the players perspective, it's a fairer set up and we're not getting as frustrated with the difference between a average shot and a good shot, which I don't think the players feel an average shot should be punished. They don't mind a bad shot being punished, but they don't want a situation that they hit an OK shot and all of a sudden they're in, you know, in dire circumstances taken, you know, and then up making a double bogey off an okay shot. And that's where I think the gap is always going to be among Skull fans because some fans

tune in to see you guys suffer at the US Open. They really do, right? And you all you guys, you guys don't mind difficulty. What you hate is when you have no shot at a good shot. Then it's like what's the point? If I'm going to end up in the rough over the green anyways, what's the point in trying to hit a good shot? That's when it gets a little bit silliest. Is that a fair interpretation? It is indeed. Yeah, I will agree. If I was a spectator, sometimes I want to see drama. As player we don't necessarily want that so yeah It there is always going to be that fight and that's why the players don't set up the golf course either

That's why it is left to somebody else to make these decisions, but there's certainly I think With LA Country Club and this is always if you get a big tough golf course Then the set up tends to be fair because they dial it back up. If you get an easier course, well then the setup tends to be tricky because they're trying to hold us back from shooting low numbers. And the player, one of the things where the 62s were shot the first day, I keep going back to green, so it was perfect. And they wouldn't have known the golf course the first day.

They were afraid, a little bit to USDA, they didn't know how far golf course the first day. They were afraid in a bit of USGA. They didn't know how far to push it because it's an unknown quantity. We haven't been at LA logical. This is not like a Gusta. A Gusta have the benefit of going back to the same course every year and they know exactly how each PIM position, each T-Box, affects the play in a hole where you go to a new golf course, which often happens at a major. And they just have to be wary of, you know,

not getting the wrong position the first day of, because all of a sudden it, it, which we have seen, say, you, you brought up a Shinnecock, where you can get the wrong position, where a ball will roll off the green. And now, obviously that's, you know, that's no good for anybody. So the first day of LA College Cup,

they did go a little easy again. They were airing on the side of caution. What do you you're a three-time major champion? You're 51 years old now and you've played the weekend here at the PGA championship and the US Open. What's your reaction that? What are your goals going into the week and what's it like, you know, having achieved the success you've achieved in majors? What are your goals now and how do you walk away from a weekend like this one where you finished tie for 27? Yeah, you know, same as a lot of majors, I look back and go,

I could have done my preparation better. Could have been in a better place going into it. A lot of times with majors, you always feel better about your golf, golf on the Monday afterwards, which is not a good take. You should be peaking in the tournament. So, yeah, I look back at 27 of people.

They are well done, and they obviously take it into account my age. But when you've won three of these things, 27 days gone on the CV. So, yeah, I probably look at this when I say, hey, I'm capable of competing if I do the right things, but I need to be better in that preparation. There's no physical problem, you know, with me competing. It's definitely a mental thing. And the same mental thing, it would have been 25 years ago when I was starting off on the main majors. It's believing that you're good enough, you know, you don't win these majors

going into them feeling like you've got a whole big puts and you've got to get lucky. You're wend them when you feel comfortable in the environment. It comes back to that old saying, I know Tyra goes famous first, but when you believe you can win with your big game, your A game turns up, when you think you need your A game, your big game turns up. So it's about being comfortable in the environment and being relaxed and then the best comes out when you're on edge, it just doesn't work like that. And I think my game is physically good enough. I can be good enough mentally and you know, I've won more major this year or four weeks to go to that and everything in my head is about trying to get my preparation right far that one and trying to stop which is my own I suppose the burden I have of trying to stop

looking to be technically better and proficient and a better ball striker because when I look back at the US open it wasn't about hitting better shots. It was about hitting better wedge shots. Simple things. You'd be surprised how many times it's your confidence at your wedge play and being strong mentally and hitting the shot you're trying to hit rather than being defensive. You talked a little bit about being on edge and how that does not maybe elevate your play in major championships. Was that a learned skill for you? I mean, when did you feel like I went back and watched your O7 playoff highlights at

car news. And I'm just I love major championships. I'm obsessed with them. I break them down in great detail. And I just I wonder how you stand up in front of all those people. And for that trophy with everything on the line and just stay in a process and hit normal golf shots. Is that something that evolved into you being able to win so many majors in such a short stretch of time?

Well, a couple of things for me, one I was always good on the pressure. You know, when my back to the wall, when I ignored a choice, I tend to play my best golf in a one-off situation, or one shot. That doesn't mean you can't do that for 72 holes, if you know what I mean. You stand the first tier tournament, if you're back to the wall at that stage, it's a long week. I'm pretty good if I came to the 18th hole in my back to the wall and I have no order choice, I tend to play tough holes well and easy holes badly. That would be my burden in life. So look, when it comes to the pressure down to 72nd hole, the great thing about that is

you're actually playing really well. You're in a position that you've got a lot of confidence things are going well. So Bob Tarns' male coach used to say, it's easy to hit a great shot when you're feeling good. It's really difficult to hit a grade shot when you're feeling good. It's really difficult to hit a good shot when you're feeling bad. And so I always call my chip shot in the 72nd hole at the US, I'm sorry, the opening 2007 is actually the best shot I ever hit because I was feeling so bad about the game at that stage. To play off, after I hit my T-shirt in the first hole,

I was back in his own feeling good. And yeah, I felt good about things, went through my routines and believed in myself. So the overall question is, I kind of drifted there a bit, but the thing is, I think up to 2007, I used to prepare for Thursday morning,

whereas from 2007 onwards, 2006, wing foot in 2006, I was trying to get ready for Sunday on Monday. So at the start of the week, all I was thinking about is, how can I be ready and fresh Sunday afternoon to win this tournament, rather than which a lot of people do, panic and Monday choose the Wednesday, trying to get yourself in shape for a Thursday morning.

I'm fair enough, you might be better ready for Thursday morning. You might know the line on a certain button on Thursday because you did that extra bit of practice. But by Sunday afternoon, you're burned out, you're gone. So you have to, there's a huge difference, prepare for Sunday, not for Thursday. That's interesting. I don't know if I've ever heard it phrase that way. It seems to me like again, if you look at the US open leaderboard after 72 holes, you see John Rahm up there.

You see Colin Moore, a cow, some guys that were not in the thick of it from, you know, from Thursday on that we thought were in contention. But after 72 holes, the cream just tends to rise. Is there a comfort that comes with that in major championship golf when you are one of the top players to say, Hey, the longer this thing goes on, the more that

maybe lesser players are going to get weeded out. And is that feeling different than PGA tour and DP World Tour events? 100% your spot on there when it comes to a lot easier for a good player to win a major than a regular event. I know that

seems odd for people, but the fact of matters, there's plenty of players as the tournament goes on. There just won't be a bit of the handle of pressure, there's just not going to be there. So I would say, playing a PJ Tour event feels a bit like a 100 meter sprint. Playing a major and still playing a major, even though all the players, there's more good players than the standards have

improved, playing a major is like running a marathon. You kind of know, like even the guys who shot eight on the first day, there's no panic. You know, you know, they're not going to, like, it's somebody shoots eight on the first day in a PJ tour event. You're kind of thinking, God, you know, it's going to be 22 on the power win in this week. Whereas at the US Open, we're kind of going, I wonder when they even managed to stay at 8 on there. You know, as it turned out, they didn't, the two guys just ate on, they didn't finish 8 on there.

So look, it's just, you know that in a major, you know, stay patient. You don't want to blow yourself out because like, and maybe a couple of guys you mentioned there, if you get 3, 4 over over par, it's too far back. It really is, you know, it doesn't matter how well you play again. You're not really gonna catch up. So you're your first couple of days, you wanna be around the top 10, you wanna be the one on the par,

the level par, sort of score. It's too much to do from four, five over par. So some of those guys you mentioned there, well they end up having a good week, it doesn't really count. It doesn't count if you play great in the weekend to finish fifth. It counts if you play, it really counts if you want to win majors and you finish fifth by shooting 72 on Sunday. I guarantee you're going to have the ability to win majors doing that because that's where you're learning. If you shot 65 on Sunday to finish 5th, it means very little, a little bit of confidence,

but you weren't really in contention. You were there. You played Sunday in nice conditions where the guy shooting 72 out of one of the last couple of groups, he played in the tough, much tougher conditions. He's the one who's going to learn more from that experience. So yes, the names you mentioned had a nice week, but unless you're really thinking you can win on Sunday, it's a disappointing major for the big stars. A quick break here to check out with our friends at Rowback. You guys know Rowback. You

hear us talk about a lot. You see us wearing it a lot, almost all the video. I cannot get enough of Rowback. I need you to keep sending me new stuff guys. I every time I think I've got too many hoodies that go through them rather quickly. People are probably sick of seeing the same stuff over and over again. Their performance polos are fantastic. They got great USA theme ones in time for July 4th. They got classic solids and stripes. The polos are extremely clean. They are four way stretch and moisture wicking fabric is awesome. Get through a warm summer day on the golf course. If you live in colder climate, something perfect for the evenings are their performance hoodies, the stretchiest, softest hoodies

in golf. And lastly, the performance QZips are fantastic. They look stylish. You can wear them to work. If you wanted to, you can wear them out for to dinner. You can wear them on the golf course. Super functional. I absolutely love them. We cannot go anywhere without seeing rowback. You can use code NLU at rowback.. I absolutely love them. We cannot go anywhere without seeing rowback. You can use code NLU at rowback.com for a generous 20% off your first order through the end of this week. That's rhobac.com, 20% off polo's, quzips, hoodies. They got great shorts, they got joggers.

They got everything. Cannot say enough great things. Code NLU rowback.com, summer is calling. Make sure to check them out now back to Patrick Harrington. It feel like on Sunday the green the firmness never really came all week. We're kept waiting for it never fully

came to the point to the extent that I think that the committee would have liked, but it looked like those greens got glossy and just watching those final groups. It looked hard to put on those greens by the end of the day. Yeah, but not as classy as they used to. You know, normally, normally,

you're looking at the greens on a Sunday and thing, and there ain't going to be anything here. There's probably not there on Sunday, let alone the next day. These greens, they held up on the leaves. They were the best-bend grass greens I've ever seen at a major. And I know I didn't play very late on Sunday. Well, I was, I wasn't too far off.

I was, what, seven to eight group from the end. So I would have seen somewhere, but there was nowhere on that course on Sunday afternoon that I looked at the hole and top. There's no grass around this hole. The ball won't stop here. It's gonna drift to TRIPV. Like, I didn't have a TRIPWAT last week.

And that was absolutely down to the quality of the greens. You know, you could walk up to a two-footer last week at a US Open. Obviously not if you're your sergeant on the 18th hole, but you could walk up to a two-footer and tap it in last week. That's not normal at a US Open. Normally at a US Open, you've got a two-footer and you're not actually, I've got to mark this, I've got to look at this, I've got to grind over this. And the ball didn't, you know, they reduced, even though they're telling us they were over 13 and they didn't feel like that because there was a beautiful covering a grass. So yeah, you're right, it didn't get like what a can at a US Open, where the ball is just

dribbling and moving around. There were quality, quality greens, and that's why the scoring was generally good. You are a, you're very famous for your tinkering over the years. The adjustments you've made in your swing, the stuff you've tried, it's been really interesting to follow your speed journey as you are now playing on the champion's tour, your ball speed, I believe is up probably as high as it's ever been in your career. When did this journey start?

What, what were the factors that went into saying, all right, I'm now is the time for me to start adding speed. Hey, oh, 1999 probably. Yeah, I may be even when it turned pro in 1996. I gained quite a bit of speed when it started as a pro. I used to hit a low cost as an amateur. When it turned pro, I got a great big burger driver and John Jacobs taught me how to draw and I hit this big slinging hook for about

two years on tour. I loved it but I recognised very quickly when Tiger came out that speed was very important. So I was always at it. I got my first launch monitor in 2000 and it's late. 2003. I got a launch monitor, a vector monitor. My peak speed at that stage was 169 on the monitor. I think late run, I probably got a bit more obsessive about speed. I think Rory changed the game. Rory came out in 2011 and he's the first long hitter who played like a long hitter. The rest were all bullied into playing like short hitters. It was amazing. All the long hitters up to 2011, they hit irons off the tee on par fours, they'd lay up. They'd hit it in the same place the short hitters would hit. Rory came out and he just hit driver. And the other long hitters, the likes of the

Boba and Dustin Johnson, JB Holmes, they were very long hitters at the time. They saw Rory doing it and they said, oh, so we could do this as well. And they start hitting drivers. And you will see that their best performance coincided after Rory came out and they started doing the same thing. I can remember I played with DJ at the TPC sawgrass and his first sawgrass event, the first players championship, he got in as an alternative and he was playing with myself and Maddie Scott. We didn't know who the lad was, I've got to say it's funny story, we didn't know who

this lad, no idea. And we're looking up at the first team, he takes an to say, it's funny story, you didn't know who's this lad, no idea. And we're looking at the first team, he takes an iron out, and the first at the sawgrass and we're thinking, it's a bit nervous, this lad would kind of have a little chuckle to herself. Obviously, this iron came off like a different quality, different strike, the power, and I'm like,

oh, okay, maybe he wasn't that nervous, but the reality of it is he'd never hit an hour and half that team out. He'd take his driver and hit it. Rory changed the game like that. And now all the long hitters, they played to their strengths, they hit driver and they take their chances. And that's why up to that, it wasn't important

to be a long hitter because in the end of the day, none of them were any good. In terms of their play, once Rory came along all of a sudden, you had to be in that number. Because the likelihood is one of the winners is going to come from that group. And so now, back in the day, you were trying to beat one long hitter. Now you're trying to beat 50. And if you're not one of those 50, it's putting a lot of, you know, it's rare for somebody outside of that 50 to be really in contentious. I've always been interested in speed. It's just become more and more and more of a focus. So

essentially, before I might have focused it when I'm at home, now I focus on speed every day of practice, every day. A lot of ways we could go with that, but I want to divert here for a second because you made a point I've been trying to make over the months and years about driving distances that it's kind of starting to become a, I used the phrase self-selecting. It's probably not the right statistical term, but the pool of top players is going to come from from there's more long drivers now. And so now it's more likely that there's going to be one, two,

ten of them that have a good iron play week and one of those that has a good putting week. So it the emphasis on driving, you know, the distance is getting longer without the technology changing a whole lot from 2022 to 2023. But every year, new crop of guys that hit it far, they've learned to hit up on the ball that have played with the 460 CC driver that have never played the ball of balls that we grew up playing that spun off the planet. Do you see that as an issue at all with the game? Do you agree with kind of that assessment? And do you see that as an issue going forward in pro golf? Oh, we're on to bifurcation. I would be against bifurcation. Absolutely. I think we should all play by the same rules. Do I think there should be a rollback? Certainly where I come from in Europe, it's a big deal in Ireland.

We need a rollback. The golf courses are completely defunct and double. Just completely. Just can't go play them. The dog legs are all in the wrong place. It's dangerous. What's interesting is, you know, should there be a rollback, it's certainly not needed as much in the US. If you could put a hard stop right now, honours, I'd say,

okay, that's fair enough. We just can't keep going down this road. Can't get longer and longer. And what's interesting is, you you know the golf ball was built for like a 170 ball speed by 10 years ago it's now built for 180 ball speed so what what I I could tell you everybody's ball speed out there I watch it I look we didn't have a look I'm on tour pass and what's fascinating is some of these guys, not so much wind of last week, he didn't hit it that far for his ball speed, but I was watching some of these guys like

a couple of guys got 200 mile in our ball speed in the range, Neymar, Wilco Neymar and the young South African partiker, he got 200 sit-ins down to beside me. But what's interesting is when you go and look at the ball speeds on the course, Rory was always such an outlier that he had high ball speed but low spin. That's very hard to do. Very hard to spin the ball at 2000 under 22, under 22 with a high ball speed. The golf ball just didn't function. It just didn't do it was virtually impossible. Rory did it and I could never understand. I just saw it as a complete outlier.

But now you've got like, when will Lee he was doing it last week, Neymar they all kept their spin right down. So if you can like, now you're gonna see somebody come out with a 200 mile an hour ball speed who actually can play golf. We haven't seen that before

We haven't you know seen somebody who can who can play golf for that speed. It's gonna happen So yeah, where do we go? Do we do we try and stop this or do we do we allow that person to have the advantage as I said a lot of long Hitters prepare Rory because they were so good at hitting the ball. They've never really learned how to play golf because they were so good at hitting the ball, they've never really learned how to play golf. They weren't the complete package like Tiger, who was a exceptionally long hitter, but the complete package. Now we're seeing just going to be a few. There's going to be another Tiger Woods,

who's going to be longer than the field and can play the game, you know, has all the game, has the mental side, has the short game. At the moment, we've a mixture and we're starting to see some long hitters who are good players. It would be interesting to see. I can't see it happen to be. I targeted Low-Win 80 balls, but I don't think you need to be any longer than, say, John Ram or Dusted Johnston. That's where they're playing. They're playing in the Low-Win 80s. If it should surely, you don't need to hit it any further than that. But yeah, we're seeing a few 190 guys, which is, it's, it's, it's stars like, it,

it doesn't seem hard to have 200 mile in air ball space if you're a young guy. It doesn't, it seems they're going to be diamond doesn't. Yeah, it's complicated. I don't like the idea of by forgetting the game. Yet I also am sympathetic to the fact that most people don't want a full rollback. Most casual fans do not want their own golf ball to go shorter, so I think they're choosing between bad options now.

It's just tough. Yeah. The only thing that adds casual fans, clearly they're not gonna lose much, as you know, it's not gonna affect their game as much. And I know from my own experience, if I'm playing with somebody and I expect to hit it the same distance then, whether it's 300 yards or 270 yards, if we expect to be the same distance and I walk down there,

my ball is 10 yards outside of, I'm going to put my chest out, look at me. So it's relative to what you expect at that moment in time against the people you're playing with and I can tell you the same thing if I If I grow and I expect to hit it 20 yards past my playing partner and he's sitting there beside me I'm grumpy even if I've hit it 3 30 I'm grumpy white. Why is he you know? So it's a lot of it is relative I think happiness is like that and it's relative to your expectation at that moment and time. So if we did roll back, we'd all get used to it very quickly. So I don't think it would affect the enjoyment of the game down the road. Yeah, a common argument. I had this with the player actually at a LACC was, you know, people want to show up and want to see Rory Bang on the ball.

I'm like, I promise you, I can't tell the distance of 330 carry and a 300 carry when I'm looking at it. And I play a lot of golf and I've seen a lot of golf. So it's not like people are going to show up at events and say, oh, wow, that was a poof out there. Like that wasn't even hit hard because it's just not, it's like you said, it's all relative distance and it's still going to look far. Yeah, if they roll it back, you'll see guys hit a harder. Yeah. So the big hitters will have a bigger advantage. And the, so I kind of hope to last week I was thinking,

there's no point in having 200 mile an hour ball speed. It just nowhere to hit it. The golf courses are big enough. You can't control it. The spin rate doesn't work at all. All those figures. But if they do roll back, you will actually find that the more

eclassic you are, the better. So if you if you could get 210 mile an hour and they roll it back, you're going to have more advantage and you're going to you're going to be able to do. Think of it like this, if you could hit the ball, 330 yards in the air and they roll it back to 300. Well, you'll hit driver a lot more often at 300, Carrie, because I can tell you a three, if you gave me 330, Carrie, there's a lot of golf courses at the stand there, go to the county driver, there's, it just gets too wide to fervor your hit. So rolling it back will cause players to hit it harder, cause it's players to be more athletic and will definitely encourage, we will have an

advantage for the better athletic players to give it a hit because there's more real estate for them to hit it on whereas if you start to hit the 315 the air, where would you hit it? There's going to be a lot of bounds at that at some stage, you're going to run out of real estate. And the part that gets me is you just you're going to and the longer the ball goes, the more guys are going to be hitting from where dispersion ranges ranges are less, right? I mean, if more shots are coming from within 150, then it's harder for Rory to separate for if he's from 120

and somebody else is at 140, it's harder for him to separate than if he was 160 versus the other guy being at 180, right? Those differences are going to be over time. It's harder for him to separate than if he was 160 versus the other guy being at 180, right? Those differences are going to be over time. It'll be bigger. Yeah, you're you're you're right that that there's not a lot of difference between a player coming in from a hundred yards to 120, but it's it's more significant that 160 to 180. You're on the same right there. I think yeah, look if we could put a hard stuff we'd all say, let's have a hard stuff now. I'm afraid of it going further and further and how big did the golf courses have to be? And one of the great things got, well, I don't know if this will change. I think small guys can

swing the club efficiently and be long enough. So I think one of the great things about golf over the years is it hasn't been biased to one physical type, you know, we've seen guys with with narrow shoulders and wide hips be very good and we've seen guys, you know, with narrow hips and wide shoulders be good, we've seen tall, short guys, so all sorts of people can play the game. So I don't know if that will change. You know, we're certainly seeing bigger, more athletic people playing the game, choosing golf as their number one sport. We used to joke, you know, in Europe, you tend to find more athletic people playing golf. In the States, 30 years ago, if you're athletic, you played baseball first, you played basketball, you played the American football first. And if you didn't make those teams, OK,

you can go play golf. Whereas now the number one athlete in high school is often choosing to play golf. Yeah, that's kind of, yeah, we don't have to spend too much time on one of the most highly debated topics out there. I would highly recommend people to check out. You did an awesome video with me and my golf talking about a whole bunch of speed stuff

and putting stuff on display that is really hard to show off on a podcast. The video helps it make a lot more sense. But is there a way, if you were doing a clinic, if you were to describe to people where speed comes from how you've been able to get to the level that you're at right now at age 51. What's a high level way you would describe of how you've been able to do that? The number one way to get speed is you've got to break your own mental inhibitions. That's it. So you just got to hit a harder first and foremost. And people don't understand that. They think they, you know, they think they can go to the gym and get stronger. Yeah, that's nice. Get stronger. But if you're going to hit the ball at the same pace in the golf course, you ain't hit any harder. You've got to hit the golf ball

harder on the golf course. You've got to break the mentally inhibitions. At a level, you're going to have to change your, you know, try and break into your center nervous system and change what that thinks is fast. And so you like, you can have, you can have a very, very strong, powerful, fast person. And we've seen this a lot when you get sports people who are great athletes, come play golf and they think golf is about swinging smooth and being, you know, rhythm and all that sort of stuff and they're terrible golfers. Whereas if I got an athlete, the first thing I do is I'd actually put a monitor on the ground, get them something like speed sticks, which I use. And so there's no head there to no inhibition to hit the gulls boat and tell them,

I want to see you swing this stick as fast you can. I don't care how you do it, what you do, I want to see it, you've got the feedback, I don't, you can do anything you like to make that go as fast you can and whatever makes it go as fast as it can, I'd say, right now we're going to work with that and create a golf swing from that swing, whereas people think you can create a golf swing and then add speed. No, get the speed first, then we can dial back and figure out, okay, we're going to play it 90% of that. We're going to maybe connect a few things. We're going to keep your arms a bit more connected. Your body something, lots of things like that. But you've got to start with the natural speed for people who are playing golf. Yeah, they need to break the habit of what they're doing. So something like speed six is brilliant for that because it's taking you away from trying to match accuracy with speed, which you actually to start off, you have to give up the accuracy. Like, I would say to somebody, you know,

if you were trying to gain speed at a very basic level, hit 20 balls a week where you're actually trying to hit him crocker. So it's hard you can. And if they go crocker great, you're not trying to hit him straight, you're actually just trying to for raw speed. Everybody wants two things, and they're separate. You can't, you know, everybody says, oh, I want to hit it straight and fast. Well, do them separately. Have a swing that you hit straight and have a swing that you

swing fast and then marry the two. And what you might find is your fast swing might go 10 miles in a hour quicker than your encore swing. And if you hit enough shots with that on the range, you might find that your encore swing that goes straight gains five months in there. And we go back to the speed sticks. That's the whole concept. You're getting away from accuracy. You're swinging the stick, you're swinging at it, you lose that inhibition. You might gain 10 mile an hour there, but when you go back to your norm, you're gaining two three mile an hour, which is like all the stats guys, all these data guys are showing. The number one thing to lower your handicap for amateur golfers is distance. And I know we can go back and say, well, you can go

for efficiency too for distance, which is important. Now, that's why you should work with a PGA Pro or a coach to help with that. You know, if you're not hitting a draw of the tee for an amateur, it's madness. Like, you lose a slice has cost me 40 yards of distance. And I swear at you, I'm talking mid-range amateurs. I'm talking like, you're 10 to 15 handicapped. There's no way you're too crook. I swear at you, you know, you're 10 to 15 handicapped. There's no way you're too crook.

I swear to you, you should be hitting the draw and hitting the 40 yards further down there. Amateurs can't afford to be hitting a paraphrase. Like unless you're a really quality player, you can't afford that. You've got to be drawn. So yeah, you've got to break your inhibitions. You've got to get more efficient.

You've got to not worry about hitting the roof. And this is another thing which I put them to that for years. Certain players can't play in the roof. Psychologically, they just can't have handled missing. They don't like being in the roof, they think, you know, they need to hit it on the fairway. So if you're a short hitter, it's unlikely that you would have the mental capacity to miss a couple more fairways when you get longer. So I've seen a lot of good players lose their game by trying to get longer. So it's a dangerous thing. It takes a certain type person to be happy to hear 20 yards further and maybe miss two more

fairways around. But I personally can't handle not having the potential. So I couldn't have the potential, or I couldn't handle the fact I'm 14 if I couldn't reach that green and two. If I couldn't make the 300-yard carry the first, it actually got quite short in the tournament. It actually got down to 285. But I wouldn't be able to, I couldn't stand up and compete if I taught somebody else could reach that green in two

and I couldn't, like I had to lay off. That doesn't do my head in. How does, explain to me how speed six work, right? I think I have the same set that you probably use here. There's a light one, a medium one, a heavy one. I've tried it, I've used it, I've not done it consistently. I've found it surprisingly fatiguing. Like, you gotta have some stamina to do it.

And I know I'm out of shape and you're a professional athlete, but it's a routine that you need to do pretty consistently. And it kind of explained to like how the different, how that all works and how people could use that. Yeah. I know this is site aside. So AP McCoy is the greatest national home jockey of all time, 5,000 winners. The toughest man you've ever met. And I, he plays a bit of golf and you know, I could get him to hit 10 swings as hard to be called. And he is absolutely out for the count. Like he's back as hurt and he's tired

and this is a man who can can ride a horse for two miles over fences at 25 mile an hour, 30 mile an hour hold onto those rains. I wouldn't be able to, I probably, if I did that for 50 yards, I probably wouldn't walk the next day. So it's what you're used to. It's always what you're used to. So you will build up a tolerance to swing into speed sticks more and more. So I've probably been using, I got them right at the start. I'm using them over 10 years. And back then it was, it was a lot of guesswork. You know, I knew pretty much like everything else.

When you'd stay within 20% of the parameters, this came from javelin towers. You just know you've got to stay within 20% of heaviness and lightness of your normal weight. So as everything we learn from other sports, so I was doing that. And I would do three sets of six with each one kind of randomly. And now you've got brilliant programs that you can follow. So for somebody like yourself, follow a program. It just gets you motivated. It's giving you the feedback.

There's no point in doing this without a monitor. You've got to have a PRGR monitor which sits there and gives you feedback. And if you're a kid, or if you have a kid and he's into his golf, don't buy him the latest driver. Buy him a monitor. You can buy a PRGR monitor for $240. Like I swear to you, that feedback is all it needs.

You don't need to telekid anything. He'll learn himself. He's the feedback is all he wants, instant feedback. For us, yeah, we need to follow programs, we need to do that. And it's basically breaking down your central nervous systems in a vision of what it thinks is fast because as I said you could sprint faster than somebody x-wing the golf club slower than them and it's just purely because

psychologically your central nervous thinks this is thinks it's moving fast or swinging the club fast when it's not it's clearly more capable of doing more and speed sticks and all the products like it, you know, there's lots of things out there, you know, there's lots of ways again in speed, but speed sticks have a lovely program that you can follow and this is what's changed in the sort of 15 years of evolution of these things, they give you programs that you can monitor and follow that will for anybody start now. Like we know with speed, if you do tree squad jumps, you gain two miles an hour of clubhead speed.

That's what the scientific analysis would show, the very scientific analysis. But the reality of that is if you're not a trained athlete and you do tree squad jumps, you will probably gain two mile an hour. If you're a trained athlete and you're used to doing squad jumps, they ain't going to do anything for you. And you need to find another way of fooling your sense of nervous system like speed six. So if you start off with speed six, you should gain pretty easily. If you're a mature athlete and you've used in speed six more and more, or other training devices, what you will find is you just need to keep the variation and that's what I've done. I look for variation. So with me and my golf you would see it. I'm talking about it. It's me Like I can find the greatest. I can find something like it could be as simple as you know if I relax my my left side my

left shoulder my left arm at the top of the back swing I gain speed and I think I've found the holy grail oh my god that's easy and I've gained you know three four mile an hour but next week it doesn't work next week I might have to you know next week I might have to go fast. I might have to feel like I'm swinging the fast backswing. You know, so it's not the technique that makes the difference. It's the variation in the technique that makes the difference. So you just gotta keep finding things that work for you, the test that reinvented, that make it new.

I look like look these way for me to get fast. Just have somebody stand behind me. Honestly, if you walked up behind me on the range, and I was swinging there on the range, and like I did it last week, I'm swinging on the range, 180, 3 in ball speed, I'm looking up at the monitor. Brumford comes over. I said, I'll hit you 186. Just as long as somebody's watching me, I'll gain speed. That's crazy. And I guess I was surprised in that video. I feel like whenever I hear about where to gain power, people will say it's like it doesn't come from swinging your arms faster. I hear that a lot in terms of you got to use your body, you got to do

all kinds of stuff like like the harder you're, well, I'm kinda wanna pick your brain on that though because I think there's something to, if I try to swing my arms faster, I might be adding tension and slow down in it, right? So, but you were emphatic on that arm speed is where a lot of power comes from. And I was just kinda surprised to hear

that I'm one of you could talk a little about that. Okay, the only reason you swing your turn your body fast is to speed up your arms. So we all know it's the kinetic sequence that each think of it like best like cogs your hips go and it pulls your torso, your torso goes and it connects it pulls on the cargo your arms and then your arms pulling the wrist and then the wrist release the club. So you've got those four the skinning exercises those four things and the club head. So the fifth there. So they all have to connect them pulling each other. If you were teaching a junior golfer who is practicing every day 100% tell them we're going to

turn our hips as long as the hips don't get away from the body we're going to turn our hips. As long as the hips don't get away from the body, we're going to turn our hips as fast we can. Once they connect to the body and pull the body, then we're going to turn our torso as fast as they can. Once that connects the shoulder and arms, they're going to go as fast they can and then the arms. Beautiful. If you're 16 years of age and you're playing every day, that is exactly how you were teaching. And that's exactly how Instagram teaches. It seems to be thinking it's teaching the 50-year-old man who plays once every two weeks or a woman to swing like a 16-year-old. It's not possible. So they go with their body and their arms just get lagged behind and leave behind and just go nowhere. They prefer better off if you're only playing

every so often. Swing your arms and hands as fast you can, release your hands as much you can, and your body will follow suit. It won't stop working. Your hips and arms will move, or hips and body will move. But I swear to you, every person I see in a program, they're trying to lead their swing with their torso and it just doesn't work. It does not work. Their arms get slower because of it and I would prove this to you because probably a lot of your of your followers would be in this category. I see this a lot in programs

So I get a guy or a guy who's played college golf so full-time golfer for a number of years and They come out now. They got a job sort of playing Weekend golfer best, but maybe a couple of times a month They still have a beautiful golf swing and they stand the tea and they they go for it And they turn their hips everything the swing looks good But because they're not playing every day their arms have got slow those arms dropped behind the now they hit these horrible big hooks Big snap hooks. And the first toss is, well, if I hit a hook in college, what did I do? I made sure I turned

more. And the turning is actually causing the hook because if you turn, you can, if your arms don't keep up with the turn, your arms fall behind you, you're going to get the club behind you. And you're only lasting, you can do a flip it or else you're going to hit it on the yards right. So there's a lot of people in that category who use to play full-time who know hey girls because they hit this big big hook they need to speed up their arms not their body their body I think because your hips and body are such big muscles I think later on after you've not playing all the time, when you think of speed, you can feel them, and you don't notice that your arms aren't keeping up.

So, yeah, for amateur golfers, just swing your arms and hands. Come on, everything else will work. They will follow. I'm not telling you not to use your hips and torso. I'm telling you, you need to focus on your arms to get the speed. Unless you're playing every day. If you're playing every day, go with your hips and torso, assuming you're not hitting a hook, and yeah, you'll be good enough to keep your arms up. But Instagram seems to think that you can teach everybody like a 16-year-old, which is not the case, certainly not the case of the amateurs I'm seeing in pro-ams. They go for it with their body. And these are, say most of my pro and pro pro I'm growing asked men they should be able to swing the tub faster than 90

mile an hour. And with a big slice, you know, they they need to feel like they're like for most golfers, like the if you're hitness slice. Which I again, I think it depends on your level obviously, but I'm talking the the amateurs I'm playing with, the mid-range, the 14 handicap type amateur. If you're a hitness slice, you need to feel like, you can turn as much as you like, but you need to feel like your back is to

the target for as long as possible. And I would actually practice with the idea that your back is to the target at impact. That would cause you to hook the ball, which is, we'll go, obviously, when you go on the golf course, you don't need to play like that, but when you're on the range, you should keep your back to the target as long as possible. You should keep your shoulders shut to the target at impact when you're practicing if you hit a slice. That way, you're going to start hitting a hook, and then you can go on the golf course and it should be somewhat neutral.

By the way, I know I'm getting onto paddy golf tips here and things like this. This fascinates me again with amateur golfers. If you're hitting a slice on the range, you can't go to hit a straight shot. So most amateurs, when they're hitting a slice, they go to the range and they think they're trying to hit a perfectly good shot say dead striker with a five-yard fade or five-yard drop something like that lovely culture. It doesn't work like that if you're hitting a slice to get rid of the slice you need to go and hit a hook you need to hit the exact opposite extremely the opposite. So to get rid of a slice you've got to practice hitting the biggest snap hook you can hiss on the range.

That's the only way it's going to change. You can't change it by a few degrees. You've got to change it by 50 degrees in order for it to come back to neutral. So a pro, it's like a matter of an amateur is like his tick is gone way over left or it's gone from nearly nine o'clock to three o'clock in exaggeration. Oh, let's say Yeah, let's say ten o'clock to two o'clock It's he need if he's swinging a so far left that he's a ten o'clock. He needs to swing a two o'clock Whereas a pro he's good enough that he's one minute to twelve to one minute past twelve That's the sort of range he's swinging in whereas an amateur needs that you need to exaggerate or a range, he's swinging in, whereas an amateur needs that you need to exaggerate it massively, to get any change, any quick change, anyway.

You can't go from a slice to a good shot. You've got to go from a slice to a hook. In practice. Yeah, whatever you described about the hook and the guy that is moving the body too fast, no arms, that's what I've been, I had going on for like a year and a half now. It's been, and you're exactly right.

I can't hit a five yard fade to save my life. I can set up for a 50 yard fade in. It won't fade five yards. It's amazing. Yeah. So what you need to do when you're on the golf course is you've got to change as you're training drill, your low point needs to be. So if you set up to the golf ball, you need to put your low point.

Maybe you need to hit the ground with your driver. Maybe two feet past where you think where the ball would be and maybe six or eight inches, even a four, even two feet, even a foot inside. So way outside your left heel and way on the inside. Now you can open up your shoulders to do that. You can swing it out to end to do it. You'll see me do it quite a bit on the golf course, I'll swing across my body and left in order to avoid that hook. And that will fix you on the golf course. So with the next time you stand the right left wind, make sure that you take a few practice swings with your arms, hitting the ground, two feet left at the golf ball, and

maybe 18 inches of foot inside where the golf ball would be, and then the stand up and hit it and your hook will be gone. I have to try that. That's a mind's in a pretzel now, but that's good. Try and get a copy of me taking a couple of my practice swings and you'll see how far left I take my practice swings. That's my anti-hook swing, because I do not want to see a hook. So if I'm trying to hook,

if I'm trying to hook the ball, you'll see me take my three practice swings vigorously, pretty quick, and you'll see me hitting the ground up so my right foot. So I'm releasing it really early in practice. So I'm hoping, like I could be swinging 50 degrees right in practice swings. I'm hoping that that ends up as one or two degrees when I go ahead. But trying to, you've got to make big, big exaggerations to try and get a little change and degree or two change quickly. Yeah, and I've just found, there's just no substitute for practice in time is the thing. You know, that's the part that is finding the hardest about getting older for sure. A lot of people listening to say that. Yeah, but you've got to realize you don't have that time anymore.

Right. So you're going to have to find for you to be a good player or to be satisfied on the golf course, you've got to find a couple of things to manage your game. So if you're hitting a hook, how do I stop hitting a hook really quickly? That's really like I said, there will stop it. Like it may mean that you need to stand to this side when other people and have 10 swings, you know, when you're waiting on somebody else up the ferry or whatever, you've got to keep swinging left. Maybe you, you know, but you've got to find

that fix for you. You don't have the time to go to the range. You're not in college. You're not doing, you know, so you always got to, okay, this is what I need to do. This is what I keep going back to and have your little fixes that get your swing back into, into somewhat sort of consistency on the golf course, but they've got to be your fixes and personal to you. Yeah, you got it. Another thing too, just having knowledge of when you're swinging it well, why are you swinging it well, or what are you doing right is something that I think a lot of people struggle to find that baseline on,

but I could talk golf swing with you forever, but I do gotta get, you had some reactions on Twitter to the recent news between PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and you had initial reaction and a follow-up reaction where you said it's been a few days now since the merger doesn't look like a merger or even a hostile takeover as I once thought. It looks like a deal to stop the lawsuits. The three tours seem to keep their status quo at least for the players with no crossover

for now. It came out Friday that the lawsuits are officially dropped with prejudice and cannot be picked back up. I'm curious kind of what your reaction is to everything that's happened now after a little bit of time that's passed back and we can look back on it a little bit more clearly. Yeah, you know, there's two big sides to this. There's the moral side and then there's the business side. It's obviously a lot easier to talk about the business side. It looks just straightforward like any two companies competing out there. You have the big incumbent company, the startup comes along season each, comes in. The big company thinks it's not going to happen. It then when it's happening, it thinks it's never going to get going.

And then all of a sudden, the challenger has gained some traction. It probably gained a lot of traction through the lawsuits in some way, and all of a sudden the incumbent being the PJ Tour has gone, hang in a second here. If we don't move on this now, we're going to be in a far worse position down the road. So very, very standard business practice. Unfortunately, I don't know if we want to say unfortunately, we live in a free market when it comes to business and companies are allowed to trade and this is what happens. This

stops companies being monopolies. It allows challengers come in. You can't interfere with the challenger, you've got to let them have his go. So it just looks like standard business practice that comes into conclusion. We better do a deal now or else we're going to be in a worse position down the road. There's no player on the PGA tour two weeks ago was calling first to play for more money. So there's no reason there was no appetite on the tour for them to go out and do this deal for more money. But like a lot of boards, they do deals where they don't tell the shareholders what's going on, especially during the negotiations. And the likelihood that they've done this deal because we were going to be in financial peril that we either the tour is overstretched itself or there could have been penalties from the lawsuits.

You know, the tour has done a deal. I definitely believe they're acting in our best interests. They've done a deal based on we were in trouble. Now then you go completely separately to the moral side which is, in some ways, it's obviously a lot more difficult because the Tora has to act on behalf of all its players as a group. So an individual can decide not to go and play in Saudi Arabia, an individual can decide not to play live. But as a group, the tour has to act for everybody. And there's loads of different opinions on the tour. There's a different group. It'd be like turning around and saying that the tour has to act in it for,

like saying a country has to act based on religion. You know, we all know the politics. You've got to keep religion out of politics. And it kind of comes down to this moral thing. In the end of the day, the tour has to act for the group, what's best, and not take the moral side in, but the individuals can. So there's no player here who has to go and play and live, and there's no player here who has to go and play in Saudi Arabia. I know Galpha got bashed in Ireland quite a bit overall it is and I kind of go well Rory said no, Shane said no, I said no and and the very Clark didn't go as well said no. So the individuals could do what they can connect the way they want. Now as my own person of feeling on the the moral side is nobody would want to live the way we live in the western world

there's no way we would want or consider the laws in terrierabia to be who would want to live under those those ideals we'd all want to change them but we don't have a magic wand to change them and a matter of forcing will only cause more of a kickback. I do believe the trade and inclusion helps things change. And I really hope that in 25 years with the tourism initiative that you know you can see the changes changes in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and places like that that we bring a lot of change to Saudi Arabia. And you know it just can't be changed with the magic ones. There's nobody who can go in there and say, it's all gonna change tomorrow.

So hopefully it will change. We'd all like it to change. And again, like a huge amount, like Yasser who's running this PIF, he's educated in the US. He's well aware of what are the norms in the US and the Western world. But things can't change that quick as much as we would like them to change that quick. We can't avoid the inevitable side of the business side because that's the world we live in a free market.

Can we avoid the moral side? Yes, as an individual, we can't and we can take any stance we like as an individual and fair play to people who do live up to the standards that they that they talk about. But as a group, we have to act in that business sense. They cannot, you know, to play us from all around the world, playing the PJ tour, we're all sorts of different ideas, ideas and ideals, and you have to act for the group. And that's a business center, it's all companies do. So we're kind of less than that situation. They've made this big U-turn.

And there can only be one reason for the U-turn. And that's because of financial peril. Yeah, it's been a trick, a challenge for all of us that got into golf and talking about golf many years ago because we liked golf. And now we have to learn about Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia, how it all plays into geopolitics. It's been a complicated time.

And a lot of players aren't educated on all this stuff. And they like, they play golf. They hit golf balls. They know how to win tournaments. They don't necessarily have all of the, I don't know, it's not what they signed up for right when they entered into the world of professional golf. And I guess where I net out on the moral part is when you're taking paychecks directly from a government to help with their image directly and, you know, it can kind of seem like you're a

part of a front for the murder of Jamal Kishogi happened five months before the first Saudi international, right? So it wasn't, you know, the golf Saudi wasn't about changing things. It was about these things were going on right at the same time now. Now, does all this extra attention on this mean that they're going to be extra scrutiny on their practices and human rights that, you know, does lead to evolution over time? I think that's like best case scenario. It's still very different from what a lot of the guys that went and signed up and visited Saudi Arabian schools And were a part of these videos that kind of helped whitewash the image But like you like you've explained and are trying to discuss like

Now the Justin Thomas's and Jordan Speets and all that are gonna have to like answer these questions when they've made no such decision To sign up for any of this and I think that's the people that I feel the most empathy for in all of this situation Well, certainly they don't as individuals, they don't have to do anything. So, like individually, they, they, you know, no, like nobody's, I'm assuming, nobody's saying we have to go and play and live or sort of your ABA events if you don't want to play them.

And as regards, will you end up playing for some money that comes from the PIF? It's not clear exactly. There's obviously some without money, somehow we'll drift back in, you would think certainly at this moment we're not going to lose money in a lawsuit, which could have been billions obviously. So I'm not 100% sure on those details, but I assume individuals connect in their own best interests at all times. And again, if you're talking, there is a thing called free trade. So if Saudi Arabia is obviously a big partner to the US in the Middle East, but if you really want to stop them trading

with us, we have to stop trading with them. So, you know, you can't turn around to say, to the PF, no, you're not allowed by intermeasure. You can't be, you can't turn around to say, no, to them if we trade with them. So, that's what to give and take it. So if they in a free market, if this was a free market, the PJ tour could have stuck a spanner in the work of live and stopped at working in some ways, but because it's a free market, they had to let, you know, they tried, but they, you know, they have to let live have a goal with trying to be successful.

That's what we want in the Western world is a free market. Unfortunately, that means that morals can't be that, unfortunately, it means morals can't be taken into account in this particular situation as a group, but as an individual, they can continue to do it. Just like Lewis Hamilton, when he drove to Grand Prix in Saudi Arabia, he wore a rainbow helmet. So an individual took a stance, but as a group, he knows the formula one is going

to go to Saudi Arabia. That's the way it is. That's the dividing line for me, right? If you can still speak out against it, then that's more representative of free trade than it is. The guys, I guess I just have a little bit of a problem with the Martin Kymers and whatnot, kind of doing a victory lap of I made the right decision all along and now they're all happy. Okay. Okay. Yeah. This was, yeah, there is, I will agree with that. Media and like Roy did a lovely press conference. I thought, normally it probably is not great. Roy did a very good press conference there, but two weeks go where he said, said lots of things in the conference

and I had a nice flow to everything. But then the quotes came out and it was like, I hate live, you know, that was the headline. And of course the live players then are going to bite back and they're going to say something in context of what they're saying maybe, or even just one line again. And those comments are very harsh and each side. There's no doubt that

if any side gloats and thinks they're, you know, that they're right or they're winners, it doesn't come across very well. And some of that is, is one line quotes that never, never said very well or headlines. But yeah, I, I, I, I, I will agree with you there. I don't want to see either side. Remember a lot of these guys who are who are going to live around my right or team a lot of them are my friends and will always be my friends. So, you know, in the, in many ways, we have, I, you know, I can see both sides of it, but I certainly don't want

to see any side turning around and say, well, we were right, you were wrong. I don't like the gloat inside of us. Those guys, remember, those guys, they made a decision and they were ostracized far that decision. So it feels very hard on them, no matter what way you think. They felt hard done by the world you know, that the world of golf, you know, ostracized them and whether it was justified or not, they felt ostracized. And, and that's why they're biting back now and feel like they they've had this win. But we don't know whether they've had a winner or not until we know. I know. The deal might dad goes through. That's for how we know. Well, we just don't know what this, look, the reality of this is,

what do you like, live or not? We have to let them succeed or fail on their own terms. You're not allowed to turn around and deliberately put, I know people don't realize, but you're not allowed to do that in business to a smaller company. You cannot turn around to a company and, and, and damage their business in any way. So the rest of us, whether we like it or not,

we have to look at live and say, let them succeed or fail and see what it comes of us. That's the market we operate. And if you're listening to this podcast, you've heard me say this more than once, but you are an actual stakeholder in this. I'm not really in terms of the part that bothered me the most is the guys that left, and you know, we've talked a lot about pooling media rights and where

the value of professional golf comes from and all that stuff. But the guys that left and just kind of did their own thing didn't bother me nearly as much as the guys that left. And we're also a part of trying to tear down the part that they left and trying to double dip. When the rules clearly stated, you cannot do this. DP World Tour said, you cannot do this. PGA Tour says you cannot do this if you want to be a part of this. And that was the part that really rubbed a lot of people

the wrong way by self included. Did it rub you the wrong way? I didn't rub it the wrong way, but I did find a fascinating that if you make your that, you know, if you, when you make your bed, you go to sleep and that's a thing. And they left, they went there, but they would have felt as well that their business was being interfered with, that they weren't getting the free run, that, you know, you know, as it turned out, the major stayed out of it, they stayed independent, which they should

have, you know, maybe they were, they thought they were going to get a little bit more of this, or, you know, in terms of, say, world ranking points and things like that. So, I do believe it will work itself out over, over time. Yeah, you know, some, some of the players who, who, who, who, some who kept quiet seemed like the smart ones they didn't get involved. Some who did make comments on quotes. Again, sometimes they can be very harsh when they're ahead line. But as I said, they felt that down. You know, when you look at somebody like a Lee Westwood or an impulse or who spent their life playing for the right of cope and being like you know

Impulse's career is the right of cope You know, I know we left but he did they do feel like they were You know I suppose ostracized and at the rural state that's what it is and they they they they needed to be aware of that But you know the the harsh reality was tough on them, as I said. And again, some of this has played out in the media. I was like, you know, some of the biggest and say, loudest critics, you go to last week's on the range and they're having a chat with the people they're

critical of and friendly on an individual basis and yet in the media, you know, it's the opposite. So you kind of have to, it is strange, you know, that there seems to be this two sides that, you know, we hate them, they are us type thing, But when they all come together in a major, everybody is pretty much... Yeah, but I wouldn't say business is... Not quite business as usual, but there's definitely... The animosity, I think, is there,

is not there when it comes to the individual players. But again, isn't that always the way in life. Individuals are completely different than groups. And individually, you see the person you were friends with for years, you see the person you've played golf for years, you see the person, you know, who you've liked. And for me, I see several players who were on my team and I'm never going to give that up you know I'm their captain and that's it forever. So yeah it's a different

the individual and group is very different in this situation and it is hard to marry the two out when it comes into the media world when there is headlines and stories. And as I said, sometimes there were some of those stories, you know, don't gloat. You know, there might be anything to gloat over at this stage. We don't know what's coming out. We'll have to wait for the details. But I am very confident that the tour are doing this in the player's

best interest. And the names you mentioned earlier, there, who have reservations. Well, they should have reservations and hold those reservations and talk about those reservations and believe in those reservations forever, you know, or for a while anyway. And I said just like Lewis Hamilton maybe this is you know if they truly have reservations well maybe this will give them a platform that their their reservations are heard and that they can do something about it and you know show as low as they can you know and hopefully as I said that could cause change but being quiet in the background and doing nothing, that's not gonna help but either. Yeah, it's a mess.

It's gonna be a long time to settle. I have a feeling, especially, you know, with the news that came out about the investigation and how long it, I have a feeling we're just gonna be kind of in limbo for quite some time. I feel, maybe I feel differently about it than I did the week that it happened of course because when it came out it sounded like a done deal. I don't know if that was

intentional or not, but the farther we get from it the more it seems like there's a lot of stuff to get worked out. Like you know you lose a lawsuit over here in the US, you know, there was some sort of anti-trust if there was so many interference from the you from the PGH or in lives of business. That could be several billion. That could be substantially damaged the PGH or so. I don't know if we'll ever find out, was that the case?

It does seem that the asset likes golf. of the PIF, that's unlike Scarf, it doesn't seem to be going easy here. He's not buying it, you know, he's buying it to this sec, from what we hear, he's buying it to this second entity that will invest in golf, but not at the moment of PGH or European tour and live, I'll stand alone. And yeah, I wait for the details. I will be interested to see if it doesn't seem like, you know, if that lawsuit was going so, and maybe the TV deals going so, the live were in a strong

position and maybe they haven't enforced their hand as much in this situation. I don't know. But again, let's wait and we can only speculate. And you know, the great thing about this speculation is I'm so far on the outside, I really know nothing. It was easy to talk about the new tournament structure and you know, kind of designated events and the top players getting together and all this. That was easy for me to talk about. This is really hard. Like I'm not a boardroom expert, you know, it's a mess. Well, I, I said, I'm, I'm, I'm no expert on this at all. And I, as I said, I'm trying to rationalize from a business background, how, marriages happen, how these things, and it just seems like very, very standard practice. The problem is here at the standard practice is messed up by the moral implications of

and as I said I do hope that the individuals you know stay true to themselves and you know can always act in their own interests and maybe, maybe actually have an effect on things down the road, but we have no, I don't think we had any choice. I don't think the tour had any choice but to do the deal. Apologies I'm keeping you a little longer than scheduled, but I want to give proper context to all this conversation. It's a hard topic to rush through. But does anything that's happened over the last couple of weeks change anything with the European side of the Ryder Cup team as far as live players being involved for this year. I know we can't project what's going to happen down the road, but I'd be surprised if

everything was resolved in time for the Ryder Cup or for teams to be selected at least in that time. What do you think happens and what would you like to see done? Well, I think it's too late this year. I think the rules, specifically in Europe, say you have to be a member before the first of May. So I suppose they could change the rule, but I think it's too late for anybody this year. It's just the way the rules are written. But it's obviously not too late for future ride-acops and future ride-acop captains. Yeah, when it comes to Europe, do you think you're playing for Europe, or do you think you're

playing for the European tour? I always felt I was playing for the European tour. You know, Sevy had it that we'd been chipping our shoulder in Europe, that we weren't treated with no respect, and we'd point to prove for the tour. So if you went to Europe, you'll find there's a huge support for the Ryda Cup from the Z-Afghan players, from the Asian players, Australian players playing in Europe. So it was more about the tour. And if it was more about the tour, you could argue,

well, it should only be members of the tour. Now, that might change on the other road with the new deal. Yeah, it's not as big a deal for Europe this year, I think. That's what a lot the road with the new deal. Yeah, it's not as big a deal for Europe this year, I think. That's what a lot of people haven't fully realized. There's not. If you look at the numbers, no one over the last three, six or 12

months is jumping off the page as playing really well and no longer a part of the DP World Tour. Yeah, you know, you would still kind of Sergio. Sergio is the best game. Yeah, Sergio would be the one that would be lucky. He always delivers in the right a cup. Sergio might be the one that I think there is a change

into the guard in Europe at the moment. We're looking for a few new faces. Maybe a few old ones to come back in, but we're definitely looking for a few new faces. So it's not as big a deal. It's a bigger deal in the States in terms of who deserves to be picked, but then again, the US is deep. So it's not, maybe it's not as big a deal for the Red Cup in the US because they're so deep in players. So yeah, but it does need, you know, resolution down the road certainly needs, you know,

But it does need, you know, resolution then the role certainly needs, you know, we need some resolution and Europe certainly can't do without express players going forward. And captain's going forward as well. It's a big it would be it. Yeah. As much as I would like, I'd love to see guys get the captain's seat. We have plenty of players in Europe who will make go captains. We don't need to be rehashing all captains put it like that. We've plenty of players who've played right or cope who I'm remembering like one of our best captains being Paul McGinley. You know, when it becomes the center of their career to be right or cope captain, that can be better than a captain who it's just another, you know, another part of his career. That Paul here in Paul talk about how he approached it and how the chip on the shoulder kind

of underdog mentality that he had in his golf career and how he took that into cap and see was always I found that extremely fascinating. So, Patrick, I am at risk of keeping you for three hours. If I keep going with questions because I could talk off of you forever I would love to continue to do this down the road But we greatly appreciate your time and your insights and you spend some time with us and best of luck with the remainder of the season Thank you there. Yeah, it's a complicated time to be doing Introduce Probably the it's the one time in my career

I love talking and love doing it but it's the one time in my career I love talking and love doing it but it's the only time I'm a career that I'm genuinely afraid of what I'm saying just because you can get it so badly around trying to like I love being playing devils as I get and I generally would argue to high heaven the other side and even if I didn't you know just because that's what I like doing, but this is such a tough subject to try and see both sides of it, without offending people who clearly have a position, a narrow position, and I really respect people who believe in their own, lived our life with their beliefs.

You know, and you don't want to be upsetting people, and you're trying to explain in something like this, as much as people don't like this is the reality of the world we live in, that you have to do a business deal in a free market, because that's the way it is. But please don't second guess individuals somewhat what they think and what they do. That's well said. Yeah, it's been a, it's a hard period of time

when no matter what you say, you're gonna get some feedback and some, some borderline harassment from, from whatever you wanna call the other side, or if somebody that disagrees with you is gonna make it extremely vocal. And it's, it's unlike anything I've seen in the 10 years or so somebody that disagrees with you is going to make it extremely vocal and it's it's unlike anything I've seen in the the 10 years or so. I've done this that's for sure. Yeah, we're not used to this certainly. We tend to steer clear of it, but you know, even from this conversation, maybe, you know, I take for this maybe down the road, you know, as I said, Lewis Hamilton, you take from that, maybe statements and things can help with change.

And as I said, players as individuals can maybe have an effect in this world where golf really shouldn't have that mandate. Maybe we will go forward. Yeah, potentially. It's very difficult for us golfers to say, right? I don't know if that's fully our job, but our job description.

But anyways, greatly, greatly appreciate the time. We're looking forward to the open chip coming up here in a few weeks as well. And yeah, we'll have you back anytime. OK, thanks. Thanks a lot. It's a good right club. Be the right club today.

Yes. Yes. That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Yeah. you