GOLF – History – Rules and Popularity of the Game – Episode 68
The Sports Guyz look at another worldwide popular sport – GOLF – one of the greatest games in the world. We look at the History of the Sport of Golf, how it became popular all around the world, and the rules of the game, as well as the great players that have come before to build the sport and its participation and viewership.
We go over the debate on which player past or present is the greatest golfer ever, and talk about the great tournaments that are on the PGA tour every year, as well as the emergence of the LIV golf league and what that means to the growth of the sport.
Check out the greatest finishes in GOLF History — https://youtu.be/VMtf4gXRuUY?si=iVJPcSkCC2FhRfTC
Drop us a comment on your great golf stories and if you love to play, as well as who you think is the greatest player ever!
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================================= #golf #historyofgolf #golfers #tigerwoods #jacknicklaus
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Sports, food, travel and life. Sports guys delivering no strife. We live and we sports normal and strange. Football, basketball, hockey, and at the range. Dolphins, Panthers, Cavaliers, and all. No one entertains quite like the sports guys. Come check out the sports guys. All right, welcome to the sports guys. Another episode. This time we’re taking on another sport in our series. We’ve been bringing a lot of great sports to you guys in the history, rules, and popularity of the sport series. And as you know, we’ve brought to you rugby and football and basketball and pickle ball and a whole bunch of great sports. And tonight we’re going to be looking at golf. Golf’s one of the great sports in the world. One of the highest ranked, most played, most popular. And we’re going to look at the history, the rules, and the popularity of the game of golf. How you doing, Robbie? I am doing great. Really excited to be back in the groove, back at work, and uh doing doing podcasts again. We’re having fun and it’s been it’s been a really good summer so far. It has been great. It really has. So, uh, think back when you’re a young kid, you’re growing up and you start you and you first become aware of a game of golf. What are kind of some of your early memories, you know, watching Jack Nicholas or Tiger or Phil Mickelson or, you know, some of the early US Opens and Masters and British Opens. I think uh watching Jack Nicholas was early um well before Tiger and uh Tom Watson and and uh being in my grandfathers and him taking us out playing and just getting out there and and dabbling, taking some lessons, driving balls. It was kind of that’s that’s where my memories begin. Actually, you’re right. the time with our grandfather grandat we called him. Um we used to go to the driving range with him. That was a lot of fun. Then we’d have ice cream after and then we used to go to the par three course. And I remember early on we couldn’t even get it to the green even on a par three course. And then later on we got stronger. Then I remember the first time I ever hit a five iron which I thought was going to be plenty of club to get to the green and instead I absolutely crushed it and it went across the street and I remember he was absolutely mortified that we had gotten a little bit bigger and stronger and all of a sudden uh we were you know a little stronger than we knew we were with our club. So that was a fun memory. But um yeah, that was a lot of fun playing with him. And then I remember, you know, the the victories. I remember the defeats. I remember the Greg Norman year where he had the big lead in the second half of the Masters. Yeah. Found a way to choke it away. It was just absolutely just horrible to watch. I mean, nobody wants to see that. It’s funny you bring that up because I had a friend uh Mike whose father was the uh yacht captain for for uh Greg Norman and we were living in South Florida and Mike was a really cool guy and his dad would um call him to the ship when they were going to do a big party and they were headed towards Charleston to uh to pick pick up Greg Norman and the winning party and everything and they were loading up the ship with all kinds of supplies and everything you’d want for a a massive celebration. And going into the final day, you know, he had a pretty insurmountable lead and he blew it and uh they turned the ship around most of the way there and came came all the way back. Part of why part of why I think that was so painful for everyone to watch is it was like watching a slow motion train wreck that you couldn’t stop and that everybody could commiserate with because everyone knows how hard the game is. The thing that was really interesting from my standpoint was I was in no way related to this situation, but it it was my proximity to people who were was really interesting. my good friend was going on that ship to go celebrate on on Greg Norman’s uh yacht and uh just the the crushing defeat was felt all the way down to somebody who didn’t know any any of those people because I felt the crushing defeat for for my friend Mike and his dad. Uh and so that that was interesting. You know, it it felt more painful than just watching it on TV and going, “Oh, well, poor guy. He still made millions.” And then turn it off. That was Yeah. Even today, that was the most painful, crushing loss I’ve ever seen in golf. That was so freaking painful. Whether you’re a Greg Norman fan or not. Yeah. Because all of us weekend warriors, we can imagine what it’d be like to have that kind of pressure. And you’ve got a six-stroke lead with nine holes to go. You should put the field away. But instead, you start missing easy six-foot putts. Especially the way you were playing like you were playing well. You were earning this this victory and u goes south and then first three holes of the back nine he bogeies and all of a sudden it goes from a six-stroke lead to a three-stroke lead and then you’re like, “Oh, wow.” Pressure and it was it was Yeah. But I mean, isn’t that how golf is? I mean, it’s it’s one of those. And then he got a par and everybody’s like, “Okay, he’s kind of ready. The ship, you know, he’s still going to get this done.” Gets a par and then the next law after that is one of the water holes and he plunks it right in the water and you’re like, “Oh my,” it was just so painful. So, and then another one I remember was Jean Vandervelt when he had a huge lead at the British Open and blew it on the back nine and it was just it was the same thing. It was like a train wreck watching happen slow. So, so I remember those. I remember all the really great moments like the one you see behind me with Tiger when he won one of his US Opens and he makes a huge putt on 17. It’s about a 30 foot putt and uh what a great moment for him and uh you know watch that career just take off and he chased Nicholas all the way to try to get the most majors. Uh I’ve got another picture behind me there you see who I think are the three greatest golfers ever. You got Tiger, you got Nicholas, you got Arnold Palmer. I know people are going to argue with me, but I think those are the three the three greatest ever. And um you know, there’s just so many moments in sports you can remember and a lot of them have to do with these major tournaments, especially on Sunday, back nine. Everybody’s at home, they have to go to work the next day. They’re sitting in their living room with their whole family. You know, there’s four holes left and they’re duking it out. And there’s something special about it. For sure. Any other memories? I think this is one sport where you can have some really interesting debates on on who the best ever was and what what metric really matters is winning tournaments is winning majors uh is coming never coming in less than fourth or you know like you can have pretty decent arguments heated debates on this subject that are fun you know and you’ll never really know the answer but uh it’s It’s pretty compelling. It’s true. You know, uh I wonder what you think if you could try to compare today’s crop of players, and there’s a lot of great players. There’s more more depth and many more great players on the tour today than there were even 30 years ago. Uh but I wonder if some of it has to do with conditioning and you know, these guys, they eat better, they train better, but they also have much better equipment. Like their drivers hit a lot longer. Yeah. Their putters are more consistent. I wonder if you could really compare, you know, Scotty Sheffller versus like year two, year three of Tiger. Can you really compare those two or is it just different errors? It’d be hard. It’d be a lot like the WNBA, I mean the NBA or it would be like uh one of these different era arguments. It’s hard to compare other sports and track, you know. Can you compare Jim Thorp against Usain Bolt? You know, I mean, Rob, you have Bryson Desambo hitting at 345 on his drive. I know. Like, it’s just destroying these holes that used to be these guys were hitting 260. He’s hitting it almost 100 yards past that. And so now he’s got a pitching wedge wedge into every single hole. And it’s just completely changed every course the way these guys are hitting now. So I and I wonder how some of those guys like Nicholas, like Tiger, like even early Jordan Spe or Greg Norman or Arnold Palmer, how those guys would have done and what kind of records they would have put up if they had the kind of drivers they’ve got today. Hard to say. You know, it’s really difficult. That’s why it’s a it’s an interesting conversation. And even looking back at some of the history we’re going to show tonight of some of the really really old players back in the 1800s, 1700s, I mean, these guys were hitting with wooden sticks. They’re in some cases were hitting wooden balls. Uh they could barely get a 100 yards on it. You know, that’s really the I think is is if you look back to the history, we’re going to talk about some of it. um 15th century Scotland, you know, this is an ancient sport, you know, so there is a long number of years span where there have been a lot of great players. So you can really try to put together an argument for somebody in the 50s, you know, they didn’t have the equipment, so they might have been higher skill level or you can make these arguments. And so it’s interesting because there’s so much material to work with, so long of a of a run for this sport and so many different famous people playing it that have compelling stories. So that’s that’s an interesting thing. It’s not like a 20 or 30 year old sport. There’s an argument that you have a guy today who gets eight under in a round. You know, he shoots like a, you know, what is that like a 64 or something and um the course wasn’t made for the type of equipment he has or like the type of training he has. It was made for a guy who’s hitting it with a wooden stick. You know what I mean? So, right, it’s just it’s a different game, but a lot of times the courses are still the same. So, it’s interesting. And we’re uh we’re talking about going to Scotland next year and we’re gonna talk a lot about Scotland tonight. So um I’m kind of excited when we do that trip next year. We’ve got to go to St. Andrews. We got to go to Edinburgh and we got to go to some of the old original courses where these old Kings that were Scottish Kings used to play. And um you know what a honor that’s going to be to go to kind of where the original golf was played. For sure. Be a lot of fun. Let’s go ahead and get into tonight’s content on golf. Let’s take a moment just to hear from our sponsor and that is Jersey Mike’s. They’re a longtime sponsor of the program. We’re really happy to have them back. And uh I’ll just say that I go there all the time. I go there probably twice a week now and I love the number 13, the original Italian. I love the number 17. I know Robbie, that’s your favorite sandwich. Uh tell me about your times at Jersey Mike’s. We were just in Myrtle Beach and uh we had it multiple times and for dinner. Um so we we just kept going back to Jersey Mike’s. It was really awesome. Uh I love the fresh food, great service. It’s always a really fantastic meal. I’m always full. It’s reasonably priced. I mean, I’d use the word cheap, but I mean, I might as well say cheap, but it’s very affordable, great ingredients. They always get my sandwich right. And it it it’s almost like a surprise every time how good it is. It’s true. It’s true. And what’s nice when Rob and I are together, we split either the 13 or the 17. So it’s kind of like h half a giant sandwich is perfect for both of us. So really works out really well. Yeah. And then my family gets all kinds of other stuff. Buffalo chicken and just so much. They have such good choices. Fresh food. It’s it’s really good. It’s a really good option. So guys, go check out your local Jersey Mike. Check out jerseymics.com or you can go to the Jersey Mike’s app or you can use Uber Eats or you can use Door Dash or one of those services. But get yourself a sub tonight. It’s a sub above. See you guys next time. All right. So, this is golf history, rules, and popularity of the game. This is our episode 68. You can see up on the top left there, there’s uh that’s King James IV of Scotland. He was the king who made the game popular. And we’ll get into all the details of him in a little bit. Just below him, of course, is a lot of people think the greatest player ever. That’s Tiger Woods. When he was at his peak for about 15 or so years, he was unbeatable. I mean, there were some US Opens he was winning by six, seven, eight strokes. He just absolutely lap the field when he was at his prime. Uh down below that, a couple pictures there in the bottom left and bottom right of what golf used to look like when these guys used to play it hundreds of years ago with their wood sticks and their wood balls and they were trying to play this very precise game. Above that in the top right, you’ve got Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicholas, and Tiger Woods. A lot of people think the three greatest ever. And then just above that, you got Jack Nicholas holding up one of his many trophies. still the number one majors holder. Tiger Woods is actually one behind him. So, everyone thought that Tiger would get there, but he hasn’t yet. We’ll see if he’s able to get to that level. Any other thoughts about some of these epic pictures here? No, it’s just an interesting smattering of um sort of the history plus the greatest greatest ever. I wonder what it would have felt like to get one of those big wooden clubs and try to hit a wooden ball. I mean, barely hitting at 100 yards. Is it a heavy stick? You know, I don’t know. I think so. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it’s interesting. The evolution of how the clubs have come along. We’ll get into that. So, what’s the history of golf itself? Golf originated in Scotland during the 15th century with early forms involving hitting pebbles and balls across natural terrain using sticks. The modern game as we know it developed from these origins with members of the St. Andrews Golf Club which I just mentioned in Scotland which was formed in 1754 is the oldest golf club in the world and they played a crucial role in standardizing the rules and establishing the 18 hole format and uh I tried to find some interesting material around why they chose 18 holes and I really couldn’t find anything couldn’t find any reason why they chose 18 holes. Well, drop us a comment, guys, if you find anything or know anything about why they chose 18. The game was initially called golf, GF, derived from the Scots word for hit or strike. And early courses were often natural terrain. They barely touched them with players hitting pebbles or balls around dunes and other obstacles. King James IV, the guy picture I just showed you of Scotland, embraced the game which helped to legitimize and popularize it among the nobility. So thoughts about this early history of golf going back to the early 1500s. I mean, it’s just fascinating to think about how long it’s been around and and how it got its origin. You can imagine guys just standing around bored on a farm or something and they take a stick and just kind of hit a pebble or something and yeah, it was and then all of a sudden the other guy hits it with his stick and then all of a sudden you got a game, right? Yeah. You know, that’s how hockey or lacrosse or any of these sports were formed. So you you can kind of imagine how golf formed. So really interesting history there. Some more history behind King James IV himself. They call him the first golfer. He’s known for being the first royal golfer and he was a man of many talents. He actually inherited the Scottish throne at the age of 15 and unified the outlying areas of his kingdom by force of arms. So he’s actually kind of a brutal leader. He practiced dentistry as well which I found very interesting. And he founded the Royal College of Surgeons in Scotland years of ahead of that in England. And he also introduced compulsory education requiring large land owners to educate their sons by sending them to one of the universities either St. Andrews, Glasgow or Aberdine. So he really believed in education. Most of his legacy though, what he’s known for the most is that in 1502 he lifted the ban on golf. He lifted the ban on golf which his predecessors had imposed to encourage archery practice. It’s really interesting that all of his predecessors were trying to kind of suppress golf and not let it be popular because they wanted them to continue to get ready for war through archery or other practice. So he lifted that ban and of course started playing it and it became very popular. He was considered a pivotal figure in the early history of golf helping to popularize it in Scotland and it became a real craze. He purchased the first golf clubs from a bow maker in Perth in 1502, marking the first documented purchase of golf equipment. King James IV traveled extensively around Scotland, and records show him playing golf at various locations, including Faulland Palace and Sterling Castle. You can see a great picture there, one of the great Scottish courses that goes back to the early 1700s. and that’s uh at Perth North. Other thoughts about King James and his role in the development of golf? That’s a pretty interesting uh historical development of, you know, how he evolved things while he had all these things to worry about. uh obviously projecting war and u but he obviously enjoyed playing it and didn’t want it banned because he it was probably a good escape for him I would imagine right you think that was a smart thing for his predecessor to say essentially you can’t do this fun game we want you practicing on the archery range no they basically banned the game yeah I think that was a mistake you know it’s interesting because in our botchi episode if you guys Remember, we talked a lot about the early development of the game and there was times where some of the Roman and other legions had to ban the game of botchi. They were playing it so much that they weren’t taking their war preparation seriously. So, it sounds a lot like that. You know, basically these guys were playing so much botchi you had to had to suppress it. So, pretty cool that he finally lifted the ban on golf. Mhm. So, you excited about that Scotland trip? Very, very uh I’m excited on many levels having the boys uh going. Um what we found out recently is that we have a tremendous amount of family from there. So, I guess we hail from 12 clans there. We’re going to try and find some of the origins of our family. Um I think Skyland’s a fascinating country in general. Um there’s the whole golf element that they they created this amazing game. So yeah, I’m very excited about it’s absolutely beautiful. I have a colleague who just came back from Scotland for two weeks and she was showing us the pictures and it is gorgeous. It is I think the boys are going to love the castles and it’s just going to be cool. Looking forward to it. Yeah. Same. So some other old games that are kind of like golf and kind of inspired golf. Several sports share similarities with golf focusing on precision targeting and strategic approach to movement and placement. So games like croquet, botchi ball, cricket, lawn bowling are examples of precision games that are very similar to golf. All of them are older than golf as well. So that was kind of bringing the whole concept of target games to the forefront. Other target sports like archery or darts. Shooting sports also involve aiming at a target requiring focus and accuracy. So you can see some great pictures here of croquet and botchi and blonde bowling and archery and some other things. So, any thoughts about some of these old games like golf that might have inspired, you know, whether it’s croquet or botchi or cricket or I mean, it’s pretty cool how how the the creativity came into play here and and you got to sort of mix different concepts. I mean, I enjoy all those croquet’s fun. Botchi is amazing. Grew up playing that. Lawn bowling, you know. Um, we never really played cricket, but it’s a lot like baseball. We played some baseball and some softball and darts. Yeah, darts for sure. You know, kind of reminds me of darts. Same same idea. Is there ever any ending to the creativity of human beings to come up with some type of game with a ball? No, I mean this is exactly why we do our crazy sports uh episodes is because people in who are goat herders in some Kazak, you know, whatever uh they they come up with a cool way to to make the things they have into a sport. It’s so cool. I love it. It is. It really is. If you guys haven’t checked out our strange but cool sports episodes, do check them out. I’ll drop them in. We’ve done We’ve done four now. Mhm. I’ll drop down below. So, how did golf get its name? Well, as we mentioned earlier, one of the words that they use was golf or G WF. The word golf is believed to be derived from the Dutch word, which was cough or cove, which simply means club. The term was used in the Netherlands for a variety of bat and ball games, and is thought to have been introduced to Scotland through trade and interaction with Dutch sailors. In the Scottish dialect, the term evolved into g or go, which meant strike, eventually becoming golf. And you can see some other variations there over the centuries. G and go and go and all these different ways to say it. So, pretty funny to think of how the evolution of the word finally came to GF. Yeah. And it all makes sense. You know, it’s everything’s evolving. So you can see kind of what their thought process was early on. And all those dialects, Scottish, Irish, Gaelic, all the old English, all of them were always changing all the time. So not surprising that this word would change either. This was a funny little uh um tombstone I found here on William Dolman. This is how important the sport is, Robbie, in the country of Scotland. He basically wanted uh nothing on his tombstone except that he was a great golfer essentially. That was the main thing was the most important and most proud of. Hey, if you love it, it gets in your blood. Yeah. Yeah. He was a fantastic golfer. So, what are the rules of golf? So, the first set here is around playing the ball. You have to play it as it lies. And of course, that means you can’t touch it and make the lie better. And that of course that’s a big part of golf is that sometimes it rolls into a divot or sometimes it rolls onto the cart path or or whatever and you have to really kind of play it from where it comes to rest which is a big part of the game. No improving your lie teeing off on the first shot of each hole. Players tee off in sequence starting with the player with the lowest score in the previous hole. So that’s another interesting thing is if you you know do the best score on the last hole then you get to tee off first on the next hole. Yeah. you kind of win the hole and that allows you to start next time. That’s pretty Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Uh and then on subsequent shots later in the round, the player furthest from the hole plays the next shot. So obviously if you’re uh further away, you’re going to be playing your shot several times until you catch up. Then you got your out- of-bounds rule. Balls hit out of bounds or penalized one stroke and the player must replay the shot from the original spot. And if the ball is lost, the player incurs a one-stroke penalty and must return to the spot of the previous stroke and play another ball. So those are all the playing it uh playing the ball rules. Hazards, you got bunkers. Players cannot ground their club right behind the ball or touch the sand with their club before the swing. That’s a big deal there. Basically, it’s really hard to do practice swings when you’re in a bunker. Yeah. So, it makes it really challenging. you have to just kind of mentally take a hack at it and then actually take the real hack. The water hazard players can take a penalty stroke and drop the ball within two club lengths. So the point where the ball entered the water and then if the ball is unplayable and the player can then take a one-stroke penalty and drop the ball two club lengths away from the unplayable spot. Terms of etiquette, you got pace of play. Players should maintain a reasonable pace of play. That’s a big deal, especially for weekend warriors who are busy. They’ll get on you if you uh play too slow. Uh you got safety. Players should always be mindful of other golfers. Avoid swinging when others are in range. And then you got your repairing the damage. Players need to repair divots and ball marks. That’s just kind of a uh etiquette thing that you’re supposed to do as a golfer. Any comments on these three sets? A lot of these come out of the original rules and and they really haven’t changed much. Yeah. I mean, I I think there hasn’t been a huge evolution in rules and that’s one of the beauties of the game. It feels like it’s old school, you know? It feels like baseball that refused to change and now baseball’s made a bunch of changes and golf still hasn’t. You know, it’s like golf’s never going to change from having to walk yourself. A lot of these rules, they fit in that sort of this is how it is mindset, you know? Yeah. I think the old golfers from Scotland in the 1700s would be horrified with a golf cart. They would be like, “What is that? Why do you have that? We’re supposed to get exercise.” So, but uh yeah, even in the major tournaments today, they have to walk. There’s no using golf carts. So, kind of cool they’ve stayed with that rule. Some other rules here under scoring, the most common format is stroke play where the total number of strokes taken to complete the round is counted. Of course, in a major tournament, you play four rounds and it’s the combination of all four rounds scores. You can also play match play where players compete hole by hole and the winner of each hole being the one with the fewest strokes. So, match play is an interesting and they play that in, you know, things like the RDER Cup and other match play type tournaments. They’re pretty cool to watch. And then each hole has a par score representing the expected number of strokes for a skilled player. Great picture there of a real old school. That’s from 1890, these guys playing over in Scotland. So cool. Yeah. And then you see there a picture of the original rules of golf. So really cool to see what that book would have looked like. This this actually was printed in 1868. So really old book there. And then number five set of rules here, other important rules, maximum of 14 clubs in your bag. So that’s a really important rule, especially if you’re in a tournament. You also have local rules. Golf courses can have specialized local rules that they can enforce on players. And then you can also have committees develop rules that, you know, they impose on you, especially if they’re the tournament committee. Any other thoughts on these rules here? No, it just kind of speaks back to what I was saying that it feels like the evolution in golf is so slow and deliberate and they only want to change when they have to kind of thing. And uh that’s kind of a cool thing about golf is it stayed really true to its original rules. Reminds me of the situation that happened to John Dailyaly. This is after he won the PGA but year or two later and he got into round three of the US Open. He was actually doing pretty well. I think he was in third or fourth on the U leaderboard and somebody called him that he had 16 clubs in his bag. Somebody called him on it and the official came over and found that it was true. He did have 16 clubs in his bag. He ended up getting disqualified. So if you’re in a major tournament, you got to count your clubs. You can’t make that mistake. So I really look at the Caddy actually is the one who should make Yeah, the Catty’s walking around with that bag. He should know. There’s no way you should get disqualified on day three of the US Open. That just shouldn’t happen. So, evolution of the ball in golf. This is interesting. The first set of balls were wooden golf balls by all accounts. This was in the 14th and 15th century, and they were used in Lynx golf and in Scotland. So, really interesting what that would have felt like to hit a wooden ball. The uh next evolution after that was from 1486 to 1618. The Scottish received and used hairy golf balls imported from Netherlands. They call them hairy because they were handsewn round leather balls filled with cow’s hair or straw in the middle. So this is before they had rubber. In 1554 the hairy golf ball was being produced in Scotland and uh they actually introduced it all through all over the country and it ended up going to England as well. The balls continued to be used even after the introduction of the feathering golf ball in 1618 because they were less expensive. So you can see uh this development hairy golf balls they found were better than wooden and were softer and you could get a better chip on them. So then you had the next evolution happened in 1618 was called the featherine golf ball. You see what they look like there to the right and they were similar to the hairy golf balls but they had goose or chicken feathers on the inside packed in. And since the feathering golf ball was filled with feathers, it was able to be stuffed more full than the hairy, making it harder and able to fly further so they could get more distance on it. To make a featherine, the feathers and leather would be shaped while wet. And upon drying, the leather shrank and the feathers expanded, creating the desired hardness for the ball. Once dried, the feathering would be painted and the ball marker would be added to mark the ball. So, isn’t it interesting that they were already in 1618 trying to find ways to make the ball fly further? Yeah. Which makes sense. You’re always trying to prove your equipment, right? Of course. Yeah. Still hitting with That’s an area where there’s been a lot of evolution is the equipment. Can you imagine what they would think of the current ball today and how high-tech it is? Yeah. Pretty cool. So, the next evolution was the Gutty Guta golf balls. You can see what they look like there. This was uh golf’s first professional. Allan Robertson was considered the premier ball and club maker of his time in the 1800s. And in 1835 at age 14, Tom Morris began working under Robertson at St. Andrews. And the two worked together making the feathery golf balls until advent of the Gutty golf ball. Robertson didn’t like the Gutty and saw it as a threat to his business. Morris saw the Gutty Ball as the future of the game because it actually flew even further than the Feathery. So, the two parted ways after Robertson fired Morris and then Morris went on to open his own shop and became very successful with these gutty balls that could fly even further than the feathery balls. And then the final big evolution in golf balls was in 1898 when the rubber core golf balls came out. We’re still using rubber core today. Coburn Haskell made a discovery while awaiting Bertram work of the BF Goodrich company. Of course, that’s a tire company. When he wound rubber thread into a ball and bounced it, Haskell discovered it had a lot of bounce and upon Bertram’s work suggestion, put a cover on it. The rubber Haskell golf ball was born. The process of early making the ball Haskell involved a liquid filled or solid round core which was wound with a layer of rubber thread to create a larger round inner core which was then covered by the thin outer shell. So these Haskell golf balls just absolutely took off and of course we’ve been evolving them ever since. So what are your thoughts about this just random way that he found out about rubber bouncing? I think it’s pretty amazing. Um, and they got it right. I mean, the amount of distance that you they can evolve towards through through these developments is pretty cool. I mean, they were hitting wood golf balls 90 yards, right? Yeah. And now they’re hitting 345, right? That’s a that’s a big difference. Yeah. Completely different game. So, some of the evolution of the early clubs in golf, some of the early clubs pre- 1800s, primarily made of wood, often with leather or metal strips on the club face, just really interesting to give it a different spin or be able to control it some. They used pimmen wood um around 1900. Then they had blacksmith made irons starting in around 1750 and hickory shafts were the preferred wood because they were flexible and they were durable. So they gave you both durability but also a little bit of flexibility so you could get some bounce on it. So that’s the early golf clubs kind of pre- 1800s. Then in the 1800s to 1970s you had this age of metal that came in. You had mass-produced irons. You see some of them there on the top right. You had steel shafts come in which really changed the distance on a lot of the golf clubs at that time. You had grooves on the club faces come in in 1908 and then you had aluminum shafts in the 1960s which changed most of the golf clubs in your bag. So thoughts about some of these advancements just so you could see how the the clubs were getting stronger and lighter and really going to make a big impact on club swing and more control. You had the grooves on the face control grooves. You could spin it spinning properly. Yeah. You can see the evolution really kind of pairs with the way the game is played more and more precisely over time. Yeah. So, uh, in terms of the clubs, the modern clubs that we use today, 1980s to present, you got metal woods that replaced, um, the wood woods, and they hit a lot further, as we talked about. They have larger club heads. They have bigger sweet spots. They have more forgiveness. They have greater distance. You also have the titanium drivers that came in in the 1990s. They’re really super light. they have strong properties and they have much larger club heads. So you have this whole concept of the moment of inertia or MOI is much higher. So it’s almost impossible to miss now the sweet spot so big and you have adjustable hustles which allows the adjustable drivers based on what you want to do for comfort lie or control spinability. You have multi multi-material construction with carbon fiber now coming in and then you have other high-tech fibers that have been brought in to the process. So the engineering has just accelerated and accelerated and accelerated. So thoughts about where we are today, where we’re going with this? I mean, are we going to have 500 yard drives one day? I think so. Probably. Yeah, I I think it’s definitely possible. It’s not going to take too much more of a quantum leap from where we are either. You’re going to get a guy like Dishambo who’s going to hit 500 yards probably in like 10 years. We’re not talking like that far out. Probably right because he hits it so far already. They’ll find one more surface they can put down that that gives like a little more power. They said they’re working on a little bit more flexibility in the shaft which will give it a little bit more of that recoil and then you get another 100 yards out of it, you know. Maybe. I don’t know. Are the courses going to have to change? I mean, they’re going to have to make a 400 yard hole into a 700 yard hole just to make it challenging, right? Maybe. Or you just keep having lower and lower scores. Or you’re going to have It’s like in the NBA, are they going to raise the rim? Probably not. I don’t see a big change for that anytime. So, you’re gonna have you’re gonna have Bryson Dshambo driving a par five. He’s gonna drive the green. You know what I’m saying? It’s It’s amazing. what what it’s going to do to the game. You’re not going to have many approach shots really. Drop us a comment, guys. What do you think of where this equipment is going and where you think the game is going in terms of the big players? Be interested to hear what you guys think. So, some classic golf photos. What a great picture there on the top left. Bunch of kids playing the game. And you can see some of these fantastic pictures from back in the day. Family golf in 1900. Cypress Point at 16tht, that’s an 1898. You can look at the 1933 American Rder Cup team. Alex Ross in 1907, he was one of the real famous first American professionals. You got Caddies fishing the ball out of the water. What a great picture that is. And then you have Caddies also pulling weeds. So back then they didn’t really have all these professional mowers and things that we have now. So here the caddies had to actually pull the weeds and then you see a crowd crossing the bridge the 18th at Westward Hoe. So you see what the crowds would have looked like back then during a professional tournament in the 1920s and then same thing what a golf club would have looked like back then. So thoughts about some of these ancient golf photos. Just interesting how, you know, the the greenskeeping was so different and uh it was a family. Funny how caddies were so important back then, too. They were really important part of the game. You know, you didn’t play without families were playing. So, that was cool. And it was I’m sure it was a wealthy game, you know, and they’re all putting, you know. Yeah. And you can see up top there the mom’s playing. Mhm. You know, pretty cool. Other pictures here, the 1892 British Open champion, Harold Hilton. What a cool picture that is. Henry Pequard from 1935. That’s what the Irons would have looked like back then. You got John McDermott was a real famous player around the turn of the century. James Bright and Johnny Row, a colorized Bobby Jones at the 1936 Masters. He basically put the Masters on the map. He was the one who really popularized the Masters and made it the best term in the world. He was one of the really famous started as an amateur and actually won the Masters twice as an amateur and then went professional. He helped design Augusta. He did. and he won 42% of his US and British amateurs and Opens, which is unbelievable because Jack Nicholas only won 10% of his, right? So, when I say that I think those three players I mentioned are the best, the people that are real real true golf homers and traditionalists say, “What about Bobby Jones?” They’ll say it every time. He won 42% of his of his uh tournaments. It’s kind of hard to argue with that that he should be in. And and another guy to talk about there in the bottom is Ben Hogan. He’d be another guy you’d have to at least consider. Yeah. Really funny there. Um they said there was a um period there in Scottish golf where they had their dogs carry their bags for them, which I think is really funny. And you can see the area the area Ben Hogan really influenced was swing theory. He really changed the way that the science of the of the swing. He he modernized the swing and uh he was known for his striking skills. Incredible player. His driving. Yeah. What do you think about the guys with their uh dog carrying their bag and also their kilts. It’s cool. Playing golf in kilts. Yeah, it’s cool. I love it. So, a great picture there of Arnold Palmer when he was really young. Um, couple different shots there on the top. He was really handsome guy, wasn’t he? You got Walter Hagen, another great player, 1932. Sam Sneed, Phil Mickelson, his rookie year in 2001. He had that great lefty. Nobody really ever seen a lefty this good before. Justin Rose, Larry Mai, Rory Mroy when he was a real youngster in Valhalla. That was his first tournament win. And of course, he’s playing at a really high level still. Jordan Spe has always been one of my favorite players. He’s from Texas. That was his um win at the British Open, his first win in a major. Ricky Fowler at the PGA. Colin McGomery, Padrick Harrington, two British players. Craig Stadler, he was kind of like the pre John Dailyaly, the guy who was always out of shape, always smoking a cigar, always drinking a beer. And yet he was just a great player. He just was always competing. You had Bernard Langanger came out of Germany. Chris Demarco, Sergio Garcia, this young upstart in 2002 from Spain had a really great career. Curtis Strange and Ernie L’s from South Africa. Any of these guys bringing any memories back for you? Oh yeah, pretty much all of them. Yeah. Uh Craig Stadler, him and Curtis Strange played with Gil. They did. Yeah, you’re right. They did. He played with several really important My uncle My uncle played in Alexandria and Stadler was one of the guys that he played with in in his league. Yeah. He said both of these guys were really good players. Yeah, you can imagine. So, we got Dustin Johnson. I think he’s been one of the best players the last 10 years. really really fabulous player. You got Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas. What a great picture of the two of them together at the 1973 Bing Crosby tournament which was real real big back then when Bing was alive. Ben Krenshaw is another guy you could put on that list. Kind of a top 10 type of guy. Chi-Chi Rodriguez. How much fun was he? He was such a He had so much flare. He was hilarious. every time he hit a putt, he would use his uh putter as kind of sword. Yeah. Do the Zoro thing. He was kind of like um you know the pre pre getting too serious with it. He really was always having fun on the course. Yeah. Al Gyberger 1964. He kind of dominated the 60s. Bubba Watson with his pink driver. He had a couple huge wins. He won the Masters twice. And uh he always talked about how it just felt like a dream for him. He was a guy who was just a fraternity guy at University of Georgia. He used to go out and play golf with his friends at the Georgia golf course and all of a sudden somehow found himself on the PGA tour and won a couple tournaments and he still couldn’t believe it. So um you got Byron Nelson there and then you have a couple fantastic women players. Carol Man in the 60s was really great. Nancy Lopez, she really dominated all through the 70s. And then Anakah Saen Stam, maybe the best ever in my opinion. Most solid woman, had a 20-year career and just racked up a lot of titles. So she was very domin really great women players there. Fred Couppples was a lot of fun to watch. Fred Funk, he won a couple tournaments. He he felt like uh that kind of normal guy who found himself on the tour and couldn’t believe he was winning. He was actually a golf pro in Maryland and got discovered and got put onto the tour and ended up winning some tournaments. You got Gary Player, a great South African player. Payne Stewart, who you and I were just talking about, and that fantastic moment he had at Pinehurst where he won the US Open and he had that big fist pump. Yeah, that’s one of my favorite memories in golf. Lee Trevino was another really fun, colorful guy. Tremendous. He used to have so much fun on the course. Yeah, I was reading about Lee Trevino. He had a an accident happen. Um I didn’t even know about this, but a lightning struck um him in uh 1975. Is that right? On the on the course. Yeah. And he he it led to have him have severe leg and back injuries and he had multiple surgeries and he won eight tournaments after his accident, but it really damaged his ability to compete and have stamina. And he had to fight his way back from all these injuries from this lightning strike. Wow. I didn’t know that until I read about it. What a story. Lee Trovino. Yeah. Yeah. So, you got uh some great other great pictures here. Greg Norman, we mentioned that uh tragic collapse he had, but he had a lot of great moments in his career. He was so good, a lot of big wins. Uh and he had such a great career that he of course started this amazing apparel line that’s still really big today, which has the little Shark logo on it. and you’ll see about a third of the golfers out there wearing his Shark logo. And of course, he also helped to start the new Live Golf Tour, which is a competitor to the PGA. House Sutton, uh Gary Player, another picture of him there with Jack Nicholas at the Thunderbird Classic. A really young, this was funny, Justin L Leonard, who is a uh senior at the University of Texas, part of the Texas Longhorns team and actually won the national championship that year and of course went on to a really great pro career as well. And then the first ever really great African-American player, this was 1969, Lee Elder. And a lot of people talk about he really doesn’t get the notoriety he showed. He was a really great golfer. Lee Elder. There’s Jack Nicholas in 1961 as the USGA amateur championship. So he very similar to some of the guys preceding him. Started as an amateur but still was racking up the trophies. And you can see some other fantastic shots of him there on the top. So he had really kind of that classic smile. He was the most endorsed guy in sports for a while in the 70s. He was on the Wedies boxes. He was in every commercial. He really was incredibly popular. And then of course you see a picture of them to the right of Nicholas with his young protege, Mr. Tiger Woods. And you can see another picture of Woods there on the bottom left at St. Andrews. that classic course in Scotland. We mentioned John Daly, that tournament he won in 1991 at the PGA. Johnny Miller, a great picture of Earl and Tiger Woods practicing in 1992. This is right when he was about to go pro. What a great picture there of him with his dad. And then again, a picture there of Woods and Nicholas the Great. What do you think about some of these photos? They’re they’re awesome. They’re awesome. Clearly, this is some of the best players that have ever lived. You know, when um Tiger won his first Masters, um Jack Nicholas said, “I think he’s going to break my m my major’s record.” He actually predicted it. This was way before. It was incredible. I watched Tiger while he was in college at Stanford and very few times did I actually sit and watch the national championship in college. But I watched that because Tiger was this known commodity of this exciting guy who did the fist pump and uh he drilled this this putt to win. It was so exciting. Um, and it propelled him into the pros. What’s amazing is he already had this uh mystique about him that was so clear that he just took it into the pros with him and and he kept that intimidation. What’s amazing is he appeared at three years old with his father on TV on one of the late night programs and was showing everybody his putting and his swing. At that time he was three. So it was almost like he was destined for this type of greatness and he really was basically a golfer from three years old on up. So yeah, it was been really fun to take the entire ride with Tiger. Yeah. What a what a lot of people think is the greatest player ever. Yeah, it’s really difficult to um I think most of the things in my research was most people feel Jack Nicholas was the best ever and Tiger was always chasing him and never quite caught him but in most categories got really really close. Um you know Nicholas pretty much owns him in every category by a little bit you know so Tiger didn’t have the accident in the car and he didn’t have the back problems and some of the things that came along. I really wonder. He probably would have caught him. He would have caught him because he’s only one way now. Yeah. Yeah. He really had his career shortened in a lot of ways by injury. So by poor choices and by life dramas that he sort of self-imposed and back surgeries. I mean how many times did he swing that injuries? Yeah. Yep. So, who knows? Distracted because of personal issues and then he started having injuries and it was it’s kind of sad, but he never he never quite regained that thing, but he did win the Masters again in 2019, which was exciting. It was. But uh yeah, he he he started out like a ball of fire and he should have surpassed Nicholas, but I think life got in the way a little bit and uh he just kind of lost steam right before he caught Nicholas. I personally believe, this is just me, if you put the two of them up head-to-head against each other for 10 years, both in their prime, that Woods would have come out on top. I think he was a better player. In his prime. In his prime. I’m not sure. I I watched some incredible um golf by Jack Nicholas. I I remember in the on the senior tour this one video of him sort of verbally sparring with this one guy who was complaining about how he didn’t have a good lie and he didn’t know if he should chip on or putt on. And Nicholas said just putt on. And the guy goes that’s impossible. He says it’s not impossible. And the guy said it is impossible. And Nicholas said I’ll show you. and he walks up and he puts the ball down right next to him and he drills it and it’s like this 60 foot putt. I mean, it was uphill. It It was insane. And Nicholas drained it and nobody could believe it. He was The whole gallery went crazy. And he said, “That’s how you do it.” And he walked off. It was the most incredible moment in golf. He was He was unbelievable. It just He was unbelievable. And um Tiger had that same thing where you couldn’t believe what you’re watching. Nicholas had it. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to watch Nicholas our whole life. So, in our in our bias, we have the recency bias of Tiger where we got to see the whole arc of his career. Whereas Nicholas, we saw it about halfway through the 70s, 80s. But do you agree? Do you agree these guys are one too? Whether it’s one or the other? Yeah. Yeah. I think they’re one. I think Nicholas has won and Tigers 1A. But don’t you think this is kind of like LeBron and Michael? I mean, it depends on what generation. I think that’s that’s a wider gap. I think LeBron and Michael is a wider gap, but that’s a separate discussion. But I think this one is um you can make the case um that Tiger, but I think most metrics have Nicholas just slightly ahead of Tiger. Well, guys, drop us a comment. We want to hear from you. Who was the greatest ever? Was it Nicholas or was it Tiger Woods? Let us know what you think. I will say that it certainly looked like Tiger at a young age was arcing to to beat him pretty badly, like to to catch him and to surpass him fairly easily and he just never quite got there. But that’s not important. What’s important is they both changed the game. They both made people watch. uh they they drew people in that weren’t they were casual or didn’t have any golf interest whatsoever and they both did an amazing job as ambassadors of the sport at the time. They both exploded the game. They both exploded the game on TV. There was nobody more exciting at their respective times of playing than those two guys. Whenever Tiger would play, the viewership was up by like 100%. And then when he didn’t play, it would fall off. The exciting part about Tiger was not only was he modern, but he was a minority and he was extremely powerful and intimidating. So, he was he came along when, you know, Mike Tyson was still going and there were intimidating athletes. And I don’t know if you remember this, but when he was at his prime, all the other athletes in all the other sports were in awe of Tiger. Like, yeah. Michael Michael Jordan was in awe of Tiger. Yeah. Like a lot of people don’t remember that, but like that’s how dominant he was for a while. People were in awe of this guy, but he wasn’t just a golfer. He was an athlete. He was an incredible Yeah, he was he was starting to rival Michael Jordan as the number one athlete in the entire world. And he was on every commercial, on every Wedies box. He was kind of for a while there was just the most endorsable athlete in the world. Yeah. So, looking at some other pictures here. Great close-up there of Bob Hope. He was one of the great celebrities who loved the game of golf, was very good at golf. Some other celebrities, Dean Martin and Jerry McGee, Doug Sanders, Clint Eastwood, what a great picture of Clint. He loved to play the game. Was one of the great ambassadors as a celebrity. Some other celebrities here. Michael Jordan was a fantastic golfer. He’s got a stogy in his mouth right there. So, really great picture there. You have some other really hilarious pictures here. You got, of course, the guy who was from Tin Cup, Mr. Kevin Cosner. So, what did you think of that movie? Great movie. I was just thinking about how many amazing movies revolved around golf. There were a lot. There were a lot of good movies. was hand greatest. I think one of the reasons why golf’s a very good movie to have a sport to have in movies is there’s a lot of drama. You know, there there’s tremendous tension on each stroke and there’s a lot of drama. It makes for a good dramatic tale. That’s right. And then of course Catty Shack. Yeah. Funny. Happy Gilmore. Happy Gilmore 2 is coming out by the way, like 25 years. Yeah, thought that was really funny. Some great athletes on the bottom there. You got Jerry Rice is a really fantastic golfer. Tony Romo actually won the ProAm three times. He’s really he’s probably a better better golfer than quarterback. I don’t know about that. But anyway, Tom Brady’s a really great golfer. Tom Brady’s he’s basically a scratch golfer. And then Steph Curry apparently is the best golfer in the NBA right now of all the current players. He’s really, really solid. Other thoughts about some of these celebrities you see here? I mean, it’s a great sport to go out and play. Uh celebrities, it’s a good way to to get rid of some tension. Um it’s I mean, it’s not surprising that celebrities are drawn to it. What did you think of that character that he played in uh in that great golf movie with the gopher? Yeah. Remember that character? Catty Shack. Yeah. Yeah. Catty Shack. Yeah. He was great. And he would use this little accent. You know, there’s 80,000 people watching. And I’m with the Daly Lama. The llama doesn’t give me a tip and I say, “Hey llama, how about a little something for the effort?” And he was always chasing the gopher, you know. Yeah. And then he was hitting I won’t give you any money, but when you’re on your deathbed, you will have eternal peace. He was hitting the flowers. He was hitting the flowers, you know, said the golf What’s funny is he did that movie and then he um he just took up the game of golf and became really good at it. He he plays in the proam and he’s really, you know, he’s kind of like a three or four over, but really solid golfer. So, a lot of fun. Well, um it was that movie was patterned after Bill Murray’s older brother, Brian Doyle Murray. That’s right. He was a caddy and uh they they they used all the stories from uh from him um to add into the to make Catty Shack funnier. Yeah. Didn’t Bill Murray have a lot to do with the production of that that film as well? Did he play the funniest? Will Murray did actually. Do you remember what the name of his character was? I don’t it was funny. You know, I I thought about it the other day and I knew it, but I can’t think of it off the top of my mind. One of the funniest roles I’ve ever seen him in. Yeah. And it was cool to see him and Chvy Chase on the screen together because for sure they had they had a huge rivalry prior to this. Um Chevy played kind of like the straight man, but he was still funny. But uh Bill Murray obviously the Yeah. the lunatic. Yeah. So other great photos here. These are more You know what’s interesting about that movie real quick is um they weren’t supposed to have much scenery at all together and they wrote that in because it was so obvious that these were the two geniuses and they had to kind of see what they could come up with. Right. That’s right. So these are kind of the current best players that we have in our current batch of system in 2025. We got Jason Day, Scotty Sheoffller, Rory Maroy is still right there. You see the rankings there. Sheffller Maroy, Xander Schoffley, Justin Thomas who’s right to the top there holding the cup. You got Russell Henley who’s the in the red in the bottom there holding the cup. You got Morawa. You got Keegan Bradley. Of course, you got John Rom there on the left. What are your thoughts about this current batch of players and how they compare to kind of the you know maybe the last you touched on it earlier the the amount of physical power that they bring the physicality the athleticism is kind of unmatched in golf’s history I think they um certainly are using their skills along with the better equipment to maximize I mean 345 5 yard drives. That’s insane. Um, but doesn’t it feel like it’s a little deeper? I mean, you got Bryson Desambo as the 15th best player in the world. You know what I mean? Just feels a little deep. Victor Hoblin like there’s there’s no Tiger, but there’s there’s 15 Tigers, you know? There’s there’s 30 people that can win a tournament. Whereas in the past, it was Nicholas or Tiger or it was Nicholas or Palmer. It’s kind of more exciting because you have more guys who have a chance. Yeah. You know, Tommywood. Yeah, these young guys are coming up. They’re getting good sponsorships, so they’re financially very stable and they just go out there and work hard and every now and then they take turns winning tournaments. It’s pretty cool. It is. It is. I mean, Jordan Speed is still playing really well. He’s not even in the top 20. So, yeah, just a lot of really good players right now. It’s exciting to see. So, evolution of the PGA Tour. In 1916, the PGA of America was founded. Initially encompassing all types of golf professionals, including club professionals. In 1968, that really wasn’t that long ago, there was growing tensions between club professionals and touring professionals over finances and control. And that led to players like Jack Nicholas and Gardner Dickinson to form the American Professional Golfers Inc. for the APG which then led to the creation of the PGA tournament players division. It’s really interesting and Jack Nicholas not only is one of the greatest ever, maybe the greatest ever, but was kind of part of the formation of the PGA. Really interesting history there. Then in 75, the PGA tournament players division was rebranded as the PGA Tour. So, uh, that name that we know didn’t happen until, you know, after you and I were both born, when it was renamed. See a lot of big brands we deal with today. PGA Tour, of course, Ryder Cup, which is played every two years between Europe and the United States. The President’s Cup, which is also played between those two, but played in the alternate year between the RDER Cups. And then you have the new uh league that was formed between the Saudis who actually funded it from Saudi Arabia. And then um you know they chose to uh essentially peel off about 30 or 40 of the biggest golfers in the PGA Tour and pay them huge huge money to come join this new you know live golf league. So what are your thoughts about that? Is that something? You know, they’ve talked about maybe merging the two leagues so you get back to having all the best players in tournaments again where you don’t have this segmented situation. I think it’s an evolution. Competition is usually a good thing. I think um when leagues push each other, they tend to have a little bit of a a better product and a something that’s more viable. So, I don’t know. I think we’ll see where this all goes. I think Liv and PGA are starting to learn how to live with each other, so to speak, and uh coordinate a little bit. I did notice that the PGA used to shut out the live golfers, but they’re allowing them in now into at least the ma majors to play. So, you’re getting the guys like Dishambo, who’s a live golfer, now being able to play at least the majors, which is good. Yeah, they’re forming more of a like the NFL for was formed out of the AF AFL and NFL. What’s interesting is Congress is usually looking to break up monopolies, but apparently Congress very much wants these two merge because I know everybody’s who’s golf fans, they really want to see the best players out there every week. Yeah. Yeah. They don’t want to see divided and all the all the best players are cut in half, right? One group over here, one group over there. Nobody wants that because you have the Byron Nelson Classic, which is a really great tournament, but it’s not a major. Well, it only has the PGA guys. So you don’t have, you know, half of the top 20 in there. So yeah, it’s interesting. Popularity of golf in the USA. This is 2024 end of the year data. A record 47.2 million Americans played golf in some form on course or off course. That was a 5% increase from the previous year and a 38% increase since 2019. So that really surprised me that we’re still having that much growth in the game. It’s quite a bit. Well, 2019 is when Tiger won again, so it’s almost like it got a little resurgence. That’s possible. Yeah. You know, Encourse participation reached 28 million, the highest since 2008. So, you had a little bit of a dip in like 2008 to 2012. A little bit of a dip and then a 16% increase ever since. Offc course participation. Now, this was interesting. Twothirds of new golfers started with off-c course experiences like Topgolf before playing on a traditional course. So, does that surprise you at all? Not really. I think Top Golf was a a a very brilliant um concept. It it it’s a very social game, so why not put together a bar and a restaurant and a golf experience, things to shoot for, you know, got targets. Targets. Yeah. So, it’s like adds a little bit of a sporting element of target sports kind of. Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Cool concept. So, yeah, I’m not surprised that it it uh dramatically improved uh bringing new people in. But you have the same surprise I did, right? That the game has grown this much since 2019. I mean, it really it’s still a growing sport. Yeah, it’s a little surprising because you think of um NASCAR and golf kind of taken steps back over the last 10 years and truly golf really hasn’t. It it sort of seems like it has, but it hasn’t. Whereas NASCAR really has. It’s true. This whole offc course experience, Top Golf thing really, I think, has kept the sport growing. It’s really helped feed the real sport. So has putt putt golf, stuff like that. Putt putt. Yeah. Yeah. Those types of experiences, right? Anybody can play putt putt golf. So So looking at golf around the world, this is interesting. It’s now reached 138 million per year globally, which is pretty cool to think about the sport is that large. Over one-third of the US population over the age of five played either golf on or off course. One third. So that was pretty surprising. A total combined adult and junior participation in affiliated markets reached 108 million in 2024. And what that means is everything outside the US. So some of the um things I wanted to mention here in terms of numbers of fans, this isn’t participation, this is fans. Soccer of course number one 3.5 billion cricket number two you mentioned this about how huge cricket is especially in India 2.5 billion fans basketball 2.4 four, tennis, 1.5, field hockey, American football, baseball, and then golf. So, any thoughts about that where golf stands in the total popularity? I mean, it’s a major one. You know, it’s it’s not the very top, but it’s got a wide appeal. Um, I think they’ve come a long way on television presentation, which has helped them a lot. uh they’ve done a really good job of trying to prolong the influence Tiger Woods has had because he was the next great thing and just sort of a he was lightning in a bottle and when he kind of dipped the sport dipped and when he came back up they were they were able to capitalize on it. So that’s cool. I think Tiger Wolf, the majors really help when you have those majors like the British Open, US Open, Masters, those really help. And then what do you think about Olympic golf? I mean, Olympic golf’s gotten pretty popular. Has that helped spur global interest? I think so. Yeah, I think so. In fact, um they were they were talking to I was reading um I might have to dig in to figure out which which player it was, but one of the players um that I was reading uh was talking about how Olympic golf was just different than every every other type of golf he had played. He said it’s not a major, but it’s it’s special in its own way. It’s it can’t be compared to anything else. That’s true. And for me as a as a non- major golfer, that was interesting. You know, he he said it was one of the most special moments of his life was winning the gold. So yeah, it was fun to watch Shaft win it. Yeah. So some of the major tournaments we were just talking about Masters in my opinion is the Mac Daddy of them all. That’s the Super Bowl is the Masters. I I don’t know why that tournament is so special. It just is. It’s in It’s in Augusta. It leads off the year in April. kind of kicks off the overall major golf season. It’s got the most mystique. It does. There’s just something about everybody wants to win the win the Masters if you’re a pro. There’s no question. The PGA this year was in Quail Hollow here in Charlotte. That was really cool to see that go down like that. That was a really great tournament, too. Um, US Open was in Oakmont. So, US Open, of course, is a huge tournament. The Open, the British Open is actually going on this week. So, if you guys want to watch some great golf this weekend, watch the British Open. It’ll be a really great tournament. A Canadian Open is another big one every year. Australian Open. I mentioned the Byron Nelson. A lot of people consider that as kind of a semi- major. It’s not a major, but it’s a really big tournament. Everybody wants to win. Then you got the American Century Championship this year, which is a big one in California. and then the um Cognizant Classic which is down in Palm Beach. And then of course the big development in the last 10 years in the PGA is the development of the FedEx Cup. And to get FedEx Cup points, you have to actually play on a PGA event. And that’s one of the complaints of the live golfers is that they’ll never win the FedEx Cup because they can’t play in enough events, which is why a lot of people think they should merge. FedEx Cup points also um play into the fact that uh whether you’re going to get on the RDER Cup team or not for the US is how many FedEx points you get every year. So, general thoughts about these major tournaments, about the FedEx. I mean, just so much great competitive golf. U so many opportunities to let these young guys come up and challenge the the veterans and uh it’s cool to see the veterans figure out a way to sneak back up there and and be on the leaderboard on Sunday. You know, a lot of good tournaments. It is. And to me, if you’re the casual fan and you like golf on TV, but you don’t like it every weekend, these are the tournaments you’re going to be watching. I mean, these are the tournaments that get the big ratings. These are the tournaments that you see it in every cafe and every sports bar. Everyone’s watching it. You know what I mean? Like all over the world. Like we could be in Norway, they’d be watching it, you know? Sure. These majors, these are the big ones. So, so really exciting. And I’m excited actually to watch the British Open this weekend. The Open. The Open. That’s what they call it. Yeah. This year, you see where it is? It’s in Portugal. They don’t put the word British in there. That’s right. That’s right. Well, I mean, they look at it like golf was established over there, which it was. So, yeah. Well, let’s go ahead and take a look at some highlights from classic golf from the years, and then we’ll come back and talk about on the other side. All right, Robbie. Well, final thoughts, man, on the game of golf, the history of it, the popularity of it, the rules of it, where you think it’s developing, the equipment, the athletes. Just such a cool game. Um, one of the most excruciating mental games there is. Uh but also there’s nothing more powerful than hitting a great shot and just wanting to keep coming back and doing it keeps you coming back because that one shot it does. Yeah, that one shot was you impressed yourself and you what you wanted to do. You never can master it. I mean, even these guys, I watch these guys who are pros and they’ll hit an unbelievable shot and then we’ll hit it in the water and you’re just like, “Yeah.” Well, if you ever go see a live tournament, it’s absolutely amazing to watch because I’ll never forget, I used to go down in Palm Beach and watch um the uh PGA National and they would line up the fans along the T- box straight out for a while and these guys would tee up and hit it straight down the middle. And it was so nerve-wracking because a little duff and they were going to whack it straight into these people at point blank range. And I remember thinking, I’ll never be able to do that. You know, one thing that that I am now at a point in my life at is I love watching people do things I can’t do. Mhm. Hitting a fast ball, throwing 100 mph fast ball, dunking, right? Um, doing all kinds of things on ice, throwing a football, throwing a football 70 yards. I don’t want to sit there and watch people do things that I can do. Mhm. But when I’m watching live, they’re driving this ball straight down this gallery of people and they never miss. It’s absolutely unbelievable. And I remember It really amazes me. It amazes me. You know what amazes me almost more though is is their second shots. It just astound me. I mean, there’s so many pieces to it. They’ll be like, he’s 175 yards out. He’s using a nine iron. I’m like, a nine iron? And then not only will he use the nine iron, but he’ll shape it. They’ll be like, “He’s going to fade it or he’s going to push it or like they know how to manipulate it where they can fade it so that it curves in perfectly right towards the hole and they drop it in 10 feet away.” Yeah. It’s just it’s astounding. And when they do that, you’re sitting here at home saying, “I can’t do that.” Like how to do that. I might do it by accident, you know? I might draw it by accident, but it’s not going to be something that And then they’re like, “He’s going to try to fade it.” and they do it, then they evade it. I know. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It’s really, really fun to watch the really great athletes play. So, that’s my overall thoughts is I’m now drawn toward as I’ve gotten older just specifically things that I cannot do. Yeah. Um whether it’s running the 40 yard dash in a subhuman time, uh whether you know, anything that’s so beyond what I could even imagine doing. And golf is one of those things. These guys driving the ball way over 300 yards straight, you know, right landing it right in front of the water so they can chip over it and do all this. It’s amazing. It’s amazing sport. They talk about golf being one of those games that the mental part of the game is more important than almost any other sport. And it’s true. But how much do you think is physical? Because you and I couldn’t hit at 345. I don’t care how much we try. We could we could be the mentally strongest people. But how much you think? I think it’s mostly mental because first of all, just the driving tea box thing I described, it’s so unnerving. Hitting the ball down with a few feet on each side of clearance and that’s going to set up your entire hole. And then of course it’s all mental. And if you have any misfire, you have to let it go and start over and reset yourself. And um it’s it’s very How about if how about if you’re Phil Mickelson who’s lined up for an 18 foot putt for his first green jacket and if he misses he’s going to go into the playoff. He he sits there and measures it, measures it and he hits it. Like the average person can’t do that under that pressure. You’ve got That’s right. what 300 million people watching. We would all miss that 100% of the time. Yeah. You know, he just he just nails it. So, you’re right. I think the mental is a bigger part of it, but I also much bigger. I think physical is a big part of it, too. Like you and I would never be challenging. We would never be in as good shape enough. It didn’t matter what we did to be Tiger Woods or Scotty Sheffller or the way these guys can hit it. The variance physically is there for sure. We’re not in the kind of shape that Tiger Woods in his prime was. No question. That guy was a specimen, but the mental strength they have is so much more dramatic than what we have where we’ll duff it and I want to break the club over my leg and thinking, I play twice a year. Why can’t I hit this perfectly? You know, like it’s just it’s it’s different, you know? It’s just such a different game mentally for them. It’s true. When you’re them and you’ve done it 3,000 times and you miss your shot, you’re very disappointed, but you know that you needed to work even harder. You know, it’s I have to say I love all aspects of the sport. It’s incredibly maddening. It’s incredibly humbling. If you want to be humbled, go out and play 18 holes with your friends. You’re going to be humbled. You’ll be humbled many times that day. But I love I love the game of golf. I love Top Golf. I love putt putt. Yeah. I love just going to the driving range with my brother. That’s right. I love all aspects of it. I love going and hitting balls at like a dick sporting goods or academy sports. Me, too. And there’s very few things in all of sport that feel better than going into the the clubhouse, having a cold beer, and talking about the one shot that you were really proud of all day long that got you to the most amazing shot that you made all day. Hopefully, you got one or two great shots. And I never follow them up with a great shot. Like, if I have an amazing drive, my my chipping onto the green, it’s going to take, you know, too many shots to do. I rarely follow up an amazing one. But I sit there and I talk about it in the in the clubhouse. That That’s And And then you want to come back because you want to get And it makes you want to come back. Yeah. Because I I block out all the times I lost the ball in the water. That’s right. Well guys, drop us a comment. We’d love to hear from you. Uh tell us some of your stories of golf. You know, where you’ve played, how you’ve played, how you’ve improved over the years, what type of golf you like to play, and uh we’d love to hear from you. And thank you guys so much for joining us tonight for this rundown memory lane of golf and the history, popularity, and rules of the game. And uh we’re really looking forward to seeing you guys on another episode of the Sports Guys. Thanks for joining us. We had a great time. And uh we learned a lot uh researching this and it was it was fun. And hopefully there’s there’s a lot of great uh tournaments this year that we can all check back in on. And like and subscribe and we’ll see you guys next time. Have a great one. Sports, food, travel, life sports guys with no sight. We live and play sports normal and strange. 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Check out the greatest finishes in GOLF History — https://youtu.be/VMtf4gXRuUY?si=iVJPcSkCC2FhRfTC
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