Whilst it wasn’t the nail-biting final day we’ve seen in recent years, it was still a great spectacle! We get together to chew through the detail on the first ever Masters in November and talk about the big (and not so big) stories! From arty coverage to anchoring putters, did the course play longer or was it a legitimate par 67? It’s all in here!
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Watch [Applause] [Music] this. No way. [Music] [Applause] Hello and welcome back to the Cookie Jar Golf podcast. I am Tom Mills and today I’m joined by Sam Williams. Hello. And Sir Bruce Fitzpatrick. Howdy. Good day. Good day, Bruce. U as always guys you can get in touch with us on cookiejarolf on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and keep an eye on YouTube tomorrow because tomorrow night we are dropping a little sneaky preview for you of our Scotland trip which was eight landing. And I we also get in there a little shot of Bruce playing into Castle Stewart I believe with a cheeky little elite reference to the Tiger President’s Cup 2005. Do you know I’ve gone back and relisted to that and I’ve had to cut out a little bit just afterwards where he walks back towards the camera saying absolutely flushed that. Flushed it. I’ve absolutely flushed it. What was your 230 Ivon flagged it to a foot? Even Even Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn. No, it’s been shared been shared on a few channels uh ahead of schedule. Got a few leakers in the cookie jar who just leaked the video out to the press early and it kind of make as in yourself. Guys, watch this. Five iron. I mean, to be fair, if it came from your phone, I’d kind of question the noise it makes off the face because it’s pretty serious, isn’t it? It’s a piercing noise. And we’ll maybe we’ll just put it up on standalone format just for our listeners. I think so. I think we can just maybe as the teaser to this podcast, we can just put up the fizzing five iron. But, um, obviously we’ve just had the Masters and I’m going to start going throw out there for you boys. Um, was the Masters boring? No, absolutely not. I mean, I should declare I’ve got COVID at the moment. So, I’ve spent the last few days laid up. I have I have not been well. I’ve actually got the positive result back um from a test I’ve done recently and I felt pretty poor. I’m sure people will be curious to know how I felt. I genuinely felt like I had a fairly bad head cold for a basis of about 5 days or so. Um, and then I knew something was rotten in Denmark when I couldn’t smell my son’s dirty nappy on on Friday evening and thought we’d better go better go and get this checked out. But, you know, it was a perfect excuse to spend a whole weekend sat in front of the sat in front of the TV. And I mean, I must have seen nearly every single shot from that weekend’s golf. I don’t think it was boring. Soaking up Butch Harmon’s superlatives and uh the horrendous delay on his Zoom Zoom connection. I lost I lost track of how many times Butch Harmon said he was impressed with Sunjen. I was like mate he is one of the best golfers on the planet. I got to tell you and I’m really impressed with this guy this week. He’s winning on the PGA tour. Yeah, he’s a really good golfer. I mean he’s one of the best out there. I think I think one of my favorite Butch things is when at the end of a sentence he just goes Butch isn’t Yeah. Well, you could see that. I think Cameron Smith’s um shot from under the trees on nine as that was kind of meandering its way around to the pin. It sounded like he was um he was close to climax at one point. Um one uh seeing as you’re the kind of masters encyclopedia for this pod, Sam, um one thing I wanted to ask you about because I heard it from a friend the other day. Did Butch mention he’d been coaching Rory Maroy out in Vegas recently or they spent four hours together? Apparent I I heard that he said they’d done a bit of work together because Rory obviously hasn’t been able to see Michael Bannon, his longtime coach. Um because of lockdown and the travel restrictions. So apparently spent four hours with Butch just working on a couple of things that have crept into his swings since the lockdown and and hence why he’s not, you know, replicated the Sterling form which he had at the back end of last year and the start of this year. But I wouldn’t want the the cookie jar to be the purveyor of misinformation and fake news. So that’s why Sounds like you’re trying. It sounds like you see her in the room very hard. I’m not I’m not the one who said I watched pretty much every waking moment of of Masters coverage. So maybe I didn’t mean I listened to every bit of vitriol that came out of the commentator’s mouth about most of it. It was hard to decipher what was about anything except except from Bryson and DJ to be fair for the whole weekend. Um, how painful was the uh how painful was the rain delay when at the beginning when all they had to do was talk about for about 4 hours was Bryson and it was just oh Bryson after Bryson after Bryson. So it was actually strange, wasn’t it? Cuz it was like, you know, when you go to sleep before a monthly medal before you go out and play golf and in your head you play the round, don’t you? So it’s like, yeah, I can probably get it sort of about 300 up the gut of the fairway on hole one. I’ll probably stick wedge into about 10 ft. Probably make birdie, maybe par, give myself par. And you do that for 18 holes in your head before you play. And that was pretty much what Doaty and and Coltart and the guys in the studio were doing on every hole. It was like, “Yep, this will be a wedge for Bryson.” And I don’t know, you could have seen that coming a mile off. What was your take? was um I was going to watch the Rain Delay live and then I just decided to carry on living my life really and and doing a few other things uh on on that Thursday afternoon. So, uh yeah, I I I didn’t tune in until they actually started playing golf, but um I’d have to have to take a pass on that. For for me, uh personally, I found lock I found not lockdown or lockdown is boring. I found the last day of the masters boring. you want to throw out there. Just watching DJ just walk to victory with nothing. He was never going to lose it. I just I just lost interest. It was looked close, didn’t it? For the first few holes, actually. So, when he he looked he looked brittle on the Was it the second hole when he flubbed the chip? Brittle. It was there was a sort of straight out of my short game sort of 18 months ago really. It was a very brittle approach, but that was one shot and I thought, okay. He then stiffed the bunker shot, knocks it in for par onto the next te. And it was just a cakewalk, wasn’t it? You got to feel bad for Cameron Smith, haven’t you? Shoots four rounds in the 60s. No one’s ever done that at Augusta, period. And I mean, he was like five shots off. I mean, many he wouldn’t have got near the leaderboard with that kind of distance from the from the winner. Yeah. Yeah. Remarkable. Um I I think Yeah. Going back to your point there, Mills, about it being a little bit anticlimactic. I don’t know if part of that is just we’re unfairly measuring against the yard stick that that Tiger in the 2019 Masters brought when you had, you know, the best players in the world all all right up there and Tiger having a two-shot lead coming down the closing stretch and looking to put an end, you know, towards sort of a looking to put an end to 11-year major drought. So, I don’t know. In the end, I I I think it was as good as we could hope for and we just we should all just be fortunate that or lucky I guess that the Masters went ahead at all really. It still Yeah, definitely had that kind of crowning achievement really for DJ for a guy who who’s I don’t want to say he’s been an underachiever because obviously he’s won so many regular tour events and has probably been the best player in the world over the last 10 15 years. But yeah, it was nice to see him sort of get a little bit closer towards the reputation he deserves. I think you’re absolutely right and I think if you think about what happened with Rory for instance, so Rory went started with a overpar round and then went on a rampage and finished 11 under or 10 under, whatever he finished at. And you think even actually if he’d started as a kind of a five under round with the way he was playing, he still wouldn’t have competed. He still wouldn’t have been in the realms of of what DJ was doing. But what I what I wanted to check with you boys is do you think this is going to go down as obviously DJ shot 20 under which is the lowest mast’s score ever. Do you think this is going to go down as lowest score asterics being played in November and being soft and do you think it’s going to be always that little I I think I think the course was was easy day one and day two relative to what it usually is. It wasn’t the greens weren’t as fast were they and they were so so soft. You could see the way the balls landed. I mean all the mud ball stuff like that was that was a bit repetitive wasn’t it? Every time there was a sort of a semi poor iron shot played it was always a mud ball. I think even at one point John Rams 3wood that he topped from the middle of the ninth or the eighth fairway. Pretty sure that was a mud ball. Um it’s unbelievable what it can do out there really. It’s just different game isn’t it? Um but I think the course was was definitely easier wasn’t it? I mean, you know, you’ve got the other guys, Felli, Cameron Smith, they’ have they’d have romped it at 15 underne most years. There must be something where I mean, even even Rory been able to claw his way back because he wasn’t playing lights out golf, was he for the entire three day three rounds afterwards and shot 75. So, yeah, I think there’s probably some truth there, Bruce. Yeah, definitely softer and I definitely agree, you know, over the first few days, um, it the course must have played easier. I think the the the stats would definitely show that if you if you compared it to previous years. Um and that’s probably what underpinned the decision to not put the pins in the usual spots that they do on the Sunday like you know down on the sort of left side of 16 where you’re offering people the chance to make a hole in one or you’re certainly giving good shots a very very decent chance of making birdie. Um so yeah I think it doesn’t matter does it actually it’s the same for everyone isn’t it? makes no one. Okay. Well, we well let’s let’s move on to the winning margin. Do you think um the winning margin is more important than the score? So, for instance, 97 Well, 97 hand in hand, don’t they? You’ve got to shoot the lowest score and win by a margin. No, no, no. So, in 97, Tiger won by 12 strokes, which is the largest winning margin. He also shot 18 in 97, but he won by 12 strokes. So the nearest guy was six under. Do you think that when you talk about um achievements like lower score that actually winning margin is more important than the score itself? Yeah, absolutely. There’s that famous quote about Tiger winning the 2000 US Open at Pebble where again I don’t want to make another blunder because I probably already made one earlier in this podcast but I think Thomas Bjorn or Ernie they finished second. um might not have been Thomas Bourne, it might have been Gimenez, but whoever finished second at um Pebble in 2000 said, “Yeah, we uh we finished tied first in that event.” And Tiger Woods was playing a different golf tournament because he won by 15. Um and yeah, I think the winning margin cuz that essentially tells you like relative to the rest of the field how how much better you were playing. Whereas, okay, you can shoot you can go and shoot 20 under. But if second place was 19 and the two people, you know, tied third on on on 18 or whatever, then clearly the course was playing easy. I think here, you know, DJ won by five, which is pretty dominating. Uh, it’s pretty um decent margin of victory in a major. But, um, no. Yeah, it was funny actually, wasn’t it? Seeing the handover ceremony or the presentation ceremony rather when when Tiger was there witnessing, you know, um Fred Ridley and Jim Nance talk about DJ setting the scoring record and you’d love to have known what was going through his head there. Um but yeah, I don’t know. I think there’s a lot kind of Yeah, I mean he won by a healthy margin. It’s not a woods 97 destro destruction is it? It’s not kind of you know how many shots you say Tom in 97 12 shots. We’ve obviously done your research for this pod. Um by the way Bruce you are spot on. It was uh it was Gimenez Ambjorn 2000 USA but I didn’t want to stop you flow. Obviously I knew that stuff off the top of my head. Fantastic. Um no facteing on this part. There was some other pretty good highlights I thought to to the year. I thought um to um to the Masters Road the um I mean we it would be remiss not to say what an absolute beast Langer is. Do you not watch that and just think Yeah. This is ridiculous. Like it’s absolutely ludicrous. The fact that he can go out there and shoot that like and the guy just looks dialed going about his business. He’s like yeah talking about being 63. He’s like, I’m still trying to win this thing. Like, you know, it’s medical. Yeah. I mean, I He’s never going to win it. I I don’t even You know what I mean? Focused, isn’t he? It’s not He takes pride in in making the cut and actually turning in his best performance. Um I don’t know if he said thinks he can win it. But yeah, what is remarkable is that um it’s a course, it’s an event that you can really just manage your way around and and you know it’s not stupidly long or penal off the tea box. Um so that maybe plays into people like Langanger’s hands. It certainly plays into someone’s hand like Woods who is such an artist with with the iron play. Um, and maybe you’d have lost a little bit of that there with it being softer and it being more towards a kind of target golf where you could just throw it in there and stop it and not worry about those slopes as much. I think in April maybe the guys who are the better the iron players, a lot was made of JT going into it, how he would probably have a good tournament because he’s so good in his approach play. Maybe that was neutralized a little bit by the fact that uh it was playing softer and DJ, not to take anything away from him. I mean, you know, he is as close to the full package as I think you can get on tour nowadays. But if there was one thing that was maybe uh he’s not quite as good at when you look at someone like Rory who’s a similarly high club head speed player is DJ doesn’t hit the ball miles up in the air because he plays with such a shut face at the top or delofted face at the top. So yeah, it’s again it just goes back to that point about November Masters. Maybe it’s it’s different in a few in a few ways in terms of identifying the best players in certain categories. JT never looks lethal though, does he? Whenever you see him up near the top in a big event, I never sit there and think he’s not seriously going to go and win this. It’s not part of the plan for him. He’ll just sort of like drift away quietly in his own. He’s kind of like almost that Ricky Fowler scenario. I know that’s I don’t know. I think he was shooting like lights out for for one day and then he just couldn’t really find it. I know the guy’s a good golfer. I’m just being a bit controversial here though, right? But you know, you I never see him and think this guy is just going to absolutely destroy the field here. He’s going to bring the course to its knees and he’s going to eclipse the entire field. He’s always sort of feels like I don’t know whenever I see him now. I never thought the person I was genuinely rooting for with two people probably that I thought were probably going to give him a good run was um Sunjm and and Cameron Smith. I mean Smith put on an absolute stripe show on the pretty much every every nine. Just before we move on to just before we move on to Smith though because I’m not quite done with Langer. I mean I did tweet about this. Um if he got up there genuinely if he got up there you know on a Saturday is someone going to call it he has though. He’s been he was up there in contention in 2016 Mills. But if he’s clearly anchoring I mean I’m I’m doing this on screen. No one can see me but like I don’t I thought the rule was there had to be daylight between chest and putter. I mean, but there’s shirts in there and there’s shirts there in the way. And he’s he’s not he’s winning on Champions Tour as well. Don’t forget he’s winning literally every PGA Tour Champions event going. I don’t know. I can’t comment on the I’ve also I’ve also heard that people have have refused to sign his card on the Champions Tour. Why? Conjecture. Because of the anchoring. Yeah. I mean, that’s that that your credible source there is someone who replied to a tweet, I think, Tom. No, that’s I’m not. That’s where I heard it. Can we just Can we just go? I mean, let’s just let alone a court of law. Can we start to dial in a on what anchoring means and b whether Langer is anchoring and if he’s anchoring then surely other players out there as well. Bruce, you are itching to tell us about anchoring. I’m not that bothered about the anchoring thing. I just want to jump in with a sort of point of order about Mills saying if he’s actually up there. Langanger was tied third. um at the third round in the third round of the Masters in 2016 when Willlet um ended up going on he ended up going on and winning that one. Um so I think he’s already been up there at a point in time where if anyone was going to call him on it, they probably would have. So yeah, I don’t I can’t say I’ve scrutinized it closely enough. B. But Bryson again though, when you say it it can’t be, you know, anchored to any point of the body, like I don’t know if Bryson having the shaft going the whole way up his arm, up his forearm, isn’t it? Yeah. Within the spirit. So maybe they’ve just gone soft on it, but you know, in a game where one of the hot topics is about increasing participation and making it making it welcome to all. I don’t know if we’re just getting lost in the Yeah, but hang on. I think that’s an easy cop out to me. That is an easy cop out. How many beginners do you know are turning up with broom handle putters and trying to anchor them into their chest, Bruce? I mean, it’s hardly the most in it’s not the most intuitive way to hit a golf ball, is it? No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying there are bigger fish to fry in terms bigger issues on the table. If if the man’s that brittle that he has to anchor the flat stick to to get his way around a golf course. So, I just think fair enough. Well, I I kick this off hang on by saying the guy has played really good. Isn’t it great? Isn’t it great to see Langer playing great golf in the Masters at the age of 63 and Mills as and and you Bruce, you’re both as bad as each other after get us bogged down in this protracted rules debate and starting to dissect the minus shot. I for one I’m happy Lang’s had a good week. Um I don’t think it makes much difference. I think if he’s taking it’s a victimless prime as well, isn’t it? Anchoring on the PJ champion. There is a victim where you victim like Phil Mickelson with like 100 million in career earnings and stuff. So, no, there is a victim and the victim is poor old Webb Simpson. He’s the victim in all this. He parted so well with a with a with a broom handle and then you just went off the boil for three years. Scott’s gone back to be fair. Okay. Well, we’re going to I’m going to move us on from this. Well, can I just drop one little bit of wisdom in there, though, because I’d rather you didn’t, Bruce, to be honest with you, but yeah, you say it doesn’t make a difference. Um, and I said that as well. The one slight issue and obviously being familiar with the Augusta Greens having been a past champion there and getting to play this event every year etc. this plays into it but Langanger did um gain 9.46 strokes on the field putting at the Masters. So take that away. Um that’s that’s pretty punchy. second only second only to Cam Smith who again I I don’t mean to be uh particularly bullish or or just you know nit nitpicky here or smart Alec but you said he was you said he was putting on a stripe show earlier Sam that’s categorically not true the guy was the guy was just blazing it all over the park and just getting up and down from everywhere so 20 2012 or whatever you talk about just an unbelievable putting exhibition the one thing that was very nice to the at the Masters was I think maybe for the first time ever cookie jar golf’s influence starting to have an effect on the way golf is broadcast across the world. Did you guys spot this? Well, the jacket’s green like the cookie jar color or Well, no that as well, but I think maybe we’re secondary chat. Can you Did you spot it? Take that out. Was it the drone? There was a little drone. I was I’d say I was a They’ve always had the blimp. I just thought there was some nice arty camera angles going on out there. Um, and and I thought it was just it felt like a little bit of an Eric Anders Lang film being interspersed into a high quality tournament. I did hear Yeah, I did hear Tiger say in an interview. He’s like, “It’s really different.” Yeah. Yeah. It’s really different this year. Um, because he’s like, “Usually I can hear the roars.” He’s like, “Usually I can hear the roars from the next green, but all I can hear is the drone buzzing above my head. Um, I did like the drone footage. I thought it was um, it brought a new perspective to things. I don’t think they pro as the players probably appreciated it cuz those things do make a racket. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. I I I would agree that there was whizzing around. Well, there was they were flying it constantly back down 16th, which obviously you’ve got the 15th green because it’s got the the pond at the rear, isn’t it? And the and the pond at the front of the green. and they were pretty close to where they’re putting. And I was thinking, considering we do that when we go and play golf courses, I’m not sure I’d want to be stood on the final round on, you know, four holes in trying to hole something and I got this thing buzzing away. Well, yeah. I mean, on that note, on that note, Mills, No, I’ve got a good one here. I mean, when I’ve opened up the eight shot wound on Sam through the front line of Castle Stewart and he he then nearly throws his his wedge into the Murray Estesty after Mills gets the drone a little bit too close to him and says, “For God’s sake, Mills, I’m trying to play golf here.” You know, if Sam finds it that bad in a little sort of bounce game between me and him on tour in Scotland a few weeks back, God God only knows what these That drone was stupidly close on Castle Stewart. It was so close. It was literally impeding my follow through at one point. It’s no bloody wonder I a huzzle rocket. Can we move on past my own shanks? Because I haven’t played golf for a few weeks and I haven’t actually thought about it to be fair. Um Tom, what were you going to say? Hopefully it was something informative and witty and not about me. I believe the the shot the camera on 16th was on a wire. Bloody hell. There were drones there, but I think they they’d introduced something called a fly cam down 16, which was a camera on a wire from top to bottom. um which is where I was going with it. So, they can’t blame their shanks on that, but they were drones. Who’s gonna have a run then at um who’s gonna have a first run at Bryson’s past 67 chat then? Cuz there’s no way we’re getting off this pod without discussing this, is it? Let’s be honest. So, who’s going to have a run at it first? I’ll crack into it first. Okay. First of all, like you said earlier on, it was it was always going to happen when it was so hyped up and so Bryson heavy. were going into it. He was never going to walk it. Second of all, I think I I kind of sympathize with him in a way because lots of players think it. I’m sure Rory Mroy goes out there and thinks the third is almost drivable and all the par five is getable. So, in my head, I should be playing this like a 67. And I sympathize with Bryson in a way because we want these players to be open and honest and we want them to come out and be a show a bit more personality and be a bit more relatable. And Bryson’s come out there and just said what probably many other people are thinking and because he didn’t achieve it, he’s been shredded. And I kind of feel sorry for him. I don’t know. That’s a pretty yourself in the first place. I think there Yeah. And and I think Tiger, to be fair to him, again, I’m very conscious that I might be dropping my third real clanganger of this pot, but I don’t think Tiger back when he was winning, would go out and just set himself up for failure in the way that Bryson has and a lot of other people have. I mean, there were guys like Rory Sabatini who were saying that they were going to take down Tiger back in, you know, 2006 78 or whatever and then they would look like the idiots when he just kind of stayed quiet and went about his business and then he’d have a chuckle with him after. You know, the classic was the Steven Ames thing where Steven Ames said, “Yeah, Tiger’s hitting it all over the place in the WGC.” And Tiger didn’t say peep then just went and rolled him nine and eight and said, “Yeah, taught that taught that guy a lesson.” And that’s kind of what Bryson should have done if if I’m being honest is I think if he was more mature, he would have just said, “Yeah, I like my chances.” Kept it all kind of pretty reasonable and quiet and then gone and opened up a wound on the golf course and and if he’d have won the green jacket then then he could have talked about it after. But yeah, I just think it’s trash talking in golf just don’t really go together. It’s not a good look, is it? That’s the truth. Yeah. You But and and it’s all for like I’m all for saying like they want to be relatable. I want him to kind of The nicest part was seeing DJ kind of getting choked up doing a speech cuz it was like yeah that really meant something to the guy considering he’s such a steely kind of ice cold warrior when he plays. That was nice to see. I don’t think that means Mills running your mouth and saying how you going to bring a golf course to it before you’ve gone and played 72 holes of of kind of intense championship golf. I mean I want to be real but I’m not going to stand on the tea and say look I’m just going to bring this thing to its knees. I mean, I’m playing this as a 64. You boys are playing a different game to me. Which is basically what he did when he when he and in his defense though, in his defense, he did say it’s going to come down to chipping and putting um which, you know, was was a bit moderation, but yeah, I think as the media does and maybe part of it was his own fault in that the balance was overwhelmingly towards yeah, like I’m going to be able to play this golf course in a way that it’s never been played before. I thought the the most bizarre thing about it was how bad his wedge play appeared. I mean, just the fact that he flirted with the cut even right down to his 36th hole where he smoked a drive up there and then just airma nailed the green with a wedge. Yeah. I mean, how far away was his wedge shot? Was his approach shot? It was just broken 150, was it? Okay. Yeah. Which is nothing for him for him. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I think he may, who knows, maybe he comes back in April and and plays really well. It’s very hard to say whether this strategy is going to pay off on the basis of such a small sample size, but but it’s it’s interesting because he did say he came out and said, “I’m going to on the 13th I’m going to fly those trees and I’m going to play it from the 14th fairway.” I mean, he’s dead driver down there. He didn’t get anywhere near didn’t get anywhere near but I thought Augusta looked I mean this is typical armchair pundit Sam comment coming here so you can take me down for this one I didn’t I thought Augusta felt long this tournament it felt it felt long it felt for someone who’s watched the Masters and never played golf there for most of his most of his life it felt long and I’m saying that Because I just remember seeing a lot of long irons and thinking I just remember seeing Antser hitting like threewood into is it the um well Tiger hitting 3wood into 15 or five into 15 or something like that. It was like Christ this is long and then there’s obviously no run on the ball but the course and maybe that was a mix of you know kind of heavy ground um probably a little bit of slightly colder air temperature. Um, I don’t know whether there was CO up there in the air as well, but there was something slowing the ball down. Well, they were they were all still in t-shirts, weren’t they? But I guess we didn’t see a little bit cooler though, isn’t it? It’s not as just before Well, we touched on CO. I mean, and we can’t move on just yet from the Bryson chat. Did you hear that? That when he after he only just made the cut on Friday, they were like, “Oh, Bryson, well, you’ve obviously not brought this course to its knees. You know what’s going on?” He’s like, “Well, I’ve just gone for a COVID test. I don’t feel I don’t feel great. How did it come back? Yeah, it was negative. But we must have Yeah, I’ve got something. Testing issues. I mean, it’s straight out the Jason Day Chambers Bay Handbook, isn’t it? Oh, okay. Maybe I think I think Jason Day’s genuinely got diagnosed vertigo there, so maybe we don’t want to take shots at him. Sorry, Jason, if you’re listening to this, we’d love to have you on the pod. And if you want to talk about your vertigo, then that’s fine. Sam Sam’s just totally trivializing it. Bryson though. Yeah, I think there was a bit of you I just played really badly and maybe I need to maybe I need to think of a reason. I mean Tiger and Rory did it as well. I remember they both I think in in different years they both withdrawn from the players citing toothache or something. So yeah. Yeah. Maybe next time I snap hook one up in the medal I might just blame uh blame co on What I would say though is to tie in a few different bits and bobs from different pods is loose stagna after the US Open said that the the long long rough at courses isn’t going to penalize the long hitters and the only thing that can neutralize long hitters is trees and he said that because you can’t hit through trees and you have to plot your way around the way the course dictates the way and I wonder whether Augusta is just one of those courses that’s so heavily treelined that he can’t just blast his way through it cuz if he finds a tree or an object like that then he kind there’s that and heavily soden ground short left of the third. Part of me wondered if Zack Johnson had gone out moonlighting with a hose the night before that round and just thought if I can if I can get this ground absolutely saturated by the time these balls are landing these boys are never going to find them because it that thing must I mean it must be about 6 ft below the ground. I mean they were looking for it but if it’s gone into the you could hear it on the TV. It was so wet and that genuinely genuinely stuffed them I think didn’t it? I mean 10 10’s a hard hole for them at the best of times but those balls are coming in with snow on them off the tenth T and every single one the the players most of the time unless they stuck it right on the right hand side of the fairway they were all hitting scalpy sort of like you know mud balls as they were calling them and I think it was true the balls were landing and they’ve got you know half a pound of sod on them. Oh they got like a pound of sod just lying on the side of the golf ball. I mean it doesn’t inspire confidence from 220 does it? Quite memor quite memorable in that respect though isn’t it quite quite memorable masters in just that respect though in that you know we watched the world number two whilst he was right in the mix just hit a stone cold top mud ball 3-wood on the eight and then we’ve watched one of the hot favorites lose a drive two yards off the fairway also because he’s embedded it. I’ll tell you what and this is what win for golf is about. This is why winter golf’s fantastic. It’s a brilliant leveler. Um anyway, moving on. They’re placing at Augusta. We not We’ve not done play No, I shouldn’t say in a British accent. It’s incredible. The uh the other thing just on the course was there was a few camera angles that weren’t the most flattering. Now, you know, we’re always we always talk about this on the pod. You know, golf is not a gardening experience. Augusta, as fantastic as it is, does sometimes set a slightly false expectation around golf courses. But then there was a few camera angles where it’s obviously heavily shaded ground. And I thought, this definitely does not look like the Augusta. No one ever said it on the commentary for fear that someone with a green jacket would have just come up with a sort of uh clawform over the hand handkerchief and just sort of pulled them out of the out of their job. But that was Did you not see that? There was like the back of the 12th green I think 13th T some of it looked like um I mean I’m not going to so go so far as to say local municipal but it did look patchy and that’s not through any other reason other than the fact they moved it to a time of the year when the course would have only just opened for play but I thought it was quite a nice um moment of realization for people that you can’t have verdant green grass on every inch of the property 12 months of the year. Good recovery there Sam. I think your Augusta invite may just still be I’ve walked it back sufficiently. I’m learning. I’m learning. I walked it back. Well, no, I mean I think you’re right though. Like, you know, there are a few tea boxes. I think 17 was probably the first time I noticed it. The 17th T box where it just looks a little bit bare on the tea. Um, and that’s because they obviously burn the grass off. um all our listeners will know this because they’re obviously very educated but those who don’t um if because they just because they just burn it off from is it April couple of weeks after the masters is usually held or May they just burn off the grass right through the summer and then they overseed it I think September time maybe September October time um and that’s obviously you know the course will be coming back into shape now um but with that deluge of rain that they had on Thursday and maybe even earlier in the week um over those kind of bare patches and the Bermuda grass as well kind of creep creeps through a little bit and yeah, it just doesn’t look as as as lush and verdant as you said Sam as it does in April. But um I didn’t know if Woods was going for a head greener job or something, but there was an awful lot of aronomy discussed whenever Woods was interviewed. Did anyone else notice that? Yeah, it just makes me level the rye bermuda sort of, you know, sandy and acidic. It was all coming out of his mouth at Get him on the Get him on the There was a lot of talk. This is This is coming from someone who has no idea about different grasses, but there was a lot of talk about why the mixture of rye and and Bermuda would make such a pickle for chipping. Does anyone know why why this would be? It’s just the way turf reacts, isn’t it? So, you’re talking about rye. Is there ry grass there? I thought it was Don’t try and round to January links Golf on the South Coast again, Bruce. I’m not having that and I like to drop it in every opportunity. Bermuda grass. I think that’s where it rolls up the face a little bit more, doesn’t it? So, I think different types of grass when you hit it, it just becomes you get a very different kind of feel impact. So, so what they’re saying is like two different chips would react differently. Yeah. Basically, it’s like Kuya. It kind of rolls up the face, doesn’t it? Famously. So you’ve got to hit them. You got to hit your chips really shallow on Kikuya. And then Ry and Bermuda are also completely different. I think Bermuda is again it’s quite sort of nappy, quite heavy grass. So you’ve got to you know again there’s a you can’t sort of hit those running shots so well. Um whereas I think rise a finer grass. Yeah. the the the interaction with the leading edge and the bounce of the club I think just varies a little bit from from if we’ve impressed some of our listeners with aronomy there boys and we got out of that one tell you what sir do you think do you think Tiger do you think Tiger blamed his um his 10 on the various types of grass that are knocking about No but there was there was probably more water left of the third green where Bryson lost his than where Tiger put his t-shirt on 12. Um it was it was hard to watch that. It was hard to watch, wasn’t it? To be honest. And look, I don’t know. I wouldn’t I wouldn’t slam the guy for a couple of shots weren’t there. I mean, his first his T-shot on 12 was first class as well. It was a decent shot. Just fizzed. Yeah. Looked like it was And then he fizzed a wedge and Yeah, poor wedge. I think if we I’m going to go on a limb here and just say something slightly outrageous, but I think if we’d have been in that position with the wedge in hand, we’d have actually done a better job because as we No, no, no. You see me play golf. As weaker players, hang on, hear me out. As weaker players, we’re not thinking, “Right, well, let’s just knock this into four or five ft or leave ourselves a putt up the hill to to give ourselves a chance of bogey.” We just be like, “Right, okay, just get this get this on the surface. Get this on dry ground.” Even if you go 20 ft past, whereas pros and certainly someone of his caliber is just not thinking that, are they? So, he’s still being aggressive with the wedge and then he’s razed it back into the the creek again. So, just running with that seven maybe. I think you see more of this at the masters with people compounding a mistake with another mistake for some reason than you would see. Now, I don’t know if that’s the setup of the course or if it’s the moment, but 15’s another great example. You remember Sergio, I think he when he was defending put one in and then reloaded like about 12 golf balls, he pretty much emptied the bag into into the pond, didn’t they afterwards? Yeah. By the end of it, he was just unloading sleeves of them. Just just just just literally dropping them out. that that’s someone who’s never paid55 a Pro V1 right there. But why why do they compound the issue there? Is it because is it because it’s set up, you know, with such precision that any only the smallest miss? I don’t buy that because I don’t I don’t think Augusta is the hardest course those boys play in April, let alone the year. I think it’s it just it just the Greens are slick and they’re very receptive. So, I don’t know. You do see it though and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don’t think you want to overread it too much or or or read into these isolated examples too much. Like, yeah, Sergio made a 11 or 12 or whatever it is a few years ago and Tigers made a 10, but you know, those are isolated instances and they stand out for a reason. I think if you went back and looked at Winged Foot or you went back and looked at the PGA at Hardin Park or the US Open last year, Shikot, wherever, you’d find some absolute horror shows at all those courses. um they just they just stand out because it’s the best players in the world doing it. Yeah. But for those of you who didn’t uh see any Tigers 10 or even any of the shots, you can always go back and relive them on the Masters app, which did you guys get this? I thought the app was amazing. I didn’t download it. No, I just used the website and the leaderboard, but they covered every shot, didn’t they? That’s unparalleled. Yeah. Incredible. It was brilliant. It was really good and I was like dipping in and out of you know you’d look at someone who’s mid table and see what happened with round. I think it’s a really really good thing to have and I don’t bit of split screen action going Sam it can’t be that hard to achieve in a normal PG I know going into our coverage is not always our style but I it can’t be that hard to achieve for PGA Tour stuff like why couldn’t we have all the shots available because they track them anyway for shot link data which gives you the strokes gain stuff so I mean it’s different tech to be fair but yeah but they most of the time they’ve got eyes on most the holes haven’t they yeah but easily without spectators Isn’t it, mate? Far. Yeah, but how many times have you seen a hole in one on the BGA tour where it hasn’t been televised? Patrons. Patrons, mate. You’re a heathen. There’s no spectators at uh Augusta. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. We There’s no There’s no no patrons. Oh, hang on. There’s a man here with chloroform on his handkerchief coming to get Bruce. He’s gone. No, there was a thing on the on the app that you could do which I thought, like you say, it’s so simple. you could pick your favorite players and I had some bets on I had some bets on um KC’s made top five and a few others and you you could just say who you were following and they made you like a televised um grouping so just every time one of your players took a shot it just pinged up on you as something to watch and it was just like it was so quality I thought that’s the way that it’s all got to be moving forward I think I don’t know why they can’t just adopt it everywhere else fair but no app was Oh, the whole thing was good fun when I really enjoyed. Um, do you think it was a different viewing experience without uh zip patrons? Cuz I I think what I noticed most of all this year is you could see other holes in relation to the hole you’re watching, which made it much more, I think, relatable as a golf course. Does that make sense? I thought it made it more interesting. Yeah. You like, “Oh, wow. that that that those are kind of some crossing points. They’re not framed, are they? All of them, the greens, like it’s interesting looking at sites like nine and 18 and the way that there’s very little around there actually playing that in a, you know, if you’re lucky enough to go and play there, which after my comments earlier this podcast sound certainly questionable at this stage, if I ever get the chance, it would be quite a strange experience standing up to like the ninth and the 18th green. There’s very little around it to frame it. you do see a completely different aspect of the um of the course as you go through. Um so yeah, I I subscribe to that. It’s a that’s a fair shout and and quite enjoyable. Nice seeing a few um non-socially distanced patrons out there. Presumably they’re just Augusta National members who just float above it. But there was uh there was like a squad of about hundred that were just hunting on mass, weren’t they? Sort of arm in-armm. Um, and at one point, do you remember the girl who sits behind the 16th Tea? Um, with the flowery dress and the dangly earrings and the massive sunglasses. Um, she sort of like George’s answers to Pat Butcher off East Enders. She sort of like jumped around the make the whole not I have not noticed this. Right. Well, go back and look at any footage of a hole in one last 10 years at Augusta National and you’re going to see her sat there. I’m convinced. Same woman. I’m convinced I saw her in the in the in the small gallery of patrons, but but a lot of the time the the shots were obscured, so I only saw parts of what I thought the clothing that she would typically wear would be sort of a heavily heavily floral patterned jumpsuit or something of that ilk. But um that’s something you’ve got to have a really keen eye for, I think, in this game to be to be thinking about. Probably not something all of our listeners will have noticed. What’s the point of this monologue? It’s an appeal out there. I know it is. It’s an appeal. It’s an appeal out there to the to the girl in the flowery dress because somewhere someone’s gonna listen to this who’s gone, “Yes, I know exactly who that guy Sam’s talking about on this podcast is that woman who jumps around like absolute crazy on about every hole in one for the last 10 years.” Check it out. I I will I will certainly go and check that out. Um we need to start tying this up because it’s getting ridiculous. Very quickly, anyone surprised at Rory being honest? No. sad, isn’t it? It’s tricky. I mean, I don’t want to be too onedimensional with it and say, well, you know, he just bottles it and he’s he’s got the sort of first round kind of jitters because I think that’s a bit simplistic and he’s had a tough restart really um since May June time. He’s not performed as well in any event really as he was doing this time last year or or even sort of January, February, March time. So, I don’t think you can just say, “Oh, if only he’d had a good first round. If he’d shot a four under first round, he’d have been right there with DJ till the end.” It’s like, well, I don’t think the game really works like that. You’ve got to marry sort of technical proficiency in your swing with a relaxed mindset. And the guy has just been honest over the last few weeks. He says like his swing, he just doesn’t feel that comfortable with it. He’s just getting a bit too far under plane and he’s struggling a bit with it. And I guess when the the pressure’s eased off you and you’ve kind of played your way out of it a little bit after the first round, then it’s maybe not a surprise that he goes and frees it up. But yeah, I don’t I don’t I don’t subscribe to the typical pundits answer that um he’s just kind of lost a step mentally. I think he’ll win the Masters one year, but I think he’ll win it in his 40s or something. So, I think it’ll be like um a Darren Clark sort of scenario, you know, written off largely by the golfing media and then come back and surprise because he’s he it’s almost like on these sorts of stages, the more everyone wants him to do it, the less likely he is to do it. Do you know what I mean? He’s almost become a bit of a pantomime character for, you know, here we go, massive tournament. Rory’s just just completely blown it again on day one. But, you know, we all want him to do it. Um doesn’t look likely, does it, at the moment? that you know we all want to be corrected. Well, I think DJ is probably going to win the Grand Slam before Rory or Spith at this rate. I think I heard um I was listening to one of the other less less well-known podcasts out there recently and they were talking about Rory going for the Grand Slam and uh this person goes, “Yeah, but I mean it’s not the real Grand Slam, is it? It’s the career Grand Slam.” And I was like, “What are you on about? I’m not going to say which podcast this was.” And they were like, “Got a name of shame here. Haven’t you know it’s not a proper grand slam if you don’t win them all in the same year. Tiger didn’t do it. Do you know who did? Jack.” And I was like, I there is some really poor quality golfing media out there. Are you smoking? Seriously. Absolutely outrageous. Who was that? And I think Do you just sample the whole marketplace? Sam, I spent a lot of time on this. He’s just trying to work out just trying to work out people who he can slam publicly. Can I just actually just sort of minor point of gossip more than anything that’s maybe only distantly related to the Masters. Um Jack Nicholas’s uh social media has been hotting up recently over the last few weeks posted a nice image a nice image of him in his green jacket at the Masters. I don’t know whether it was from this year or from previous years. Um and for those of you who don’t know, Jack came out um Mr. Nicholas, I should say the honorable um came out a few weeks ago in support Mr. who’s going to be doing the tea off next year. Carry on. He um yeah, he came out in support of um Donald Trump for in the US election a few weeks ago posted a a you know um a few hundred words on his on his grid on his Instagram grid explaining why um got a torrent of abuse from quite a few golfers. Um, and that still still seems to be with him today actually because this green jacket image that he posted yesterday or a couple of days ago, a couple of the comments on there, I mean, they might they were they make for quite um compelling procrastination. If you, you know, got a slow morning at work or whatever and you want to just go through those comments and just have have a giggle at uh at people’s view of Jack Nicholas after he declared himself as a Trump voter is just quite remarkable really. And I’m not giving a view here on on on US politics, but just the fact that people react so strongly to a golfer in the way he voted, I thought was quite amusing. My my personal um Please do personal favorites, Bruce. We all need this. Okay, so this is my my fave my my favorite comment. Um Jack put up a picture of uh him at the Masters saying, “I can’t imagine Sunday of the 1986 Masters without patrons. I don’t know if I could do it.” to a very large degree. The crowd and the patrons are what fueled me on to do what I did, etc., etc. Um, anyway, someone who shall remain anonymous in the comments says, “The stupidity in this comment section reflects the stupidity of Jack’s most Trumpupporting post. We just had 150,000 new cases. Stay home, wear a mask, and shut up, Jack.” Oh, and Nicholas hadn’t actually mentioned anything there really uh about about, you know, the merits of lockdown and COVID and the reaction to it. Just basically said it’s a shame there’s no patrons there, which I think we could all agree with. Um, yeah, there you go. If you want to be lit up, go to Jack Nicholas’s followers. They’ll uh they’ll tort you a treat. And if you want to be taken hideously off topic, listen to the Cookie Jar Golf Podcast. What I really like about Bruce is every week he serves us up with something I can use as a soundbite. It’s without fail. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I can just show you another one here. Um Jack Jack posted a comparison of him and Tiger because obviously, you know, they both ranked 33rd in the world. They were both certain number of shots back after um the second round in their careers. Um so Jack was saying, “Yeah, hope Tiger can do it this year, etc., etc., etc.” Uh DK Y Wong went on and said, “Uh, go home, Jack, and take your Trump endorsement with you.” Genius stuff. Sounds like a good read if you get bored. But until then, I think we’ve only got six months to wait, so we can babble crap until then. But, uh, in the meantime, we’re going to be we’re going to be out content. We are going to be dropping heat onto YouTube now for the foreseeable future. The chamber is full. the Chamber of Secrets is open and we’ll be trying to match that up with some we’ll be trying to match that up with some equally interesting uh podcast content. So until then, it’s been good chatting to you and we’ll speak to you next time. Adios. [Applause] [Music] No way. [Music] [Applause]
