1192: The Koivun Era is here + Alex Fitzpatrick interview

[MUSIC] >> Be the right club. >> Be the right club today. [MUSIC] >> That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. >> Better than most. [MUSIC] >> Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying a podcast, Soli here. Join just a two-man little gig here, two-man job. My guy Neel is here. Hello, Mr. Neel shoes. >> I'm excited to just get a little rally session in with you. Soli tossed some things over the net so if you can hit some winners by me, let's see what we got. >> Wow, it's nice that you get the 3M week. What are we going to talk about? And then we get a great story. >> Now, great story unfolding, little runner show here. We're going to go around the world of golf, of course, react to what we just witnessed at TPC Twin Cities. Then on the back half of this episode, we have an interview with Alex Fitzpatrick, Neel and I chatted with him on Friday during some downtime. So a little combination episode here, quick spin around the golf world. >> Which was, I was very, that was an awesome conversation. >> Huge fan. Huge fan with a huge fan. >> That's just taking a little vacay in the big city and the big apple, just hanging out. Good stuff. >> Easy guy to root for. Winners from around the world, Sherry Kelly wins the senior open. Tommy Morrison wins the Evan Scholar's invitation on the corn fairy tour. Lucas Herbert wins live UK as does Ripper GC. Jenny Shen wins the Lady Scottish open, Noah McLaughlin. An alternate to the US junior upsets Miles Russell, six and five in the final to win the US junior. And of course, as we just witnessed, Jackson Coivan wins the 3M. He got it done. Gaming is set up that includes a title as ProV1 golf ball in 14 title as clubs. A few quick notes. Coivan has always been a ProV1 guy. He loves the softer feel of the ProV1, especially on the greens. And it hits his perfect flight and spin windows on full swings as we saw all weekend. He was dialed off the tee with a GT2 driver hitting 13 of 14 fairways. He's also got the new GTS3W prototype fairway in the bag. For irons, he's a blade guy, but he also games a T250 utility and a T104 iron gives him more launch and forgiveness for those approaches over 220 yards or so. Also has four Voki SM 11 wedges in the bag. He had it rolling with the Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.5 Rs, the same setup played by Cameron Young and Justin Thomas gives him that mallet performance, but a blade like feel through the stroke. Find a fitter near your year, go to tidalist.com. Jackson Koeivin shot a back nine, 28 on Saturday, included a birdie, birdie, eagle finish to shoot 61, took a three shot lead into the final round over a million o' grilo. Koeivin kept it rolling early. Birdie's the first, birdie's the fourth, birdie's the sixth made a big par saber from 14 feet on the ninth to go out in 32. But Scotty, chef, you can't hold that guy down. Can I keep that guy back? Aquaman! Come on, baby, here come the waves. Made some noise, started the day six pack, but did make six birdies in his first 12 holes, including the first three on the back nine, or the second nine as they refer to it at TPC Twin Cities. Koeivin was not to be denied. He birdie the par 512 at an easy two putt birdie on the 16th, got him all the way to 25 under par. Steered it in down the stretch on 17 and 18, drained a 14 footer for par at the last to shoot a bogey free 66 to win for the first time on the PGA tour, win by three shots, win by five shots over everybody that's not the number one player in the world and is just third career pro start at the age of 21. That's our story, Neil. Here we go. The Koeivin era is upon us. I want to say 21 in two months. So I just saw a graphic posted by CBS on the everything app. He's the 10th youngest winner since on tour since 2000. Sali, can you name the others? 10th youngest since 2000. He's the 10th youngest. Yes, there are, there are, I'll give you a hint. There are, there's one guy that's twice on this list. So I guess there's eight guys ahead of him. One guy that's twice. So spieth would have beat his the youngest. He was 19 years 11 months. Yeah. Matthew Wolf. Matthew Wolf is fourth. There's two guys in front of him. Matthew Wolf was 20, 20 years old in two months. Justin Thomas win at 21. No. Recent one, number two is recent. Maybe he would be one. Rory would be one of these. Rory was 20 months, a 20 years old, 11 months. I'll just pocket eaters, pocket eaters on that list. Gosh, this is, I should know more of these. A recent amateur that the people are going to be screaming. Yeah. Struggling with the driver these days. Kim Smith, that's never happened. Oh, Nick Dunlap, there you go. He's number two behind spieth. Okay. And then, I mean, come on, one of your boys on this list. He's on there twice. Ram? No. Why am I boys? I got a lot of boys. What was superstar? Oh, Tom Kim. Come on. 20 years old, one month. And then he's 20. Gosh. I'm always the one doing the questions. I know. I know. It gets flipped on you. It's way harder. It is really easy with the answers. It's listed right in front of you. And then, you so you got Pock Eater, you got Rory, there's two others. How what kind of recent or a little bit old, like one does not play on the PGA tour anymore and one is playing good golf, but it would not be considered young anymore. Jason Day wouldn't be one. No, he didn't. No, younger than that. It would be kind of in that one, the players, I'll tell you that. See who? Yes, he's 21, one month. And the last one is my guy, Keene. Oh, Keene, he was 20 years old in 10 months. So. That's a good question. It's a really good question. So, you know, not the youngest guy to do it, but it might take away, he looks so polished. Yeah. It's all so polished. Elite foot action. You said it earlier on Slack, reminds you a little bit of JT in his move. I mean, even more like hip firing going on, you know, what, like what a golf swing that is. It looks really, really on plain normal until impact. And then it's like, God, his hips are so out in front. So that's impressive. I think until I'm including 18, the 18 was squarely squarely drive there, drop kick on 18, but looked really solid off the tee, especially down the stretch, a tee shot on 15, like just a low bullet was elite. It felt like just tons of control and poise there. And then the tee shot into the reachable par four and the 16th, just mid, you know, that green's massive, just kind of blow it out left and he just executed, man, it just looked really normal. Even even on 18, you know, it was a little squarely coming home, but to make that 15 footer downhill, I mean, that just, that was classy. Man, great fist pump. I thought his interview after he had some good things to say. You mentioned, he writes on his golf glove, you know, I feel like, I mean, that seems to be legal. Can't ride on your driver head as we learned in the rules pod earlier this week, but you can, you can ride on your glove. We're going to dominate. I like these mindsets he's got. So, uh, yeah, man, I think this is good. Let's get some, some young blood out there, winning early. We need to, you know, it's hard to, you know, we just mentioned Nick Dunlap. Like there's been young winners recently, Pock Eater, Tom Kim, things like that. We, we need, you know, some of the biggest amateur names to come out recently have, you know, just not really done the job right off the, it's hard. It's hard. Guys like speed, guys like GT, guys like some of the, you know, the, that wave of players made it look really easy. And we, I foolishly kind of thought the next wave of American guys would kind of do the same. And then they have, they fizzled out. Real, relatively quickly. Not a lot of chances for post high sleepers for a lot of these guys, but even some of the guys like Clanton, you know, that had great, great runs as amateurs in pro events. Once they turn pro, it just was a different story. So what was the story going to be with Coivan, getting, you know, number one, obviously graduate from PGA Toru. Data golf has them as the number one amateurs since they've been tracking that since 2010, better than John Ron, better than Jordan's beef, like plus 3.25 strokes gained, you know, I know that. I'm guessing that's compared to other college, the guys, you know, at his level, but still like, it was, that jumps off the page when you look at the, I mean, heavy weights on that list, heavy weights only enormous, enormous. And so it's interesting, like he comes out and he's not, he's super polished, like you said, he is, feels very well rounded, but he's, and he's maybe a little less toolsy than some of the guys that we've seen come out with mega speed, like Gordon Sargent is, you know, 190 mile an hour ball speed and like what, you know, the sky's the limit for someone like him. Whereas Coivan's just like a result, dude, you know, if I was compared to like a baseball prospect, he's just putting up great numbers at every level. He doesn't have the massive exit velocities, but he has everything. He has absolutely everything you need to complete it and really, really solid iron plays, what he's known for an excellent putty. We talked to Blaine Barber about this at the Washington Walker Cup, like what's, what's the deal here? He just doesn't miss puts, like that's, yeah, the whole thing with him. And it's refreshing to see someone with like, I compared to JT earlier in our slack because it was like high 170s ball speed, you know, Auburn versus Alabama, you know, the, the title is tie and all that was just kind of like a really well put together very young player that we, you know, has a massively high floor. It's just a foot action too with JT right up on the toes. You brought up the, the kind of the five tools pretty even I haven't, I, I looked at this day to golf scatter plot, it's like a perfect pentagon. So everything's just slightly outside the above average circle. It's incredible. And then you compare that like you mentioned, you know, we've had some guys come out and win potgator being an example, we just mentioned go look at his data golf scatter plot. It's not that, you know, and, and it's, it's like like one or two loud, loud traits. And yeah, man, just really like well rounded is the way to put it. And I don't know, it's exciting because he looks, he looks ready for, you know, for prime time here. So I got to go here next. I mean, we get him on the team. Oh, for sure. Like for some of his cup, who cares one and two massive talent, three, this is not shaping up to be one of the stronger teams ever, you know, five years ago, we were debating Scottie Sheffler being the twelfth man on the team for the 2021 Ryder Cup team. We're not going to be having those debates at the bottom of this team. Like he is going to be a part of the future almost certainly. If not, might as well find out at a home president's cup, sure against an international team that's almost certainly not going to be able to stay in the arena with you. Like, we riot if he's not on this team. And to be clear, I thought he was on this team when the year started, you know, before he even turned fresh. Check the tape. People before he's very professional and before, you know, he'd hit a, you know, Tc said that too. And he also probably said Dunlap two years ago should be on this team. He probably said that Luke Clant should be on this team. There was a tweet. There was a tweet. A tweet going around of covenous, who Tc thought Ludwig was, which I saw that in two, which it, and it's, you know, that's fair. But listen, I mean, we've seen, we've gotten excited before. We got really excited with Matthew Wolf. Obviously, he decided to take his talent elsewhere. I mean, Hovelin coming out, we got super excited, Morkawa, you know, like, so I, I do think though when you look at that, that skill, scatter chart, and you see how, how above average he is at everything, that's, you know, that's might be the difference at this age to just be so, so solid and all parts of the game. Yeah, it was, it's just really, really impressive. I had somebody hit me on the, on the everything app also about is, is coven the kid. And I said, listen, we, we do not toss that term around. That is not about wins and skill. That's, does he have the Riz as well? You know, like, there has to be like, are the people chanting his name out there? And, you know, we're monitoring it, you know, because good looking cat, I think he's, he, he looks the part. He, like, he carries himself with a lot of confidence. I liked on 17. He hit it. I think Novelo was saying he kind of hit it. He thought he hit it thin. He also was like saying, you know, go, go and it, like, was 40 feet past the hole. So I don't really know, but he gave the camera a look where he was like, you know, and I like seeing a little bit of that down the stretch. And he showed a ton of emotion when he made that putt on 18. So I'm, I'm hopeful that he has some, some charisma and some, you know, some stuff for the crowds because that's how you become the kid, the kid. You need, you know, the, the people need to cheer you in the Coliseum. They need to be chanting your name out there. So good, you know, good star. We're heading the right direction, but that is, that is way too early to say, we, everybody was so early calling Tom Kim, the kid, I won't have it. We're not doing premature kid titles right now. We're not doing it. So, to take that away, I'm with you 100% on this with the kids got to make, make the fans feel something emotionally. The kid is rare. I don't, yeah. The kid is speed. Yeah. That's the last one we had. That is the last one we had. That's the thing. You know, it's like these are generational things. You know, the kid is a, it's not a title that someone's not always sitting on the kid thrown. That's not how this works. It could, it might be too polished to be the kid like he's, he's, he's been, he's good, NIL money. Like he's, you know, he's had the sponsorships for quite some time. Like he knows he's gonna, he's gonna make a lot of money. It's like, does he have, does he have the bill shankly? Does he make the people feel good? You know, I feel happy. I don't feel happy. Yeah. Does he make the people happy? And that, you know, that cuts both ways with, with, with speed. Later on, you make the people feel very sad, but for a while, when you're young, you make them feel happy, baby, I don't, I don't know, we'll see because you do have to have the talent as well. You got it, you know, you got to be winning. And so this is, this is a good, is a good freaking start, man. Do you want to play, I'm going to get weird with hypotheticals here. Please. I mean, I, I don't know where I, I don't know, I don't know all of these. I, I don't know where to hype Coivin. I don't know how excited to get here, but like, if I was to ask, all right, is Coivin or Victor Hodland going to have a better overall career as you're sitting here right now, way too early to call, like what's your, what's your, what's your, don't have to think about these at all. Just gut call. Hodland or, or Coivin, better overall career. I'm so, you know, I know Victor just won, travelers, but he feels such, like, so he, that I'm worried about him. Like, I would say Coivin right now, honestly, because he does, that's the easy one. I thought. Yeah. He doesn't seem like, I don't know, but it's kind of so, I mean, it's like his third start, you know, like, but he, like, I watched him for three or four holes at the US open. I mean, just handled, handled himself in a big way, made the cut, like, looked good out there. So I don't know, it's, it's not like it, not, it's not like he's coming out of nowhere. I mean, one, everything in college too. So it's, I would, yeah, I'd say Coivin right now. Yeah. I would say, I'd say, I'd say hollands underachieved a little bit. For sure. He's been, like, since he, maybe a lot of bits since he's come out, but next one will be harder. It was like Moorakawa or Coivin, two majors like, I know, and I don't know, he's certainly not done. Like, that's a, that's a pretty big bar to clear. He don't think Moorakawa's done winning majors. I'd be surprised if he was done winning majors. Uh, man, it's so tough because of that well-roundedness. You know, with Moorakawa, it's like, you know, he's never going to have the advantage off the tee. Never really putted it great. He gets hot with the putter, um, hard to ignore two majors. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'll say Moorakawa that, but I hate it. You know, I don't like that. It's safer. Yeah. It's safer though. That, that eliminates like JT and speed then, I think, from the Coivin, that have a lot more wins, more majors, um, but it's in, you know, I don't know, man, it wouldn't surprise me if he was a four-time major winner and I'd, I know it's your job to get hype about that. I don't know what we'd set the actual over under at right now. He won it 3M. Like, and I know Scotties in the field, it's, it's, it's, and this is the part where we transition into TPC twin cities being a complete disgrace and like, he won the 3M, and I really, really, really don't want to diminish what we just witnessed, but he made some pretty decent size mistakes on that back nine and received exactly zero punishment for it. It would be a lot more interesting to watch him try to close out a golf tournament that we're, where the golf course is actually going to present some challenges on the 12th hole, the par five. He had a terrible second shot. He hated it. He had a very poor bunker shot, not a very poor, he had a below average bunker shot on the par five and then just made the birdie putt, got away with everything 16, just bail out way left under one of the worst drivable force. I just, his lag putting though, I mean, credit to him, like, speed on the greens was elite, but so was then you watch, you know, every putt Scotty hit was whole high and about to go in. Uh, Scotty shoots what 63 today and it felt like he was stuck in neutral on the back nine, like that's, I don't know if that's a good sign. It was very undramatic done, the stretch was like, all right, 17, dude, just like literally hit it anywhere. It hits a bad shot. It goes on the green because these are huge, man. They got to be smaller if they're going to actually challenge the best players in the world. And then you have bad shot, bad approach into 18 as well after a bad tee shot and a layup and it, you know, the bad tee shot, I mean, it went 249 off the tee, took like a three inch divot before he hit the ball, ends up in the fairway, you know, good on him for recovering, but you know what's funny though, I do have to say, I do have to say this like, it's amazing that you know, you got probably, I don't know how many guys were at minus 20. Let's see. One, two, three, four, five, six guys minus 20, you're better. Just going jock who's still on this place, how easy it is for them and how scary that course looks for me as a viewer. You know what I mean? I'm watching with my mom. She's, she's like, oh my God, that whole looks so hard, you know, the 17th, it's like 200 yards over water. I'm like, you know, it's crazy, right? But there's 25 under par like, just like something's not, I'm just, I do need to stand back from like, I watch golf every week, the shot value stuff, I completely hear what you're saying. But I'm also like, God, I would probably shoot 83 out there. You know, like I don't, I still don't understand these guys are just so freaking good, man, because that that course looks terrifying. I felt the same way it derailed when Kim, Kim Young poured a part at the Cadillac. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like that, like this looks, it looks so hard and it's just like, yeah, the water doesn't even exist for these guys. The, they, you know, Scotty missed, I think it was like 14 or 15, he missed it left in the rough. And they're like, oh, he's never going to get it close from there and just, you know, get set out to like 20 feet on the lips, but basically the lips out the putt. It's like, okay, man, it's like. Nothing you could do. They're just too good. No, I mean, that golf course does not present questions for the top. Like this is even the top level of PGA tour golf. This is the challenger series of PGA tour golf. And it just doesn't, it's not nearly enough consequence to the, to the shots that makes for an I'm very uninteresting watch Thursday to Sunday. And very thankful that we had a very uplifting story to start to show with because the rest of what the golf watching the sweet, it's just, it is, it's wild, this little back-to-back stretch on the PGA tour during, you know, not a lot else going on in the summer. This is, this is kind of why we need this championship series. Yeah, of like, we're going to have a more intense, tighter season. That's only going to have six or seven down weeks in it, whether, you know, we're going to get a challenger event like this, but there's not going to be this little, you know, massive dip in the sports calendar late July into early August, as of 2028. So it would be, that'll be a welcome change. I was going to look up how, I mean, that, that water on 17. Let's see, how many balls do you think went in the water this weekend on that 17th hole that looks so scary to you? To my mom, not, I mean, I would say the water course looks scary. I would say three balls went in the water for the whole weekend. Yes, two. Oh, today, that's like, that's not good enough. We're not, we're not challenging these guys. That's not, it's, it's just way too comfortable. This is like the worst of the PGA tour, I think. Well, I saw a quote that bounce floating around and like I read up the camera, which newsletter golf news, there's like before it was saying the tournament founder, Hollis Kavner, I think he's like the tournament director gave a brutally honest description of how the organizers envisioned the course playing. We want birdies and train wrecks. It's like, well, you got the birdies. We just forgot about the train. We're not, I don't, I'm not seeing the train wreck part. So that whole, oh, the barely played over par for the week at a, you know, 200 yard par three over water just lets you bail. I don't know. And it's just that on repeat, man. And like 16 is just like not moving the tee up on that hole. Just makes it a completely thoughtless, just hit it up near the green. The scoring average on that hole today was three, almost three point four, which is actually one of the harder times when they, when they've moved it up. But yeah, there was four total bogies on supposed seven total bogies the entire weekend on the 16th hole on what's supposed to be a risk reward drivable par four. Well, 16 17 and 18. It's just no one's going backwards because they can all, there's just such obvious bailouts on all of those, those holes even. It's like, yes, there's this big, there's this big penalty area. Don't hit it in there. It's like, yeah, there's like 50 yards of, of, of green to hit. But here's, here's, I'm building up to this where a future world. So I, I, I get why the three, like the three M would set it up this way. Or why this event would be set up this way in terms of you want to recruit players to come play in it, like the more simple it sets up. Like I get there's also the argument of, you know, the better players want it to play harder if it's going to be worth their time and their abilities be separate and not have it be a piece of shit putting contests. But in a future world where it's like, hey, you play the championship series and you play the challenger series and we don't have, you don't get to pick and choose your events. Yeah, you can skip events if you want to within your own calendar, but you have to do less pandering to players about the course set up. Can we see a world where some of these golf courses play more challenging and not being afraid of beating the guys up because they kind of don't have a choice as to where they're going to be playing would be a hope. I would come out of this to next division, right? Because I think that is the argument as to why I would play this easy and simple and thoughtless. But I don't think that's the best thing for your product as you present it on television because I'm honestly being kind about it to this point. It's this and Craig ranch that I think are like the week two weakest spots on the PJ tour calendar. Yeah, I just, I, I think first off, I will say 3M like adhesives and things are sick. So like 3M I feel like they're branding at the tournament too. Like the red, I don't like the red. I was going to say I do. I think it's what I mean, I don't like it. Oh, what do you like the red? You feel like it, it's like, I see what you're at. I mean, it's what you're after here. I guess it's this event, but it doesn't feel, I mean, it doesn't feel elegant. I guess it's just so it's, I thought it was, it's too much. I mean, God, massive build out though. Didn't feel like we were filling all that hospitality. But except for the 15th hole, 15th hole was like absolutely empty. And I don't really know what I'm saying. I felt like everything was empty. Even when they let the ropes down, it didn't feel like, you know, the massive humanity we're looking for out there. Everybody's watching the lift highlights that will us be. Let me go down the board for a minute in honor of Mr. T.C. Hideki chips it for Eagle. Before we do that, I would say like if you were like to go play it, I think, I think it would be rather, you know, there's, there's other courses where this might pay off a little bit better. Like you would hear, you know, when you watch that on TV, when you watch the women's Scottish open on TV, like you're the same thing over and over again. 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When I go sneak in nine holes after the kids go down, I grab the Arco's man. I want the data. I got to keep stuff in this thing full of data and you keep learning from it. I used, it used to do just like a great job of capturing the rounds and show me where I was losing shots. But now it is actually telling you how to get better. It gives you personalized practice plans, pre-around warm-ups built around your game. AI powered round summaries and you can see the strokes getting on every individual shot. It's got your own PGA tour performance team in your pocket. That's really what Arco says becoming. It's not just tracking your game anymore. It's helping you understand exactly where to focus so you can actually improve. And if you haven't checked it out, arco's golf.com, ARCCOSgolf.com, promo code NLU15 to save 15%. You cannot say enough great things about this product and then they updated it to make it even better. It's freaking awesome. Arco'sgolf.com NLU15 will get you 15% off. So it is the new the new apps. Great lot lot of you can get lost in there looking at your game and what to work on. I've just been chipping away. I mean, it's like I made it to the point where my iron plate became my worst part. And it was like I needed to make us a change of some kind. We just made that change and I think we're on our way back. It just is exciting. It spits it right in your face. It's great. So I'm sorry. You want to go down the board. I do. Yeah. Hadecki good showing from him T3 chips in for Eagle for a 64 today. Good to see him back bouncing around. We talked a little bit about Scotty. He was he was second. Yeah. What's wrong with Scotty, you know, that's that's shoots 63 today. It comes up short. That'll be the narrative. It does seem like though, if I'm being serious here, anecdotal, but it feels like one round or even one nine a week, it has been cost in Scotty this year. I remember that at Pebble, he shot, I think two over on the back nine Friday, kind of basically just cost them a tournament. So otherwise pretty, pretty good stuff. Let's see. A million agree. He's a 19 to finish tied for seven that ties his best finish of the year. He also had a T7 in Valsbar. Harmon, you know, good showing flip, flipped off the camera and scoring after the round, which I got a nice kick out of another good finish for Ben Coles. He's ranked before this week was was a hundred in the FedEx couple list. So he's, you know, kind of late, late bloomer, showing some, some form this year. And another guy, good friend, Zach Blair, that's a T13, I believe this week. I confirm that. Yeah, T13, he's minus 16, following of a T8, a T9, a T32 at the U.S. Open. Zach's plans and really good golf, man. That's, that's, that's good stuff. It, maybe the worst golf he played this week was at the 3M. He shot a 58 at Whiteberry Yacht Club earlier this week with a bogey. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't see that. I didn't see that. Someone was not in slack this week. Yeah. He shot a 58 at Whiteberry Yacht Club with a bogey. Yeah. And then of course, Michael Kim, 69, 59, you heard that correct, 70, 69, so a bit of an outlier around there on Friday for, for Michael Kim, 14th or 15th, 59, I think 16th. And I had a little, a little, look, can you, how many, how many of the 59s can you name? Because I, I looked this up and I was going to spring this on you. You got me earlier. So let's go. Yeah. So Jake nap, is that Jake nap twice just once, just once, that was round one of the cognizant classic. That's the most recent one before Michael Kim, obviously, fioric will count the, the 58 with fioric and the 59 for fioric and the 50, yeah, of course, of course, a bit of a comp game situation there. Ben Griffin shoot 59. Ben Griffin has not. So, um, I don't know, I think that's all I can do right now, not a, not a good joke. No, your best, our guy burger was the first guy burger shirt. 77 chip back did it in 91 David DuVal did it in the final round of the club that's awful in 99 froze I froze so only 3 and pj tour history from 2009 and prior okay Since 2010 Paul goito shot 59 of the John Deere Stewart Apple B shot 59 the green bar of that year Furek shot 59 at the BMW championship jt shot 59 at Sony open in 2017 had when shot of 59 at the career builder in 2017 snettaker shot 59 in the first round of the windum in 18 cabin chapel shot 59 at the green briar in 2019 Scotty Sheffler shot of 59 at the northern trust in round two in 2020 Cameron Young shot one in 2024 round three of the travelers Hayden Springer shot one at the John Deere in 2024 and then we have the Jake nap and Michael Kim ones in the last two years so of the 16 rounds of 59 are better that have happened On the pj tour 13 of them have happened since 2010 But I don't know what I would owe that to it must be Yeah, I don't know what that could possibly wonder that one of that but that could be I mean it is you know a mix of dudes and and randos but it's not it's honestly not like a the doesn't feel like it's the epidemic It doesn't feel like it's picked up pace in the last five years. Do you think that like it picked up pace in the last 10 to 15 you know what I mean by that I mean there's been four in the last three years I mean I was most definitely joking. It's just Oh, okay, well, I'm just say I'm just thinking about it like um I mean there's been one two three four five six seven eight nine since 1710 since 2016 so like one a year basically In the last year after they're being you know three in the history of the pj tour up to 2009, I mean a true mark checks and what happened to the game I love man You know there you have it. I'm it's crazy. I just want to raise my I'm completely embarrassed by how much I froze there It's hard. It is hard. Yeah, I mean come on chip back. I know all those. What are you doing man? What are we doing? Like I think if we were sitting around drinking beers you would have crushed that No, I know my archers is like that's like you're you gotta you gotta work on your You know you're lag-putting on that one. That's awful I really I was gonna maybe skip that but after you made me look silly earlier at uh had to had to spring that back on you uh Coivan moves up to 70th in the FedEx cup with the wins took out some work to do to get into the playoffs But I at as it stands now does not look like that's gonna be a problem For him top 70 of course make the playoffs Do you see Lucas Glover the Lucas Glover incident today? I did. I did a lot It seemed like a lot of people were thinking it was For aim point and yeah the announcers did not do him any favors with this of them saying that it was it was aim point related But he holds a putt walks over the fringe takes his shoes off To go over and get the ball out of the hole Comes back Max Grayson who's playing with looks very confused as it's all happening We later got word he commented on it later and later got word from several other players that there are people in the group At least one person in the group behind him complaining about the spike marks being left behind from his metal spikes Which you are of course allowed to repair So that was that was his his way of protesting of I don't know how I'm supposed to walk to the hole and get my ball from wearing metal spikes Not the only guy that wears metal spikes Out of the tour either but he's just having a good time. He was having a little fun with it But he was taking heat. I saw every saying it was an aim point and then he's taking he was like well I don't think the guy you know the guy using the long putter should be complaining about my point. I'm like yeah here we here we go And just Note out there disclaimer if somebody's using the long putter that does not mean they're anchoring especially not Lucas Glover Who's not even close to anchoring we don't have to pretend like everybody that uses the long putter is anchoring so One last thing I had as as I was looking at this the defending Champion of this upcoming tournament this coming week at the rocket is of course Alders potgator What what if I was to say that something something's statistically Relevant in the history of the game is potentially going to happen this year and it's Alders potgator And you'll do you wonder what that might be. It's not a difficult one to figure out here. But what do you think it might be? Statistically relevant in the game. He's got like something to do with him hitting the ball far He's again, but I'm bringing this up because the like the constant argument for Not rolling the ball back or changing equipment related stuff is that people love the long ball people love distance All just potgator is gonna break the all-time driving distance record on the PGA tour and no one cares No, no one cares nobody knows nobody knows no one cares. I thought you were gonna say that this is the year that the 313 challenge No, it might be it's it might be he's averaging 330 yards this year on the PGA tour Do you know when the last time that record was broken last year? It was 2023. I was Roy McElroy Rory's year this year will be the second longest year ever so Roy's gonna break his own record That he set three years ago, but he's not even gonna hold the title. It's gonna be a Sammy Sosa situation where he's gonna hit 66 Homers, but McGuire's gonna hit 70. What was Roy's record in 23 like 326 or something like that and where it's like 328 now in pocket or 6 330, but okay It's just funny that like nobody nobody actually care like everybody You know the claim is the people love the long ball and no one actually cares about what should be a record Just because they know it means nothing just because it goes up and up and up every year so Uh, I'm like what a golf left maybe that maybe Oh, he's gonna run it up in Detroit where you could just whale on Maybe it's hurt, you know He might get all run rates. It's still it's still on man. Boys a summer get hurt by workout your benefit You know we could just it's like the a on risk reward challenge. You could just if you had the lead is it paid well to just skip events That's true. We'll just stay where it is. You're right Uh, ladies Scottish was at uh done Donald this past week jenny shinge It took a five shot lead into the final round. She opened 66 67 71 The wind was whipping today though. It made for some really good viewing early You know, they had the ear muffs out this week that you know, they had the the tukes on tokes whatever the the Canadians call it the the beanies Uh, and it looked like it was gonna get interesting. She made three bogies The lead took up the lead down to just three when they reached the ninth, but she buried the tenth in the 12 put her back to 11 under Too late bogies did not play into the final result. She won by two over a limb Kim who shot a 68 in the final round Come here to jenny shinge 75 Um, that was an excellent excellent round of golf But she won by one by two shots over a limb Kim uh, and a little appetizer The done Donald not the best links course not my favorite links course, but it was as baked out as I've I've seen it before and it definitely brought out a lot of features Uh, and that golf course and made it less of a um, you know kind of modern Links adaptation that we kind of get with both scottish open courses. It just similar to renaissance this past year Like when it gets that firm, uh, kind of these links interpretive courses get at least a little bit more linksy and more interesting So it was amazing. I had it on uh on mute watching Making breakfast and it looked good. They had some good drone shots and being near the water helps it Uh, you know, it was it looked good the fairways it looked Burnt out and good good color contrast on the yeah on the tv and it's good I mean, I don't know if it's sky or if it's world feed or whatever it was But it was not a golf channel production and it was very clear just this stuff up and in everything in the true news Yeah, it was on golf channel, but they had the CNBC logo in the bottom left corner So I don't know I had it on CNBC this or was it on maybe I just it was yeah, I just thought his youtube tv is just you know It hit the golf and that it so I assumed it was golf channel. It was any yeah Anytime you see the picture and picture reaction like which was requires just a little bit of extra effort You know, it's not golf channel. Um, so it's it's it is pipe pipe that in um And just it's a fun vibe. I I look like I enjoy watching all kinds of golf. Well that's uh um Shane Madeline's caddy. I believe so yeah on the on the bag. I think I think I saw that too Because I know uh Madeline is has she I know she's pregnant. I don't know if she's have not heard I mean, yeah, she was very pregnant at the US women's open quite recently. She was seven months pregnant at the US women's open So she's probably about that time for her if it was not already. I'm not sure. I'm nerdy updates there But well shout out to Shane good work. Yeah great great dude Easy guy to root for but that and like you senior open this week was it Glenn Eagles king course there like there was Funky ass holes on that course that made for some For some fun viewing as well. I just I can't get enough at the role role right into AIG women's open This coming week. We're gonna have a preview out this Tuesday. I had the final major championship of the year That it's going to be at royal live them in St. As and should be should be awesome. This is this is one. I've had sort of Jerry Kelly one that one the senior senior open. Yeah Our friend Lauren Cognet finished T five Most certainly a notable. She's the past champion of this event. Nellie quarter T 16 Finish this week not the most competitive saving it man. Come on next week see big one. Come on dude. I just I don't think she's linked tough. I'm sorry I that famous last words and I'll save that for Tuesday. I just watch her out there and it looks like I it just doesn't you know if she's not avion tough like she doesn't like the avion and you'll like the bounces of the avion. I'm like, well, if that's the case, I just don't know if, if links is for you. I don't know what the weather forecast looks like for living. We'll get into all of that on Tuesday, but, um, I don't know. I just, I, I'm not, I'm not really buying it right now. So did you see the Charlie Hole incident? I did, uh, the D greening, correct. Um, I did see that, uh, and the, I thought I saw a comment that that was a great opportunity for her to, you know, which everybody can do at any time to just take the stroke and distance. Uh, that was your rules, expert. Now I'm going to play it right here at any point you don't have to, if you just don't like your drive and you still find it, you can just say, now I'm going to play another one from right here and take your, take your penalty and go. She could have, she probably would have been better off doing that. In hindsight, she would have it was a, it was a dicey hole location, uh, on that hole on Thursday. She putted it off the green and then ended up taking a nine as she kept chipping it up the hill and rolling back to her feet. She could have, uh, elected, taken on playable and go right back to where she hit that putt. It would have effectively been a two shot penalty. She was putting for birdie. It would have been a bogey putt and she could have lagged up there and made double. She ended up making a nine, uh, though, but I'm sure she didn't think she was going to chip back to her feet multiple times. So there's a little in hindsight thing. But this option was also out there for Phil Mickelson famously, uh, at the 2018 U.S. open at Chinacock when he ran and hit a moving ball, uh, and then tried to convince us that that was the right strategy. When in reality, he could have just let the ball finish rolling and then take the unplayable and, uh, replay the shot. So, uh, Neil, it was not a great week for the live golf tour. Uh, if you're ready to get to this part, this portion of the show, where do you want to start, uh, with the bad news for live? Cause there was a lot of it this week. Uh, I don't know. Should we start with the, the lawsuits? You want to start there? We can definitely do that. Uh, a couple of lawsuits live with sued over unpaid bills, uh, for its broadcast technology, Canadian technology company Moby systems, sued live for roughly $1.13 million alleging 120,000 in unpaid licensing fees, 104,000 unpaid usage fees, 209,000 in lost revenue after lives stopped using the company's any shot, anytime broadcast product. Sorry, I did not note where I got that from news wise. I can find that for you and give proper, uh, credit on that one. That's one thing, uh, there's a stinger lawsuit as well. The golf, we work with stinger, shout out to our hitters at Stinger Lewis in the game. This is good stuff. The golf tea company Stinger golf sued live over its use of Stinger GC. They sought a hundred million dollars, which is, which is awesome. If they're going to claim these franchisees are worth billions, I know I, if they're going to claim they're worth billions, you should absolutely sue them for a hundred billion dollars. Uh, live, then rename the South African team, the Southern guards this year and the party settled for one million dollars. Uh, they said, quote, is a compromise based on what we viewed as an eminent bankruptcy. Uh, and just shout out to Stinger. They make the golf teas you find in the Nolang up pro shop. Go, go buy some great teas, uh, fantastic teas and, and, you know, they have a right to that name. I love it. I think that's front office sports, uh, that I got that from in the sports business journal, uh, over the unpaid, uh, unpaid fees there. If I, if I have that right, uh, I'd say the most significant news, Neil, the Asian tour is out, uh, this was from Evan Priest and Joel Biel at golf digest. The Asian tour is set to realign with the DP world tour and the PGA tour and a formal partnership online, uh, underlined by pathways and co sanctioned tournaments, a move that it means it will no longer act as live golf's important second tier. The Asian tour CEO, Choman Taunt, hope I'm saying that right, told golf digest that he had to consider the longevity of pathways for its members, given the uncertain future of live. And he said, quote, but given the circumstances now, we had to look at other options, uh, left unsaid in this partnership. This is from the article left unsaid in the partnership. Are the ramifications to live golf? Multiple sources have confirmed a golf digest that national opens on the Asian tour were a part of the league's proposals as it was seeking new investors. However, due to its new PGA tour, TP world tour alliance, the Asian tour and its events can no longer be offered as part of a theoretical live package, significantly reducing lives inventory. It's tough. I mean, Scott O'Neill was going around everywhere talking about national opens. We flag this at the time when he said it that was like they don't have the national opens. I don't know what they're referring to here. I don't know how they're pitching this. The ones they had, they have now lost in a really, really weak state. I believe this was from Amon Lynch's article. Um, they might be trying to reboot the Welsh open, which hasn't been held since 2022, uh, and add that as one of the events, um, but man, just a, uh, the basically the seven week period they had to negotiate with all these new investors would have included whatever they have the Asian tour. And this happened quickly. Uh, this happened within the last week, really, uh, this quick turnover to, to the Asian tour ditching live golf and whatever they were proposing to these investors now has to be changed because they don't have the Asian tour anymore. Just, just a massive, massive, massive L business, man, it happens. Um, it is noted that the new agreement between the three tours is highlighted by the addition of at least two co sanctioned events between the Asian tour and the DP world tour for the 2007, 2028, I'm sorry, 2027, 2028 and 2029 seasons. So I would just say, like, does this, does this put lives existence in question? Like it was, it was easy to picture a dumb down version of next year. You know, maybe it's five events plus five team events. And technically you'll count the, you know, the, the Asian tour events as kind of part of live circuit or whatever it might be, but like, does this seriously bring into question is live golf going to exist in any form next year? For sure. I mean, I just don't know like what you're investing in at this point, um, because then you get the investors, they're like, okay, I'm going to get in for as little as I can. And so then the purse money dries up and then I mean, I kind of think there's some stuff in these contracts of like, they're not going to be able to pay the, you know, what ROMs owed. And so then like that naturally leads to, I would guess like bankruptcy, you know, where it's like, okay, well, now I'm insolvent because like, I'm, you know, you can't convince it. And I guess it's down to two investors to basically, um, you know, cover the bill is what it sounds like. Plus not having braced under contracts and yeah, I couldn't see it working out positively before. And that was before a really, really, really tough week, because it's, we're not done on the news front. Uh, this is from Ben Parsons that today is golfer, the live finale finale in Michigan, very much in question. Martin Kimer said it's about a 5% chance, uh, that it happens. That's coming from a, yeah, that's the first time a player's, uh, not lied to us. Well, yes, said anything really. I mean, you know, cause I saw some quotes from ROM like at the press conference in London. And he's like, yeah, there's a lot happening behind the scenes. You know, I'm not going to tell you guys, but a lot, you know, they've all been very coy. This feels pretty direct here. Like, yeah, 5% is a, like that's a statement supposed to be a $40 million, uh, purse involved in that one. Kimer said, it's a bit sad because we all invested in this year and I'm not meaning financially. Um, so we invested time, emotions, hopes, the vision, uh, and if it would fail that, that way, the way it failed now, because we've been told in February, we are fully funded until 2031 and two months later, it all goes down. It would be a shame. The call is, that, that, that, that's it. The call is coming from inside the house now that he doesn't mean like that's a, that's quite a quote from Kimer. That's the first time I can remember a, uh, one of the live players saying something like that. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's almost like it was a massively unsustainable business model and once the pulled the plug from PIF of, of the never ending faucet of money, it's almost like it couldn't stay on its own, which is, God, I just feel like I heard that somewhere before. So that's not what tonight is. We're not going there yet. We are saving it. We are saving it. We're not done with the news though, uh, golf digest reported Thursday that inquiries from live players to the DP world tour about 2027 have increased significantly. Also of note, flushing it, uh, also reported that seven live players told the account been tend to leave after this season, even if live secures funding. So we've now reached the portion where, uh, flushing it is reporting negative news, uh, on live golf. Those seven players are mobbing up, uh, the final few notes live is reportedly down to two investors. Again, this was kind of before. I think the, the Asian tour news drop at bunker.co.uk reported that the league, uh, narrowed its hunt down to the two investors and noted that the investor interest is high and the league's top management is confident, uh, which I believe we've heard before. So. Uh, yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to be a fly in the wall in the, in the pitch meeting, especially after the Asian tour news, like what is that, you know, I, I, because the only thing I can think of that would be, I know we're going to roll it up with Bryson's YouTube presence. It was like about the only thing of value you could, you could kind of put out there. It would make, you know, that can generate revenues that, you know, to pay the, yeah, just. Yeah, you're going to take away such a prize money from these players. They're all going to, oh, it's man. I just don't know how you could convince an investor anything else is going to happen. I think how you could, you convince an investor that all that's going to happen, that anything other than this. they're going to pay to sunset these contracts. And then they're all going to bounce. Like what you have no security if you're the investor. I don't, I just, I don't understand how it's possible. I think you are, you are in the best hope that the pitch would be is this is a post career non-champions tour circuit for Ian Polter and Lee Westwood and Martin Kimer to play golf on that it's no longer Bryson, Ram, Patton, Neiman, any real current players, but you could play for some good money and you could play team golf. Like that's the thing that you're, you're playing over here and it's not grinding out cuts solo and trying to play corn fairy tour to get status back. Like we'll put up some decent money. It's not live golf money, but it's decent money. And this is an alternate way of playing. You lose your OWG. I got OWGRs gone. Pathways to majors are definitely gone, but if you want to come play kind of circus golf over here, we're going to, we're going to do this. That's the best pitch at this point because I mean, bankruptcy means these players are led out of their contracts. Ram's gone and he's back on the DP World Tour almost immediately. I would assume basically all of this guys are going to be DP World Tour guys as of next year. So that's not tonight. We're not, we're not dancing on the grave tonight, Neil. We are holding and waiting. So I want to give a shout out to Ben Kohler. There's, you know, a lot of chatter online. I just thought he had a really, really solid summary of things this past week on the everything. Happy said, Asian Tour partnering with PGA Tour and DP World Tour makes it appear we're going back to where we were pre-lived, but with potentially a better PGA tour, a better DP World Tour, better connection between them and even possibly a more global focus where national opens are elevated further said no doubt live disrupted things and inadvertently provoked improvements to established tours. But I would liken this to being hit by a speeding car, surviving and then having a new found love for life. I don't think you'd go and thank the driver. Well said. I was really really part I disagree with a little bit is I'd love and maybe you could help me with this. How this better PGA Tour, you know, adults and, you know, running things like the direction they're heading with the two tracks, all that. How is it a better DP World Tour? Like, you do not mean like I feel like the DP World Tour has gotten kind of screwed over the past 10, 20 years, like the best 10 guys are coming over to play on the PGA Tour. It's like, Oh, like the reward for playing good on the DP World Tour is that your best guys leave, basically. Yeah. So I don't know about that part. It is, I would say this, like without the backing of the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour was in trouble. And you're going to lose the top guys over to a tour that puts out more money anyways, right guys are doing that, you know, Justin Rose, Luke Donald, Graham McDowell, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, like all of the top players, once the Tiger money hit the PGA Tour, once it took off, that's where the Europeans played golf. And they did support the DP World Tour, but less and less as the years went on and the money kept going up on the PGA Tour. They can't compete from a corporate standpoint, but with America, like that's just been proven out at this point. So the argument here would basically be like, it was that way before live. And it's just going to be a better version of that after live. It's, it's that and the, yes, you're getting financial backing from the PGA Tour. They're undermining some, you know, underpinning some purses there. It's in the PGA Tour's best interest to have a solid DP World Tour or European tour as well and have that be a feeder is a good thing. And I asked Keith Pele about this when he was on the podcast of like, all right, what's the reputation of DP World Tour being a feeder was like, look, we, we're a member organization and the part like an offering we have to our members is a pathway to play for the massive money on the PGA Tour. I'm like, I get in theory that that weakens our tour and on the surface, like just looks like that we're just feeding them in a way we are. And I'm paraphrasing this, of course, but at the same time, like that is a great membership offer of, yeah, you, you know, you play well on this tour. You, you support this tour for a year and one of the top 10 best players, you will have access to the riches of the PGA Tour. And that was, he said, it was a kind of a no brainer option when presented because like, look, you know, alternative is they could have partnered with PIF and they could have gone that route. And like, I think they were able to see around the corner of like, I don't think this is the most stable. Yeah. Is PIF going to be funding the DP World Tour in 50 years? Like what's more likely that or an alliance with the PGA Tour is being something long lasting. And like, kind of hard to fault where that has netted out. And, you know, I don't know that that's my, that's my tent. Oh, that's good. I, I've just, yeah, that's a good overview. And I, because I think, like, yeah, you wish for the heyday of the, of the, of the European tour days of the Sevy and the longer and Fowdo and Montgomery. I was not walking through that door. No, that, that world's not coming back without 20 million dollar purses, which just isn't happening in Europe. I'm sorry, it's just not great. Man, I walk through that. That's not happening. Lucas Herbert did win by six shots today. He shot 30 under par, uh, Ripper also won the team competition as well. So that's, that's about all I have. They hot Lucas from, from live UK. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was not that much of a birdie fest. Like he went and absolutely beat people over the head this past week. So, um, other, you know, we mentioned Tommy Morrison won the corn fairy tour. He's been absolutely mowing people down to start his corn fairy tour career as well. He had a T 10 in his first pro start. Then finished T five at the memorial health and was runner up the blue championship. And now, uh, won the Evan scholars this past week, uh, just outside of Chicago, already up to eighth on the points list and essentially assured a PGA tour card, uh, for next year. So that's about all I had in the notebook. As mentioned, the AIG women's open is on the ladies circuit this coming week while the rocket classic on the PGA tour Utah bank championship on the corn fairy tour live is off and then dead minster, the father of my neighborhood, the P world. I was thinking about it. It's on my calendar. I mean, it's 15 minutes away. Uh, I don't know. I'm kind of like, I don't know if they're going to have the tournament. I think they're having, I think they're very confident they're having that one. Uh, it sounds like Indianapolis is. I think I'll buy a tick. Gussie. What's up? It's gonna happen. See if you kick credentialed or see if they try to shut you out. I don't want the security following the around. Keep kidding me. Come on, man. I don't, I don't have you. Can they afford security anymore? They go, no, I'm gonna flip my, I'm gonna mess, you know, flip my facial hair, get something, something cooking, you know, they won't know. Wait, they won't know what to look for in two weeks. I have Mexico. They were hunting Brody down. I'd be, I'd be careful off there. Um, if you have it, I would check out our rules podcast from this past Tuesday, past Wednesday. I guess it went out. We had Craig Winter on from the USGA. We actually recorded this ahead of the US Open, or sorry, I had the Open Championship before. There was a lot of rules related stuff in there. But Neil and I peppered talk about those ruling, we did not have specific examples of those issues. It was very well timed if I may say. So I would go, go check that one out. It's a really interesting list and we were, we will have Craig back on as well because he's just excellent at explaining the rules to, to do our rules experts here that, I mean, I feel like I understand him a lot better. I do too. I was just living in a pre 2019 world. I mean, I've just been, yeah, I, yeah, I still just need you to stop weighing in on them because even just, even you saying that makes me second guest rules again. I don't know. We wind each other up on it. I really, really don't like it. Uh, we're going to preview as mentioned for the AG women's open. We'll also be live next Sunday after the rocket classic wraps. I know the AG women's open is going to end earlier, but we're going to wait till that one wraps and we're going to do a live show, uh, as well. Before we get to Alex Fitzpatrick, summer golf season is here. Our closets are looking a lot like the rowback website right now. First up, the rowback lightweight loopers short. This is exactly what you need when hot weather golf hits. This got the comfort of a gym short looks like a proper golf short, though. It's got a stretch waistband. It's got belt loops got real button and fly. It's super lightweight struggle with swamp ass. 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Here is our chat with Alex Fitzpatrick crack on Neil. Cheers. So two weeks off. What what do we do? It's a little time off. Uh, you know, the clubs going away for a while. Are you just going to keep playing to keep riding out this hot streak? I'm curious what the thought process is here. The, um, the whole street kind of came to an end when I was when I was back in Europe. So, uh, that was a little frustrating, but no, I've got, I've got two weeks off here. Super excited to put the clubs away. So, uh, yeah, I'll be, I'll be taking a break and, um, yeah, allowing the clubs to, to have a rest for a change. Yeah, we, that's what we brought you in for. We want to talk about Scottish open. We want to talk about the open championship. Nothing else this year. Those are the two things we want to go shot by shot kind of. If you, if you don't mind, take it a step. through all that but. - Ideally not, but that's okay. Every person you want. - You're a household name now in the world of golf. How has life changed in the last just, I guess few months, I would say last year, but really in the last few months? - Yeah, it's been crazy. I can't lie, just every aspect of my life has changed and I think every time I look back at it, it's like, wow, I can't believe how different it was than three months ago. From kind of traveling all over the world to playing on D.P., and to suddenly like playing full-time in the U.S. with all the best plays in the world, and at the moment, I'm trying to find a house in Florida and just being over here full-time. Like, I absolutely love it over here. You know, we came in my family, used to come here quite a lot as a kid, and I went to college at Wake Forest for four years and yeah, it's the place I love to be, and I'm thankful that I'm over here now. - Alex, if we go back like last six, nine months, can you pick a moment? I mean, Zurich would be an obvious answer, but is there something before that where you're like, it's starting to click, like a turning point? - I would say October last year, I changed coach, strictly because I didn't get enough contact time with my old coach. It just, he was in the States and I was at home in Europe and I just didn't get enough time with someone and I think that was kind of the missing piece was having someone that I can see more often. And yeah, me and my brother did a switcheroo and coaches and he had my coach and I had his. So it just, I would say it clicks from then, but it's funny, I played South Africa in March. Start in March and I was in contention with like five or six holes to go and it didn't happen. And, you know, I remember thinking to myself, like I've had a few chances now will, you know, will it ever happen for me? - Two weeks later, it did. So it was, yeah, it's been so surreal, but I would say kind of changing coach was the big turning point for me. - I feel like this big kind of under reported thing. It's like a wife swap here, like a coach swap here. I've never heard of that. I've just like, yeah, you know, was he looking to make a change specifically and was it just like a convenience thing, a coincidence that you ended up swapping or was that kind of-- - Yeah, who's that idea? Who's that idea? (laughing) - I suppose that. It was actually a sad story. My coach was, well, my brother's coach at the time, his wife wasn't very well. He couldn't travel to America. He would stay back home in England. And my coach, Mark Blackburn, was full time in his full time in the state. So it was basically a case of, well, my brother can't see my walker is my coach now 'cause he's obviously at home in Europe and I couldn't really see Mark 'cause he was in the state. So it was like, well, who do we trust as coaches? Who are the people that we're close to and we value and both of them we think are great people and great coaches and it was like, well, maybe we try this where I see Mike and you see Mark and see how that goes. And it was kind of, I would say, instant feedback. I think I finished, I think I finished nine in my first tournament with Mike at the Spanish Open and I think my brother played really well somewhere. And then that was kind of it. It was kind of liftoff from there really, which is crazy to think about all it was was just. - And was that, was that which is you and Matt like on a phone call like venting to each other? Like, yeah, my game sucks, right? Me too, thank you. - Hey, it was, we didn't have a phone call, but it was like, well, my game sucks and your game sucks. How are we gonna get out of this? So yeah, that was the answer and, you know, I'm thankful that that's the approach we went down. - And what's changing the golf swing? Like walk me through that, like what's the swing feel or what's the improvement you made over the last nine months? - Yeah, so my tendencies have always been my left arm kind of gets out of my body. It used to lean into kind of low squeeze cuts that I always, I never felt like I could optimize my driving. And if I didn't kind of, if I didn't low squeeze cut, I would back up and then I would hit it right. So I would have a two way miseffectively. So what we did was, yeah, yeah. What we could just name here again, what do you give us? It's fun. - I'll pass on his phone number after the call. So we basically worked on a bit more kind of connection with my left arm, but just more structure in the back swing. That was honestly really it. It was kind of having it a little bit shorter, a little wider. It kind of worked to a stage where it was quite loopy at the top, so then I would almost lose my club even more and then I would back up. And it was, yeah, it took a little bit of time to kind of get used to because my swing was so long before that having it short felt really short. So, but yeah, just, just more structure in my swing and that it was the thing that really improved my driving and kind of gave me a lot of opportunities to score. - I'm curious about a lot of the technical stuff as it relates to, you know, you can talk through all that. You can, you can make a swing change. You can take it on the range. You can practice with it. You can, what makes a golf swing hold up really well in big, massive competitive moments, like you've been in the last several months, like what you just talked about there, the structure of the backswing, does that, does that just put, you know, 'cause I guess raise your floor of your swing to say like, hey, even when my nerves are high, when I'm feeling different, when I'm in contention, a stronger baseline to get me started here, you know, helps keep my floor raised. I'm just kind of curious, because it's so different to pull this off on the range than massive pressure situations. - Yeah, it's a funny one. I, for some reason, I've always been of the assumption for my own golf swing that if it looks a little better, I feel like I can compete more. I don't know if that is, you look at someone like Adam Scott or Rory where the swing just looks so good, it feels like they're never not gonna compete. But for me, I always felt like there were things in my swing I didn't like, and I felt like if I could get rid of them, I would probably have more confidence to go and play well. And I think that was really it. I think, you know, having, having a slightly better technique and a bit more consistency is definitely good for the mental side and coming down the stretch, but I think knowing that I'm happy with my swing and where it's at, that I can go and be comfortable hitting the shots that I wanna hit, and yeah, I felt really comfortable, you know, down the stretch in a couple of the tournaments that I've contended in, and yeah, it's been a lot of fun. - Alex, I had never seen you play, and then I made a point to get out Saturday at the US Open, and I picked you up on the seventh hole, the par three, and I watched a tee shot on eight. And I was actually, I was really impressed, surprised by, you have a unique move, and the way you use your left foot, the way you use the ground at impact, and like, has that, I was wondering if that's new or if you always, you know, generated that ground force with the left foot? - It's funny, so when I worked with Mark Blackburn, he is someone who uses all the force plates, all the ground force stuff, and that was kind of where I discovered that I did, that I didn't even know that was something that I did, I didn't pay enough attention to it, or what I actually did for my swing, but I would say I've always been someone who has a lot of rotational force. I would say that would be my classic superpower, is what he used to call it. I mean, I think if you've seen my brother swing at the moment, he's been trying to get his left foot out of the way to where it looks like he's about to fall over. So I was kind of lucky that I've kind of always had that, and not had to worry too much about speed or distance. But yeah, it's something that comes natural to me, and it just tells me I think clear my hips a bit more and get out of the way. - Yeah, and it has driving accuracy been, if you look at your stats, what have you done better to now, you know, fourth of the Catalan, or fourth of the truest, ninth of the Catalan, one of the Zurich, what would you attribute that to? Hitting more fairways, because your approach game seems like it's always been pretty solid. - Yeah, I would say my approach play and my chipping from the crap has always been, my two strongest parts of my game. So, but I think hitting so many more fairways has been just such an improvement for me, because I think, my approach play has been so good for a while, I think just having the opportunity to hit shots from the fairway has been so beneficial for me that, yeah, just as many fairways as I can possibly hear, is being the key to the back off 100%. - Can you take us back in time? A lot of people were introduced to you through the Netflix series, you know, kind of documenting your relationship with Matt and you got to play in the Zurich and things like that, Matt, the success Matt has had, can you take us to what your belief level was in yourself at that time versus what it was, say, in February of this year, versus what it was in May kind of, did you ever have to convince yourself you were one of the best players in the world or capable of being one of the best players in the world? What is your kind of belief in yourself, Ben? What's that journey been like over the last several years? - That's a good question, I think given two or three years ago when I was coming out of college or I was, you know, my first year in the DP World Tour, I think for me personally, I always, I feel like I always kind of had the, in a self belief, I could be one of the better players in the world and I think I found it really hard when it took me a long time to kind of, to show that my game is good enough and I think it's, yeah, it's golf is a straight in game like you guys know to where, you know, you have, you either have a lot of close shades or you don't play very well for a long time and it definitely keeps kicking you down and it's very hard to talk yourself out of it. And that's kind of, again, why I'm thankful that I've had the year I've had because I think in March of this year [BLANK_AUDIO] February this year my game kind of really improved and I really started to feel like I was becoming you know one of the top 100 plays in the world and then all of a sudden we were favorites I think going into the Zora after we both won so it was like suddenly there was more expectation on myself like hey you're actually one of the better golfers here and then obviously being paired as long as I'm a brother helps but yeah I think yeah it's a it's a frustrating game and I think the hard thing is you need sometimes it feels like you need results to to almost prove your self-belief that you know you're a good golfer and you deserve to be one of the better plays in the world and luckily for me this year has definitely shown that my hard work and a lot of the sacrifices I've made has been you know for the for the good yeah this might be anecdotal but it feels like you play well on hard golf courses I think back to the course in India and I look at some of your results like I don't know if this proves out what Cadillac look like a hard course you know Blue Monster I think quail hollows a beast memorial do you is that are you at home and I would say your brothers also kind of like you see a hard setup you you kind of think you know Matt's going to play well is that did you feel that way our birdie felt like as an amax like a birdie fest not a setup for you I'm curious how you think about that I for me I don't know I don't like birdie fest because I I don't put good enough to to compete in the birdie fest so I think looking at the results that I've had over the past couple years they've all been like tree lined hard golf courses I don't think I've ever done well round like open golf courses to where people can get away with hitting drivers miles offline like I played the Scotch open this year and I was seeing some t-shirts that I'm like if that was a memorial that was a quail hollow you'd be making ten but they're making four or birdie or whatever and especially now with my driving improving I think I need golf courses that require harder shops and I think that's where I definitely play my best golf what was your expect going and desert this year you know you just come off the win in india you know obviously Matt has had an incredible start to the year it's kind of got to be hard knowing what comes with a win like no one else had what you had on the line uh in terms of uh it that was in contention at least in terms of like what what's on like you know a lot of guys were eligible for the next couple of tournaments or whatever that might be you had nothing beyond that event what what was the pressure like of that and one that for you and then your brother who there's no one in the world I'm sure that he would rather supported and kind of help out in this situation what was the pressure like for me we saw him when he was open like he's handled pressure on his own very well but that had to be a completely unique style of pressure that he had uh coming down the stretch of it and if I I hope you gave him some crap afterward like he kind of showed some of the pressure on that back nine it's Eric as well yeah I uh it's funny I didn't sleep at all Saturday night I mean it didn't really I think I didn't really realize the pressure on like Thursday Friday because it just felt like they were you know the the first two days and you trying to get through them and I think the leader board is always so compact you can't really separate yourself and then we played really well Saturday obviously I think we were 15 under or something stupid everything kind of kept going in and then uh I just remember not sleeping at all I think I ordered Ben Ye is it like 10 pm because I was like I can't sleep and I'm hungry so I had them at like 11 thursdays and I'm like I just kind of can't sleep at all so and then I remember going to the putting green in the morning was like how did ask him a really had you sleeping he was like yes like like a log I'm like that's just crazy to me but yeah I think coming down the stretch I couldn't imagine the the pressure he had on himself to to to try and get over the line for me obviously he hit some shots down the stretch that I don't think he'd normally hit in a different tournament but you know that he's trying to do it for me and he wants me to be here and um yeah I couldn't fathom you know the pressure he put on himself but you know I think we both did a really good job of um of managing it and you know we kept ourselves in it all the way to the last hole so we made it we made it fun for everyone at home and then I mean so Monday morning it's like your your whole schedule just changed right you're all you now live in a different country like you know you're gonna so did you immediately start looking for a home base or were you had you just been on the road since Zurich kind of like I'll figure it out week to week honestly it's it's it's been kind of on the road most times I've had a couple I've had like a week or so off every now and then that I've um I've tried to figure out where I want to go but um only the past kind of month and a half I'd really started looking for houses um because obviously now this is the crazy thing is like hopefully I'll be in the top 30 of the FedEx so after that time period there's a few events in europe I'll play and then I've got a long time off which is the first time I'll ever have more than three weeks off in since I've been pro so that's something I'm super excited for but I've also kind of got a got to find a home so yeah it's it's just nuts and it I think when you play him well you kind of want to keep playing but it gets to stage when I think mentally not even physically but mentally I think he gets exhausted especially with all the changes that have happened in my life I think it became um it came a little tiring I mean yeah I give you credit though you you it's got to roll the road the ball for a while I mean you know I know the last couple of weeks there's like all right I um I need a break but good Rod man that's not like you know people have a little a couple of hot streaks you know you win you know when the india like the pessimistic view you win an india on the deep world tour and you win a team event like I was almost more impressed with your run through the signature events that you got into immediately after that it was like you just immediately launched yourself into this into this category I guess when you when you are you know you get transported right into those complete change of pace were you still riding complete confidence as you got into all of those or was there any did you have any like imposter syndrome's not the right word there but did you have any look around of like ooh is this where I really should be feeling that take me into your mindset and how you were able to succeed so much in that that run that extended past the Zurich yeah I think once I once I played in Miami I mean everyone was so friendly with me that week it was unbelievable I had every player pretty much in every caddy come up to me and my caddy and be like hey we're happy you're here like great work and that was something I was a little taken back by because I didn't really know how people would respond to to me being out there but yeah I think I felt really comfortable straight away and you know I think part of that is obviously being around my brother who's one of the best plays in the world has definitely made me more comfortable and I think also I just have come to the conclusion that like these superstars are just they're literally just human beings who are pretty good at sport like that's they're just normal people who play golf for a living and I think that's for me where I've been very lucky and unfortunate to where I don't get like staff struck by the people around me or at least in golf I would say so I've always felt pretty comfortable being around these players and playing against them and I think that's the nice thing is playing these signature events is like you're going to play with superstars in all of them events and you just kind of you've got to get on with it like golf is golf and it doesn't change no matter where you are in the world if you can get that ball in the hole as quick as possible then that's all you care about. I'm curious just with if my math is right something like four point eight million dollars earned in just a ten of and ten events on the PGA tour this year where where are you looking to live where have you you know is this something you would have thought of prior to the Zurich in any way of like I'd love to live here or here's where I would be the best place for me to strategically base myself for for professional golf and for life I'm always curious about especially Europeans that kind of most of them end up in Florida in some way but what's the how you how you judge the hierarchy of all the big cities that professional golfers live in and are you you know are you asking people from different places kind of what their experiences have been like I've definitely asked people about where where they live and what they think but my brother being in Florida for so long I think it would be nice to be close to him not too close so I don't have to spend much time with him but close enough to where he's around so for me like I think Palm Beach is where I'm ideally going to be based myself I mean I've been a member at a place called the Diaper Reserve for about three or four years and yeah I just I can't believe that yeah four months ago I was yeah I didn't have any of these thoughts going on in my head and then suddenly it's like holy crap this is this this is where it is so yeah I'll be I'm excited to look for houses I'm excited to base myself have a home here and yeah I know it gets hot in Florida so I'll keep going up to New York but yeah it's it's been fun that's for sure are you you you're up in New York now you're hitting you hitting balls at Chelsea Pier you because I as a New York City golfer for a long time this tough up there man I am not I am not I'm putting the clubs away I'm having some some well-earned rest so I'm yeah trying to make the most of being in New York by visiting everything and doing my thing is that so and then take that to the offseason are you I know you have it because of you know you're trying to make it but like are you the type of person that wants to put the clubs away for like the month of December for instance like does that does time away from the game help you or do you get antsy to get back to to working it's funny I I mean I love golf I love playing golf I love competing I used to be of the opinion where like I would always want to keep playing and practicing and I think my issue is like out once I finish a tournament it'll be like three or four days of kind of feeling guilty about not playing up practicing and then if I have more time. I am happy to put the clubs away. That's just, I think you need, I think everyone needs like a mental reset. And for me, like, once I get over them three days of guilt, I feel way better. So it's amazing how, how nice it is once you come back because you get, you, you excited to come back and you're excited to practice and play once you have that break. I think that was the, that's the nice thing about it. Is it the golf you need to break from or is the travel you need to break from or just like the cycle of all, of all the tournaments? Like, it's got to be, it, that, that, that seems to be, to me, I would imagine just to be like just the fact that you guys take your show on the road every week and granted your travel gets condensed a little bit more now that you're playing full time in the US versus what you were doing. And, uh, you need your passport a little bit, a little bit less. And, uh, that process probably smoothed a little bit. But is it, you know, I, how have you seen that, the balance of those two things? Yeah. For me, the, obviously, the travel is, is much easier than, than traveling around the world on the DP World Tour. But I think the, what it is is, is the like, consistency of what you do at a tournament, like you wake up early, you probably go to the gym before you play, you have breakfast, you then warm up, then you practice after you play and then you go back to the gym or you're doing some form of recovery and that's like, it's every day. So it's not like you have, I mean, you can take easier days as a golfer and that's kind of the, the lucky thing we have the opportunity to do that. But there's not many guys out there that have a break and have rest, like during tournament weeks and it's just like waking up and doing the same thing all the time. I think that's where it can get a little tedious and, and it can become tiring. And I think that's why the breaks are so nice because you, you get excited to get back into that routine. Uh, Alice, I want to go back to Shinnecock that same, same round I was watching you. I watched on 11 that day. Uh, and I think I can't remember if you hit it long, long, long, long left, and then you missed a shorty and you were, you were hot walking off that green. Uh, I think the, because I was standing up by the tee on 12 and you walk by you telling your caddy, like, that's the dumbest golf hole I've ever seen, uh, which was, which was sick. I was like, because as a fan, I stood there for two hours. I love that golf. But I, my, I guess my question is like, how, how often are you evaluating course architecture while you're playing? Cause 11's a famous hole. So I'm just, I don't know, take me back to that, that moment, you know, are you just hot or because you miss that putt or, you know, I'm just, I'm so curious about that. It's a good thing you, you don't ask my caddy this because he'll sell you a complaint about every single golf. Um, definitely more of a heat. Well, that golf hole is just impossible. Like I, I don't know, I don't know how people play that hole. I hit one great shot there on, it might have been Saturday. And I think I hit it to, like, 15 feet and the pin was all the way to the back. And then that's three putt. Yeah, that's it. I was, but he did hit the green. I would find it on or not. Yeah. I finally hit great shot. I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to make part. And then I missed a short one. I made bogey and I was huge. And that meanwhile on, on Friday, I got up and down from the left side to make part. And I was like, this is just, it was just a silly golf hole. Like I think because it was windy as well. And you hit, I think I hit a tie into that green that has like five yards of room. Yeah. It just, it's just a difficult golf hole. But it's the same for everyone. Like everyone's hitting it into the same area. And, um, yeah, there's definitely a heat in the moment thing. Sure. I loved it. I didn't mean that to be like a gacha. It was just so, you're human. It's like it, it was very relatable because I'm, you know, I've played that whole two and I did not do well. There's something to pro golfers too. Like finding a way to, to blame ish and the blame, maybe not the right word, blame something else from a confidence standpoint. I'm like, that's the whole's fault. That's not that is not my, you can never blame, you can never blame the golfer. That's what, that's what you're gonna rent. It's never my fault. I'm curious kind of becoming off this major championship season here. Uh, you, you played in the open championship. I think in 2023, if I remember right, but kind of your first run through, you know, playing the last three majors that you played here. What, what, we, we can, as viewers can kind of get a glimpse and understanding of what the differences are in a major championship set up versus what you kind of see week to week now on the, on the PGA tour. But how would you describe the difference, the margins and everything you've, you've learned, I guess, about major championship golf here in the last couple of months. Um, do you want the tame answer or do you want the, the, do you want the camera answer? Do you want the real, real one? I, from, from everything that I've played in this year, I felt like they just keep putting pins on the most critical and the craziest spots that you can find them. That for me is like the big, the big thing I've learned where like PGA tour events, they, they put them on flat spots that you can, you can, they can be accessible and, um, but they're, like hard, they're good pins. Whereas the majors for whatever reason, they're putting them on what looks like three percent slopes and you just, it's really hard to get close. And I think that's what, I mean, that's what's so impressive about the guys who are playing well that week is sometimes you're playing these events. It's like how on earth are they, like two guys shot eight under, um, last week at the open. And I was just as you'd never saw eight under, like, not even close. Um, and that, I think that's the impressive thing is like, not only they put it on, like, silly slopes, there's also a lot of wind and then you've got to manage the pop bunkers last week and, um, definitely just from a close out, they just make it as hard as possible. Um, and that could be that, they can make you look really stupid, which I found in the, in the last round, hmm. That's interesting because I think there's, there's a part of, I hear me hearing you say that part of me is like, oh, hell yeah, it should be. It should be really hard. Let's, let's see who the best golfers are. Let's, but at the same time, it, it, it feels like, you know, I guess does it feel like at times they, they do this with, with hiding pins that feels just like score suppression and less of a test of golf, which I know can be a, a hornet's nest of a question here of like, you know, I think the best player is probably going to win no matter what. But I think there was a little bit of this. It's ironic, at least in my opinion of really, really, really hard pins to the point where if you're kind of out of position off the tee or in a really good position, either way, you couldn't really get close to it and it kind of diminished a little shot value in there. I'm curious kind of whether or not you walked off those courses and were like, oh, now I, you know, if I was better at blah, blah, blah, I could get closer to these holes or it felt like, no, almost nobody could get close to it. Was that a great test of golf? Hope that makes sense. Yeah. I think, um, I definitely think if you play him well, you can, you can, you can still score. I think it's very, they make it very hard for you to shoot seven eight under it. I think a really good score in these majors that I've played in have been like three or four under, which I think is, you know, you move up a lot of the leaderboard. Again, I think I've only played the three. I haven't played the masters, which is the one that I've dreamed of as a kid and it's tree line. So I'm hoping that would help me. But it is definitely felt like the punishment has been like where the pins are and also like, if you miss the fairway by five yards, it seems to be, you, you can have screwed. But if you miss it by like 50, you seem to have shots. And I think that was the reason, I think I was a little frustrated with a couple of them was just felt like you were hitting decent shots down off the tee and you're kind of getting punished, especially the PGA. Like if you miss the fairway by two yards and the PGA, you were, you were moving it 50 yards. It was kind of nuts, but you miss it by 30. And suddenly these guys were having shots of the greens, which I just never saw. But that's all I'm new to this. Like it's all part and parcel of it. So that's just, you know, something I'm, I'm adjusting to. Yeah, hopefully next year I can figure out about their approach to try and, try and climb up the leaderboard. This again, might be kicking a horn. It's nest with this question because it's always a hard topic to speak on it in a brief way. But do you have any, any, because what you're describing there, I think it, my mind immediately goes towards equipment, rollback and all kinds of conversations around this where I, I just, my opinion, if somebody's blowing at 30 yards offline, it shouldn't go as far as it does, right? I think it's where some of the imbalance comes from. Are you up to speed at all on any of the discussion around rollback around the game? What is potentially coming with the golf ball here in now 2030? And how that might affect a player like you? Or are you just head down and focused on what you can control? I've kind of, I wouldn't say I'm big into, um, into kind of understanding and realizing what's going on with the ball. But I've heard multiple different things. Like, I've heard that rolling the ball back is only going to make it better for the guys who hit it further, which then defeats the purpose of, of rolling the ball back. Um, but I'm also, I love kind of make like creating shots and seeing shots and I, I don't know. I think it's harder to do with the ball we play right now. So I think it would be easier to do with the ball that, um, that would be rolled back. But, um, yeah, I don't know what the right answer is I think, I think it's, it's a tough one and I don't really know where they're going to go with it. And I also don't really know what the general public would want. I don't know if there would be like a ball for the pros or a ball for the amateurs. And if so, like, I think that's kind of crazy that you would play a different ball to what the pros play because that's part of it, right? Like if you, you want to play a tight list pro V1 X that has a dot on it because the pros play it and that might give you, you know, some enjoyment out of that or, um, or like hitting the shots that you think the pros may be able to hit. So I, I don't really know kind of what the right answer is. And again, they kind of keep changing. So, um, I guess, yeah, we'll just have to see with it. Well, we'll come back to you in a couple of years. You get to get your Zilla stuff dialed. You got a lot. That's our job. You just, well, we'll talk about it here. But you did mention like hitting shots, feel shots. Your brother has always been kind of the narrative is like data boy. You track in his stats. Are you? And I've heard, you know, you've said, or He may be saying about you that you're more of a feel. But where do you would you define yourself as a more of a field player or are you tracking stats like how do you approach that part of the game? I would I mean, I've actually tracked my stats for a long time. I just don't he's in a different Dimension when it comes to stats like it's the craziest stuff I've ever seen in my life But like I record my stats for them to be inputted so I can see you know where I'm gaining where I'm losing that sort of stuff But I'm way more of a field player like I would I would much rather go down the route of Of me personally is like If you get me into the numbers too much like my head can't comprehend all the numbers So I'm way better at just seeing and doing rather than all the math behind it I'm curious you know Maybe this question's even for Neil of like Neil Neil has two sons and I would ask Neil like can you picture a world Where both of your sons are like top 40 golfers in the world or like top athletes in a particular sport like are your parents just like Through the like I can't even imagine the pride your parents must feel watching the two of you guys succeed in the way you guys have Yeah, I can't honestly imagine how they feel Um, I think the part of them is a little upset and disappointed because it means that I won't be back in England But yeah, I you know, I think having two kids that have dreamed of being out here and being you know playing golf together I think the the happiest thing for them is that we're together more I think that's the the nice thing that From their perspective is we get to spend time together which we haven't done in the past 10 12 years so for them. I think it's nice having Us together and it makes it easier for the travel for them that we're going to be in the same spot each time And we're going to be an uncle here soon too, right? Yeah, about week's time. Yeah, the fun Uncle It's a good though. I I put that role for oh, I enjoy that role. Uh, sometimes more than be a dad Of all of this we go with the kiddo so A question for you like it's not just your brother I mean you went to wake forest and I feel like around some talent there with with Cam young on the squad Did you see like I feel like cam's had a breakout year. Did you? Did you see this when he was your teammate? Like is this is it do you think he's under? I don't know under achieved or over. You know what I mean like where where was he at when he was your teammate? Cam was one of the I would say the very few people that I've played golf with and been like wow this kid is like this is seriously good So for the longest time I couldn't believe that he hadn't done as well as he'd hoped um, I honestly believe that like this year is the golf that he would be playing For a long time. Uh, he's just hits the ball a long way Is approach plays great. He's got I don't think people have realized how good his hands are like he's this short game is a joke Um, and then once he once he finds the putter hot. It's you know, it's hard to catch So I've always felt like he was going to do really well It was just a more of a matter of time than than anything else But um, he's great. He's great. I love him to bits He's not changed since since college he mumbles over time and people because people think he's unhappy But he's not and yeah, he doesn't change which I think is the best thing He talked earlier about structure in the backswing. I went you said that I think I think about Cam Young I mean talk I mean talk about like struck like the way he pauses at the top. I mean, such as like Incredible golf swing. Good. Just a unique move. Yeah, that was funny. I actually um Talking about my left arm kind of shifting out more in my swing One of the when me and my coach were trying to figure out how to help with my my left arm stay more connected One of the things we looked at was like hey pot pausing is a good method So like I also have spent so much time with Cam that I know that he pauses like mad Um, and then I actually saw a video of him talking about why he pauses and I was like, yeah, this could this good work So we ended up doing it as a drill to start and I think it's really steeped into my swing to where I get to the top And I'm I feel like I'm pausing so my arms don't get shifted out Um, so yeah, basically I'm just copying Cam and hoping that everything works out. Yeah Well, you mentioned there like copying and I've heard guys say this when they've when they've come out on tour Or you know when when they're rookies or in your case kind of come on the PJ tour Is it you know, you're around so many world class players. You're playing with a different level of players on a much more frequent basis Is there any like do you ever walk off a course and feel like oh he's doing it like this Maybe I need to think about doing it like this and guys have you know, maybe lost their focus on some things because they see different techniques So they see different You know ball flights or things like that has any of that Effected you in any way things you've seen and have just been like oh, I'm gonna need to get a lot better at this like so and so If I really want to compete and then be a top 10 player say I think putting from my point of view is is the reason as to why I think this This guy that do well week in week out um my point hasn't always been my strongest suit So I'm hopeful that if I work hard enough that can improve and I think that's From my point of view, I think that's the reason as to why I haven't done as well in the past as as what I would hope um But I would say other than that I've you know everyone everyone does it differently and I think that's what so unique about golf is everyone has their style of golf and and how they play and Um, that's what makes it so fun is you see guys who have weird works in the swing or weirdo is the chip cross-handed or um I sure Everyone's different and they just make it work All right, so with putting though Break that down for me. Is it a specific? Is it pace that you need to work on lags? Is it like is it attitude? Puttings an interesting one like like or or to make it an easier question maybe Who's who's putting do you admire and why? Well, yeah, it's easy for me to say my brother because I'd I'd feel like he's one of the best putters in the world but Well, I played with um I played with Ricky vowler quite a bit recently and then Danny McCarthy of the two. I'm I just rubbed the way they put like they put with no fear They're okay with rolling it four or five feet past And yeah, they everything just looks like goes in the middle of the hole. So you know, you see There the people I'd look at and be like well, what are they doing that's you know that works for them and you know How do they read the greens and you trying to pick up on little things that That might be able to help you game, but also you don't want to you don't want to go over and be like hey, mate What are you? What's making you so to the point? What can I do to improve? So you kind of got to do it on the slide Yeah What's your how would you from like a you know, just mentioned putting being an attitude kind of thing What is your just in your entire career entire golf life? What's been your mental confidence journey been like what what what if you Learned about kind of the mental side of golf and do you have like a you know when you're approaching some of these pressure situations Do you have a mantra? Do you have any like kind of techniques that help you through some of these pressure situations that Maybe you know mechanisms you're using from the mental side. I'm always curious to pick guys brains on this The best way I can describe that would be when when we played the Zurich on Sunday on the 17th The only thing that was going on in my head was please don't hit it in the piss that was like Yeah, I would say that From a mental side, I could probably do with a little bit of improvement, but um, I think you just Been playing golf with these guys and playing well and being in contention. I think you get easier with doing that So the more you can do that. I think that's why like Rory's so good is You know, I think a normal person would feel an extreme amount of pressure on a Sunday in contention and um I don't even know if he probably feels it in a regular PJ Tour event because of what he's done in the game So yeah, I think I think it's something that you can get better at with with time and From my point of view it I've felt comfortable with my game especially at the moment to where I don't feel as Worried or anxious when I'm coming down the stretch um, but typically in the past Like trying to win for the first time and I've not got across the line You definitely feel some nerves and you know your legs shake and arm shake and it definitely makes it tough to To kind of control, but I think breathing is plays a big big role in that Do you what what's kind of your Relationship like with your brother in terms of like sharing advice or or notes back and forth on something like that Like if you do you guys help each other with technical stuff with mental stuff like kind of You know, do you have a dividing line in your professional careers in some way that doesn't let it affect your guys relationship I'm curious kind of how that works and say we used to used to do that and now more of his opponents He doesn't share as much anymore Now we in all fairness we we do talk a little bit But not not load. I mean, I think it's a strange one because we have feel like we both got to where we've got to in the game just by doing our own thing and There's been moments I would say more from kind of him maybe helping me a little bit with some things But he's a little stubborn. He wouldn't listen to me anyway, even if I offered my help so We tend just to do our own thing and that seems to be working Look hypothetical and this is what is a way I could I could phrase it Let's say you're trailing Matt by like four going into the final round But you shoot 68 and he shoots 70 you walk in you see he shoots he shoots 73. What's your reaction? Are you like? Got him. Oh, yeah, I got him Look if I if I was as long as I win and he finishes second. That's like that's the ideal scenario I wouldn't I obviously want him to do as well as possible and I just don't want him to beat me. So it's that's the that's how it is Yeah, one more wake force question all town one of my favorite courses in the U.S How do you feel about that course? Did you realize what a good golf course it is, being a home course for a wake? - I wish that I would have paid more attention to how good it was. I think once you leave and you realize what you had, it was like that place was amazing. I think the only downside, I think was it was on the wider side of the tee, but like for approach plays and the condition of the golf course, it was incredible. And yeah, I wish I had been kind of looked at it a little different and being more thankful that I put out was the golf course we played regularly. They've been so good with us on the team and letting us play whenever we want and the guys were in the pro show, we're always amazing. So yeah, I'm actually going back, I play the wind 'em, so I'm gonna go back the day before and I'm gonna go see it all and maybe play around there and try and enjoy it. - And then a quick follow up on that. - Any courses like this year, PGA tour courses that have really stood out for you that you're like, man, I really like this golf course. - From a genuinely relevant from how I played, I really liked the quail hollow, I've liked it before and I loved memorial, I thought that was great. It was just really hard. Them two are the probably the two that I'm like, this is really cool, like this is sick to be here. - Yeah. - What kind of adjustments have you made in terms of what your actual future goals are? Are you super goal-oriented? Are you a write 'em down and kind of has your, how you practice, how you play, what you're planning on, has that kind of changed in recent months and years knowing now what you're capable of? - Yeah, I wrote some goals down at the start of the year. I actually looked in my notebook the other day and it was like they were all crossed off with an old B. So it was like, suddenly I've got to make new ones. I wrote some new ones down. I wouldn't say like I'm massively goal-oriented, I'm trying to get better at not getting ahead of myself and trying to be more present and grounded with the golf, but it's definitely fun to write stuff down and see if you achieve what you want and you can celebrate that. I think that is the biggest thing is like, golf happened so fast, like then the Zurich Week and then the next four or five weeks happened so quickly. I felt like I didn't really get chance to celebrate it and I think that's something that I'm super excited for and I think people need to do that. Otherwise it's before you know it too late and you just move on to the next thing and you don't get chance to appreciate what's happened. - What's, aside from the actual on-course success on the golf course, what's the coolest thing that's happened off the course as a result of it? Somebody you've heard from or just any, in some way your life has changed or some way that you look and be like, "Well, I can't believe that this happened." - That's a great question. The coolest thing that's the real cool thing that happened was we, me and my brother were at the Grove, which is Michael Jordan's place and we, me and my brother were sat there. This was just after the Zurich. We sat there and Gary Woodland was sat at the bar so there was just three of us in the room and he'd just, Gary would just won the PJ Tour event the week after. And Michael walks in and he pats me on the shoulder and part of my friend's put, he walked past and he was like, "It's just a room full of fucking winners in here." (laughs) I was like, that's so cool 'cause he just rolled in with his cigars and it was like, this is the coolest thing ever. I would say that, by far, the thing I would be like, this is unbelievable. But yeah, that does, yeah. No, I would say that way. Follow-ups, that's an awesome story. But I've got the, I caught the, the kind of the Russ Henley test. You know, Russ has had an awesome career, made a bunch of money, but, I mean, Russ can still walk through the air, I've asked him this directly. I'm like, you, you know, you walk through the airport like nobody knows who you are. Like, have you been recognized in public a little bit more outside of a golf setting? Airports, you know, I'm talking about like, non-Golf settings. - No, no one cares who I am. - All right, that's the dream. That's the dream though, you know what I mean? Like, you could still be normal outside of the, outside of the roast. - I don't know how, I really can't understand how like, Rory and Tiger do it. I mean, they can't go anywhere without people pestering them for, for stuff. And I think that's the, that's the thing I appreciate most about is like, it's, it's amazing to have a great career and stuff, but you can, if you can still live a normal life and I think that is, that's the best thing that could happen. - All right, Rory, I'll let you out on that story because that was fantastic. - This is a room full of fucking winners right here as well. If I may say, but congrats on all your success, man. It's been awesome to watch and you're an easy guy to root for him. We appreciate you spending some time with us, and best of luck. - No, thank you guys. I'd say, hold off to see if you win the FedEx Cup though until you buy that house because you could be shopping at a whole different tax bracket for that matter. - I hope, I can only hope. So I got, hopefully 29 of the play is to beat. - God, I'd love to see your Zillow results, man. - That's, that's fun, congratulations. - Keep us posted on that. - Yeah, that's best of you. - Thank you guys. - Appreciate it. - Cheers. - Thank you, bye.