In this episode, Jake returns from a winter break to discuss with Luke the latest happenings in the golf world. They dive into Richard Bland’s recent success in the Senior Majors, Cam Davis’s victory at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, and Min Woo Lee’s strong performance. The conversation covers various tournaments including the LPGA mixed team event, the DP World Tour, and highlights notable players like Akshay Bhatia, Cameron Young, Aaron Rai and Marcel Siem. The duo also touches on future golf events, Jason Day’s potential return to Australia, and the impacts of recent news in the golfing community.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction and Catching Up
00:51 Richard Bland’s Senior US Open Victory
01:53 Rocket Mortgage Classic Highlights
02:19 Cam Davis and Min Woo Lee’s Performance
06:21 Aaron Rai and Unique Sponsorships
07:37 Cam Young’s Struggles to Win
08:48 Akshay Bhatia’s Potential
10:23 PGA Tour and Media Obligations
11:23 DP World Tour and Grandstand Controversy
14:06 US Senior Open and Richard Green’s Form
18:45 Upcoming Events and Player Updates
24:32 Jason Day’s Return to Australia
26:09 Golf and Politics: Handicaps and Vanity
28:02 New R&A CEO and Nelly Korda’s Dog Bite
29:27 Wrap-up and Upcoming Golf Events
welcome back to another episode I’m jakee and with me as always is ly he Jake I’m well good to have you back on Deck after a a mini sort of winter break up in Far North Queensland how was it yep it was very good I’m happy to be back but I’m not happy that the weather is so cold now yeah I’m sure it was hard to leave um those barmy uh temperatures up in Port Douglas was it it was it started raing on the last day that we left so that was good because wasn’t missing too much but yeah it was good that that heat is good this time of year I’d love to have a property up there just spend a bit more time up there it’s hard to get the kids to convince the kids myself and the wife tried to again but we’re not pulling them away from their friendship groups and that’s fair enough sounds like that last day was easing you back into uh Victorian weather yes now a nice busy week we are recording on a Tuesday morning overnight we witnessed Richard Bland wi his second senior major some more bland demonium and um two on the Trot now for Blandy he’s certainly got some rich form happening at the moment in the senior Majors he certainly does he come back from five five back didn’t he so he had a great fun round and Vegeta it was a little bit shaky coming in but yeah when was it so I think it was on KO on our streaming service about 9:30 10 p.m. last night I was in bed after watching a show my wife had gone to sleep and so I pulled out the phone and I was watching them come down the back and I think I got to a whole 14 or 15 before the second time my phone hit me in the head because I was falling asleep so I had to turn off but it was nice to wake up this morning and see that he got it done in that playoff definitely and you feel a little bit for for jeta having a five shot lead evaporate he had his chances though and so we can talk about that in a bit more depth so the rest of the weekend we had the rocket mortgage class classic which was run by Cam Davis with minwu Lee in in a T2 position as well so it’s pretty good weekend for the Aussies and on the DP world to marel seam W in a playoff over Tom McKibbon and on the lpj tour we had a mixed team event wasn’t it team event that’s right with tial and Yin taking out the honors there jump across to the rocket mortgage classic so Cam Davis became this only second or multiple winner of the event itself did you see much of that event I saw a bit of it in the final round and we’ been been talking in previous pods about they not being too much to ride home about with the Aussies form over on the PGA tour so it was great to see both him and wooy minw Lee in contention wooy had his chances to win there and was unable to hold on with a sloppy buggy on 18 he had a share of the lead after a chip in Dr chinsky made a couple of appearances in the final round for minwoo but great to see Cam Davis get the the win he’s been drifting and and a bit lost this season his form hasn’t been great and we saw in the Masters he got a sniff of the lead and really the bed pretty quickly after picking his nose up on that leaderboard so good to see him become the first two-time winner of the rocket mortgage great string to your bow there and there’s a bit of talk around about whether him seeing a hypnotist was the secret to unlocking the win on tour um so far good to see cam get the W both of those two very hard to bet on or to follow because they are they form they’re either hot or cold both of them really aren’t they they don’t generally perform on a really consistent basis they can be streaky and with someone of Davis’s talent look at his swing he’s got great distance his temperament is exemplary you really would expect him to have had more Wis on to it doubling up here in Detroit he clearly loves Detroit golf club and a good one for the Aussies I followed Cam Davis around at the Sout Classics I I follow him around Peninsula Kingswood one thing i’ ever heard him saying because with that particular event you can get in there’s no ropes so you can follow and watch them from behind MH he’s allergic to Grass he said he was allergic he said in particular um sand belt grasses so was there think you had to borrow some Andy means from one of his competitive players there but I thought that was pretty interesting I don’t know if if that’s something that has been discussed before but yeah he’s allergic to Grass as a golfer talk about an occupational hazard and maybe his move to the PGA Tour over in the US is a bit better than staying on Australian courses but I’m sure it’s more the money that’s drawn him over there than the grass say yes I think you’re right there now mined good result T2 or would he be disappointed in the fact that he bogied that last disappointed and you could see that with the final H bogy and also in his post round interview but I think he will be still pleased that he had a chance of winning and that he was at the point end of the leaderboard also good form going into the Scottish open which he’s won before along with the Open Championship so trending in the the right direction and let’s hope he can find that consistency that we want to see from him because if he’s able to drive that consistency I think a top 10 player in the world certainly on his day he can beat anyone I think someone they can follow a little bit is someone like Lucas Herbert who has also had that sort of streakiness to his game he seems to be like it’s a bit of a slow grind for him he hasn’t been amazing all year on LIF but he seems to be finding a bit more consistency so hopefully those guys follow Cam Davis is a little bit more surprising given he’s been on tour for a lot longer than even both of those two but yeah minu is is super exciting if he can find that consistency it’s an interesting comparison you draw there with Herby and and maybe there are some more similarities similar attributes to the two there they’re definitely excited to see minwoo in the next few weeks driving for that consistency should see some pretty good results I’d imagine Aaron Ry was another good finisher so he was also T2 what stands out for viewers watching him really is the fact that he wears the two for me he’s been I guess outside of the states we get to see a little bit more of these type of players because we watch a little bit of the DP World Tour an interesting thing I think with him is that he’s sponsored by me and my golf which the YouTube’s first golf coaches so that I think that’s quite interesting that we’re starting to see YouTubers sponsor professional golfers it is an interesting development but I just can’t have Aaron Ry I can’t get on board it’s the two gloves it’s the slow Play It’s the iron covers all of it I’m just out what about the driver off the deck yes I did like that so credit wear credits due the driver off the deck I think to reach the 14th power five 14th in two was ballsy and I did love that but I can leave the rest of it I love it I I love the driver off the deck I use it everywhere down here we got firm Fairways and generally my Miss is generally right but with the driver oh you could with the three-wood I should say you can sometimes snap it both ways the driver it’s either straight or it’s just licking off to the right or it’s topped and it runs a mile anyway with these firm Fairways we have down here you got got all the shots cam young now is he if going to win I’m shocked that he hasn’t I think he’s probably more shocked than anyone else it is crazy to think that he’s not had a win on the PGA tour he’s been so close to winning Majors but he hasn’t been able to get it done in a regular Tour event he gets this sniff or of Victory but he just doesn’t seem to be able to close it out at Rocket mortgage he faded in that final round and you’d have to think that the self-doubt is certainly strong he must be questioning when am I going to win one of these things he falling into that bucket maybe not as Elite as someone like a pat Klay I think he’s certainly got the game to be maybe better than Klay he he really has the shots it’s just a matter of putting it all together at the right time I do think it’s going to come he too good a talent not to get one but it’s amazing that he just hasn’t got one so far and another punch to the gut for cam young this week certainly was batia continuing to be impressive in a really Purple Patch at the moment we concerned about baa not closing it out this week and obviously last week at The Travelers is it something to be concerned about do you think personally not he he’s so young he’s got the two wins already and he’s putting himself into position position really it’s probably just an experience gathering in terms of that is going to affect him but it look it’s just I think I’m just building on it and looks like he’s learning I’m with you on that I don’t think there’s anything to be concerned about with ax in fact I think there’s lots to be excited about the form that he’s shown so far this year you can’t win them all unless you’re Scotty and so I don’t think there’s anything concerning in any of that and expecting to to continue a good trajectory M now he was able to front the media as well after that devastating loss he was and I noted that in the shank sh Show news letter this week saying maybe Rory could take some cues and some notes from The Young a two and a half minutes in front of the media and away he goes Rory didn’t give that there looked to be on X this morning there’s a few people journalists in particular that seem to be delivering Bobs without actually mentioning mroy Dan rapid do you think gutless by those guys if you if you’re thinking it say it I think so you wonder whether they’ve got some relationships there that they need to protect they might not get the interview or they might not get the inside scoop if they burn too hard or too overtly but in some respects it’s almost worse isn’t it by giving the subtext but not actually calling it out directly I think it’s great to see that he fronted the media and it is I think this is a problem with the PJ t or major in particular because players aren contracted they don’t have to sit get up in front of the M which is where someone like maroy was able to get away with it but that’s an advantage I think of that the live model the contracted player model and I’d hope Tod love to see as we’re moving into sort of reforming the pga2 and reshaping it that they can introduce contracts because the amount of money these guys are earning and the fact that it is an entertainment product they should be fronting the media even if you don’t like it being eared an entertainment product you have to accept that fan engagement is a way forward to drive more demand and then drive the commercial terms that the investors and sponsors and governing bodies all want to see I think having them on stage particularly in those it’s great drama it’s great theater and it drives engagement let’s jump across to the DP World quickly wasn’t much going on there except really maybe on the 18th how close those grand stands were backboarding Scandal I’m sure that the uh shotgun start hosts and and Tron Carter from nlu will have been rightly outraged but it is ridiculous to see a grandstand literally one foot off the back of the green and then players who just blaze it into those grand stands getting free relief it really brings the ti rule back into question again but also organizers what are you thinking putting those grand stand so close maybe there’s some challenges or restrictions that the course geographically had to be able to put those but it just looked totally ridiculous it did he dropped onto the green like he was able to take a drop onto The Fringe but was essentially he he had the putter in hand so it was essentially a putt I think the way these guys need to they’re going to be putting in stands like this I can understand that in certain situations they need to it’s hard for them it’s not ideal because of the backboarding for these drops at least they need to implement or employ the RNA type of model don’t they where you’ve got a drop zone and the drop zone is not somewhere you want to go by choice I think that’s right A Drop Zone that’s got some penal nature to it is what we should be seeing not being able to drop it on the green or thereabouts there has to be some penalty for an errant shot and when you’re flying it into the grandstand on the full that is deserving of a penalty it certainly is anything else from the Italian Open not for me a good win by Marcel seam and probably good form for him going into his hom ground tournament this coming week he’s good to watch marel because he’s so animated he’s an Entertainer that’s for sure can’t believe putting this much focus on the US Senor open the fact we’re doing that is probably related to the live of PJ to us competition really for me watching live and being able to root for those players is the reason I turned on the Senior Open like I watched it purely to see how bland you went isn’t that a lesson for the organizers and owners of these Majors that people who would not have been tuning in are tuning in because there’s a rivalry now between PGA Tour and Liv and their supporter bases it’s visceral at times that rivalry and leaning into it and having more of these players be able to participate is a good recipe in my view from an Aussie perspective Richard green finished third so he’s in great form as well because he finished second at the PGA I believe as well he did and so he’ll be really pleased with that result the other Aussies were further down in terms of hensby and Applebee Greg Charmers Etc Richie green continuing his good form and that’s great to see he has that body shape or the physical attributes of someone who can play for a long time they’re very similar to Stricker that tall relatively lean he’s got a bit of muscle on him still so you’d expect that he’s probably going to be relatively if not dominant he’s going to be competitive for quite some time still on that tour and that’s probably half the battle in in that senior’s category is if you can maintain your Fitness and remain injuryf free that’s a really significant advantage and and if you’ve kept the weight off and kept relatively active outside of golf it’s probably standing you in in good stead the US Open the Senior Open is going to some pretty good venues over the next few years we’ve seen this a little bit with the women’s side of the game as well they’re able to play courses a little bit smaller like shorter in length maybe some of the older sort of classical style courses so that for me is the one interesting aspects moving forward being able to see some of the best courses in the world just because that we don’t really get to see any more with the professional sort of game the distance they’re hitting it and and whatnot at the moment I think the USGA has been doing a really good job in its course rotations and US Senior Open is off to some great venues and equally the US Open has got an absolute botler set of courses locked in for the next 25 years it’s great for golf fans and great for the players too to be able to get to these awesome venues yeah even uh Blandy we spoke about it a couple weeks ago I think it’s probably a good time to to discuss it again should he be playing the the Senior Open which is coming up against the Liv UK event I feel like last time we we said it was a good thing for Liv to lean into and I think his win on the weekend only emphasizes that point even more I saw Andrew Kirby on X saying that if someone wins at TR that’ll be four Mages in a row and then if there was Carusi as well it’s a a great run for Live players but I I don’t think anything’s changed in my view what about you I went through a stage after we initially discussed it where I think I heard him say somewhere potentially that he was focusing on keeping his spot on live I thought it was in a flushing it a podcast with him recently so I went back this morning to see if I could get that snippet he didn’t say that so I think he’s fairly confident that he’s going to be able to keep his position on live or reach that top 24 to lock up his guaranteed start next year I think it’s a win-win situation for everybody involved he should be playing it’s going to produce a lot more promo for Li um releasing him for the RNA as well you’ve got someone going for three Majors on a trot so I think that’s beneficial for their coverage as well lots of publicity around around it and and my sort of sense on it is that much will come down to what Blandy wants to do people might say that’s an ie View and that there’s contracts and they’ll be enforced Etc but I really get the sense that live and particularly Norman have this player first approach and they really treat the players like a big family and maybe if Bland’s really hellbent on playing the Senior Open championship Norman will permit it but time will tell I think it’s a win situation and let’s hope we see it I think just on that just in terms of setting a precedent this is quite easy just do what tiger does so all you have to do is create that slot for a senior duel major Winer on a TR it gets a release to play the third major just carve out a niche exemption that no one else will satisfy or qualify for and Away you go 8 tour wins and gets you into the signature events for life oh my God this just so crazy why can’t they just come out and say tiger we’ve got an exemption for tiger and tiger alone everyone’s calling it a tiger exemption so they might as well have lent into it as well oh God some of the funny things we see all right events this week we have got the John Deere classic at TPC deun it’s an $8 million purse Cam Davis is back there with Jason day Daniel Berger Jordan SP and sep ster is a defending champion did I see also that pack Haack they pulled out this morning or yesterday I didn’t catch that but we are in a bit of a sleepy stretch of the PGA Tour and players resting up ahead of the travel over to UK for the open and whatnot I was surprised to see the strength of the field to be honest at TPC de run and I think we should still have a decent event with those names Davis day Berger SP Etc let’s hope I wasn’t expecting too much out of the rocket mortgage to be honest and it ended up being a decent event so let’s hope for a repeat of that and the DP will talk at the BMW International open at the Munich Golf Club $2.5 million purse got Ryan Fox martiel Sims back there Rasmus hog guards Mato manaco Luke Donald and then we’ve got the three LIF players Thomas Peters Pat Reed and Martin K maybe we’ll see some decent rivalry coming down the stretch if some of the Live players can make a fist of it Kim’s obviously been in much better form so far this year Peters and Reed on their days they can be right up there as well we’ll see how Marcel seam goes at the event coming off the win and be there in front of a home crowd in Germany these guys playing that may give us a little bit of Hope for Blandy getting the exemption into the open Event yeah earlier in the week I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole I was trying to show you some episodes from an old golf podcast I had back in 2015 and 16 I thought I’d lost it all I thought I deleted everything so I showed you at least some of the guests we had on there then I went down a real rabbit hole and I worked out where I had them saved so we’re going to be remastering those a little bit and popping them on this particular feed but looking at some of the episodes we had on there it’s pretty good so we had people like Peter Finch at the time had about 30,000 YouTube subscribers he’s now up to half a million or there abouts someone like Jamie sadlowski who was come off a long drive championship in that in and around that area as well so I think in all there’s 23 episodes mostly focused on game improvement so I think that’ll be interesting it’s worthwhile even though they’re 8 years old there’s some pretty good content in there still looking forward to being able to release some of this content on the channel and on the Pod I think there was some really great stuff that you were able to uncover pretty successful treasure hunt for you during the week and I’m glad you’d taken some time off to celebrate your 40th which gave you a little bit of spare time to get into it I know yeah look at a few of the other things from the week in golf we had news there that Chambers Bay was it the council or the area Council or whatever it was had said they’re open to discussions from Liv that would be exciting it would be exciting and we used previously some of the areas where Liv can make some improvements and certainly course selection is one of those if they were able to get Chambers Bay on their schedule for next year I think that would be a massive coup for them I think that to me we spoke about the competing events coming up against the PJ T Signature Events in and around those Mages as well this would be to me the perfect event leading into the US Open or the week before the US Open being on the the West Coast that puts them into different time zone so it allows them to get out of PGA tour’s way a little bit and not directly compete courses is Sensational it’s a real challenge for those guys and it’s different as well so it allows them to play a different style of course we don’t even see that on live at the moment there really isn’t a course like that really so it’d be great to see them playing no it would definitely be a a very different event for live where you’re not seeing the standard round one the leaders or at six or seven under and then you finish up Circa 20 under or maybe a bit less over the three rounds but you’re not going to see that at Chambers Bay and that would be just a really good slice of variety to throw into the live schedule I went back and watched the 2015 US Open final round after hearing that news my God that was such a good event there was so much action coming down that back nine there was and I I watched a little bit of it must have been on the dedicated foxtail channel in the leadup to the US Open just gone and I did watch some of it as well and one of the things that it reminded me of was just how much of a baller Jason day was in his Peak and the swing and the just the ball striking from him was incredible he was probably unlucky not to win that one and also obviously the DJ choke was another key moment there but it just really did remind me of how awesome Jason day was in full flight back in the day that was really probably the start of his run that dominant period so he come out and finished I think it was second or third in the open which was I think we had J day and spe I think were paired together and they both had a chance to match Zack Johnson on the 18th they hit up to the front of the the green on the old course there and both had putts or a chip to try and force a playoff so that was spi’s third major on a run he was going for they’re very much like Richard blance while we’re on the topic at J day I see reports that he’s looking at coming back to Australia at the end of the year I was shocked to to read that his kids have never seen Australia which just uh mindboggling to me but he wants to take them back to his roots back to Bay desert which is not far from where I am in Brisbane here it’s about 45 minutes out of Brisbane and he played a lot of his golf at coralan and also the hills look I I hope we see Jason back and if we do see him back I really hope that he plays the Australian PGA and the Australian Open if there is to be one if there is to be one I was very surprised with that that as well because um his son his oldest is close to 13 or 14 or something that’s right Das that’s crazy that’s crazy and Aussie doesn’t yeah I don’t know I can understand his wife is over there but just not to come back really with the family do you think he feels any sense of obligation having been picked for Australia at the Olympics to maybe make a token return if he felt any sense of obligation have been back way before now yeah I just wondered whether maybe being in an olympic year it may have changed his thought process I remember back to one of the other Olympics where he withdrew because there was zika virus I think it was Brazil there was zika virus and so that was his excuse for withdrawing but now representing his is a very fine honor uh listen there’s probably a higher likelihood that he’s had a falling out with tiger and so he’s not going down to the Bahamas he’s not going to the hero oh goodness we had the presidential debate Biden and Trump that the most animated saw Trump was when Biden said he was an eight handicapper or a seven handicapper seriously have either of these guys got those handicaps not a chance right this is the whole vanity handicap in full flight in my view I think it’s hard to look the big we’ve got the global handicapping system but just the the different way we play golf I think from my understanding in the states there’s a lot of skimmies and that’s just how they play so you miss those sort of those three four Footers that or even shorter pots here where the majority of handicap rounds in Australia in particular under sort of tournament condition or competition your score is based on getting it in the actual hole and I think a lot of this would be missed really if they weren’t given so I think there’s a just a buil-in sort of vanity aspect in the states in particular yeah but they’re crazy some of the Biden scores were from 5 10 years ago that’s right and then the fact that he’s saying I’ll take you on in a long drive contest any day or said I play golf with you so long as you carried your own bag Trump swing it’s not pretty but pretty effective he looks he’s got a lot of power still for someone who’s 78 if you told me he can scratch it R the course his home course around about 10 I i’ have no problem believing that but what is E3 or something like that there’s just no way he’s playing to three on a consistent basis in my view you won two Club championships this year I did hear him say that and and not even the senior ones it was the the proper ones I think if you look into it I think he’ll tell you he’s W about 27 or something like that the stories of him being a cheated pretty uh prolific aren’t they they certainly are I’d still back him in a long drive contest over sleepy Jo yeah uh Mark Daron is it Daron yeah I think that’s has been appointed the chief executive of the RNA so he’s 45 years old and he was the CEO of the Premiership rugby Northampton Saints so breaking news just out this morning no real comment on that either way I don’t know whether that’ll be a good appointment or a bad appointment probably bringing someone in laterally outside a golf given the current state of affairs is probably not a bad thing to have some lateral thinking that’s what we’ve been calling for from these organizations and to break free of the group think and the echo chambers that we’ve seen so hopefully it’s a good appointment he can bring a bit of Youth and a bit of Forward Thinking to the RNA and maybe really a refreshed approach to things Nelly quarter was due to playing a Le event but was a bit by a dog announced on Instagram via a statement that she’d been bitten from a dog she had to pull out of an event at Centurion and that she needed some time to recover which were then swiftly followed by posts of her on the beach and doing various other fun activities not sure where the dog bite was but didn’t seem visible in the beach shots are you saying this is a bit like the dog at the homework situation I’m not saying anything but that’s a good joke that’ll do us this week thanks for everybody for listening along and we look forward to being back next week or we’ll cover off all things golf I think it’ll be another uneventful week because we’ve got a month or two coming up afterwards this is really it after this week that’s right we’ve got Majors we’ve got Liv coming back into the fold Scottish open always a good one so a good stands ahead for for golf lots for us to talk about we will catch you again next week
