November 8, 2021 • 12 mins
This week on Stick & Hack Reacts, Adam and Keith take a look at Viktor Hovland's victory at Mayakoba and the recent PGA rule change to stop the usage of greens and yardage books.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Everybody, good afternoon, Welcome in. This is Sticking Act Reacts.
I'm your host Adam Grub from Sticking Act. That's Keith
Stewart from ESPN Radio in New York and host of
the Pro Show. Happy to see you, Keith, Happy to
have you here as we react every single Monday at
noon to the week's golf news, p G A, l
p g A, amateur ranks, whatever the case may be,
whatever comes our way, and typically on a weekly basis,
(00:27):
we have a lot to talk about. It is a
we're trying to move things into into a time frame
here because we have so many things to talk about
this week, I'm gonna give an early reaction. We don't
have a whole lot to talk about, we don't have
a lot to discuss, but there's a couple of things
that stuck out for me. Number One, Victor Hovlan as
a winner from the weekend p g A event. He
(00:50):
won the Worldwide Technology Championship, which sounds like something that
you would find it like Palo Alto or something like
that for a bunch of of college students as they
bring their inventions to town. But apparently this was a
golf tournament. Keith, your reaction to Victor Honwind. You know,
you gotta give Victor Hoffland a big thumbs up. This guy,
he's been a story for a little while now and
(01:11):
he hasn't let us down. I mean, he's never missed
a cut in a major. Um. You know, he's twenty
four years old. He's had three wins. The last time
a European was that young and had three wins was
Rory back in two thousand and twelve. So that's a
pretty impressive list to beyond. He is, uh, what, let's
see last year he won the Mayakoba, he won this
(01:31):
year that he's twenty under last year, twenty three under
this year, forty three under in two years. Is that good?
He's it's it's damn good. He's a second time winner
of this, uh this tournament. Yeah. The last guy to repeat,
he just repeated. And the last guy to repeat on
the PGA Tour was Brooks when he won the PGA
back in two thousand eighteen, two thousand nineteen. So, I mean,
(01:53):
it doesn't happen a lot. And you know, quite honestly,
he's got three wins on the p g A Tour
Puerto Rico, Mayacoba and Mayacoba. So I think he's like
the resort king, you know, he's like the all inclusive specialist.
I don't know. I mean the guy he's really good.
Um and and you know, going in the Ryder Cup,
everybody said he was the guy that was gonna leave
(02:14):
the European team. He's gonna be kind of the quiet
m v P. He comes to these events, he's playing
well all the time, he's jumped up to down number
ten in the world. And the way he plays off
the tea and the way he puts. I mean, the
guy's really solid. There's not what you can say about
him other than if you don't like his smile, because
he's always smiling. Yeah. So Victor Hovlin, who's always in
the conversation too. And you know how how I love
(02:37):
fantasy golf and how great I am at at it.
I'm really really good at it. Um Uh. Victor is
always in that conversation though, because he's steady Eddie and
he doesn't do a lot. There's not a lot of
times where he's just not even uh, not even competing. Uh.
He just doesn't win a lot. However, winning the same
tournament back to back is is a pretty cool accomplishment.
(02:58):
What was awesome and what was great about the about
the field? Was there anything special about this win or
was it pretty much a wire to wire Victor Victor
Hobland victory. Well, no, it wasn't wire to wire. I
mean Matt Wolfe started with the first two days, uh,
leaving the golf tournament after thirty six holes and then
had a bad Saturday. Um, that's his Oklahoma state teammate
(03:19):
of all things right there, of Victor Hoblind. But it
was cool about the Victor Hobland story was that on Wednesday,
the day before the tournament, he was hitting balls on
the range and he was next to Danny Lee. And
Danny Lee has been infamously doing some speed training where
he swings really really hard. You know, your your buddy Bryson,
that type of stuff. And Hoblin said, hey, what you
know my driver is an inch longer. Why don't you
(03:40):
try to see how far you can hit it with
my driver? So Lee swings as hard as he can
and he snaps his driver in half. So the so
the eventual tour winner, um did it with someone else's driver.
He did it with with James Hans driver, who's another
PGA Tour player. He had to borrow it. Um he
had a similar paying driver with specs to that of
what Hobland his gamer was. And uh, yeah, so the
(04:02):
day before the tournament, Danny Lee snapped his driver in half.
I would love to have seen Victor's classic um smiling
face at the moment with which he saw like the
things just splinter into a million pieces. But uh, and
I think that's a pretty cool story, you know, or
an aside to what's going on there. I mean at
the end of the day. Uh, he beat Carlos Ortiz
(04:22):
by four shots right now. Carlos is a cool story
because he's from Mexico. The event was in Mexico. He
birdie six of his last seven to come in second,
although it is you know, to lose by four. Um
j T was there in third, Scottie Scheffler, Matt Wolfe, um,
Joaquin Nemon. I mean he beat he beat a good field.
I mean there was a strong field there. Brooks was there.
There's a lot of a lot of really good players there,
(04:43):
and uh, you know, Hoblin beat him all by four guys,
guys strong. It's really good at him. Let me go
back to the Danny Lee story. Uh, because I actually
stopped listening the last forty five seconds of of of
your stats. There. Let's go back to the Dannie Lee stories.
I have a question for you. Uh was this a
stick or move from Danny Lee to break a driver
(05:05):
the day before a tournament? Who's your buddies driver? I
mean it put this in in real world terms. You're
at the range with your with your friend and you
got member member that weekend, and all of a sudden
you said, let me, let me take a whack at
that driver there, Brett, and then you and then you
hit it and you break it and you, oh shoot,
sorry about that story. The story goes Hobland offered it
(05:29):
to him because it was different than than Lee's own.
I mean, Lee Lee is definitely a stick. He's he's
got back to back top tens on the PGA Tour.
But wasn't a hack move or hack moved? Stick moved
because he broke a driver because he swung it so
hard to hit the ball so hard, that's a stick
Or is it hack because he broke broke the thing
before a major tournament? Not a major. I gotta go stick, Yeah,
(05:52):
I gotta go to the I gotta go to the
stick route because he did it. It's not like he
did it by snapping it over his knee. You know,
he did it within the swing and he swunk so
hard he just you know, he probably did Victor a favorite.
I mean, there's probably something compromised in the shaft and
the need to let it rip. Yeah, figurative, that's good. Um,
let's go to number two here on the Sticking Act reacts,
(06:13):
and that is the yardage and green books. Now, Uh,
you know, either a we are digging deep for news
here in this wrap around golf season, or this is
a big deal because this is something that's been talked about.
In fact, Mike Hembrie wrote about it on Friday for
Sticking Act dot Com as well as we're talking about
it here on non Sticking Act Reacts. It was a
fodder for the weekend as well as as some of
(06:33):
the pros came out and said, this is uh, this
is frustrating and annoying. Give us the details of what
you know of the rule change for two. Yet again,
a another kind of only affects the pros type rule.
But that's who we watch and if and if if
rules came out to to change MLB or an NBA. Uh,
the NFL specifically, it doesn't affect the amateur players on
(06:56):
the weekends, but it does here affect the pros. Tell
us about a green and yardage book ruling, and your
reaction specifically is that's the name of the show. Yeah,
my reaction would be, Man, you know, I A lot
of people think that removing these things is gonna put
the skill back in the hands of the player. The
decision making and and the judgment calls are going to
rely more on the player caddy team. It's going to
(07:17):
speed up play. I'm not really sure that any of
those things that are really gonna happen. Um. I guess
first and foremost for our fans, you got to kind
of explain what those green reading books look like. Um,
they almost look like a temperature chart, and the more severe,
you know, so there's an outline of the green, and
then on that it's it's read where the slope is
(07:38):
the most severe, and it's green where it's the most flat,
and there's degrees in there, and you know, it kind
of gives the person who is reading the book and
then reading, you know, and then assessing that and then
comparing that to the green. Um, how much break there
is based upon maybe one degree or three degrees of slow?
Three degrees would be a lot, but um. You know,
so overall things have kind of grown into this world
(08:00):
where guys do practice rounds and they walk out with
their own track man and they measure every shot on
the golf course. So you know, obviously this is a
kin to very much here. Bryson D. Shambo's in the world,
and he's he's a very avid Green's Book reader. Uh.
The players, you know what's interesting about this, Adam. The
one upside to this react would be that the players
are the ones that want them removed. So that's interesting
(08:23):
to me, you know, And you know, what's your opinion
of that. I didn't know that. That's number one. I
had no idea that the players were calling for it,
uh and want Are they trying to level the playing field?
Are they trying to bring the the for those that
can read a green and and and understand it and
do the homework ahead of time that gives them, uh
more of an advantage? What I don't know that My
(08:44):
reaction is confusion. Well, I think it's cool because I
think good players want to compete and they want skill
to win out overall. And I think that what's good
about this in the long run is that we love
tournaments as fans where we see the plays are challenged
and they struggle, or they go to a new golf course.
And where when are those most likely? Those are when
(09:05):
there's majors or there's bad weather. Right, um, to go
to Mayacoba and watch these guys play in paradise isn't
the most entertaining thing. But had it been blowing like
it was in Bermuda and you saw those guys struggle
and fight like you know Lucas Herbert did a week ago,
I mean that to me was way more entertaining. And
I think that when you remove those Green's books and
the guys have to make decisions, uh, in order to
(09:28):
compete and challenge one another, I think that that makes
them more relatable. I think that we don't carry around
Green's books, so watching them do that makes them seem
more unrelatable. At the end of the day, I I
think that the players are getting rid of them because
they want skill to win out overall, and I think
that that really sends out a nice message to the
(09:49):
fans that like, hey, that we want to do this
the right way, and you know, I think it makes
it cool. Is it gonna speed up play? Probably? I
mean nothing speeds up play on pgs if you're playing
for a million dollars. That's exactly in baseball. They try
to speed up the game in baseball by this pitching
shot clock and this whole thing. And and baseball is
still still as slow as it's ever been and we'll
continue to because that's the game. Uh. And this is
(10:10):
the game of a professional golf uh. And I disagree
with you on one point there, and that is the
that nobody, no amateur uses a yardage book. There's a
guy at the club. He uses one, and he has
made fun of specifically and and targeted every single time
he pulls that stupid thing out. And he says, oh,
I said, this is your club, you play here five
times a week. Why do you need that thing? What
is the what? What possible gain could come from from
(10:33):
carrying that around except looking like a complete tool as
you do well? I mean yardage books aside, they're still
gonna have yardage books. It's just the green reading charts.
And to you know, to be honest, when you when
you read into the memo from the PGA tour to
the players, they can still create their own yardage book, right, um,
(10:55):
so they can put handwritten notes in there. So someone
could you know, I mean somebody like Brightson who relies
upon it so much. We'll probably go in there and
draw on as many things as he can as he
goes through the process of his practice rounds. He'll stay
up till like midnight. He'll probably hire like a Green's
reading you know, UH sketch artists. He will have his
pro tractor out there and things are gonna get get
(11:17):
loose for Bryce and late night after the range closes
down for him at ten pm under the lights, and
then he's gonna go out and draw the Green's book.
Keith Stewart from ESPN Radio and host of the Pro
Show which happens every Friday. Make sure that you go
and find that on your favorite podcast platform, Stick and
Hack Show as well. And as a reminder, guys, for
for those of you who are new newer to UH
(11:38):
to Stick and Act, we do this every single Monday
at lunch Keith and I and it is the highlight
of many's week, which just shows you UH specifically what
they're week is like. However, it is the highlight of
some and uh and we're excited for that. He's Keith
storing amount of rub. This is stick and Hack reacts Keith,
enjoy your day, enjoy your week, sir, Hey, this has
(12:00):
been the highlight of my week. Adam, enjoy the grub.
H
Everybody, good afternoon, Welcome in. This is Sticking Act Reacts.
I'm your host Adam Grub from Sticking Act. That's Keith
Stewart from ESPN Radio in New York and host of
the Pro Show. Happy to see you, Keith, Happy to
have you here as we react every single Monday at
noon to the week's golf news, p G A, l
p g A, amateur ranks, whatever the case may be,
whatever comes our way, and typically on a weekly basis,
(00:27):
we have a lot to talk about. It is a
we're trying to move things into into a time frame
here because we have so many things to talk about
this week, I'm gonna give an early reaction. We don't
have a whole lot to talk about, we don't have
a lot to discuss, but there's a couple of things
that stuck out for me. Number One, Victor Hovlan as
a winner from the weekend p g A event. He
(00:50):
won the Worldwide Technology Championship, which sounds like something that
you would find it like Palo Alto or something like
that for a bunch of of college students as they
bring their inventions to town. But apparently this was a
golf tournament. Keith, your reaction to Victor Honwind. You know,
you gotta give Victor Hoffland a big thumbs up. This guy,
he's been a story for a little while now and
(01:11):
he hasn't let us down. I mean, he's never missed
a cut in a major. Um. You know, he's twenty
four years old. He's had three wins. The last time
a European was that young and had three wins was
Rory back in two thousand and twelve. So that's a
pretty impressive list to beyond. He is, uh, what, let's
see last year he won the Mayakoba, he won this
(01:31):
year that he's twenty under last year, twenty three under
this year, forty three under in two years. Is that good?
He's it's it's damn good. He's a second time winner
of this, uh this tournament. Yeah. The last guy to repeat,
he just repeated. And the last guy to repeat on
the PGA Tour was Brooks when he won the PGA
back in two thousand eighteen, two thousand nineteen. So, I mean,
(01:53):
it doesn't happen a lot. And you know, quite honestly,
he's got three wins on the p g A Tour
Puerto Rico, Mayacoba and Mayacoba. So I think he's like
the resort king, you know, he's like the all inclusive specialist.
I don't know. I mean the guy he's really good.
Um and and you know, going in the Ryder Cup,
everybody said he was the guy that was gonna leave
(02:14):
the European team. He's gonna be kind of the quiet
m v P. He comes to these events, he's playing
well all the time, he's jumped up to down number
ten in the world. And the way he plays off
the tea and the way he puts. I mean, the
guy's really solid. There's not what you can say about
him other than if you don't like his smile, because
he's always smiling. Yeah. So Victor Hovlin, who's always in
the conversation too. And you know how how I love
(02:37):
fantasy golf and how great I am at at it.
I'm really really good at it. Um Uh. Victor is
always in that conversation though, because he's steady Eddie and
he doesn't do a lot. There's not a lot of
times where he's just not even uh, not even competing. Uh.
He just doesn't win a lot. However, winning the same
tournament back to back is is a pretty cool accomplishment.
(02:58):
What was awesome and what was great about the about
the field? Was there anything special about this win or
was it pretty much a wire to wire Victor Victor
Hobland victory. Well, no, it wasn't wire to wire. I
mean Matt Wolfe started with the first two days, uh,
leaving the golf tournament after thirty six holes and then
had a bad Saturday. Um, that's his Oklahoma state teammate
(03:19):
of all things right there, of Victor Hoblind. But it
was cool about the Victor Hobland story was that on Wednesday,
the day before the tournament, he was hitting balls on
the range and he was next to Danny Lee. And
Danny Lee has been infamously doing some speed training where
he swings really really hard. You know, your your buddy Bryson,
that type of stuff. And Hoblin said, hey, what you
know my driver is an inch longer. Why don't you
(03:40):
try to see how far you can hit it with
my driver? So Lee swings as hard as he can
and he snaps his driver in half. So the so
the eventual tour winner, um did it with someone else's driver.
He did it with with James Hans driver, who's another
PGA Tour player. He had to borrow it. Um he
had a similar paying driver with specs to that of
what Hobland his gamer was. And uh, yeah, so the
(04:02):
day before the tournament, Danny Lee snapped his driver in half.
I would love to have seen Victor's classic um smiling
face at the moment with which he saw like the
things just splinter into a million pieces. But uh, and
I think that's a pretty cool story, you know, or
an aside to what's going on there. I mean at
the end of the day. Uh, he beat Carlos Ortiz
(04:22):
by four shots right now. Carlos is a cool story
because he's from Mexico. The event was in Mexico. He
birdie six of his last seven to come in second,
although it is you know, to lose by four. Um
j T was there in third, Scottie Scheffler, Matt Wolfe, um,
Joaquin Nemon. I mean he beat he beat a good field.
I mean there was a strong field there. Brooks was there.
There's a lot of a lot of really good players there,
(04:43):
and uh, you know, Hoblin beat him all by four guys,
guys strong. It's really good at him. Let me go
back to the Danny Lee story. Uh, because I actually
stopped listening the last forty five seconds of of of
your stats. There. Let's go back to the Dannie Lee stories.
I have a question for you. Uh was this a
stick or move from Danny Lee to break a driver
(05:05):
the day before a tournament? Who's your buddies driver? I
mean it put this in in real world terms. You're
at the range with your with your friend and you
got member member that weekend, and all of a sudden
you said, let me, let me take a whack at
that driver there, Brett, and then you and then you
hit it and you break it and you, oh shoot,
sorry about that story. The story goes Hobland offered it
(05:29):
to him because it was different than than Lee's own.
I mean, Lee Lee is definitely a stick. He's he's
got back to back top tens on the PGA Tour.
But wasn't a hack move or hack moved? Stick moved
because he broke a driver because he swung it so
hard to hit the ball so hard, that's a stick
Or is it hack because he broke broke the thing
before a major tournament? Not a major. I gotta go stick, Yeah,
(05:52):
I gotta go to the I gotta go to the
stick route because he did it. It's not like he
did it by snapping it over his knee. You know,
he did it within the swing and he swunk so
hard he just you know, he probably did Victor a favorite.
I mean, there's probably something compromised in the shaft and
the need to let it rip. Yeah, figurative, that's good. Um,
let's go to number two here on the Sticking Act reacts,
(06:13):
and that is the yardage and green books. Now, Uh,
you know, either a we are digging deep for news
here in this wrap around golf season, or this is
a big deal because this is something that's been talked about.
In fact, Mike Hembrie wrote about it on Friday for
Sticking Act dot Com as well as we're talking about
it here on non Sticking Act Reacts. It was a
fodder for the weekend as well as as some of
(06:33):
the pros came out and said, this is uh, this
is frustrating and annoying. Give us the details of what
you know of the rule change for two. Yet again,
a another kind of only affects the pros type rule.
But that's who we watch and if and if if
rules came out to to change MLB or an NBA. Uh,
the NFL specifically, it doesn't affect the amateur players on
(06:56):
the weekends, but it does here affect the pros. Tell
us about a green and yardage book ruling, and your
reaction specifically is that's the name of the show. Yeah,
my reaction would be, Man, you know, I A lot
of people think that removing these things is gonna put
the skill back in the hands of the player. The
decision making and and the judgment calls are going to
rely more on the player caddy team. It's going to
(07:17):
speed up play. I'm not really sure that any of
those things that are really gonna happen. Um. I guess
first and foremost for our fans, you got to kind
of explain what those green reading books look like. Um,
they almost look like a temperature chart, and the more severe,
you know, so there's an outline of the green, and
then on that it's it's read where the slope is
(07:38):
the most severe, and it's green where it's the most flat,
and there's degrees in there, and you know, it kind
of gives the person who is reading the book and
then reading, you know, and then assessing that and then
comparing that to the green. Um, how much break there
is based upon maybe one degree or three degrees of slow?
Three degrees would be a lot, but um. You know,
so overall things have kind of grown into this world
(08:00):
where guys do practice rounds and they walk out with
their own track man and they measure every shot on
the golf course. So you know, obviously this is a
kin to very much here. Bryson D. Shambo's in the world,
and he's he's a very avid Green's Book reader. Uh.
The players, you know what's interesting about this, Adam. The
one upside to this react would be that the players
are the ones that want them removed. So that's interesting
(08:23):
to me, you know, And you know, what's your opinion
of that. I didn't know that. That's number one. I
had no idea that the players were calling for it,
uh and want Are they trying to level the playing field?
Are they trying to bring the the for those that
can read a green and and and understand it and
do the homework ahead of time that gives them, uh
more of an advantage? What I don't know that My
(08:44):
reaction is confusion. Well, I think it's cool because I
think good players want to compete and they want skill
to win out overall. And I think that what's good
about this in the long run is that we love
tournaments as fans where we see the plays are challenged
and they struggle, or they go to a new golf course.
And where when are those most likely? Those are when
(09:05):
there's majors or there's bad weather. Right, um, to go
to Mayacoba and watch these guys play in paradise isn't
the most entertaining thing. But had it been blowing like
it was in Bermuda and you saw those guys struggle
and fight like you know Lucas Herbert did a week ago,
I mean that to me was way more entertaining. And
I think that when you remove those Green's books and
the guys have to make decisions, uh, in order to
(09:28):
compete and challenge one another, I think that that makes
them more relatable. I think that we don't carry around
Green's books, so watching them do that makes them seem
more unrelatable. At the end of the day, I I
think that the players are getting rid of them because
they want skill to win out overall, and I think
that that really sends out a nice message to the
(09:49):
fans that like, hey, that we want to do this
the right way, and you know, I think it makes
it cool. Is it gonna speed up play? Probably? I
mean nothing speeds up play on pgs if you're playing
for a million dollars. That's exactly in baseball. They try
to speed up the game in baseball by this pitching
shot clock and this whole thing. And and baseball is
still still as slow as it's ever been and we'll
continue to because that's the game. Uh. And this is
(10:10):
the game of a professional golf uh. And I disagree
with you on one point there, and that is the
that nobody, no amateur uses a yardage book. There's a
guy at the club. He uses one, and he has
made fun of specifically and and targeted every single time
he pulls that stupid thing out. And he says, oh,
I said, this is your club, you play here five
times a week. Why do you need that thing? What
is the what? What possible gain could come from from
(10:33):
carrying that around except looking like a complete tool as
you do well? I mean yardage books aside, they're still
gonna have yardage books. It's just the green reading charts.
And to you know, to be honest, when you when
you read into the memo from the PGA tour to
the players, they can still create their own yardage book, right, um,
(10:55):
so they can put handwritten notes in there. So someone
could you know, I mean somebody like Brightson who relies
upon it so much. We'll probably go in there and
draw on as many things as he can as he
goes through the process of his practice rounds. He'll stay
up till like midnight. He'll probably hire like a Green's
reading you know, UH sketch artists. He will have his
pro tractor out there and things are gonna get get
(11:17):
loose for Bryce and late night after the range closes
down for him at ten pm under the lights, and
then he's gonna go out and draw the Green's book.
Keith Stewart from ESPN Radio and host of the Pro
Show which happens every Friday. Make sure that you go
and find that on your favorite podcast platform, Stick and
Hack Show as well. And as a reminder, guys, for
for those of you who are new newer to UH
(11:38):
to Stick and Act, we do this every single Monday
at lunch Keith and I and it is the highlight
of many's week, which just shows you UH specifically what
they're week is like. However, it is the highlight of
some and uh and we're excited for that. He's Keith
storing amount of rub. This is stick and Hack reacts Keith,
enjoy your day, enjoy your week, sir, Hey, this has
(12:00):
been the highlight of my week. Adam, enjoy the grub.
H
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