Recapping a Wild and Historic U.S. Open with Joseph LaMagna
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Gosh, one of the most excited I've been to record an episode in as long as I can remember. I'm chomping at the bit for this one. Bringing on my good friend, Joseph LaMagna, who's at Pinehurst all week.

He was there on the 18th green when Rory missed a putt when Bryson got up and down. I think the best way to digest these majors are by talking to someone who is right there for it because I'm sure we'd miss a lot of that on TV. And Joseph, as you probably know, is a frequent guest on this podcast, Optimal Approach Golf, the Friday. He does some

phenomenal writing for the Friday and their newsletter every single week. And some of the behind the paywall club TFE stuff is, um, some of my favorite content to consume. So I'm very lucky to call him a friend and someone I, I get to talk golf with on a daily basis. So the, the perfect guest to recap, uh, what was a major I will remember, uh, probably for the rest of my life, one of the best Sundays, um,

And one of the best venues I can remember in quite some time. So without further ado, let's bring on Joseph. All right. Joseph Lamagna is here. Optimal approach golf, right? Egg golf. Gosh, you spent the entire week at Pinehurst. And, you know, this is a major championship that I'm probably going to remember for the rest of my life for a very long time. I would imagine that you're in a similar boat, right?

after spending the entire week there. So let's start big picture. When you think about the 2024 US Open five, 10 years from now, where do you go? What's the first thing that comes to mind for you about this week? Well, first, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to do this. I think the combination of being there and I haven't really talked to a ton of people who are super plugged into the telecast. So I'm very excited to get your perspective on what happened. Um,

I think, and this is not to discredit Bryson at all, I think this will be a major championship that's remembered as the one that slipped away from Rory far more than any of the other ones in the past decade. Obviously, there's the 2011 Masters and some other close calls he's had, but especially since arriving onto the scene and being a dominant golfer, this is the best chance he's had recently. It was...

I don't know how you felt, and I'm sure we'll get into it, but on the 16th green, I thought he had the tournament, and it just felt like something tragically wrong. He had to make some massive mistake, and he did it. The three putt on 16 is the moment. I think a lot of people also point to the putt on 18, but for me, it was the putt on 16 that...

It just was inexcusable. Neither putt was that difficult. Three putting from that range. It just shouldn't have happened. So that's going to be my lasting memory. Not to take away from Bryson. I want to talk about Bryson, too. I thought he was great, way better than he's getting credit for on Sunday. But I think this is kind of the major that got away from Rory. That's the way I'll remember it. So on Sunday, were you following the Rory group or the Bryson group?

My plan was to be with the winner and going into the day, I felt pretty confident it was going to be Bryson. So I watched Bryson first 10 holes was side by side with him for all those shots. And then I jumped over and watched Rory come all the way in 12 through 18 and then saw Bryson basically play up on 17. And then I saw him play all of 18. So I feel like I saw the majority of the consequential shots down the stretch.

Did it feel like the air was let out of the room when Rory missed that first short putt on 16? I mean, just like being on Twitter for it and watching it through the broadcast, it was this pretty surreal moment. But I can't imagine what that was like being there in person. Did the body language change? Was there anything you picked up just for being there? I've heard such mixed messages.

mixed takes on whether the crowd was rooting for Bryson or Rory, but what was it like during that final stretch when the wheels started to come off for Rory? I think in general with the fan analysis, the fans were cheering for both Bryson and Rory loudly. Like the enormous amount of fan support for both. To your question about did it feel like the air went out of the room when Rory three putt on 16? No, I think...

It turned from, at least in my experience, and I was by myself. I wasn't talking to other people. I was just getting the experience for myself. I thought it went from like, this is firmly in Rory's hands. It is his to lose to when he three putt that like, this is anybody's ball game. It didn't feel like, oh, wow, now this is Bryson's. Like, it just felt like now we have a toss up. And I'd give Rory, honestly, a lot of credit.

He seemed to kind of wipe it out of his memory pretty quickly and step up and hit. It wasn't his best tee shot on 17 in the par three, but then made a really good bunker shot. Yeah. Yeah, I thought I thought it was a good bunker shot. And so he did steady the ship. That's what's so devastating for Rory in this situation is that he did a lot of things well, much better than in a lot of majors recently. But no, I didn't feel like there was some massive impact

uh, air out of the sales type moment when he missed on 16. It definitely felt like the tournament was up for grabs though. I mean, it was pretty clear that Rory went from being the dominant favorite at that point to, well, now it's anybody's game. Yeah. Um, we might as well just do the Rory thing now, and then we'll get into Bryson. And I want to talk to you a little bit about the golf course, Scotty Schaeffler stuff too. But, um, as it pertains to Rory, you know,

watching him on the front nine. And we talked about this earlier in the week. Rory got off to a good start at, at Pinehurst. He was the first round leader. And we were texting on Thursday night and I kind of texted you like, how much do you believe in the Rory thing? And to your credit, I,

I think both of us were cautiously optimistic, but had a bit of skepticism surrounding it too. Like you basically said, I struggle a little bit with trusting him to make the right decisions down the stretch in a golf tournament. And I said to you back, I think the key thing for him here is, um,

Rory has been putting really well heading into this tournament and he putted really well throughout the tournament, um, leading into Sunday. And then we got to Sunday morning and Rory made four putts over 15 feet in the first 12 holes of the golf tournament. And I said to myself, like, man, I've been waiting for this Rory putting round in a major for a decade, right? Like Rory

Rory made more putts over 15 feet in the first 10 holes of Sunday at Pinehurst than he did all weekend at LACC. Okay. So heading into those two missed putts on the last 18 holes, he was a top five putter in the field on Sunday. Right. And at the end of the day, even given those two missed putts,

He still finished eighth in the field in putting. He gained 2.2 strokes on the greens. There's so many like ways to, to digest, um,

Rory's performance, what went wrong, where he goes from here. One of my favorite things to talk about to you about as it pertains to Rory is like game plan and decision-making. That's something I'm always so clued in with Rory that every single week, just being my favorite golfer, being a golfer, I watch a lot. How do you, what'd you think of his game plan this week at Pinehurst?

Yeah, I didn't... Of all the players in the field, I didn't spend as much time in Rory's group, but he definitely... I looked at some of the stats maybe midway through Sunday, and he wasn't anywhere near the top of the field in average driving distance across all holes. So he was taking us a pretty conservative strategy on seven, for example, a reasonably short par four where you had some options off the tee. He was hitting an iron there. In general...

the big thing for me with Rory is that committing to conservative targets with the approach shots. And it seems like overall, he did a good job of that. I didn't see anything in general that stood out as a massive blunder on Rory's end. I mean, uh, be curious for your perspective on this. I've heard some people say that the approach shot into 15 was needed to be flighted a little bit higher on Sunday. And I didn't have a great angle on that. So, um,

but that's probably pretty nitpicky. Look, overall, I think Rory's mindset was really strong throughout this. He kind of, I won't say gave media a cold shoulder early in the week, but he handled this major. It seemed like he was a little bit more locked in and was just focused and committed and it

looked good for a large stretch of this tournament. So I didn't see any major course management mistakes. I'd be curious if there's something in particular that you thought he did wrong. Well, so on 15, um, my initial reaction was like shock to see that low of a ball flight on 15. I think at the end of the day, um,

One of the stats that I wish I like spent more time on was apex height. Like I just kept noticing throughout the week that the advantage that roar, like Rory and Bryson may be the two like highest ball hitters of their irons, particularly their long irons in this field. They're certainly up there. And the advantage that Rory and Bryson had, uh,

All throughout the week, being able to hit these moon balls into these greens that other players were having such a difficult time holding all week.

I thought was a tremendous advantage. And like one of the biggest reasons that those were the two guys at the top of the reason by the end of the week. So when I saw him hit like a low seven iron into 15, one of the hardest greens to hold on the golf course, I was really shocked. Like I was, I was really confused if maybe, um, you know, he was trying to take something off a seven iron and, and flight it down. I then got corrected for people that were there that like,

It was more of an execution error and like he maybe caught it a little bit low on the club pace and hit it a little thin. I wasn't there. So I don't know. I, you know, it very much as well could have been an execution error as much as it was a, a strategy error. The other one that I was curious on your take on too, was he hit three wood every single time on 18 and then pulled driver. And I, I, I just, I,

And, and he got penalized in the, he, he got penalized in the wire grass on, on 18, like which, you know, Brando was apoplectic all week about the lack of penalization from the wire grass. And, and Rory got a bad lie. Like that was a really, he didn't, he didn't have much on a second shot on 18. And he had a drive that went a little bit left and flew into the stuff when all week he had been hitting three wood in the fairway and that hole and actually made a couple birdies. So yeah.

That was the one on 18 where I was like, I just was curious why he hit driver there. Yeah. I would like to hear his rationale before,

forming a strong opinion on it. I don't have generally dude like if it's someone's between a three wood and a driver and there's not a good reason to hit three wood necessarily like I don't have a problem with them hitting driver there only Rory knows how he felt in that moment. The tournament's on the line like the adrenaline is pumping. If he was standing over that feeling really good about himself with driver it's

conditions could not have been calmer. Like, I don't have a problem with a guy standing up and hitting driver there. It's not like it narrowed significantly at driver length. I don't have a problem with it. If he blasted it down the middle and left himself a little flip wedge with a good opportunity to make birdie, like we wouldn't be talking about it. So generally if,

off of the tee like when we're having this type of conversation the mistake is more likely in the other direction right like should have hit driver but yeah three would so i don't have a huge problem with it the whole

Uh, Brandel being upset about there not being enough of a penalty on wide misses. Hope we get into that. Don't want to derail the conversation and get into that now. But, um, I did hear that that was a common talking point on the, on the broadcast. And I don't necessarily agree with that. Yeah, we'll get there. I absolutely want to get there. I just want to, I just want to put a bow on Rory. Yeah. Well, let's just shift to like Boston sports radio for a second. Well,

Where do you think, what do you think about him going forward at, at major championships? Let's let's psychoanalyze Rory for the 800th time. Um, and talk a little bit about where he goes from here in terms of competing at major championships over the next five to 10 years. It's lame to be a fence sitter, but I think both things are true that Rory deserves a

A lot of respect for how good he's been in major championships. Six top tens in a row at the US Open. This has quietly turned into his best major. He's the only guy since Jack Nicklaus that has been this good for this long in US Opens for six straight years. I mean, he's so much better than any of his peers over a long time frame in major championships. Most of the golfers that came out with Rory at that time, they aren't on the tour anymore. He's been

unbelievable for 15 years and he keeps getting himself he probably should have been in the mix more over the last 10 years i think we'd probably agree on that but like he's he's figured some stuff out he's been playing really good golf so i trust rory's resilience as he put it in his post today that he's been a resilient player like he'll give himself more opportunities whether or not

He's ever going to win one. Like, I don't agree with all these people that just keep saying, like, it's only a matter of time and he's definitely going to win more majors. We don't know that. And I do think it's going to be harder for Rory to close down the stretch of a future major championship. I don't want to necessarily use the words, the phrase scar tissue, because that feels pretty trite and gets thrown around a lot in the golf world. But like, I think,

Yeah, it felt like on the 16th green Rory like felt the magnitude of what he was about to accomplish when he missed that putt. Like maybe that's a stretch. It could have been purely mechanical, but we've already been putting amazingly all week and just dead pulled on 16 green. I can't imagine that's going to get easier for him going forward. Where do you land? I'm kind of with you and my stance on Rory is.

In terms of expecting and predicting it to happen, I'm just going to miss it. That doesn't mean that I don't believe it's still possible. The data brain in me looks at his consistency across these championships and his ability to put himself in the mix more so than maybe any other golfer in the world, certainly at US Opens. I mean, over the last

decade and a half, like his top 10 percentage in major championships is higher than any other player in the, in the post tiger era. And this is why I've been on 21 top tens since 2015. Yeah. And he's getting better. Like it's actually like that. Yeah. Right. That, that percentage of him contending in majors is actually like vastly improved in the last five years as opposed to the previous five years.

I think the thing that I struggle with a little bit, and this is like a take that's probably going to drive both of us crazy being so heavily dependent on data, but I watched him. I was fortunate enough to go to the Masters this year, and I spent 16 hours watching players in practice rounds at Augusta on Tuesday and Wednesday before the Masters, and I

I've been going to golf tournaments for a really long time and I will stand by this take for the rest of my life. Rory was the best player on, on property at Augusta in Tuesday, on Tuesday and Wednesday. And I watched him. I was standing on the first tee on Thursday, like ready to go, like ready for this to be his time. Like, and I,

There was this cloud, this air. It felt like he got body snatched, but it was just a different guy after, you know, shooting like, you know, he's out there shooting like 31s on the back with Ludwig. Like it was, I didn't know what I was watching. It seemed like the guy had been body snatched. And I was so perplexed about what I had watched over those practice rounds compared to the person that showed up to the first tee on Thursday that I said to myself, I'm

I don't know how I'm ever going to quantify what I just saw happen, but there's something going on here that I can't explain. And after seeing that,

I'm not going to, I'm not going to expect it to happen anymore. So, you know, I, I don't know if, if a sort of similar thing happened to Rory over those last couple of holes. Like I, I don't believe in that type of stuff that you can't quantify, but there was something there that I've, you know, have now experienced up close in person with Rory at majors. And maybe you have to, that just, um,

Weaves me feeling worried, man. Weaves me feeling worried. I don't know what to say. So, yeah, I think what makes it difficult and why this one is so crushing is because Rory's tried so many different approaches to a major championship. Like the way he mentally, like the headspace he gets in, sometimes doing the press conferences before the tournament, sometimes not doing them, like being super, uh,

casual with people and interacting with people in his practice rounds, like being more closed off. He's kind of tried everything and it felt like he kind of got it right this time. I'm not sure that the approach actually matters that much or if he just figured out a way to play good golf. Like I don't think he needs to replicate the exact formula that he did this time with how you're, you know, handles media and stuff. But he got this one right. Like Andy, so many of these majors, he hasn't been hitting the shots that

down the stretch to get himself into contention and we're making the go out there and get it right or making pots and he was doing it so I think this one just has to be feel like such a gut punch to do all the things right to stay locked in make the putts and then just kind of leave his body from for two pots basically and like the other part

I think maybe going under the appreciated a little bit like his chip shot on 18 was unbelievable. That chip shot was super hard. So I don't know where you land on whether it was a choke or not and people's insistence to declare it one or the other. I kind of land on like it not

A true choke like has some wipey shots or like some stubbed chips down the stretch or like a bad bunker shot on 17. He kind of executed the shots, but hit just two really bad putts. I know the putt on 18 was kind of tough, but the putt on 16 just wasn't.

Can I push back on the 18 chip a little bit? Because I've been seeing a lot of, gosh, you don't understand how hard that three-foot downhiller was outside the hole. Was a more optimal shot in that situation, like six feet above the hole? Like kind of the Bryson putt, but like a little bit longer? I would say no. I think in general, you're trying to get it as close to the hole and...

I mean, there's a big... I'm guessing you're fairly familiar with Piners, but like big slope in that green. And if you come up short... Yeah, you're playing with fire. Yeah. Like that's just a really hard chip. It was a long chip. Like I was standing right there as it went down. I was like, man, if he hits this...

five to five feet like that's a great shot i don't think he's should be getting as specific as like i'm gonna try to leave it below the hole but if i don't quite judge it correctly it could roll all the way back and i might have 35 feet in a hard two putt like i think that chip shot was really really good and that just kind of goes to reinforce how good bryson dechambeau's greenside bunker shot was 15 minutes later yeah um you know i i guess to put a bow on rory i um

you know, DJ three putted from 10 feet. I went back to watch the chambers bay and just to see like how comparable it was. And that was like way worse than, than I remember DJ three putted from 10 feet to lose the U S open came back in his next major and, or as next us open and one at Oakmont the next year, Phil won what four or five majors after like arguably a worse collapse at winged foot in Oh six.

We have a large sample size of people blowing these golf tournaments in terrible fashion and

calling them dead to rights, saying they're dead to rights, and then them being able to come back and overcome it. I think the issue with why I think it's somewhat of a dangerous comparison between what happened to DJ at Chambers and who Rory is, is I've made this comparison many times because they're very natural counterparts in terms of

being great at the same era where I've always said, if, if Rory had a little more DJ in him, he would be better. And if DJ had a little more Rory in him, he would be better. Like, I think you could make the argument that DJ cares too little. And we're kind of seeing that right now, um, in terms of how the rest of his career played out and, and Rory sometimes cares a little bit too much. Right. And, and that's why I think, you know, maybe DJ shaking off

you know, losing a major in dramatic fashion, right? That I don't know if we could give Rory the same benefit of the doubt in terms of the way that he thinks about and feels golf. I mean, this is the same guy we're talking about that

talked about at St. Andrews, standing outside his window and envisioning what that would mean for the history of golf. That's not something DJ says. That's not the way that DJ looks at golf. And I don't want to do too much on this either. I don't know if every guy withdraws from the Travelers after that. I understood what he did, but I just...

I think you have to grade Rory on a little bit of a different scale. And, um,

Man, it's fleeting, dude. Like, I don't know how many majors we're going to have in the next five years that Scottie Sheffield loses six strokes on the greens. I don't know how many majors that we're going to have in the next five, six years that Ludwig Gobert like rarely doesn't know how to like figure out some of these golf courses around the greens. Like these guys are, these guys are coming and, and I know he puts himself in the mix better than anyone else, but it's still, it's still a tough pill to swallow.

I agree. And, you know, five years from now, there could be a player we don't know their name right now. And they come out and they're a world beater and they win two majors in a year and limit Rory's opportunities. I think there's reasons to be skeptical of Rory at Augusta. I think there are some legitimate demons there, as hesitant as I am sometimes to buy into some of those narratives. So the point you're making about

feeling like he gets body snatched at majors. Like I agree with that. I think that that's the bull case or sorry, the bear case for Rory is that like he just sometimes shows up and is a completely different golfer. The bull case is he's been

Unbelievable and he's like the one golfer from his era was staying power and it's like why would I expect that three years from now? He's not still playing elite golf Phil Mickelson won a Major championship at 51. I don't think Rory's gonna be playing golf at 50 necessarily but I mean why over the next five years of Seems likely that Rory's gonna be in the mix, but of course, there's there's no guarantees. I

Let's shift gears to Bryson. A lot of meat on this one, Bone, too. A lot of meat on this bone, too. I guess I'll start by saying I had some concerns about Bryson heading into the week, and I feel...

Pretty good about like the reasons why I, I didn't really believe in Bryson as much as I should have. He's just not been a good Bermuda putter over the course of his career. Like eight of his nine victories have come on, on bank grass. He has historically been this guy that really raises his baseline on these, uh,

Thick, rough, like bank grass, Northeastern golf courses, often softer. Like I thought Valhalla was the perfect fit for him, but like Mirafield village, like Plainfield, like winged foot, these like tree-lined Parkland caves Valley, these like tree-lined Parklands, like bank grass golf courses with thicker rough and a lot of like

lack of variability in terms of when you miss the fairway um he's really struggled like chipping off short grass like he's really struggled chipping at augusta like some of these undulating short grass courses around the greens i know it's not the best comp but like if you look at bryson's short game numbers when he used to play kapalua they're like horrendous and and i just like

I understand why I wasn't on him. And then watching the golf tournament, I just kind of said, I, I think this guy's course proof and at worst, like the third or fourth best golfer in the world. What was your takeaway from watching Bryson this week? Yeah, I agree. I mean, I, I think, I don't know how hot takey this would be, but to me, he's like probably the third best golfer in the world right now behind Scotty and Xander. I think Bryson probably deserves that spot.

he hits the ball well past like everybody else who's a good golfer, right? I mean, Rory's the one that can sort of hang with him. The, the way he calculates things, I don't think it would work for everybody, but it works for Bryson. And like he's pacing off all of his putts. He has an exact length or distance. He's trying to take his putter back based on how far the putty, like he's dialed in. He, uh, watching his practice round, Andy, like,

every shot he hits he's got that foresight machine out there and he's checking the numbers he's not even watching the ball land he's like hitting the ball watching it for a second checking his numbers and then like he's like oh that's gotta go and then it lands a little bit short like the guy is so focused and maniacal about quantifying or at least controlling every variable he can that again for a lot of guys i don't think that would work but i think it really works for him and then when you

Combine that with a legitimate world-class talent who's won at every level, U.S. amateur, NCAAs, like two U.S. Opens. It's hard to think that that guy, when he's hitting it past everyone else, isn't somebody that should be like a top five to six name right now. Yeah, I got to say too, like...

I knew that this performance from Bryson was in play off the tee. I think his high, like he hit wedge into 16. I know his wedge isn't like a real wedge, but like I saw players hit like hybrid into 16 at times and his ability, like I said, to hit those moon balls with his irons and have short irons when a lot of other players in the field have longer irons. I also, I mean the short game, Joseph, like,

I, you know, I'm pretty deep into the live data. Like I don't have bunker data from live. Like I don't have sand save data from live. Bryson's like a very long-term, like very poor to mediocre bunker player. And I thought, and I was waiting that pretty heavily this week in terms of my model is justifiably. So I find it really interesting that like he,

won the golf tournament with a 55 yard bunker shot. And I think the other key moment of his round was the up and down from eight, which is like one of the toughest up and downs on the entire golf course. Got it. Just like I studied this stuff all day. I didn't expect this short. I knew he was a phenomenal whack putter. I didn't expect the short game from Bryson in a million years.

Dude, so again, you'll have to tell me what shots they showed or did a good job setting up. The short game shot on number two was incredible. From over to the green. I'm sure we'll talk about the course, but these perched up domed greens, the landing areas are so small that it was an unbelievable up and down. The number eight...

Did they do a good job of showing that iron shot? Like kind of, it's one of the, it was one of the cooler shots I've seen in person, like absolutely pured it. He said it sliced 40 yards. I think it's sliced probably like 25 yards, like kind of into the only spot that he could, which was long left of that green and got an unbelievable up and down. The third shot he hit on number 10, uh,

That little wedge shot might have been like 35 yards. He only had a couple feet over the bunker that he could land that made birdie. It's unbelievable the touch that he had around the greens and then obviously 18 is like one of the great short game shots in US Open history. So I was shocked about that too. Andy, there were reasons I was skeptical about Bryson DeChambeau's what he could do at Pinehurst, but I think some of it is just that he's a flat out unbelievably talented golfer.

Do you have any more big picture takes on, on Bryson before we shift into the course? Like, is there anything you want to comment on? Like live like YouTube, what this means for golf, like any, any more big picture stuff on Bryson? You think we need to cover before we talk Pinehurst?

It's a good question of what it means for golf and like to what extent you see the face of this certain area of golf, right? The very online YouTube, a little bit of a younger demographic maybe, right? But I think the biggest takeaway and maybe this is

this point's already been overdone, but the way he was interacting with the crowd was unbelievable. Like every fairway he's walking up, people are constantly yelling stuff at him and he's looking over and acknowledging them and like responding. Somebody's asking him what flavor his snack is and he's responding. Somebody made a comment about Bay Hill response. Someone was yelling at him that he's not bad for a YouTube golfer. And he's like, Hey, I'll take it constantly. And just like the mental response,

Space he had to be and that is exhausting. So I was just impressed with the way he handled all of that I don't know. It's something to see in person that just the way he's won over a certain type of fan It's just so different than where we were five years ago I think the only other point that I want to make on on Bryson is that I think I

He has been this rare example of where I think the move to live was so perfect for him in so many ways in terms of creating an environment where he truly felt the most comfortable. Right. And I think Bryson is at his best there.

As a showman, as somebody that is able to have, you know, what's fascinating about the whole thing is Bryson hasn't played good on live this year. He just isn't. Bryson has been like way worse on live this year than wrong. Um, which I don't know what that says about anything, but the, the, the point is, is that we've seen a lot of these players go to live. And it's like, I think it's okay to say, uh, like on a big enough sample size now that like,

Maybe this wasn't the best call for your competitive landscape going forward, right? Again, jury's still out on ROM. It's too early for me to make a call for that. All I can tell you is that I was writing articles in December about...

you know, what ROM needed to do to pass savvy, like, and, and how he is, has the potential to be one of the 15 greatest inner, you know, golfers of all time. And I just don't know what's going to happen with that guy. DJ is a whole other podcast. Like all these, all these guys, like what's Kim Smith. Do you think Kim Smith's good?

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Do you think that was a little flash in the pan when he rattled off his wins and got the open championship in the players? Or do you think he's a legitimately like, no, if he gets back and dialed it and he's a threat at a lot of major championships. I, I worry about some of the guys that if they have the opportunity to, to not do as much, they don't. And I'm worried cam Smith, maybe in that category, like I've heard some fairly concerning, um,

You know, as as your guys at the shotgun start would say, unsubstantiated rumors that I can't really confirm about, like him just not having as much of that fire in his belly, which.

That's human. Like I would imagine that that's like a very natural human reaction for most guys that went to live. And that's why I think the Bryson anomaly is so fascinating where you can't even argue like that. This wasn't perfect for him. Like being able to step into that role as an entertainer, like great content on YouTube, have more free time to do that. I think is actually somehow like,

really helped his, his competitive fire and his competitive future going forward where it's, it's been kind of the, it's been kind of the other way for a lot of the guys. All right. So I think this is a million dollar question.

How do you feel about Bryson at future major championships? Let's say he goes out. I don't know how many times he's playing between now and the open championship, but let's say he puts up a couple stinker performances on live and where, where would you value him entering the open in July? Gosh, man, I am like the biggest live data nerd you will ever meet. Um, this is, I believe it. Yeah, this is, this is not me saying like, I'm a huge fan of watching the live tour, but, um,

I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what's actually happening and what playing shape these guys are in. There's a lot of nonsense in there. There's a lot of noise. Bryson looked pretty damn bad at with Houston. I...

I, as particularly with the open championship, I, I just, I think there's far too many variables to like tell you about how Bryson's, um, around the green play at web Nashville is going to be indicative to how he performs at Royal Troon, but I still am going to watch the other guys. Um, I, I,

I don't know, man. It's really tough. Like Breschen shot 65 on the final round of live Houston and looked pretty damn great. And like, I was pretty high on Bryson or Brooks at Pinehurst.

uh, uh, because of how well he played in that final round in live Houston, uh, Brooks, Brooks, sorry, sorry. Uh, I Brooks Bryson get mixed up the two Brooks played amazing at live Houston in the final round. And it, it made me more confident in him at Pinehurst. And, and we obviously didn't get the Brooks result that we were looking for, but, um,

That's a tough call, man. Are these just super soft setups? I need to look at it a little bit more. It might just be that these are really soft setups on Liv that don't separate talent that well and don't resemble a major championship very well. So they're just not that predictive of results. Because it does seem like Bryson...

The difference between major championship play and live play with Bryson this year is pretty difficult to reconcile. Yeah, it's tough, man. It goes both ways. For every example, I locked into what Dean Burmester was doing prior to the PGA Championship and made a ton of money off of Dean Burmester bets because I paid attention to what he was doing at live.

On the other hand, like DJ's plates, a pretty good golf on live this year. Like there's, he could find the examples in every single direction. That's what I like. That's the ongoing. I would guess. I'm just curious to pulse check on where you are, how, how you weight those, or are you just saying it's a case by case basis?

I'm learning to be a little bit more case by case. I wish I had a, I wish I had a better formula for it yet. Um, Cam Smith looked or renders. Um, Cam Smith has played some like really terrible golf on live this year. Uh, in Houston. Yeah. Particularly in Houston. And, and I, I didn't play Cam Smith this week. I, he played better at Pinehurst than, you know, he, he did on live this year, but, um,

Um, it's a, it's a tricky, it has my brain in a pretzel from a data perspective going forward. Um, with these guys, I think with Bryson though, like as it pertains to, um, Royal Troon and, and majors going forward with him. Um,

I don't know if my argument like of, I'm just going to need to see it on open championship style golf courses holds up because that was a lot of my argument for piners. Like I'm going to need to see it on firm and fast sand, belty short grass everywhere, golf courses. And boy, he showed it to me. So, um,

I listen. Yeah. If you're asking me, what's more likely him winning the PGA quail hollow next year or him winning at real true. And I'm, I'm going with quail hollow, but, uh, I'm not counting them out. No, no, I don't even mean that. I, I feel like with most live guys, I have a pretty good feel for, and it's not as much of a pretzel with Bryson. It's a legitimate pretzel. And I'm thinking like about the 2025 masters. Like,

I that he's so hard to value on a golf course like that where he's played poorly post distance gain except for this past year where he played pretty well and he didn't have any form really on live but you kind of knew that going back to last fall he was playing well so I think he's just a very difficult player to put stick a number on like how do you think about him versus Colin Murakawa if they were to play tomorrow with the masters like who would you take

Uh, Bryson, is that recency bias? It's tough. That's tough. Yeah. I mean, I, I think at worst, God, Xander has been so consistent this year. I'm taking Xander. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I think at worst Bryson is the third best golfer in the world. And then I think after that. So you rush without Ludwig. If Ludwig and Bryson played tomorrow at Augusta, you'd bet the, at even money, you'd bet the Bryson side. God.

I'm you're now you're like getting into the, the really difficult stuff that I could, I want to talk about Pinehurst, man. I can do eight hours. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm answering your question. I'm, I'm, I'm not walking away from the question. Um, I'm, I'm going Bryson by a hair. I'll tell you why. Um, I,

Bryson showed me more around the greens at Augusta than Ludwig did. I think Ludwig, it may take him one or two spins around some of these types of golf courses to have the short game prowess to win at golf courses like Pinehurst and Augusta. And that was the thing that sunk him at both of those tournaments. And Bryson has proven me completely wrong on the short game. So, you know, if it's a...

if it's a net neutral on like their long iron play and, and driving, which that always just depends on the week who can be better between those two. I'm taking Bryson's short game and, and putting over Ludwig right now. Ludwig's an amazing putter for what it's worth. Um, all right. Pinehurst, uh,

overarching thoughts. Um, you're, you walked it, watched it a lot in the practice rounds. How did you feel about the course seeing pro professional tournament golf on it versus kind of what you expected heading into the week? Yeah, I think it played very similarly to how I expected with maybe a little bit more, uh,

of a tilt towards long hitters like i thought there was going to be a little bit more of a any type of style can thrive here than it ended up being but honestly in general it played out pretty similar similarly to how i thought i think that anyone who's describing this as a bomb and gouge setup like i i just don't agree with that first off i don't it's not really gouging on the second shots and i don't mean that in a pedantic way just like the shots you're hitting in are not

like a wedge out of thick rough that you're just shooting up into the air. Like you have to be controlled on all those shots, even if you're, you have a perfect lie in the native area. So overall, I think it played out. It was a pretty hardcore iron short game putting test and not as much of an accuracy test as I maybe thought it was going to be in a little bit more distance friendly. What was your takeaway? I, I,

So I will say I'll take the L on one course breakdown thing that I'm happy to admit because usually this is my area of expertise of figuring out how a golf course is going to play and then being able to predict the types of players that are going to play well on it. That's been basically my entire career, particularly at golf courses that we don't have a lot of data on. I feel like it's my strong suit.

And I got to be honest, like I was kind of pushing a narrative that I really wish I could take back. I don't know if I totally take the blame for it because I know the reason why I came to that conclusion. But like, I don't know if you picked up on some of this stuff, but like the USGA was putting out like these pretty aggressive articles on wiregrass planting. Like they were talking about how they planted all.

all of these so much more wiregrass and how there was like this overgrown pine weed that they were like

not choosing not to cut and how there were all these different new vegetations and plant species in the native areas that they didn't have in 2014 for the specific goal of like increasing the miss fairway penalty. Like that was how they were going to kind of respond to technology is they weren't going to make the golf course any longer, but they were just going to beef up the wiregrass areas and

You know, my opinion changed on that a little bit as I spoke to folks that were actually at the golf course, but like heading into the week, I was like, I actually think this is going to be one of the most accuracy biased us open tests that we've seen in quite some time. And, um,

It wasn't that it, it, it, it wasn't that. So I guess I would, I would put the hand up there and maybe take a mulligan on getting duped on the wiregrass stuff. It still was a penalty. And like, I, I still feel strongly about that. And we can get into like, there's a thread that your colleague Garrett had that I agree with wholeheartedly. So we could do a whole wiregrass thing, but that was kind of the one thing that did surprise me a little bit.

Yeah, I think there's a... I think it's like a both-are-true situation where there's a narrative that you could just spray it, and that's not how it played out, right? People are saying that Bryson got away with completely spraying it in his final round. First off, Bryson was one of the two players who shot over par in his final round who finished in the top 10. So it's not like...

He was on cruise control despite spraying it around. And he leaned on his short game heavily, heavily in that round, in the final round, just to salvage a one over. It's not like he could spray it around everywhere. He got penalized. Pinehurst does put you out of position when you spray it off the tee.

Was this a hardcore accuracy test? Like, no. And if you wanted it to be, you'd have to create some bigger penalties like on the like outer perimeters of players dispersion patterns, right? Like you'd have to have some creeks running through there or something. Nothing that I'd like to see done with the golf course, but like the best example is

I think the best example back here, so you're really going to get that's obvious and easy to see is La Golf National right where they're playing the Olympics this year, where when they played it in the Ryder Cup, it was fairway and then graduated rough. And then if you were way off, it was thick hay. And that type of gradients to the penalties wasn't there at Pioneer. So I didn't think it was going to be a hardcore accuracy test.

But there were maybe some friendlier lies than I kind of expected. Is that what you saw? Did you see guys kind of spraying it and you wanted to see more bad lies in the native area and they just kept getting away with it? Was that your takeaway? I don't know if the golf course would have been better if there were more bad lies in the native area, but there were there's definitely more like playable shots from that area than I expected heading heading into the tournament.

for what it's worth. I mean, no, that's fair. Yeah. I don't think that's like the, what Piner should be though, I think is, is where I would, where I'd push back. Like, I don't know if I like viewing that tournament more, if it is more of a, or more of a penalty for, for missing the fairway. Although I, I do suppose that you kind of could make the case of like, like,

Maybe it is good every once in a while that not every single U.S. Open, and I don't know, maybe Pebble plays this role in the future, although I don't know what Pebble even is as a test of professional golf in 2024. But I do think that there is a cynical way of looking at this where you say, man, if you just have the exact same thing off of every single fairway at U.S. Opens, you're

And if you have complete variability at off the fairway at every single us opens kind of feels like the same players are going to make their way to the top of the leaderboard. Like, can you think of more different tasks in terms of like the nature of the miss fairway penalty than, than wing foot and Pinehurst? And it's, it's the same guy. Yeah. And I, and I think what I hope people don't, I've just seen a lot of, you could hit it anywhere and get away with it.

I don't think it's worth going hole by hole, but if you missed left on two into the fairway bunker, you had a problem. That was very likely a bogey. You got penalized. I watched a guy, Logan McAllister, on his 11th hole on Thursday, hit a ball that was just a couple feet away

off of the fairway left and he like the wiregrass the thick stuff grabbed his club so hard he snapped it left almost went out of bounds like guys got popped for ending up in the wiregrass it was just that there was a lot of variability in the lies that you could get and you could get some friendly lies there's no doubt and this can transition us to like covering kind of the the last thing i wanted to talk about which is chef for a little bit i i think that piners also is like a

very, very demanding golf course with the second shot. When I think about the nature of Pinehurst, I don't really think about the driving corridors or the wiregrass. I think about the intrigue around the green and the penalization that you get around the green. You look at

What happened to Rory on five? And I don't mean to say like what happened to Rory as if he wasn't like a willing participant in, in that shot resulting in a bogey. But I mean the fine line between birdie and bogey on that golf course, just based on what can happen around the greens is incredible.

Pretty much exactly what I think that we should be striving for in major championships. And I kind of had this paralysis by analysis take by the end of the week that I kind of ran by you about my concern with Scheffler's

irons on this golf course is that I think that one of the best ways for Scheffler to separate himself is that he is so good at hitting close approach shots from long distance when other players don't even have the ability to hit the green or hit it to 30 feet. And I kind of got to the point on Pinehurst by Wednesday, just speaking to everybody there and getting some intel from the practice rounds, like,

I don't think Pinehurst is a golf course where you are really able to like

play that aggressively on approach with your long irons and like go for those shots inside 10 feet when other players are playing to 30 feet. And I kind of was worried like, man, what if this is just a golf course that Scheffler, he kind of has to play more conservatively on approach. And it just turns into a contest of like a lack putting contest from 50 feet and who can make the most, most six footers for par and,

Like that kind of played out a little bit with Sheffler. He ranked top five in approach on the week and didn't finish in the top 40 in the tournament. So what's your kind of overall takeaway on that bit of paralysis by analysis and maybe Sheffler at large and the second shot strategy as it pertained to Pinehurst? Yeah, it's interesting. I would like to go through his shot a little bit more before I, because I didn't watch him that much in person. I was hopping around. So it's hard for me to know exactly what happened with him.

I think something about this place just did not fit Scheffler's eye. I think he was really uncomfortable with the native areas. Andy Johnson, who I work with, was making that point that Scotty wants consistent Bermuda rough. And I think it spooked him a little bit that there are certain native areas that you have to challenge and this variability in the lie that you could get. Isn't the second spookiest golf course on tour Augusta?

Yeah, but it's not like that. I know. I know. I know. I just when when I start thinking about like golf courses that bring a lot of variance into play in terms of like the fine line on some of the shots, I think Augusta, but there's obviously no wiregrass there.

I'm not saying that it's rational or anything like that. There was something about this golf course that seemed to get under Scotty's skin. And I know he said that he liked it and it was fun to play. I'm telling like, just from watching, walking around with him a little bit, he, he just in tournament play, he looked uncomfortable. I think things like the fifth green, the way that that dropped off all the way off the front. Yeah. Like Rory shot went, I think things like that.

for whatever reason, just seemed to rub Scottie the wrong way. I could be wrong, but I would be a little bit pessimistic about the next time he shows up at this particular golf course because it just seemed like something didn't vibe with him. What do you think? Yeah. I mean, I... Well, first of all, he lost six strokes putting. Right, right. He was absolutely horrendous on the greens. He hit his irons, you know, phenomenally well. I think...

I would have to go back and really watch and look back into whether there is... I'm going to definitely do this before 2029. It's on my long list. But I'm really curious to see if there is value on kind of the half-baked theory that this is a really tough golf course to separate on approach. And that maybe this is a golf course where a lot of people on approach are playing... You know, I...

Talk to some, like some caddies that are like, dude, like these par threes, like we're not even looking at the pin. Like I'm just telling these guys to find a spot and we're going to take our chances on the 50 footer that we can get up and down more than other people can. And in that situation, like I find that a little bit harder to,

for players to separate on approach statistically, like the golf courses where it's easy to separate an approach or the golf courses where like you can hit a great iron shot and you can also be penalized for a poor iron shot. And

And it felt to me like in pioneers, people just weren't even like trying to hit great iron shots. Cause it wasn't worth it. Is that like half baked? Like I said, or my overthinking that one? No, you're not overthinking it. If it had been firmer, I think it would have played out more that way, but the greens were receptive enough that you could hit good iron shots and they would stay. And then I came out. So Yama finished high on the board. Like being out, being out third best iron player in the world right now where

Corey Connors, like, can't let... I mean, iron players were getting...

they were distinguishing themselves right Morikawa made a charge like yeah I think but though that what you're saying is true and it spooked Scotty yeah and I don't even always go for those kinds of arguments but he talked about it the 15th hole how small that landing area is and like there's nowhere you can go with it I think something about that gotten Scotty's head a little bit to where maybe his swing was also just off I don't feel like

He was comfortable with that style of play. I could be wrong. He could go out and win next time at Pioneers by five, but it just looked immediately like the place wasn't jiving with him.

So do you view, cause I, the, the, the other take that I've heard on Scotty and, and to be honest with you, I'm more in the camp of Pinehurst was just a, an anomalous spooky performance off for him on a golf course that he didn't really love. Um, I guess the other way of viewing Scotty is that we like,

We kind of jumped the cord on him just like being a good putter or being an above average putter. Like maybe that minus six putting performance is still in him a little bit more than, than we think. Right. I mean, he had gained strokes putting in seven straight tournaments heading into piners. He had not his last bat.

putting performance was at Riviera in February. So we had like a three plus month sample size across seven tournaments of Scottie being at the very worst, like a neutral putter. Um, do you put any stock into like, I don't know, how do you view him the rest of the season? Is it just like, is this a heat check or, you know, all systems go world domination for the last two months?

I'm sure he could probably use a short break. Like playing the travelers probably isn't going to do him any good, but no, I think this was probably more of an anomaly than anything else. I'm not sure I view him as a great putter. I think that negative five performance is still Scotty for sure. Like I know that that's there, but it doesn't make me think he's, he's still going to separate himself a bunch T to green a bunch more times. Right. And then have an average putting weekend win. Like those, those, those,

results are still coming. So I don't know. That's where I am on him. Where are you? Well, I don't, he doesn't have many more golf courses that it's going to be like ideal conditions for him to do that. Right. Like, you know, the jury's still out on him at the open and how hard that's actually going to play. Like for all we know in 2024, like every open championship going forward could play pretty easy depending on conditions. Um,

I've never played Castle Pines. That's, I'd be very shocked if that played like difficult and was this like demanding TD green test where you didn't have to make a ton of 15 footers. Like,

I suppose Eastlake, he's always live. He'll probably win the Tour Championship. But then this week, he's back at Travelers where it's a lot of wedges and putting. There's a bit of a missed fairway penalty. He was great tee to green there in the past. They've made some changes to the golf course that make that a little bit more of a more difficult driving test. But it's still a 6,800-yard golf course where...

you know, if Ches Revy gains eight strokes putting, I'm, you know, the type of player I'm talking about, he's not even in the field, but still the type of golf course where like JT Poston could easily win if he gets fought on the green. So I,

I I'm not to be alarmist. Like I do think that there is based on the golf courses that Scotty has left on the schedule. I mean, he's only going to play four or five more times. Like, do you think it's very much in play that he doesn't like dominate the rest of the year on this set of golf courses? Like we're past Bay Hill. We're past Memorial. We're past TPC Sawgrass. We're past Augusta. Like we're kind of now into bank grass, birdie fast JT post and season.

I hear you. I think he still will be right there in a lot of tournaments, though. I don't think this was a back-to-reality type of event for Scotty Scheffler. I view him the same way I did before this event as after this event. Do you? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I would say...

The floor changed a little bit, maybe in fairness, like there was a pretty long stretch of, I don't know, he had 15 top twenties in a row. Um, so I, I do think that maybe you need to, maybe we need to end a lot of people were saying heading into the week, like worst case scenario for Sheffler on this golf course is an eighth place finish. Um,

I do think we probably need to recalibrate that worst case scenario for any golf or on any golf courses is not an eighth place finish. So maybe the floor lowered a little bit, but the ceiling didn't like that much.

Can I just run a take by you that is entering my head in real time, so maybe very stupid by the time that this podcast comes out? Isn't it a pretty cool testament to Pioneers number two that Scotty Scheffler got really flummoxed and the player who's by far been the most consistent in the world, like top 10 after top 10 after top 10, kind of

didn't i mean pretty much ejected and at the same time a lot of the best players in the world are at the top of the leaderboard like this wasn't a total randomness variance fest yet scotty scheffler it got under his skin and i think that is a testament to what creative interesting architecture has the capability of doing am i overdoing that point

Not even remotely. And I, I, I wanted to save like some of the, the doting on Pinehurst because I know that you guys are going to cover that more so in the, in the Friday egg. And you guys have already put out like great work on that already. But, um, you know, I, I, I alluded to it a little bit earlier in the podcast, but like in terms of what I am looking for in, in championship golf, it is like, um,

The best way that I could describe it in a very short sentence is a fine line between birdie and bogey, like a very sharp delineation. But possible. But possible, right? Like a very sharp delineation between great shots getting rewarded and bad shots getting very, very penalized. And I think that Pinehurst...

walked that line in a pretty like strong fashion. I mean, I, I have, I don't know if I want Pinehurst every five years, but

but I do have, I do understand why the USGA is relying on this one a lot. It gives you fairly controllable weather conditions, right? Like the golf course got the area got rain on Sunday night and like baked out completely. I heard it was way more firm in the practice rounds than it was for the tournament. Um, I don't know how much longer you need to make the golf course to, you know, I, I

You know, I, I think it, I think it has a very high delivery rate. Um, and I think it's, dude, I think it's only gonna be better with a rollback golf ball. Absolutely. Like just to, I don't want to bore people, but I thought I saw a couple of really cool shots on the ninth hole. So if you're not, people aren't familiar with the ninth hole, it's this diagonal green with a huge Ridge in the middle of it that basically bisects the green. And so from, um,

The back, if you hit it on the back of the green and you were putting to the front, it'd be basically be difficult even keep the ball on the green. Like that's the way that the green slopes and front short, right of the green. It's it there's further drop off with the fairway. So your ball would just run all the way down. I, there were,

On Friday, sorry, on Saturday to that front right pin, Sam Bennett got up there after making a bogey and he was kind of pissed off, like trying to get a little bit aggressive, hit a shot that came up just short right and rolled all the way back off the front of the green into jail. It was a bad shot.

Rory and Finau, and I'm guessing everyone remembers this from the telecast, they both hit shots that landed perfectly on that ridge, which that's what the shot gives you. And it rolled all the way down to seven, eight feet. Finau hit first and Rory saw what he did, according to my colleague, Brennan Porath, grabbed a different club and replicated what Finau did. And then a minute later, Patrick Cantlay goes in that green side bunker on the left side and has...

like one of the most difficult bunker shots you would want out there, right? Because now you're hitting down that slope. And it's, if you go past the hole is jail. So like within a span of 30 minutes or it was longer than that for Sam Bennett, but you have this wide array of approach shots. And so that's where I would, I guess, challenge you that you couldn't separate yourself with approach shots like Finau and

Rory had very doable shots and Tom Kim even took a little bit more of a conservative line and it's like 20 feet. I think though somebody like Scotty, that hole just looks so different than what they're used to playing week in and week out. I think he got a little spooked. And again, such a, such a testament to the golf course, right? I think, I think what you're looking for in a U S open is, um,

I've said this many times, but a mental examination that you're going to go out there and you're not going to be able to hit driving range shots. Like I think that the battle that we face in modern professional golf in terms of testing these players is that everything has been so freaking optimized that like,

It just, a lot of these golf courses on the PGA tour feel, feel like driving range golf for them. Like, sorry not to continue to dump on Val Hall. Like that was turn your brain off golf. Like there was not a lot of thinking strategically required on that golf course. And I think all these courses are. Yeah.

I know. I know. And I think it was cool at Pinehurst that we actually got a situation where the best player in the world was perplexed and flummoxed. And Scottie's not the only example, like very underrated thing that everybody forgot about on by Friday, but like.

JT was playing like really, really good golf heading into pioneers. Like he had five top 12 finishes this year. Like he was kind of tearing up some of these weaker PGA tour setups and he showed up on property and it was just like, okay, like I am not ready to answer these questions. Like these are different questions. I did not study for this test. Hovland. I did not like,

I can gain strokes around the green at Valhalla. I did not study for this test around the greens. And that's what a US Open should be, in my opinion. Did you see Rory's quote? Andy Johnson had asked him how this course differs from your run of the mill tour course. And Rory was like, you have to be very thoughtful around here. He specifically made the point that you actually have to use your brain here. And-

I don't know. I don't think I'm overdoing it, but I'm sure I'll hear back from you and your listeners if the architecture point is being overdone, because I think that that's something that

a lot of gamblers just like to be dismissive of like, Oh, the architecture stuff is just a little niche thing. Like it doesn't actually matter. I think this was an example where it did matter and where it's so rare, right? Like TPC river Highlands. Some people will tell you that that's like a good golf court. That is so straightforward for these guys to play. Like so are 95% of what they see week in and week out, but Pinehurst,

It asks way, way different questions of golfers than they were used to playing week in and week out. Yeah. I mean, again, we'll wrap up now. I could do a whole other hour on this. There's a 0% chance that I have a career if people aren't warming up to the fact that architecture is predictive in figuring out who's going to play well at certain tournaments. But I deal with this all the time in terms of it's still not...

why it still is very niche. I mean, I do incredibly well for myself and I've become like way more mainstream than I ever would have imagined when I started doing hour long solo podcasts on like bank grass. But so, you know, I was just in a Washington post article about, about like the golf. Yeah. The golf gambling, uh, like wave and change of, of what's happening and the data revolution, uh,

But I, you know, you know, it's, we're still, but listen, that's the thing. Like, that's why I have an edge is because it's still not widely accepted and understand it. Uh, but, but, but big, big W for us, I would say in, in the architecture and data community when it, when it came to miners.

And to be fair, a lot of times courses that the architecture gets hyped up, like those people don't always, maybe the architecture people not to throw shots at anyone don't always understand necessarily that some of that stuff won't affect a professional golfer. Right. Like dude, totally. And, and I can't tell you a trap. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That happens a lot where like certain architectural angle will get promoted a little bit. And so that,

I think maybe people think it's going to be, um, what's the course in Canada. They just played. Why am I blanking on Hamilton? I have another example for this too, for you after you, you. Right. Right. Like there's the occasional course that like really scratches an itch for an architecture person, but whether or not that's relevant for professional golfers, a different question, like Pinehurst was in my opinion, an example where it was relevant and where it asks completely different questions.

Yeah. The, the, the other example that came to mind immediately when you said that was LACC. LACC?

And watching them play like the third hole, for example, I was like, whoa, like I wasted so much time talking about the strategic intrigue of that hole, because that is a way different golf hole for those guys. Exactly. Exactly. So I think that that always happens where there's this ongoing skepticism between like the architectural crowd and the gambling crowd. And

probably the people that are trying to kind of find the truth on both of those sides are, are lambing on the right answers. I think we do a decent job. Hopefully, hopefully people like it. This is a, this is about as fun of a Pinehurst recap conversation that I could have asked for anything. What else you got going on at the Friday to plug? You wrote a great newsletter, anything else you're doing in the, I'm sure you'll have an audio, something coming out in the next couple of days, but anything else, any final Pinehurst stuff you got to plug over at the Friday? Yeah,

We did a Pinehurst recap pod, but not as it was more on like the architecture of Pinehurst as a venue and what it means for the U S open. So if you're interested in that, check it out. Other than that, I'm sure a lot of more golf course stuff. Like I think people want me to do more of that. So I'm, I'm probably going to make an effort to do a little bit more of like, here's how this,

course plays for professional golfers type stuff. So I'll, I'll try to do that. Zach, that's personally my favorite content. I know that we're operating in a, in a somewhat niche realm, but I eat that stuff up. So excited about, we play golf together in a couple of weeks, man. I'm pretty pumped. Don't expect anything out of me. It could be bad. We'll see what kind of questions the golf course asks. Are you going to do that with your own game? Like be measuring the dimensions of this course and figure out which parts of your game you need to work on. Yeah.

I haven't done a single thing. Uh, we're, uh, we're playing in a Friday event at the country club of Troy two weeks from now. Um, uh,

I think we could be like a pretty dangerous duo though, because I'm generally a pretty good alternate shot guy because I hit the ball a really long way and like spike, not always very rarely at the same time, but, but I get hot in, in certain areas of my game and I can always rely on my distance. So,

It'll be a fun, it'll be, it'll be, you know, I'm playing a lot of golf in the next two weeks leading up to it at some really fortunate enough to say some really good golf courses. So hopefully that I won't be practicing, but I'll be playing a lot of routes.

Hey, I'm in what this is. My main takeaway from this is I feel like some course fit podcasts on amateur golfers on random courses across the country would just be electric. So what the people, what the people need would, yeah, we'll do a six hour recap on how we fared in that Friday. All right, Joseph, this was a blast as always. And we'll do it again soon, my man.

Thanks for having me, Andy. It was fun. All right. That's it for the podcast. Special thanks to Joseph. Special thanks to Rumpier Sports. Special thanks to The Rabbit Hole. And we will be back on this podcast feed next week talking some Rocket Mortgage. Until then, best of luck with your bets this weekend, and we will see you next time. Cheers.

Between the viaducts of your dream Where mobile steel rims crack And the Dutch and the back road stop

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