June 16, 2025 • 17 mins
PGA’s US Open had a successful weekend & looks to build off it.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Thank you so much for being with us today wherever
it is that you may be. We had a great
US Open yesterday. As JJ Spahn came to the eighteenth
holl we're going to play the serious XM slash US
Open radio version. This is Amelia Amelia Duran. She is
with the US Open Radio and it's been pretty new
(00:23):
to their coverage over the last couple of years. A
college golfer in and of herself, and she had the call.
Is JJ Spahn made history yesterday.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
One of the hardest, if not the hardest tests in
major championship golf.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
For the win, JJ Sphon fall up and over the ridge.
It's on a very good line. This could go win,
JJ spahd makes sense. It's the biggest.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Moment of his career.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
JJ Sphon conquers oapun And.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
As you're one hundred and twenty fifth US.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Open champion, Oh tough. Thank yeah. They've been playing this harder.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
They've actually I've been playing it for one hundred and
thirty years, but five times were preempted because of World
War One and.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
World War Two.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
How dare that they managed to get it in late
in the year during COVID, But during World War One
and World War Two.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We had to pause.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, now because I had asked you a stupid question.
When it comes to the US UP and US Open. One,
this is part of the Grand Slam. It is one
of the four majors. Yay, how come they don't play
this is the US Open always at all? No?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It rotates around a number of golf courses, Oakmont being
one of them, and Oakmont's hosted it now ten times
in those hundred and thirty years.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Why do they not?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Because I noticed this the other the other day when
I was looking up the winners.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Why don't they play this course every single year? Because
a they don't want to. They want to rotate it around.
And number two, the membership at Oakmont certainly doesn't want
to give up their golf course for a month every year.
And so there's other the only only major that has
the same venue as the Master and they play that
(02:02):
at Augusta every year. Every other major rotates it around
a number of golf courses, and I think there's now
ten in the rota for the for the Open Championship,
they're going to go.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
The USGA did what they call.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Anchor sites, Oakmont, Pinehurst, and Pebble Beach, and over the
next twenty five thirty years they're going to play a
lot of the events there, but there's seven to ten
others that they think are US open worthy that they'll
go to as well. Next year they're going to Shinnakak
Hills in Long Island. After that they're going to Wingfoot
in New York. I think that they're going to Pebble
(02:39):
Beach at some point here pretty soon. I think twenty
seven or twenty eight is Pebble Beach on the West Coast.
The Olympic Club in San Francisco's on the list. I
don't think they're ever going back to Chambers Bay in
Washington where they had the issue that they did there
in twenty fifteen, or in Aaron Hills in Wisconsin, because
the scores were way too low for a US open
(02:59):
US liking.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
So basically everybody besides jjspawn is like, thank God, we
don't have to come back.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
To the twenty thirty three I think is when they're
coming back. I think it's I think it's eight. I
think it's twenty thirty three when they come back to Ogmont.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Awesome, And by that time I'm sure it'll be ten
times worse.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
All Right, here's some thoughts on what was discussed throughout
the week. I think Oakmont was set up great for
a US Open. I think there's some things that they
could have done to it to make it better. But
what they wanted was somebody to shoot close to par,
which jjspawn bested by one. But one of the topics
on the life from coverage, the two hour postgame coverage
(03:36):
that Golf Channel did every week, was to discuss what
we've talked about for a number of years for about
a year now, is the USGA and the RNA want
to roll the golf ball back in terms of how
far it can go based on today's testing and standards
that they're trying to get to. What they do is
they put a golf ball on a machine, the machines
(03:57):
called iron Byron.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It mimics the Byron nell.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
And swing and it makes sure that you have exact
contact with the golf ball and it can repeat it
several times. And how far does that ball fly at
a certain speed. And I don't know if they've changed
the parameters, but typically they test the ball how far
it can go at one hundred and five miles per hour.
Most of the PGA Tour players swing a lot faster
(04:20):
than that, and I am I'm not on board with this,
and most people are not. There's a few outliers like
Paul McGinley, who I totally respect and like a lot
of the things he says on that show that think
that we should roll the golf ball back so that
we put a premium on accuracy.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (04:40):
What does roll the golf It means make it go
shorter than it does now when you test it. If
today's golf ball flies three hundred and twenty yards on
the test, the new one would only fly three hundred
and five. That doesn't mean it wouldn't go three twenty
if Roy or Bryson are hitting it. But Roy and
Bryson can hit it four hundred if they get the
right win and conditions. Now they would hit it less
and you would have to swing within yourself a little
(05:04):
bit more so that you put a premium on accuracy.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
That would be like what they'd have to like manufacture.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Golf ball would have to be manufactured as such so
it doesn't fly as far. Okay, And if you look
at the history of golf, we used to play with rocks.
Back in the forties and fifties and beyond, we played
with basically sown baseballs that were smaller back in the
eighteen hundreds when Old Tom Morris was alive. So the
golf ball has evolved and technology has allowed us to
get to where we're at now because the materials that
(05:31):
they use for equipment and golf balls didn't exist ten
or twenty or thirty or fifty years ago. Okay, So
the RNA and the USGA wants to dial back how far.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
A player can hit it?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
What the heck is the RNA, the Royal and Ancient
Golf Club of Saint Andrews, Scotland. They make the rules
for everybody other than the United States and Canada.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Okay, So when they say something, there's a reason for Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Well, they're trying to protect the integrity of the game,
the legacy, the legacy, and there also there's also the
talk that longer golf courses are shorter golf courses that
were designed two or three hundred years ago are not
long enough now for the modern game. Well, I can
debate that by saying Oakmont's been around since nineteen twenty seven,
(06:13):
and yes, they've been able to extend it to seventy
two hundred and thirty yards. That was what they played
this year. But what is the reason that Oakmont was
only a one hunder par winner is because the fairways
were twenty yards wide and when you missed, you were
chopping out sideways.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
You were not able to advance the ball very often.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
And if I went out there with the lawnmower and
took out all the rough, took out every single element
of rough, and made it the same height third inch
higher than the fairway, the winning score would have been
fifteen under or twenty under, just because that's how good
the players are. So every year at the Arnold Palmer
Invitational at Bayhill and every year at the Memorial, Jack
(06:55):
Nicholas creates rough. He doesn't let the players just vomb
it out there and gouget out of the fairway like
they do for the other forty five weeks on the tour.
And any time that you want to fix a player
from make a player dial it back. Make sure that
the further that you hit it, the harder it is
to hit the fairway control, and the further that you
(07:17):
hit it, the more penal you're in if you miss long,
you miss short, you've got a better chance of getting
it where you're aiming than if you miss long. Okay, Okay,
So almost every person thinks about that, or that you
know that plays golf understands that linked is going to
be wiped out when you make pre accuracy on driving
(07:40):
by nearing how much the fairways are and how deep
the rough is. I think TPC San Antonio is an
incredibly hard golf course no matter what set of teas
you play from, especially from the back tees where the
pros play. But it's not hard for them because they
hit it relatively straight and when they miss, there's no
penalty for a missing the fairway by ten yards. You
(08:00):
have to basically hit it out of play before it
becomes penal for them.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
But here's the.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Topic in Joe Caruso and I were talking about this
this weekend on the Golf Show. Every week on the
PGA Tour, there's one hundred and forty four pros at
most tournaments. Some have one hundred and twenty eight, some
of the signature events have ninety. But week in and
week out, you have one hundred and forty four pros,
and whether you play titleist or shricks On or Callaway
or Tailor Made or whatever ball manufacturer you play with.
(08:28):
When you show up in the locker room and you
open your locker, there's three dozen golf balls for you
to play with for that week, and you're going to
play a practice round on Tuesday, a pro am on Wednesday,
and four rounds of competition, and you're going to probably
give away half of those golf balls to kids and
to the standard bearer follows you around with the score.
And next week when you show up at the next event,
(08:49):
there's going to be another three dozen golf balls in
your locker and they're not paying for them.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
They're free for the players.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So the golf ball manufacturers realize that if you like
Scotty Scheffler and you show up at a golf retail place,
there's a pretty good chance you're going to say give
me a titleist because that's what Scotty Schffler plays. And
if you like Kadeki Matsuyama, you're probably going to say, hey,
I want to play with the decies golf ball. I
need a shrix On or Rory with Taylor Made or
(09:18):
Xander with Callaway whatever.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
And so they have priced that golf ball for you.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Most of them now are fifty to five to sixty
five dollars a dozen, and they price that golf ball
to offset the fact that they're giving four hundred and
thirty six dozen golf balls a week away times however,
many tours they give that away on. So if they
have a professional ball, only who's going to develop it,
(09:45):
who's going to do the research on it, Who's going
to create this to make it the best short distance
golf ball? And titlist in Callaway and shricks On and
Taylor made et cetera are looking. We don't want to
do this because we can't sell it to the public.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
We want people to.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Walk in and play Scottie Scheffler's golf ball or Tiger's
golf ball or whatever. We don't want somebody coming in
and go, give me a ball that goes shorter, because
I'm an amateur golfer that only hits it two ten,
but I need to make sure the ball doesn't go
as far. So there's no market for that golf ball
that the pros are going to be asked to play
with as soon as potentially twenty twenty eight. And so, okay,
(10:23):
you're going to ask me to spend one hundred million
dollars on research and development for a golf ball that
one hundred and forty four guys are going to use
Thursday through Saturday, and I can't sell it to anybody. Okay,
I'm going to jack up the price of the ball.
I can sell to seventy five or ninety so I
can offset that cost. So it's coming back to the consumer,
not to the player, because the players getting their stuff
(10:45):
for free anyway. And again, the players are the ones
that are dictating this. They don't want to play a
golf course like Oakmont every week. I mean, Rory McElroy
said Saturday night when he finally spoke to the media,
did an interview, he said, they said, what's your plan
for tomorrow? He goes, hopefully finish in less than four
(11:06):
and a half hours and get out of here as
fast as I can. They don't want to play that.
They understand they have to for the US Open. They
know when they go to Shinnacock next year, the greens
are all up on purchase. They're going to lightning fast
the greens, and weather's going to dictate whether they're even
playable or not. And because it's the US Open, or
it's the Open Championship. If weather gets into endo factor,
(11:28):
they'll do it once or twice a year, But week
in and week out, they want to have a relatively
fun place to play golf.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
And here's the other thing.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
The NFL has made defense almost non existent, so teams
score more points. And Major League Baseball has opted for
a pitch clock and a ghost runner and a lower mound,
and you can't change the pitcher every batter, so there's
more offense. And basketball doesn't call fouls or traveling, so
(11:57):
there's more offense. Evere league on the world is trying
to get more offense. And yet they're those who think
that golf, well that's twenty unders too much, let's dial
it back to thirteen. Yeah, because I listen, I'm a
pretty decent golfer. But I could play twenty rounds in
a row and take my four best and I'm not
shooting twenty under. But Scotti Scheffler might. And if he
(12:21):
plays someplace as easy as TPC Craig Ranch up in
Dallas with no wind and nothing in the way, he's
gonna shoot thirty under.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
I'm fine with that.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I get to live vicariously through him because I get
to see him do this. We have seen an unprecedented
growth in golf since COVID, and Mike Wan, the Commissioner
of the USGA, comes on the other day and says,
in the last five years, rounds of golf in the
United States are up fifty five percent. We're in the
midst of a golf boom. Why are you going to
do something that is going to price the consumer out
(12:53):
of being able to play even more so than it
does now.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
And when they turn on the.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
TV, it's a it's a slug fit like we saw
this weekend every single week.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
It doesn't make any sense, No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
And then I'm a little giddy because I get to
use this for a good reason and bring in the
Happy Gilmore reference, you know, and Happy Gilmore you know,
Adam Sandler's character could drive the ball four hundred five
hundred yards, get on on on the green within one
on par fives, but couldn't put worth a lick. Yeah,
(13:26):
basically even could just keep it on the green. Yeah,
But the joking line is like, oh man, I should
just try to aim for the hole every single time
off the tee.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Well yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
It doesn't matter how long these guys can drive the ball,
Like how you were talking about for Oakmont, they can't
extend the course out because obviously over the oas. Yeah,
roads in the way, houses in the way, and things
like that, other things that are already have throughout time
have established. But how do you offset that? You make
the fairways thinner? You put you put a craft more bunkers.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
You put one hundred and sixty eight bunckers in seven
inch rough all around them.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yes, that's how you make it harder.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
You make it to where, Hey, you guys are supposed
to be the best of the best, then you're we're
going to show We're going to make you showcase that
if you miss by an inch.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Here's you're going to be paying.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Here's the other thing that people don't look at. Over
ten thousand people tried to qualify for the US Open
this year.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I was not one of them. I wasn't either.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I don't have a low enough handicap, and I probably
wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Even if I did, mine would be a max. I
don't even know what is the max thirty plus thirty
plus five.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I think it's now forty something. I don't know you
used to be thirty six. But I could give me
one hundred, one hundred, I can give you, I could
give you unlimited golf balls and you wouldn't finish the
first hole at Opemont because you've never played before.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
You could probably throw the ball farther than I definitely,
and you definitely could. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
But of those ten thousand, maybe a thousand of them
or professional golfers, there was about nine thousand amateurs that
tried to play the US Open to see a they
could fulfill their dream of playing in the Open Championship,
and most of them failed. But if it's a USGA
event with USGA rules, where do they get that golf ball?
(15:12):
Can't buy it. It's not for sale, no one. It's
not available at your local retail store or online anywhere.
And if he did was able to buy it, was
it going to cost two three hundred dollars a dozen
because they don't make very many. They only make them
for the pros on tour. And now you need to
go have it so that you can practice with them
in your practice rounds and then figure out what your
(15:32):
new distances are. And now you have to go qualify
for the US Open. So you got a hotshot high
school kid who decides he's going to qualify for the
US Open, and he shows up for the first round,
they go, sorry, your golf balls are non conforming. You
got to go buy these. We happen to have some
in the van. They're three hundred dollars a dozen. Mom,
Dad want to pay for it all of a sudden. See,
(15:54):
golf has had three things that in its history have
made it detrimental for people to play. Other than sometimes
stupid rules, it's it is always it is one of
the hardest games in the world to play. It takes
at least four hours to play the round and not
including the time to drive to the golf course and
to drive home and to visit the nineteenth hole after
you're done. And it's it's expensive. So what the RNA
(16:19):
is asking is for golf ball companies to spend money
that they can't get an ROI on, to increase the expense,
to make the game harder and to make it longer
to play, because you're going to struggle with a harder
golf ball. It is outstanding, it is incredibly You have
seen this boom and golf and now all of a sudden,
(16:39):
you're going, oh, let's just change it because this because
Marion Golf Club is too short. All right, Grow the
fairways fifteen yards wide and they'll hit seven irons off
the tee so that they're not in twelve inch rough.
You know, it's really simple how to fix it. And
they and I'm going to get to this WNBA story next,
and they have no common sense and the people that
are trying to come up with this role don't have
(17:00):
any either.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
You know what this is, Andy, You know what this is.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
This is your this is your your golf brother and
sister in whatever h smugness, snootiness it's.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
It's it's only gotta protect the integrity of the game.
And they've been talking about this since Tom Morris invented
the gotta purchase golf ball from the feathery. We've been
talking about this for one hundred and seventy years. Please, people,
it's time to just let technology deal with it. And
if we can't play Marrying anymore, big deal, we'll find
a golf.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Course that we can. Oh man, all right, chicks dig
the long ball.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Man.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
We're gonna talk about another ridiculous story next.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
It's six seventeen on the ticket
Thank you so much for being with us today wherever
it is that you may be. We had a great
US Open yesterday. As JJ Spahn came to the eighteenth
holl we're going to play the serious XM slash US
Open radio version. This is Amelia Amelia Duran. She is
with the US Open Radio and it's been pretty new
(00:23):
to their coverage over the last couple of years. A
college golfer in and of herself, and she had the call.
Is JJ Spahn made history yesterday.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
One of the hardest, if not the hardest tests in
major championship golf.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
For the win, JJ Sphon fall up and over the ridge.
It's on a very good line. This could go win,
JJ spahd makes sense. It's the biggest.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Moment of his career.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
JJ Sphon conquers oapun And.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
As you're one hundred and twenty fifth US.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Open champion, Oh tough. Thank yeah. They've been playing this harder.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
They've actually I've been playing it for one hundred and
thirty years, but five times were preempted because of World
War One and.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
World War Two.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
How dare that they managed to get it in late
in the year during COVID, But during World War One
and World War Two.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We had to pause.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, now because I had asked you a stupid question.
When it comes to the US UP and US Open. One,
this is part of the Grand Slam. It is one
of the four majors. Yay, how come they don't play
this is the US Open always at all? No?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It rotates around a number of golf courses, Oakmont being
one of them, and Oakmont's hosted it now ten times
in those hundred and thirty years.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Why do they not?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Because I noticed this the other the other day when
I was looking up the winners.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Why don't they play this course every single year? Because
a they don't want to. They want to rotate it around.
And number two, the membership at Oakmont certainly doesn't want
to give up their golf course for a month every year.
And so there's other the only only major that has
the same venue as the Master and they play that
(02:02):
at Augusta every year. Every other major rotates it around
a number of golf courses, and I think there's now
ten in the rota for the for the Open Championship,
they're going to go.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
The USGA did what they call.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Anchor sites, Oakmont, Pinehurst, and Pebble Beach, and over the
next twenty five thirty years they're going to play a
lot of the events there, but there's seven to ten
others that they think are US open worthy that they'll
go to as well. Next year they're going to Shinnakak
Hills in Long Island. After that they're going to Wingfoot
in New York. I think that they're going to Pebble
(02:39):
Beach at some point here pretty soon. I think twenty
seven or twenty eight is Pebble Beach on the West Coast.
The Olympic Club in San Francisco's on the list. I
don't think they're ever going back to Chambers Bay in
Washington where they had the issue that they did there
in twenty fifteen, or in Aaron Hills in Wisconsin, because
the scores were way too low for a US open
(02:59):
US liking.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
So basically everybody besides jjspawn is like, thank God, we
don't have to come back.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
To the twenty thirty three I think is when they're
coming back. I think it's I think it's eight. I
think it's twenty thirty three when they come back to Ogmont.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Awesome, And by that time I'm sure it'll be ten
times worse.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
All Right, here's some thoughts on what was discussed throughout
the week. I think Oakmont was set up great for
a US Open. I think there's some things that they
could have done to it to make it better. But
what they wanted was somebody to shoot close to par,
which jjspawn bested by one. But one of the topics
on the life from coverage, the two hour postgame coverage
(03:36):
that Golf Channel did every week, was to discuss what
we've talked about for a number of years for about
a year now, is the USGA and the RNA want
to roll the golf ball back in terms of how
far it can go based on today's testing and standards
that they're trying to get to. What they do is
they put a golf ball on a machine, the machines
(03:57):
called iron Byron.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It mimics the Byron nell.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
And swing and it makes sure that you have exact
contact with the golf ball and it can repeat it
several times. And how far does that ball fly at
a certain speed. And I don't know if they've changed
the parameters, but typically they test the ball how far
it can go at one hundred and five miles per hour.
Most of the PGA Tour players swing a lot faster
(04:20):
than that, and I am I'm not on board with this,
and most people are not. There's a few outliers like
Paul McGinley, who I totally respect and like a lot
of the things he says on that show that think
that we should roll the golf ball back so that
we put a premium on accuracy.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (04:40):
What does roll the golf It means make it go
shorter than it does now when you test it. If
today's golf ball flies three hundred and twenty yards on
the test, the new one would only fly three hundred
and five. That doesn't mean it wouldn't go three twenty
if Roy or Bryson are hitting it. But Roy and
Bryson can hit it four hundred if they get the
right win and conditions. Now they would hit it less
and you would have to swing within yourself a little
(05:04):
bit more so that you put a premium on accuracy.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
That would be like what they'd have to like manufacture.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Golf ball would have to be manufactured as such so
it doesn't fly as far. Okay, And if you look
at the history of golf, we used to play with rocks.
Back in the forties and fifties and beyond, we played
with basically sown baseballs that were smaller back in the
eighteen hundreds when Old Tom Morris was alive. So the
golf ball has evolved and technology has allowed us to
get to where we're at now because the materials that
(05:31):
they use for equipment and golf balls didn't exist ten
or twenty or thirty or fifty years ago. Okay, So
the RNA and the USGA wants to dial back how far.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
A player can hit it?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
What the heck is the RNA, the Royal and Ancient
Golf Club of Saint Andrews, Scotland. They make the rules
for everybody other than the United States and Canada.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Okay, So when they say something, there's a reason for Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Well, they're trying to protect the integrity of the game,
the legacy, the legacy, and there also there's also the
talk that longer golf courses are shorter golf courses that
were designed two or three hundred years ago are not
long enough now for the modern game. Well, I can
debate that by saying Oakmont's been around since nineteen twenty seven,
(06:13):
and yes, they've been able to extend it to seventy
two hundred and thirty yards. That was what they played
this year. But what is the reason that Oakmont was
only a one hunder par winner is because the fairways
were twenty yards wide and when you missed, you were
chopping out sideways.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
You were not able to advance the ball very often.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
And if I went out there with the lawnmower and
took out all the rough, took out every single element
of rough, and made it the same height third inch
higher than the fairway, the winning score would have been
fifteen under or twenty under, just because that's how good
the players are. So every year at the Arnold Palmer
Invitational at Bayhill and every year at the Memorial, Jack
(06:55):
Nicholas creates rough. He doesn't let the players just vomb
it out there and gouget out of the fairway like
they do for the other forty five weeks on the tour.
And any time that you want to fix a player
from make a player dial it back. Make sure that
the further that you hit it, the harder it is
to hit the fairway control, and the further that you
(07:17):
hit it, the more penal you're in if you miss long,
you miss short, you've got a better chance of getting
it where you're aiming than if you miss long. Okay, Okay,
So almost every person thinks about that, or that you
know that plays golf understands that linked is going to
be wiped out when you make pre accuracy on driving
(07:40):
by nearing how much the fairways are and how deep
the rough is. I think TPC San Antonio is an
incredibly hard golf course no matter what set of teas
you play from, especially from the back tees where the
pros play. But it's not hard for them because they
hit it relatively straight and when they miss, there's no
penalty for a missing the fairway by ten yards. You
(08:00):
have to basically hit it out of play before it
becomes penal for them.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
But here's the.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Topic in Joe Caruso and I were talking about this
this weekend on the Golf Show. Every week on the
PGA Tour, there's one hundred and forty four pros at
most tournaments. Some have one hundred and twenty eight, some
of the signature events have ninety. But week in and
week out, you have one hundred and forty four pros,
and whether you play titleist or shricks On or Callaway
or Tailor Made or whatever ball manufacturer you play with.
(08:28):
When you show up in the locker room and you
open your locker, there's three dozen golf balls for you
to play with for that week, and you're going to
play a practice round on Tuesday, a pro am on Wednesday,
and four rounds of competition, and you're going to probably
give away half of those golf balls to kids and
to the standard bearer follows you around with the score.
And next week when you show up at the next event,
(08:49):
there's going to be another three dozen golf balls in
your locker and they're not paying for them.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
They're free for the players.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So the golf ball manufacturers realize that if you like
Scotty Scheffler and you show up at a golf retail place,
there's a pretty good chance you're going to say give
me a titleist because that's what Scotty Schffler plays. And
if you like Kadeki Matsuyama, you're probably going to say, hey,
I want to play with the decies golf ball. I
need a shrix On or Rory with Taylor Made or
(09:18):
Xander with Callaway whatever.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
And so they have priced that golf ball for you.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Most of them now are fifty to five to sixty
five dollars a dozen, and they price that golf ball
to offset the fact that they're giving four hundred and
thirty six dozen golf balls a week away times however,
many tours they give that away on. So if they
have a professional ball, only who's going to develop it,
(09:45):
who's going to do the research on it, Who's going
to create this to make it the best short distance
golf ball? And titlist in Callaway and shricks On and
Taylor made et cetera are looking. We don't want to
do this because we can't sell it to the public.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
We want people to.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Walk in and play Scottie Scheffler's golf ball or Tiger's
golf ball or whatever. We don't want somebody coming in
and go, give me a ball that goes shorter, because
I'm an amateur golfer that only hits it two ten,
but I need to make sure the ball doesn't go
as far. So there's no market for that golf ball
that the pros are going to be asked to play
with as soon as potentially twenty twenty eight. And so, okay,
(10:23):
you're going to ask me to spend one hundred million
dollars on research and development for a golf ball that
one hundred and forty four guys are going to use
Thursday through Saturday, and I can't sell it to anybody. Okay,
I'm going to jack up the price of the ball.
I can sell to seventy five or ninety so I
can offset that cost. So it's coming back to the consumer,
not to the player, because the players getting their stuff
(10:45):
for free anyway. And again, the players are the ones
that are dictating this. They don't want to play a
golf course like Oakmont every week. I mean, Rory McElroy
said Saturday night when he finally spoke to the media,
did an interview, he said, they said, what's your plan
for tomorrow? He goes, hopefully finish in less than four
(11:06):
and a half hours and get out of here as
fast as I can. They don't want to play that.
They understand they have to for the US Open. They
know when they go to Shinnacock next year, the greens
are all up on purchase. They're going to lightning fast
the greens, and weather's going to dictate whether they're even
playable or not. And because it's the US Open, or
it's the Open Championship. If weather gets into endo factor,
(11:28):
they'll do it once or twice a year, But week
in and week out, they want to have a relatively
fun place to play golf.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
And here's the other thing.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
The NFL has made defense almost non existent, so teams
score more points. And Major League Baseball has opted for
a pitch clock and a ghost runner and a lower mound,
and you can't change the pitcher every batter, so there's
more offense. And basketball doesn't call fouls or traveling, so
(11:57):
there's more offense. Evere league on the world is trying
to get more offense. And yet they're those who think
that golf, well that's twenty unders too much, let's dial
it back to thirteen. Yeah, because I listen, I'm a
pretty decent golfer. But I could play twenty rounds in
a row and take my four best and I'm not
shooting twenty under. But Scotti Scheffler might. And if he
(12:21):
plays someplace as easy as TPC Craig Ranch up in
Dallas with no wind and nothing in the way, he's
gonna shoot thirty under.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
I'm fine with that.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I get to live vicariously through him because I get
to see him do this. We have seen an unprecedented
growth in golf since COVID, and Mike Wan, the Commissioner
of the USGA, comes on the other day and says,
in the last five years, rounds of golf in the
United States are up fifty five percent. We're in the
midst of a golf boom. Why are you going to
do something that is going to price the consumer out
(12:53):
of being able to play even more so than it
does now.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
And when they turn on the.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
TV, it's a it's a slug fit like we saw
this weekend every single week.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
It doesn't make any sense, No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
And then I'm a little giddy because I get to
use this for a good reason and bring in the
Happy Gilmore reference, you know, and Happy Gilmore you know,
Adam Sandler's character could drive the ball four hundred five
hundred yards, get on on on the green within one
on par fives, but couldn't put worth a lick. Yeah,
(13:26):
basically even could just keep it on the green. Yeah,
But the joking line is like, oh man, I should
just try to aim for the hole every single time
off the tee.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Well yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
It doesn't matter how long these guys can drive the ball,
Like how you were talking about for Oakmont, they can't
extend the course out because obviously over the oas. Yeah,
roads in the way, houses in the way, and things
like that, other things that are already have throughout time
have established. But how do you offset that? You make
the fairways thinner? You put you put a craft more bunkers.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
You put one hundred and sixty eight bunckers in seven
inch rough all around them.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yes, that's how you make it harder.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
You make it to where, Hey, you guys are supposed
to be the best of the best, then you're we're
going to show We're going to make you showcase that
if you miss by an inch.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Here's you're going to be paying.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Here's the other thing that people don't look at. Over
ten thousand people tried to qualify for the US Open
this year.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I was not one of them. I wasn't either.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I don't have a low enough handicap, and I probably
wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Even if I did, mine would be a max. I
don't even know what is the max thirty plus thirty
plus five.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I think it's now forty something. I don't know you
used to be thirty six. But I could give me
one hundred, one hundred, I can give you, I could
give you unlimited golf balls and you wouldn't finish the
first hole at Opemont because you've never played before.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
You could probably throw the ball farther than I definitely,
and you definitely could. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
But of those ten thousand, maybe a thousand of them
or professional golfers, there was about nine thousand amateurs that
tried to play the US Open to see a they
could fulfill their dream of playing in the Open Championship,
and most of them failed. But if it's a USGA
event with USGA rules, where do they get that golf ball?
(15:12):
Can't buy it. It's not for sale, no one. It's
not available at your local retail store or online anywhere.
And if he did was able to buy it, was
it going to cost two three hundred dollars a dozen
because they don't make very many. They only make them
for the pros on tour. And now you need to
go have it so that you can practice with them
in your practice rounds and then figure out what your
(15:32):
new distances are. And now you have to go qualify
for the US Open. So you got a hotshot high
school kid who decides he's going to qualify for the
US Open, and he shows up for the first round,
they go, sorry, your golf balls are non conforming. You
got to go buy these. We happen to have some
in the van. They're three hundred dollars a dozen. Mom,
Dad want to pay for it all of a sudden. See,
(15:54):
golf has had three things that in its history have
made it detrimental for people to play. Other than sometimes
stupid rules, it's it is always it is one of
the hardest games in the world to play. It takes
at least four hours to play the round and not
including the time to drive to the golf course and
to drive home and to visit the nineteenth hole after
you're done. And it's it's expensive. So what the RNA
(16:19):
is asking is for golf ball companies to spend money
that they can't get an ROI on, to increase the expense,
to make the game harder and to make it longer
to play, because you're going to struggle with a harder
golf ball. It is outstanding, it is incredibly You have
seen this boom and golf and now all of a sudden,
(16:39):
you're going, oh, let's just change it because this because
Marion Golf Club is too short. All right, Grow the
fairways fifteen yards wide and they'll hit seven irons off
the tee so that they're not in twelve inch rough.
You know, it's really simple how to fix it. And
they and I'm going to get to this WNBA story next,
and they have no common sense and the people that
are trying to come up with this role don't have
(17:00):
any either.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
You know what this is, Andy, You know what this is.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
This is your this is your your golf brother and
sister in whatever h smugness, snootiness it's.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
It's it's only gotta protect the integrity of the game.
And they've been talking about this since Tom Morris invented
the gotta purchase golf ball from the feathery. We've been
talking about this for one hundred and seventy years. Please, people,
it's time to just let technology deal with it. And
if we can't play Marrying anymore, big deal, we'll find
a golf.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Course that we can. Oh man, all right, chicks dig
the long ball.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Man.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
We're gonna talk about another ridiculous story next.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
It's six seventeen on the ticket
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