2025 Charles Schwab Challenge Preview – Hold The Green
[Music] [Music] This episode of Inside Golf Podcast is brought to you by Inside Sports Network. What’s up everybody? It’s uh your boy Boston Capital Steve on the Hold the Green podcast. All right, we are live. Tap in Birdie. All right, Carson Young is here. I bet love at 28. Let’s go. I bet I bet I bet him at 25. Low sevens. I think there’s some guys in here we like. Harris at 7300. I love Brian Harmon at 3 and a half% this week. [Music] What’s up, guys? It’s producer Cam here. Isn is now partnered with Shorties Golf. Shorties Golf is designed to provide kids with the perfect introduction to the game of golf by offering highquality clubs and equipment specifically tailored to their need. They offer custom sizes for various age groups, ensuring that the kids have clubs that are tailored to their height and strength. They feature fun, vibrant colors, and lightweight standbags that are easily adjustable. Each set features real stainless steel clubs, high-quality materials, and sturdy construction, making them long lasting while providing a real golf experience. So, go check them out. Golfshorties.com. Use isn15 at checkout for $15 off your purchase. What’s up, everybody? Hey, it’s your boy Kapper with Twistless Steve doing a little PGA recap and uh going over Colonial for next week of a Saturday in golf with another absolute drip and non-exiting golfer wins. It’s terrible for the sport. Great for the [ __ ] rando old men who fall asleep on the couch at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. But people who appreciate like exciting golf, not so much. Hi, Steve. Hi. I’m glad you’re in a chipper mood. Yeah, I’m I’m glad your wrists uh also are uh intact and uh you know, healthy. Yeah, great. Thanks. You know, yeah, I was worried I was going to this going to be a solo show going forward. Uh you know what? I cash the uh cash your tickets by the way. Um Kapper’s opening line just craps all over Scotty Shuffer about being boring and terrible for the sport. Congratulations to uh all the minus 5,000 betterers uh who thought that was going to be his opening line. Congratulations to you. He’s so boring. Okay. He’s boring. You want to just get off your chest? Get off your chest then. Get off your chest. Why exactly? Am I crazy? Like he’s just boring. Like he he never takes like an exciting shot like ever. Like it’s he luck boxes everything. Which listen I get as Listen, I get as a Patriots fan like this must have been maddening for everyone else because we got all the breaks too. And when you’re winning it just seems like you get all the breaks. Um but my god did he get some breaks this weekend. Look, he clearly dusted the [ __ ] field, right? Like he was going to win winner without those breaks, but he’s just boring, man. Like, there’s nothing exciting. His personality is [ __ ] as vanilla as it comes. His backstory sucks. There’s nothing exciting about that. Uh, he’s milk toast. His golf game is like a robot. He doesn’t show any emotion. He doesn’t make any exciting shots. Whatever. Like, he’s he doesn’t he’s a blip on the [ __ ] like excitement scale. Okay. I mean, when you’re that good and when you basically are just putting every single iron shot to about 15 feet or just when it’s pre predetermined that he’s going to get up and down from pretty much anywhere. Yeah. It’s going to seem boring. It’s not going to be like Jordan Speed where everything is like a a movie. Like, how does the hero get out of this one? You know, you’re just going to boot it around the golf course and doesn’t hit it the longest. But, I mean, I don’t know. Well, I don’t really mind watching that type of golf on my TV. It sucks when he dominates fields. Although, today was interesting. It definitely did not start out well for him. Interesting for 10 minutes. 10 minutes. It was interesting. That’s not true. It was interesting for about it was interesting for about an hour because it was very clear he did not have as good stuff today. At least on the front. He didn’t have as good stuff, but he still had he still had the drivable uh P four and the P five coming up. like when we were thinking that it was going to be anything. We knew it was getting interesting and I put it back on and it was interesting for 10 minutes and I went back to doing my dishes, cleaning my house and had it on the background and made my hard boiled eggs for the week, went to the bedroom, started ironing my clothes because it’s pretty determined outcome and it’s not exciting. Well, I mean, I I think you and I have we’ve obviously covered Scotty for a lot of years now, and the one thing we have noticed is that he can run very hot on the golf course when things start going wrong and things are definitely not, you know, clicking for him. And the front nine, especially with that driver, did not was not going well for him. His iron shots weren’t crisp either. He wasn’t all that great around the GR. Like, he did he had his probably like C minus game. Um, easy. But I mean, he he hit the cat bath and he got an extra 75 yards. Perfect lie. [ __ ] into the trees, perfect lie on the pine straw. Like, it’s just that it’s the Scotty [ __ ] man. It’s just And listen, as somebody who’s never going to bet Scotty at [ __ ] three to one, and I don’t enjoy watching him golf because I think his personality blows. I don’t particularly like him. So, it’s it it makes golf very unfun for me. And so, I was thinking about this. I think I texted it to you, maybe I texted to Tommy. I was like, I don’t know why I like golf. Like I don’t like 90% of the people. I don’t like 90% of the people who play it, right? I don’t like if you think about all the guys I hate. It’s way more that I hate than I like. I hate the coverage. I hate the [ __ ] pundits. This I just like the sport like itself. Like everything else about it. I don’t like I really don’t. Like the coverage is awful. Like ESPN and CBS, what an atrocity. That was an abortion of a [ __ ] of a major. How many vignettes? I mean, I thought that the country club was bad with the one with Fitzy one with all the little cute vignettes they wanted to shove down our throat. Did you know Scotty got arrested? Did you know that? Did you know that guy made t-shirts? Holy [ __ ] [ __ ] Like I like it. I just can’t like with with with the majority of what goes on with this [ __ ] sport. It it it makes me [ __ ] insane. Like I I questioned today like why I like it. Like I really did. Like I was like why do I watch this? Like I just get angry. Well, you like it when your golfers do well. You like it when your DFS lineups cash. You like it when you win outright. That’s basically why you like golf at this point. If golf gambling didn’t I don’t know if this I don’t know if you and I would be do we definitely wouldn’t be doing a podcast because you probably be doing a Patriots gambling podcast over on our other network. So, but my my point with Scotty was we have seen him short circuit on the golf course when things just don’t go his way and he gets kind of the emotions get the best. Oh, he in a mudball this week. Did you hear that? That’s another reason these [ __ ] guys are so insufferable. That’s another that’s another topic. Can I make my point, please? My point my my my my point is the way he self-corrected on the golf course today to get back on track. Like sometimes we haven’t seen that out of Scotty. Like we have seen some meltdowns. Like I’ve been on the wrong end of that stuff when I’ve had bets on Scotty and it just snowballs and snowballs. The problem is we don’t see it all that often because he’s so consistent that when he actually starts short circuiting like what the hell is going on? Which is kind of what happened today. So the fact that he was able to write himself was very impressive. But yeah, like overall like this I’m happy it got kind of interesting with Rom. And we can talk about Bryson a little bit. what could have been. Um, I think after hearing some comments, I have a little bit different take about what happened at the end of Saturday that maybe we can talk about, but listen, he boat raced the fields. Kind of like what we talked about. I was scared of Scotty this week. I had said if I didn’t bet Bryson already, I probably would just single bullet Scotty. And maybe that means to me that’s two straight majors where I wish I didn’t place any future bets in December because you don’t do that anymore. I’m not actually serious, but I’m kind of serious. I’m not happy about it. But yeah, I mean, this is basically what we talked about. There was a lot of weird names to start off the tournament, and by the end of it, the cream rose to the top like every other PGA. And best player in the world won. And at the end, it was best player in the world, top five player in the world, another top seven player in the world, basically duking it out with everybody else kind of just there. So, yeah. Um, yeah. And look, I I um yeah, I I don’t know. It’s uh I guess I guess what everybody said was true other than it wasn’t Rory, it was Rahm, right? It was a three- horse race. So, yeah, Ram, I mean, Christ Rom finally showed up and did something. That’s nice to see for uh for a ROM guy. Like, that made me happy. The US Open coming up. Probably excited about that. Um and what I really liked about him, so I want to hear about what your comments were about like Saturday. Like I don’t I because I can’t stay in golf media. I don’t want listen to a lot of the pressures because I become enraged and my head starts throbbing and it’s either a heart attack or a stroke that’s going to come. Uh so but with Rahm talking about he acknowledged that he has gotten breaks over the years and like that he’s hungry for a major and maybe he’s finally I don’t know come to grips with the decision he’s made and maybe he’s focusing on the golf now. I don’t know. Um I liked his approach and his comments. Anyway, yeah. Um, I mean, I liked his approach on the golf course. Obviously, he played great, but he went for it at the end. I know this impacted a lot of DF I had a lot of DFS lineups because he completely imploded on 17 18, but he knew that he had to make something happen on 17. That was a dangerous pin to go at with that win coming from right to left and that’s not his natural shot shape. Yeah, he took and with that firm green, he had to try and get it close to make something happen and he just overdrew it and that was like it. Yeah. So, you got to think about that, right? You got to think about that sometimes when like you have these golfers. It’s like you want guys who shoot for the pins and then at the end of it like when you’re like, “Oh no, like if he [ __ ] this up, I’m going to lose a ton of money in DFS.” Like it’s a different that’s a different type of feeling. I didn’t have that because I I got six of sixes through in my single entries where it was like less than 3%. And what did I text you earlier? Like the five or six of them went like 14 over, 18 over. I have never run worse. I have never run worse on a weekend where I’ve gotten six through. I was very unhappy. Bunch of spineless losers this whole thing. So I think that’s my main that’s the I guess maybe that’s my main problem with golf, right? So, this generation of just wimpy little [ __ ] like they just don’t know how to win or they don’t care to win. Maybe their bank accounts are too stuffed. Like there’s there’s only a handful of closers. Everybody else a bunch of limp dick losers and they don’t know how to finish. They don’t know how to win. Like, and I sound so old and I used to get I used to get mad when I’d hear certain people talk about but like Nicholas knew how to close. Palmer knew how to close. Tiger knew how to close. Like none of these other guys, like if you have money on these guys, who do you think can actually close it? Who’s going to [ __ ] down their leg? 95 98% of these guys are just going to [ __ ] down their leg. And it’s awful to watch. It’s It’s just like, how are they such mental midgets? All of them. Like the sport as a whole, it’s [ __ ] insane. Well, is it just the illusion of just what golf is? I mean, it’s a 150man field and there’s only one winner. already 99% of the field is going on their legs. And then you just mentioned nobody even put the best players in the world. How many thousands of pro golfers has there been? Like they’re all spineless because it’s just the illusion of just what this sport is. And there’s things that happen that we can’t really perceive. Like for example, I’m gonna we’re going to transition to Bryson now. You and I were extremely upset in the moment of what happened on 17, but and listen, it’s Bryson. You got to just take him at his word. But it was really windy and it was swirling winds. And apparently what happened was as soon as he hit the ball, the wind switched on him and the shot he thought he was going to hit just it didn’t work at that point. He thought the wind was going to help him. It hurt him and he ended up put in the water and like that’s just the sport we bet on, man. C Can I ask you why he didn’t Was he not able to drop over on the green even though it hit on? No, it’s it’s you got to go to the drop zone. Okay. Yep. Okay. You couldn’t do that. Same thing with uh with Rom. He had to go to the drop zone, too. So, um yeah, that’s just it just And then on 18 as well, he was in the bunker and the wind just switched on him. It was coming out of the It was supposed to be coming out of the trying to think of the map left to right and a switch on it came out directly into him. Like yeah, whatever. There are things that happen in this sport where we blame the golfer in the moment and there’s a lot of guys that I bet on that I definitely can blame. Hello, Patrick Hantlay. I’m back in the home. Thank you very much. Um we’ll get to How funny was that text? How funny was that text? I screenshotted you, by the way. That was pretty funny. That was pretty funny. Um, but these are just the things that we think are loser mentality and loser behavior when it really could just be like anything you and I could experience on the golf course. We hit a shot. We’re like, where the hell did that win come from? And took a bad bounce and it just kind of I don’t blame the wind for Bryson losing. I blame his awful [ __ ] iron play. And I knew we were in the Discord yesterday somebody I think it was Devon told me like he gained strokes putting. I was like, I don’t care what he gained on the field. That’s just a stat. I watched him watched him miss three three under 12footers, right? And one was like a bunny like [ __ ] within four feet. So like those stroke that strokes gain data once again that can lie to you. The data can lie to you, right? Because yeah, he gained on but he also should have made those or at least made an effort like they weren’t even close. And today he was [ __ ] putting like a blind man too. It was crazy. Like his iron play, what happened? Why are they so bad? I mean, we we looked at it for a tournament. They haven’t been very strong on Liv either. It just it’s been all off the tea, but his wedge play has been pretty mediocre. He had a terrible wedge today. Oh, I know. Yeah. It just airma mailed it by about 30 feet. I I don’t care if he was trying to spin it back like Yeah, that was not the shot. Wasn’t even close. It wasn’t close. Um, I’m I’m contorn on him because I’ve gone back and forth about Bryson on firm, fast, crispy greens. And now I have prominent examples in my head of when he has risen to the occasion on them and prominent examples of when he has absolutely melted when that’s happened mostly at Augusta. But now this is another example of those greens got pretty firm and quick over the weekend and those were some very tentative uh putts that Shout out to Quail too by the way. Holy [ __ ] Like with all that rain, good on them. They produced a really good golf course for the week. I know certain people don’t like Quail and things like that, but they put together a good tournament, held that course, it did not become a minus 20 fest. So I mean what everybody second place was minus 6, you know what I mean? So they did they did a good job. They did a good job. Yeah. I mean like we get on this we we grade the golf course which is more about the architect. But then there’s the people that actually are the maintenance staff and the superintendent like those guys great job did a great job this week. They got 5 in the rain. They were behind the eightball. They could not mow either. Um it you know Keith Wood hats tip to Keith Wood and everybody uh on that maintenance crew. They got the golf course still in that condition. Uh, supper helps, but you know, a lot of it was also the new greens. But, you know, besides Thursday with the mud balls, which it is, it is what it is, guys. I nothing [ __ ] triggers me more to hate people than than that. Like, you got mud on your ball. Okay, [ __ ] deal with it. You know it’s going to you know it’s not going to go exactly where you want to go. So, you got to figure out something else. [ __ ] hit a shorter club. Lay it short. Don’t try to make the perfect shot because you know it’s not going to be the perfect shot. Deal with it. It’s adversity. That’s the like I get being in a divot and that sucks. Like I think about Paul Casey. Thank God. I’m glad he ended in a divot for my Cam Smith ticket. But see, that’s [ __ ] Like that is a bad rule that everybody can get behind. Like you shouldn’t have to [ __ ] play it. It’s dumb. I don’t know why it exists, but guess what? If you get mud on the ball, you get mud on the ball. It’s just part of the [ __ ] game. Like, suck it up. Don’t cry about it. Like, yeah. I I mean, I know you ripped the coverage, but Curtis Strange actually had a good take on it, saying, “Well, you know, it’s unfortunate, but you know, there’s just certain shots you can’t hit when you have mud on the ball, and you have to adjust.” Exactly what I just said. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. So, yeah, the ESPN crew I I the Jeff Darlington uh let’s make Scotty’s all about me video was terrible. Guy, the dash. It’s No, I don’t. No, that’s uh Marty Smith. What’s the other guy? He’s the worst. He’s the worst interviewer. All right. Curtis Strange and uh SVP had some good stuff. Um SVP great. I love SVP. SVP had um he realized that his producers were idiots spending so much time on the Scotty arrest and not showing golf. He’s like, you know, I know there’s people out there saying like, you know, just show golf shots. I’m like, all right, at least you get it, sir. Yeah, exactly. So, he also referenced data golf. He also referenced data golf. Like, that was good. like thank you for at least acknowledging that product exists that you can actually use that to analyze instead of thinking oh it’s going to be a plus one cup when we know I’ll go know it’s going to like plus three SP is the the sole person at ESPN for a very long time who gets it he does the gambling show he’s plenty of degenerate friends so I’m sure he understand let’s talk about some other guys on the leaderboard honestly if you quiz me like next year who finished top 10 like there are some Cougars man how Did Taylor Pendr get all the way up to T5? I don’t think I saw like three shots of him this week. I I don’t think I did either. Played well played well today. Yeah, I mean he’s uh he’s a popular pick for uh Oakmont in about a month. So, you know, showing some good form. Everybody loved betting him early in the year, too. So, maybe that can uh play well. Harris English loved him before the tournament. and T2 probably should have won a little uh more than just the top 40, but I I I I tried and win the same amount on a positional anyway, so it didn’t really matter. Uh he played great today. Six under. Yep. Very I I I’m very upset I didn’t play him in DFS. Yep. How about uh your favorite Johnny Vegas? Uh the first ever the first ever bet you laid on our show at the Windom was Johnny Vegas outright. That sounds I think I think he was DFL after round. Yep. There you go. You got Walke Nean first career top 10. Congratulations. Not relevant at all in this tournament. But hey, listen, you know, you got to crawl. You got to crawl before you walk. He looked good today though for the most part. And like So I guess listen if you’re if you’re a Nean backer or a stand like it was good to see, right? Like like he was performing well um at a tough track. So, you know, it was good to see. Yeah. And, you know, next year, um, we’re going to Aronomic, which unless they make the fairways like 15 yards wide, is probably going to be a signature event plus event, too. Um, definitely some similarities to uh the cricket club that we just saw as well. So, it’ll be we’ll see how tough they can make it, but hey, you know, maybe walking can be good over there, too. Uh, some bankrass greens as well. So, we’ll see. Yeah, you know, top 10 for him. Um, yeah. I mean, how’d you do betting wise this week? Did you get blanked or not great, Bob? I don’t know. I haven’t actually gone in and looked at it yet. I was more concerned because the D I still did good at DFS because I just because I got the 66 through, but man, I went from winning lots of money to being like fine. Yeah. Somehow I ended up up for the tournament. Thank you, Corey Connors for today. You hit your uh you hit your score bet. That was barely barely. Um I’m glad I got in early. 273 and a half. Um it it got adjusted down to 271 and a half once everybody else opened. But DraftKings was hanging 273 and a half for at least like 36 hours. So I was putting in the bat signal in the Discord. That is why you should join isn become a premium member. uh you would have noticed and I would have totally rate actually a couple people end up middling that score as well. They took the over 271. Damn, that’s tough to do. Middling a golf total score. Holy [ __ ] You know, there was a couple guys that asked about it. I was just I didn’t want to be too greedy because I was just really sure about the 273 and a half and it barely got there. Um I didn’t expect it to play as difficult at it as it did on Thursday and I didn’t expect the wind on Saturday. uh as well. But yeah, it’s odd like so it was the total was 273 and we got that snarky uh text from uh Cam saying Quail was played more difficult than Oak Hill. Uh from a scoring average it definitely did not uh hung around I think a shot and a half. Yeah, shot around a shot and a half I think per round. Just the just no one could really separate all that much. Like Scotty only gained like he he beat the field by five, but he only gained 16 strokes on the field total, which you would think it would be a lot higher if you beat the second place guy by by six or by five. So, um yeah. Uh couple other wrap-up questions. Um, so I was thinking about this. The last five years we’ve had a run of really good Masters winners and a run of really good PGA winners. So I’m going to ask you, which five would you take? Would you take the five pack of Hideki, Scotty, Rom, Scotty, Rory? Pretty strong, right? For the last five Masters winners. Strong. Yes. And just think about this, not necessarily their form like at the time, but like just like who they are like in their career as a whole. Or would you take Phil, JT, Brooks, Xander, Scotty? It’s a good run. It was a good run. It’s tough. It’s tough when you throw Phil in there like just how great that major was in his career. Like I feel like that Yeah, I’m gonna take I’m gonna take the PGA instead of double Scotty. How’s that? Okay, there you go. Um, yeah. I mean, I think Xander Hideki would be a wash. Phil, Rory’s kind of a wash. Yeah. So, then you have like maybe I mean Brooks I would put ahead of Rom. Yeah. JT obviously behind Scotty and then two and then two Scotties. So, that’s a tough matchup. That was tough. Yeah. Uh, and then the uh typical how many majors is Scotty going to get? Uh, I saw a number thrown out in the Discord. How about seven and a half? Oh, under. Yeah. How about six and a half? Still going to go under. Yeah, I think I think six. You just never know with these guys. And Scotty has had I think back trouble I think in his junior amateur days. So, you never know if that’s going to pop up again. He’s got kind of an unorthodox swing. So, you never know. I hope you I I wasn’t even in the Discord today because I know people had them in their DFS. I know Andy had them. So, I wasn’t trying to mush anybody or mother [ __ ] people’s bets to death. So, I literally didn’t even go in the Discord today just to be nice. All right. Uh before we wrap up uh the PGA, as promised, um I need to be taking forlay again for falling for it again. Yeah, we’ve done this. I don’t know how many times we’ve done this. I don’t believe you anymore. It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter what I say. It doesn’t matter what you say. You’re still going to bet this [ __ ] at some point. You know, I I took the narrative street of he’s in Charlotte. He’s got to be in a good mood because it’s the banking uh city. I should have taken the narrative street of he probably was going to visit the Bank of America headquarters uh on Saturday and that’s all he cared about. Look, I try and take emotion out of betting. I try and take these guys are losers and they can’t win out of it. I it’s it’s if it already wasn’t hard enough with Patrick, it is becoming unbearable at this point. The guy just like as from the excuse me, the [ __ ] jumping into bunkers, awful approach shots, awful T- shots, just stuff you didn’t see last week. Nothing. You didn’t see that last week at Philly. Like he was hitting great. He’s been hitting great for like two months and then all of a sudden he gets a insy bit of pressure of hey, you know what? I’m playing good. Maybe I can finally get a major. And then he puts up that [ __ ] round one just lifeless golf. Like I I don’t know. I think I think there’s I I think there’s there’s courses for Patrick that you display in these northeast Ben grass courses that maybe aren’t overly long, maybe a little generous off the tea, and then everywhere else like or like your Harbor Towns or AMX’s, that’s it. All right. Like, I’m I I I’m not going to say I’m done because I’m never going to be done. I am extremely close and I am very agitated. I am probably done this week. I will probably play him at Murfield Village though because that seems like a Patrick Hatley course. [ __ ] off. Are you serious? He’s won there twice. Actually, technically he won there once and then there’s an ass on the other one. Thank you. Once you win, I love Neon. Okay. Do you have anything else with PGA before we move on to Colonial? No, I guess not. No, like whatever. I guess whatever. Okay. All right. Well, let’s go. Can’t lay. You can’t bet [ __ ] Kentlay at the mirror field game. No, because he’s going to be like 18 to1. No, not doing it. Okay. All right. All right. Colonial Charlie Schwab Charles Schwab challenge 2025 preview. Do you like this? I We’ve had com We’ve kind of danced around this. Do you like this tournament? Do you like this golf course? Really? I like this golf course. I like Colonial. It’s a classic. I mean, there’s not a lot of flare to it. I guess it because it reminds me a lot of my club. Um, just a lot of it’s, you know, tight positional. You don’t have to use driver a ton, more precision with it. So, I think I kind of appreciate this style of golf. I appreciate um the renovation they did that we’ll get to in a little bit. The renovation made it better. Yeah. And it’s it’s just it’s it’s a it’s a tough test. Scoring doesn’t get out of control here. It’s a tough ball striker course, too. Like rarely does you know scoring here. Excuse me. Yep. You had you had co here because the bunkers were not that difficult to get up and down. You’re like, “Oh, I might as well take coack.” And he won. So, congratulations to him. Um you can get some wind here. The greens usually are pretty firm. The rough can be kind of gnarly that we’ll talk about a little bit that can yield a very high miss fairway penalty, but it’s difficult to hit the fairways here. So, yeah, I think it’s a pretty good tournament. Pretty solid testing. I think the last two losers who won was it was it Riley and Grio? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we’ll get to that in a little bit. That’s the Dav Davis Riley winning by spoiler Davis winning Riley winning by five might be the most odd golf result I have seen since doing this like I don’t know Grio beat in the playoff we’ll get to him in a little bit we get to a little bit that was a couple heartbreaks for this man who got beat in the playoff but all right so I actually decided to just post the official GCSA form just so you guys can uh look at instead of me type it all out made it easier a little bit but Uh, so this was built in 1936. So I love telling this story because I think you love this story about how the golf course was formed. Yeah, I do. So this golf course was essentially formed on a dare. And everybody in Texas said, “You know what? Uh, you can’t build a golf course that’s all bent grass.” And uh Marvin Leonard like, “Oh yeah, I’ll show you.” And then everybody else said, “You know what? I’ll triple dog dare you that you can’t build a bent grass golf course.” And Marvin Leonard freaking did it. So in 1936 um he had Perry Maxwell who also did uh he’s done a lot of golf course. He helped uh with you know some um of the stuff with Gus National with the green specifically. Uh he also did Southern Hills as well that we saw a couple years ago. He designed the golf course. John Brenamus oversaw the construction of the golf course. And he had an entirely bent grass golf course in Fort Worth, Texas. And um unfortunately for old Marvin, naysayers are right. Ben grass was definitely not the right turf choice to have there in 95 to 100 oppressive heat uh without the use of subair or modern irrigation uh uh you know uh capabilities. So eventually they ripped up all that bent grass. Well, they didn’t have to rip it up. It basically just died on its own. And uh they planted with all Bermuda grass after that. Um but yeah, like you know, as far as like what this golf course is, very tight tree. It’s short. It’s only 72 uh about just under 7,300 yards, par 70. Um you know, a lot of shorter par4s. You know, it’s it’s there there’s one, you know, really tough area of the golf course. We’ll get to in a little bit, but um it definitely is a stern test uh for most of these guys. There was a renovation that happened a couple years ago very famously that we’ll go over exactly what changed that was led by Gil Hance to restore a lot of the greens. Uh they also added subair as well to the greens. Um it was mostly for the purpose of what people don’t talk about subair is that when you like a vacuum you know you flip it the other way the air goes backwards. Uh it actually keeps the roots cool so the bankrass can thrive. It also can go the other way and you know get the moisture out as well. So, but that now has subair to make sure that you know these greens are already very well maintained because they have to be being bankrass in Texas. Um, now with the the new cooling system underneath the greens, like it it’s it helps a lot. I think actually there’s only 12 other golf courses with this exact uh subair system in uh on their golf course as well. They also had new bunkers, new greens, and then up until last year, remember how just rough the golf course looked last year. Like like there like grass was literally dying like in the fairways and the rough. Yeah. Because they were scrambling. This project was essentially like an 18-month project that they fit into 12 months. And you also had the winter as well in Texas where they couldn’t do a whole lot. So They were scen over last year, two years ago, possibly, but they were scrambling to get this done. They got it done in time, but the golf course was definitely in gnarly shape. That I think that kind of played out with how kind of difficult it played, how firm it was, and how the golf, you know, tournament kind of progressed last year. Uh, obviously I said bankrass greens, Bermuda rough, Bermuda Fairways. Uh, this is no longer overseated. We’re done with overseated season. Thank God. God. Yep. Thank God. The rough is only two and a half inch Bermuda. But as we’ve talked about and we’ll talk about for a couple more terms coming up with Bermuda, hitting approach shots to firm bankrass or just firm greens. Firm small greens uh can be very difficult. Uh there’s a high miss fairway penalty here though. So you hate overseed. Do you hate overseed or west coast po more? Oh, overseed. Okay. Yeah. Overseed is there it’s overseed is like the vanity grass basically. It’s really to make your course kind of look good. I mean I understand that like there definitely is, you know, if you want to overseed your greens, totally fine. Like if you that makes it more playable, but just let the Bermuda go dormant, you know, or just do the fairways. Like don’t overseed the rough. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s really it’s a vanity grass. It makes it your golf course still look pretty for, you know, all the old-timers to want to play in. Like, you know, you could be like the cheaper down in Florida. Just [ __ ] spray paint it. I’m like, how why’s my iron [ __ ] got green on it? Yeah. Okay. All right. So, let’s talk about some of the changes that they made to the golf course. So, most of the changes they made to Colonial. So, actually, when we did this last year, this preview on our old network, uh, you know, obviously I like using Google Earth to look. Well, the latest imagery we had was it was still under construction, so I really had nothing to go off of as far as what the exact changes were. Now, I actually after a year can show you exactly what they did. So, most of the changes they did were a lot of cosmetic stuff. You know, obviously they rebuilt some greens. Um, one of the biggest things they did was they lowered the greens. And the reason why they did that was over time in the last renovation, they raised the greens in order to up the challenge of the golf course. Well, for pros, they didn’t really care all that much if they were 2 feet below the putting surface in a bunker or 4 feet. Didn’t really matter all that much. Didn’t impact him with their iron shots either, but it made it much more difficult for the members uh to play this golf course. So that was an objective to lower the greens because that’s how they were back in the 30s and 40s. It’s very, you know, relatively flat piece of property and the greens were pretty um, you know, low to the ground compared to the topography topography around them. So that was one of the um uh goals of this project. Also rebuilt bunkers because just over time they get tired and they need to be reshaped. So they did that as well, but they moved a couple greens on some par 3es that had been moved over the years in response to a flood that they had in 1969 uh related to this creek right here. So this is what the old eighth uh par 3 looked like, you know, 200 yards. This green used to be by the creek, but when it flooded, it damaged. So they moved it a little close to this is the Trinity River right here. And actually, fun fact, if you uh put an inner tube out and they go floating down the Triny River, you’ll actually get to Triny Forest, the old site of the AT&T Byron Nelson. Uh might take you a while, but it’ll you’ll eventually end up in the dump uh that they turn into a golf course. So, you know, just pretty standard par three right here. You know, two back bunkers, two front bunkers. Um you know, away from the creek, away from the hazards here. But in the renovation though, kind of like what they did at Memorial Park, um where they moved a couple greens closer to uh the canyons and the the the creek. That’s what they did here. So they moved the green closer to the creek. They removed some trees as well. This is all baranka that I’ll show you a picture of what it looks like here. Just, you know, just weeds and just like native grasses. Gives it more native uh natural look. And they wanted to promote as well just where the T- box is and the shape of this the green like the kidney looks like a kidney bean. You have to hit a nice draw uh into most pin locations from this T- box over here. You know, obviously a very, you know, tight right to left shot, very optimal for this uh this shot shape here. But if you hit it and overcook it a little too much, you’ll either land in this bunker here or maybe down in the natural grasses as well. So they brought this creek more closer to play. This is what it looks like now. You know, it just that if you overcook an iron shot a little too much, there’s not really a whole lot of room before it either gets caught up in this native grass or down the creek here. So, made the iron shot a little more intimidating, a little tougher by moving the green a little closer to the left here. And you can kind of see too is like, you know, this is not really a raised green. Everything kind of kind of blends in with the rest of the topography topography here as well. This is the 13th hole. 13th hole. So, this was overwater. This was a retainer wall uh that they have right in front of the green. Then he had about a yard of like fringe and then he got the green here. Uh I was watching a video with Ryan Palmer and he was talking about the old green. He said, you know, even though the water is right in front, water wasn’t really in play for the pros in this hole because if it was a front pin, they would just head to the middle of the green and putt back down. Like the water’s just they’re not even thinking about it. So, what they end up doing was they end up pushing the the green back a little bit to add some bunkers up in front to maybe make it a little more in play for if there’s a front pole location. Maybe because there isn’t the danger of going in the water, maybe they’ll go for it or end up in this bunker here. There is short grass. It does feed away from the uh the putting service, but there’s rough, so it won’t go in the water, but you could end up in the rough by the water here. Um, and just, you know, it’s it’s just uh, you know, just it’s uh, probably, you know, a better hole now, you know, compared to what it was. It’s a little more interesting. So, that’s the 13th hole looks like now. And then here’s just another shot of just what it looks like up in front here. You can see this native grasses that would get balls before it gets in the water. But um you know, you can see with some front hole locations, guys might be more apt to go for it and be aggressive instead of just putting the green like they had been uh previously. So, and then the 16th hole, again, this is the creek that goes through the course here. They moved the green away from the creek as a result of the 1969 flood. I feel like that’s bigger than a creek. No, it’s it’s a creek. It’s a creek. I mean, it’s they they widen it because it’s part of the golf course here. So, and they wind the channels. But in the renovation, they moved the green closer to the creek here. This again is mostly native grasses. Uh they removed all the bunkers as well, but there’s uh short grass that kind of feeds away from the green that’s now uh right in front as well. Again, like the 13th though, uh it’s not going to get to the water because there’s a little bit of rough before the water here to catch the balls that would run away. But again, like it brings more trouble left if you hit it where the creek’s in play. Um, you know, and they removed some bunkers as well. So, uh, those are a couple changes they made the par threes where they actually like move greens as well. As far as like the rest of the golf course goes, like this is what the ninth hole looked like. This I I would say would be what you expect out of Colonial. tight tree line. You know, you got two bunkers over on the left, two bunkers over on the right here, you know, thick trees where if you do miss, you’re not going to have a very good shot to the green. You basically just have to try and fit a nice fade in between these bunk bunkers that have a nice short iron to the green here. Well, the renovation, they move they removed the bunkers over on the right. They removed a couple trees as well. Still some they pushed out some of the bunkers over here as well, but you know, still basically the same type of holes like pretty narrow narrow corridors. um you still have like this thick rough uh or not thick rough but like you know longer Bermuda that can be challenging to hit you know especially over the water as well you know and there is a little bit of risk award too as far as you know you can bail out left and you know you might have a little bit longer approach shot or you can try to be aggressive cut over the trees get a shorter approach shot but if you’re in this rough over here you got to carry it all the water yeah it may be a little difficult so that’s one um you know a couple more cosmetic changes they made to Colonial. And then everyone knows about the the horrible horseshoe. Uh this is the three-hole stretch around the driving range that plays very tough. Uh starting with the third T, you you know, especially if the fairways are running firm, you’re basically trying to carry it over these three bunkers here, but you just have no room to stop the ball, you know, so a lot of balls just end up running to the rough. Or if you tug a little bit, there’s a lot of trees over here that obstruct your view to the green. It’s a longer approach shot. It’s a very tough driving hole to try and keep in the fairway. Uh you basically have to hit a perfect right to left shot to get the ball kind of running this way. Anything is coming straight through. What is what is that? 264. That bunker right there. Yeah. 264. This 286 here. And you just This is all rough as well. Or no, I’m sorry. This is the fairway. You just don’t have a lot of room, right? Yep. Uh the fourth green as well. So, they actually removed all the bunkers um around the fourth green, but you know, there’s still some subtle undulations that definitely give it some trouble. But the challenge is Yeah, it’s par three. 240 yards. Uh if there’s a north wind, like good luck getting the ball to the green. And then the fifth hole. This is a very, very difficult par4. You have out of bounds over on the right here. You have a ditch that runs all the way down the left. And it’s actually I think it’s the toughest fairway to hit on the PJ tour because it just it’s so narrow. You have to hit really a really precise right to left or left to right fade. You don’t have a lot of room. I think actually I forget who it was. I was watching a video. Um might have been Gary Player to get in guys heads because he knew how tough this hole was. If he hit the fairway, he would turn around and say, “Oh man, I never hit this fairway. Thank god I did.” Just to kind of mess with guys minds about how difficult this hole is. So, but it’s very tough, you know, this um this whole Yeah, this three-hole stretch, the horrible horseshoe. There was a no laying up video they did a couple years ago where Randy and Neil just played this three-hole stretch for six straight times and they got their ass kicked. It’s actually pretty entertaining. It was a It was a good video. So, so yeah. So, so that’s that. Let’s go with some, you know, just general stats here. Like I mentioned, this is a tough ball striking golf course. It is hard to gain strokes off the tea. Yep. Hard to gain strokes to the approach. The off the tea stuff kind of like with Harbortown. I mean, it it’s more difficult than Harbor Town, but it’s a lot of tight spaces where the everyone’s trying to get to the same place. Like, either you’re trying to squeeze it in between a fairway or bunker or you’re trying to get to the middle of the dog leg. You definitely don’t want to be in the rough because it’s so difficult to hit and control balls out of the Bermuda rough. So not so not only is it kind of the degree of difficulty with you know how precise you have to be makes the T- shots tough, it’s just hard to separate yourself here with your T-shots was because everybody’s kind of trying to hit the same shots and it’s very difficult to hit fairways. The uh driving actually rate here is about 55% the last couple years which is well below your average. So hard to hit fairways, difficult approach shots, you know, it’s it’s it was difficult. Last year 2021 it’s always usually pretty difficult. Same thing with the approach shots. Last two years you’ve seen an increase in difficulty um as far as the degree the approach shots in 2023 before the renovation. They basically just let the greens go to hell. Um so they were super firm that like they would well because they they literally knew they knew they were redoing them. Yeah. They’re going to tear them up afterwards. It was like um awesome. It was like the COVID memorial where Oh, okay. they were renovating the course immediately afterwards like to the point where like on the broadcast they showed like bulldozers like tearing up. I remember I remember kind of the same thing happened here where they’re like we’re going to tear this up tomorrow. So there’s no need to protect anything for the members who want to play this afterwards. So they let the Greens just go to hell. Like the balls would literally like bounce like six feet in the air. It was it was absurd some of the approach shots that these guys had to play that week. And then last year because it was brand new greens, it was windy and firm, it was so difficult to hit approach shots. Um, it’s probably going to be not quite as severe this year because it’s had a year of playing, but usually greens take like two years to kind of soften up and settle. So, they’re still going to be pretty firm this year. Um, I would expect and especially now they also have subair that even if we get some rain, you know, we’ll talk to Cam on Tuesday about the weather, but yeah, these greens are probably going to be pretty firm. Like you’re probably going to expect to see more of the same. Just the T-shots are always difficult. It’s going to be difficult to approach shots as well, especially if you add some wind to it. I haven’t looked at the weather forecast, but if you add some winds, probably like that, too. Just a tough ball striking test like it usually is. You know, it’s not going to be much of a surprise. around the green and putting this is where it gets to be a little less challenging. Um, you know, the greens are not raised like, you know, I think you can kind of see with the around the green stuff where it got super easy last year. I think it’s because they leveled the greens a little bit. Uh, the bunkers are not very deep as well, so getting up and down out of bunkers is definitely not much of a challenge. There’s a lot of short grass as well, so you can pull putter on some of the stuff. Um, so around the green usually is not an area that’s all that challenging. And then putting gone back and forth. I think in 2022 it was a really windy at least in the final round. Maybe a couple of the rounds as well, but that’s kind of an outlier as far as the difficulty of putting. Every other year though, it’s kind of all over the place. Like it was really easy putting in 2023 and 2021. It’s kind of middle of the road in 2024, difficult in 2022. I don’t know. It was hard to me to kind of square that a little bit. So yeah, I mean that’s a I mean that is a clear outlier. It is. I I remember that the final round was really windy though, so I don’t know if that played into it, but really we’ll see. Um, usually I let Andy cover the Miss Fairway stuff, but this is important this week because you really do need to emphasize like even though it’s only two and a half inch Bermuda, um, you know, it’s it’s been it’s pretty penal to miss fairways here and the last two years it was very penal. Um, you know, point4 stroke penalty if you missed a fairway versus if you didn’t. But the problem is the drive rates are only about 55%. So when you when when you have a high miss fairway penalty plus a lot of missed fairways that’s how you keep scoring in check um for the most part. Yep. And then the rough penalty always one of the most penal on the PG tour. That’s the Bermuda. It just it’s so hard to control the ball and spin when you have firm greens out of Bermuda. Either you have flyer lies or it comes out dead. You just don’t really know sometimes. I mean you play a lot of Bermuda. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Yep. So, the non-ruff penalty is the only one that’s interesting as far as last year there was a spike in penalty for non-rough areas. And usually that would be Yeah. So that’s bunkers or waste areas. And I think the waste areas I showed you the baranka on some of those holes, I think that technically counts as non- rough penalty. So that definitely made it a little more penal, especially on some of those par threes that could maybe explain the spike in um you know some of that. So because there are other areas of with the Baranka around the golf course, so that could be it. Um but there isn’t really a whole lot of opportunity to hit a lot of penalty shots other than there’s not really other than some of the par threes. There’s not a lot of water off the tea that’s in play or um or OB either. So, no, you don’t typically incur penalty other than that other uh other than the horseshoe. Yeah, other than the horseshoe there. Here’s the proximity buckets. And um we’ll get to another golf course that’s very similar to this, but this is clearly a test between 100 and 200 yards. You’re short to mid irons for the most part. Um just eyeballing this, 75% of your shots basically come between 100 and 200 yards. Um you know, 125 to 175 is well above PG2 or average. 175 200 is kind of floated a little bit between above average and average. So it’s about your average rate 17.4%. 125 is you know a little above average but yeah that’s really the range focus on guys. How much of those how much of those are like the par threes in my brain this is like a this in my brain this is like a shorter cur short well so I think three of the four par 3s are between 175 and 200. Okay. And then the horrible horseshoe is like 240. So that would follow with this. Okay. And then you have your two parfs. Although if you’re in the rough on the par fives, one of the pars is like 600 yards up the hill slightly. So if you’re in the rough, usually like you’re seeing guys just kind of get a wedge in. Yeah. On those. So that might explain like why the importance between 100 and 125 is a little up. Yeah. you know, because some of those part one of those paris is a three shot hole. Um, but yeah, it’s it’s just focus on really on that range between 100 and 200 yards. That’s going to be key this week. Um, now let’s look at this um this list here. So, these are some of the comp courses. Sea Island as far as like data golf what they show. But this makes a lot of sense as far as like if you think about guys who have won here, done really well here, you know, like like when I say like I I’ll ask you Kapper when I say course like Sea Island and Austin Country Club and Harbortown and Wii and um what’s like one player you think of? Oh. Um, speed sew. Okay. How about how about a guy that is no longer relevant that was very relevant when we started our podcast. Oh, that has given us heartbreak. Oh, I don’t know. I was going to say I was going to say Paul Casey, but who do you think about? Uh Kevin Kisner. Oh, yeah. I guess I always forget about him. Who has who who has won here by the way? I know. I know. Yeah, but like you know Sea Island, he’s won Austin Country Club, Harbor Town, like the the courses where you’re not it’s not a driving test that we’re good. I sometimes I miss your little your little Easter eggs in the in the writing. They make me laugh. Yeah. Well, because this list is very similar to the list that I use for Harbor Town um far as comp courses and Austin Country Club was still in the list, so I just started the I just changed the uh the caption there. And then the other WGC that was good, Concession, is also on this list as well. You know, as far as like Concession was why don’t we ever go back there? Because awesome. I don’t know. I mean, where where where are you going to put another Florida event and take one away? I mean, honestly, they should take Mexico away. Take a South Carolina way. I mean, well, that’s an oppo event, but I mean, Jack is thirsty to go to his golf courses, so I don’t know. Maybe the membership just didn’t want to have a tournament there. Yeah, I really I really like that tournament. Yeah, it’s also I I think the layout of the course, too. It’s you’re basically going through the swamp for the most part. So, it’s probably hard to put infrastructure and get fans through there. So, that that might be why that was a good golf is a TV product. You’ve gone to how many how many golf tournaments? Going to golf tournaments, unless you’re like going to golf tournaments is very overrated. like trying to follow the action and walk around and get a good sighteline and things like that. Golf, just like football, is a television product. [Music] Yeah. Unfortunately, I think uh people might get bit by snakes and crocodiles if they try to go point A to point B. A concession. Alligator, Steve. Alligator. Yes. So, but yeah, like you know when you think about guys been pretty good here, you know, you think about the guys been good at Harbortown, Austin Country Club, Sea Island, Port Royal, Wii, like golf courses where it’s more focused on your mid to short irons as far as a test, not necessarily your driving, which is definitely the case here that we’ll get to in a little bit. Um, that’s kind of what I think about. So, this is actually a pretty solid list. Like you you basically you could surprise on here. Excuse me. I’m surprised Wisdom isn’t on here. Yeah, I think it’s I mean I cut off at 12. I think it’s just it’s a shade below, but yeah, like probably Windom would fit, too. So, um All right. So, let’s look at past leaderboards here. So last year the weirdest result I can think of like Davis Riley coming out of literally like nowhere actually like I can actually pull up his or I’ll pull up his report uh his results coming in. So last year coming in he had a T14 at Houston which is pretty good but then he got cut at Valero, T28 at the Zurich, T30 at the Byron Nelson, T66 at the Merurl Beach Classic, and then all of a sudden he wins uh Charles Schwab. So I stopped betting on Davis Riley that one time he was in contention and basically pulled the Meato before it was Meato. Yeah, which I think it might have been here actually. might have been 202. Was it here? It might have been 2022. Yeah, because he was playing good and I think he just started blasting over the yard and like I’m never betting him again. Never bet that guy again. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But not only did Davis Riley with basically no form coming in win, he won by five. Five. Yeah. He was actually up by seven like midway through the back. Robbie Shelton. What happened to that guy with He’s no longer on the PG tour. But uh yeah, Robbie Shelton T9. Yeah, I mean like this was actually behind him pretty liberal. You got Keegan Bradley T2, Scotty T2, Colin fourth place. This was where I started to get the illusion that Colin actually might not be a house cat anymore because he was really good in the final round. it was windy and he’s really good at Augustine Ash when it was windy and I was trying to make the connection of all right maybe when it gets kind of firm and it’s warm it’s windy maybe that’s where Colin is good uh in wind and no that’s been blown back in my face a couple times uh he’s just when am I going to use Colin in [ __ ] one and done Murphy I don’t know that’s that’s that’s that’s not a conversation for right now sorry you had Substroka T5 and then you know T9 Meisner my god Yeah. What happened to him? He used to be somebody we used to bet a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know where he’s at. Did he get injured? I don’t I don’t think I’ve seen his name recently. No, he’s still around. Hayden Buckley, that’s a guy who’s definitely falling off. Buckley stinks. Um, yeah. Pearson Cudy. Sure. Cam probably have a bet on him this week. But this tournament though, so as far as like how you separated yourself, this is off the tea. last year was actually a big outlier where you could gain a lot more strokes on the field through your T performances and specifically with accuracy and distance. What I think was happening was because the greens were so firm and the miss fairway penalty was just so high that you really had to be just in the fairway and that kind of promoted all the guys who just drove it really good and that basically is dictated by how many fairways you have. Like look at some of these like guys like all these guys are basically towards the top of drive for the week. This is actually unusual for the tournament where your T your OT performance can really separate yourself. Yeah, it’s more like the next two years I’ll talk about. But, you know, iron play is about average and then around the green and putting was a little less average maybe because the greens were just so difficult by the end of the weekend where just no one was making putts, no one’s be able to really get up and down. But really, it was it was basically a a a driving contest last year for the most part, which was unusual uh for this event because this is more in line. This scatter plot is more in line. We’ll get to that in a little bit, but in 2023, so you you asked uh Grio won a playoff over Adam Shank. That was the second uh second time Adam Shank blew uh a tournament that year. He blew the Valar earlier that year. Do you remember what happened to Grio though on the 18th hole? Yeah, he put it in the in the river and I it went backwards. Yeah, it was just slowly floating down going. That’s great. But then he but then he like that was the tournament where he like was like I don’t know helping a kid hit a ball or something like that. I don’t even remember exactly what happened but he interacted with a small child and it was like good karma and he ended up winning possibly. I don’t think I had anyone in the mix of this tournament so I probably just tuned out by Sunday. So I was Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. But here though, this is more in line as far as like how you do off the tea. This is more in line with what you usually expect at Colonial just Yeah. So accuracy like is more influential on your stro off the tea than other golf courses again because of the miss fairway penalty. But like it didn’t matter how far you hit it, how short you hit it. like that was basically had no effect with how you’re going to do off the tea and just how you drove it in general that week just didn’t have much of an influence how you were off um um performing that week. One thing I want to mention though and this number actually kind of pops out where Scotty averaged 298 off the box. I remember John Rom a couple years ago talking about Colonial saying he really liked it because kind of like at um some of his courses in Spain like Volto Rama he likes where it’s really tight and treelined. You can be aggressive off some T- shots and try and hit it over the trees to get into a better position. So you can definitely see some guys get aggressive. You just got to drive it really good. Like Tony Feno’s used that tactic. He’s been good here. Rahm has used that tactic as well. Pam Burns like has been pretty good here. He’s used that tactic pretty well. Obviously Scotty did in this year, but that’s not the only way to do it. Obviously had a bunch of guys who just played traditionally like you know Grio and Harry Hall like these, you know, Ricky even like these are some of the shortest hitters that week. Um they played them more straight and they were fine. Um but mostly this these tournaments at Colonial come down to how you hit your irons and how you are around the green which makes sense. And the same thing played out in 2022. Sam Burns wins in a playoff over Scotty. Um, and nine under. So, Scotty’s 100% winning this week, isn’t he? Yeah, he’s probably going to pull a uh We’re not even go over the odds board. I haven’t looked at them, but Scotty’s probably going to win. Um, we’ll go more obviously, we’ll go more in depth on Tuesday. We’re running along, but uh Scotty wins in the playoff over Scotty. Oh, Riley again. That Yeah, you’re right. That is the That is the tournament he he blew up. Yeah, Riley’s T4. Tony Fenol played pretty good 700. This also Yeah, I think this also was the last tournament we saw Patrick Reed and Kevin Na play on PG. Although, you know, they might play more. They might play Memorial the following week because two weeks after this was Live London. Yeah. And uh the start of Live which made golf just suck outside the majors. But again, very similar scatter plot where off the tea just didn’t really matter for the week. That was not a way to separate yourself. There was no correlation really with distance, accuracy. Like you can see it all over this. There’s some shorter hitters, there’s longer hitters, there’s guys hit a lot of fairways like your Brennan Todds, guys who hit 39% of their fairways like Kevin N Cam Davis. Like off the tea was not how you do it. But again, no is around the green and with your approach play, which if I just spell it out for you like this makes a lot of sense. You have a golf course that is less than driver for the most part. You can get aggressive, but it’s less than driver. You got to fit in a tight corridor. So, everybody’s trying to hit to most of the same spots. From there, it is a iron test, like a mid iron or short iron test. at that point. It’s also hard to hit fairways with a high miss fairway penalty where the green regulation rate is really low. So in those situations where there’s a lot of guys missing greens, how you separate yourself then is mostly by getting up and down from pretty easy, you know, not all that difficult uh areas as well. Y that’s how you get yourself to separate with your irons and with your scrambling for the week. Putting is about PG2 or average. Off the tea really doesn’t matter now because the greens might be are still firm. Maybe we still see a little more importance in off the tea than we had been. But I would expect as we move away from last year, we’re going to start moving more back into these types of tournaments where Let me ask you though, let me So I mean it this comes down to almost like a fundamental question, right? So yeah, in the past this mattered more, but now everybody is chasing distance and I mean look at that. I mean last year the top three I mean even top four cow was was 290, right? I mean so I think this is more a function of if you hit the fairway the ball would just roll. Okay. Yeah. Not not necessarily like tactical because if you go back to the uh Sam Burns one, it was the same thing. It was uh Burns and Scotty uh were almost hitting a 300, right? And then 300. Yeah. No, that that’s that is true. Like you can there are guys who have used this strategy pretty well. You know, like I mentioned, Fenow, Burns, Scotty, Cam Davis, but then you also have everybody else. So yeah, you know, there maybe is something to that take kind of like we see a w a little bit too like guys are using driver a little more. So um so yeah, maybe that’s something to think. Maybe this year will be the litmus test for that. Okay. So, okay. Um, and then as far as like the model goes, so a lot of stuff I talked about, God, he’s number one. No way. So, a lot of stuff I talked about tonight though, like as far as the difficulty compared to other golf courses with off the tea and approach play, relatively easy around the green and putting um conditions, similar proximity buckets as well, and then obviously similar comp courses, very similar to Harbortown. So, obviously I need to tweak this, but I just ran the model I used for Harbortown, and this looks pretty reasonable compared, you know, for what we would expect. You know, Scotty Shuffler very good here. Daniel Burgerer has won here before. A Tommy Fleetwood type. Like Brian Harmon, Novak would be good here. Like Hideki, Poston, like Speed’s high up on this list, too. Like this wouldn’t be Poston. I mean, what a performance by Poston this weekend. Yeah, Poston’s going to be very chalk. Seaw is gonna be chalk even though he hasn’t been very good at Colonial. Ben Griffin had a top 10 this week. He’s gonna be chalk. Gerard’s gonna be chalk. My fellow’s my fellow mortgage broker Griffin. Yeah. So, but so like if you don’t So, obviously you got to change like overseed stuff, some argomy things, but like if you just run back your Harbortown model like Oh, yeah. Look at that. Rio, man, this is going to be a lot of [ __ ] easy mo. We This might be a week we do sweep the most tip chart. We probably would. And there’s five guys on here I see already. Yeah. Gerard Griffin, Poston, Rio for sure. Poston. Probably probably Novak. Yep. 100%. Bud Collie. Everybody loves Bud Collie. Yeah. Yeah. What about JJ Spun? [ __ ] him, man. What an [ __ ] He looks so smart on Thursday and Friday and then he decided he didn’t want to remember how to play golf on Saturday and Sunday. Yeah, he still cashed a bet for me, though. Top 40 and it was not dead heated either. So, I appreciate that. That’s all I was asking for him. But yeah, that was very disappointing over the weekend. Tell me about it. That was good. That was a good call by me and it made you over the weekend. But hey, listen, you know, it didn’t kill you. There was other plays that definitely killed you more than Oh, no question. No question. No question about it. All right, that is it for us. Um, we’ll be back on Tuesday for the betting show. Actually, I just thought about that. My daughter graduates on Tuesday. Oh, so you’re not going to be here? I don’t know what time graduation is. Um, okay. So, maybe we do a pre-recorded on Monday or we go late on Tuesday. It’s like a thousand. Yeah, I I c I can’t go tomorrow. Um Okay. Either we go late on Tuesday or I can just maybe you pre-record something with your picks and we’ll splice that in and then I’ll just go. That’s fine. Yeah, we we’ll figure it out. I I literally thought about that as we were recording. I was like, “Oh, Tuesday. [ __ ] My daughter graduates on Tuesday. I’m gonna have two adults in the world.” Steve. Steve. I have a 21 have I’m gonna have another one. And then you got what? 10 15 years until your next one. Like the ne or no 10 years until the other next graduation. Seven. No, seven. I guess seven years till the next one. Seven. And then your youngest is what? Six. Nine. She’s nine now. Oh, she’s nine now. Damn. You know what? I keep forgetting I’m doing a show for five years for you. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. All right. So, all right. We’ll we’ll talk. We’ll talk. We’ll figure it out. But yeah, uh either way, I definitely I do want to be a part of the show. We’ll have to figure this out. Um Okay. But yeah, so Oh, what was the take you said that I should have leaned into? We didn’t even talk about that. What was what was the thing? Oh god. Um you said it perfect. You opened the Tuesday betting show that there was a general consensus with how the golf course was going to play and your natural instincts would want to revolt against it. Correct. And it kind of played out that way. Yep. Yeah. So, it’s group think never group think almost never works ever. Yeah. That’s why I don’t listen to anybody else. I just have my own takes. And sometimes I end up having the takes everybody else has and sometimes I don’t. Yep. Although although going with the group think Bryson on the one and done that worked out. So, I don’t know. I guess uh I guess you pick and choose your spots. But yeah, there’ll be some semblance of uh the show on Tuesday. Um yeah, if you can go late, let’s just plan on going late. I think I think I think the graduation’s pretty early. I think it’s like six. All right. Yeah, find out. We’ll talk. Yeah, we’ll figure it out. But other than that, uh, happy PGA week. Congratulations, Scotty, for being a super boring golfer and, uh, and winning, I guess, technically a major based on that leaderboard. I would say half a major, I guess. If I had twist my arm, half a major. Um, other than that, laugh out loud, Leafs. Congratulations, Panthers. Talk to you [ __ ] on Tuesday.
In this episode of the Hold The Green Podcast, hosted by Boston Capper and Steve, The hosts dive into a comprehensive recap of the PGA Championship, expressing their opinions on various golfers’ performances and the state of golf media coverage. They notably discuss the dominance and perceived ‘boring’ style of Scotty Scheffler, and the emotional roller-coaster of betting on golfers like Patrick Cantlay and Bryson DeChambeau. The episode transitions into a detailed preview of the upcoming Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club. Key topics include the historical context and recent renovations of the course, analysis of past tournament outcomes, and strategic insights for understanding player performance at Colonial.
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00:00 Introduction and Sponsor Message
00:37 Golf Betting Insights and Predictions
01:04 Partnership Announcement with Shorty’s Golf
01:47 PGA Recap and Golf Commentary
02:30 Scotty Scheffler’s Performance Analysis
06:04 Golf Media and Coverage Critique
11:03 Discussion on Golfers’ Mental Toughness
12:21 Bryson DeChambeau’s Performance Breakdown
15:56 Course Conditions and Maintenance Praise
20:39 Betting Results and Reflections
27:28 Upcoming Colonial Tournament Preview
32:43 Course Conditions and Challenges
33:29 Debate on Overseeding
34:16 Changes to the Golf Course
35:43 Par Threes and Renovations
41:24 The Horrible Horseshoe
43:51 General Stats and Player Performance
51:17 Comparing Similar Courses
54:38 Past Leaderboards and Player Insights
01:06:13 Upcoming Betting Show and Personal Updates
