With another victory at Jack’s Place, Scottie is looking more like Tiger, too | Golf Channel Podcast

In this week’s edition, the guys, with Rex live from Muirfield Village, discuss Scottie Scheffler’s dominant victory at The Memorial, compare the ways in which he’s similar and different to Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, and discuss all of the other storylines from another signature event on Tour. #GolfChannel #Golf #PGATour

Chapters:
0:00: Biggest takeaways from another special Sunday performance from Scottie Scheffler
06:00: Is Scottie more like Jack Nicklaus, or Tiger Woods? Or is he the perfect blend of the two?
12:00: Scheffler’s record with the outright 54-hole lead is crazy good. Here’s what that tells us.
18:00: For all of his ball-striking prowess, his “bounce back” ability might be most impressive
21:00: Ben Griffin, U.S. Ryder Cupper?
26:00: Jack Nicklaus savages Rex and his walk-and-talk interviews – does he have a point?
32:00: What to do about those pesky mud balls
36:30: Maja Stark wins the U.S. Women’s Open, and Erin Hills gets another shot on the big stage
41:00: Lexi Thompson fires back at her critics
43:00: Charlie Woods has his own ‘Hello world’ moment
45:00: Answering your questions about the Tour Championship format change
51:00: Golf’s Longest Day, here we come!
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With another victory at Jack’s Place, Scottie is looking more like Tiger, too | Golf Channel Podcast
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hello and welcome into this edition of the Golf Show podcast with Rex and Lav well heading into the US Open later this month Scotty Sheoffller will arrive having won three of his past four starts he did it again at the Memorial slamming the door at Mirfield Village to win by four shots and defend his title only one besides Tiger Woods to do that rex you’re out there in Dublin Ohio what was it like on Sunday started to feel like and this is probably going to get old for anyone who’s listening but it’s really starting to feel like Tiger Woods and I love the fact that Jack Nicholas was in the booth for CBS and they were talking about what Scottish Sheffller was doing coming down the stretch on Sunday and Frank Nablo who who made the point of Jack this is what you kind of did when you got in the lead you just let everyone else make mistakes and Jack sort of conceded it for a minute and he and then he gave it to well no Tiger Woods probably did it best stuart Sink told me this many many years ago that Tiger Woods when he was at in his prime he would play what they call I guess in hockey is prevent defense not a hockey guy certainly enjoying the playoffs but he just let everyone else fall away and would just sort of trudge along and I will say if you look at it at least statistically I would argue that Scotty Sheffller won the memorial on Saturday with what he was able to do he shot a 68 that was almost six shots better than the field it really separated him there was a moment there was a really a moment of clarity late Saturday afternoon at Mirfield Village when Jordan Speed finished up and Jordan Speed had it going and I’m looking forward to talking a little bit about him but stumbled a little bit coming down the stretch and they were asking him what do you think about your chances going to into the weekend and Jordan is a optimistic person by nature and he sort of looked at the leaderboard and he shook his head and and and his exact words were it’s just a bummer it’s Scotty it’s just a bummer it’s Scotty and that just spoke volumes that it could have been anyone else at seven or eight or even nine under par and he could have been five or six shots back thinking to himself that no I can do this they could stumble a little bit i could get on a run i did it today all of those things that golfers try to convince themselves of but when it’s that guy standing on the hill it’s Scotty Sheffller looking down at everyone else jordan had to concede that no he he doesn’t come back it’s just a bummer that it’s him and you look at all the things he did well strokes gain treere picked up more than 15 shots i mean it is an amazing Scotty performance and you look at what he’s done in his last four four starts going back to the PGA championship no going back to the CJ Cup Byron Nelson 60 under par and he’s won by an average of five and a half shots it is an amazing run it certainly is an amazing run and part of a a stretch of golf that now dates to February 2022 the likes of which we’ve not seen since Peak Tiger Woods there’s a lot to get into on Sunday because I do think that that was sort of the epitome of the whole Scotty Sheffller experience a lot of things that makes him uh peerless at least in my mind of this generation but I think when you zoom out on Scotty Sheffller and what he’s now accomplishing as we sit here on June 2nd Roy Moy has just enjoyed his best ever start to a PGA Tour season and he’s already been caught by this guy scotty Shuffler is already overtaken him as a number one player in the in the FedEx Cup point standings uh Rory has now been matched with Scotty’s three victories so far this season scott is going to be a huge favorite when we get to Oakmont next month or excuse me next week for the US Open scotty’s the fourth quickest all time the gap between his first victory on the PGA Tour and his 16th victory on the PJ tour company that he’s keeping sam Sneed Jack Nicholas Tiger Woods and now Scotty Sheffller when we look at sort of Scotty’s career in totality he now has as many uh PJ tour victories as Justin Thomas with one more major victory he has as many major victories as Jordan Spith and three more PJ Tour titles those players Justin Thomas Jordan Spith widely considered to be among the best players of their generation and since February 2022 Scotty Sheoffller has already eclipsed them a buddy on Sunday afternoon asked me you know where does where does Scotty fit now among the best all time and and I was like you know if if his career ended tomorrow he wouldn’t be one of them but if he continues this pace for the next half decade yeah like we’re talking about a guy who’s going up on the Mount Rushmore of professional golfers and he’s in the Hall of Fame so you start the conversation there so he’s in the Hall of Fame he’s a first ballot whatever that means in golf and certainly after what happened at the Masters with Roy Maru we start talking about the Mount Rushmore six players have won the career grand slam i think that would be the next step and not to to jump ahead and not to appreciate what Scotty did at Mirfield Village but Justin Thomas said earlier in the week at Mirfield Village that he was I believe it was on Tuesday he went up to Oakmont to do a scouting trip it’s been a minute since they’ve been up there wanted to see it for the US Open and he actually compared it very very favor favorably to Mirfield Village so it only lends to make you fast forward a little bit and think to yourself that we put so much stock and so much energy and so much publicity into what Rory was able to do at the Masters and Scotty could do it this year i’m not saying he’s going to i know that sounds ridiculous and there’s so many things that can go arrive very very quickly not so much at the US Open but certainly at the Open Championship at Royal Port Rush but he played that golf course Mirfield Village Jack’s place so well and it is a US Open light by any stretch of the imagination it had been a really really wet spring the the rough was about as thick as anyone had seen it uh the the greens somehow it’s Jack’s superpower they were firm and fast despite all the rain they got all week long and he still made it look easy and I think that’s the one thing that you go to a US Open venue and there was no stress the second that he sort of showed up and it is interesting to me i’ll go back to what I said last week on Monday’s podcast that it you could sit and break down why Scotty Sheffler probably wasn’t at his 100% best at Colonial because he didn’t have the tuneup he didn’t have his prep preparation he didn’t have his routine he’s a creature of habit we all know it by now we know that he has to do very specific things in a very specific order to perform his absolute best this week he was I asked him about it on Thursday after his round he said “Yeah I got my work in this week i did exactly what I want to do.” There’s a comfort level that he has right now that makes it scary for everyone else on the PGA tour i want to hearken back to something that you said off the top of the program where you said it felt tigerike and one of our editors here at Golf Channel Fred had a had a great point where is Scotty Sheffller more Jack Nicholas or more Tiger Woods you know I think a lot of the comparisons at least statistically are hearkening back to Tiger Woods because either statistically with his ball striking statistically with his run of dominance statistically with sort of the blowout victories that he’s had whether it’s at the Nelson whereas at the PJ or not Mirfield Village like that does feel tiger but I think you could make the case couldn’t you Rex that he sort of borrows the best qualities from both of those two players i think that’s right i mean I think it’s fair didn’t watch Jack Nicholas in his prime either did you so it’s kind of hard i made the joke last week that the only reason we compare him to Tiger Woods is that’s the only comp it feels like right now that sort of the stratosphere where Scotty is occupying we didn’t have Strokes gain total strokes gain T degree when Jack Nicholas played his best so you don’t really know statistically how to compare it but certainly the dominance that he portrays is the one thing that I would point to and say yes and the clutchness that he has i’m not quite sure if that’s a word but how he in the in the biggest of moments he seems to deliver the performance on Sunday felt like both of them to be honest with you but yeah probably an amalgamation of sort of the way Jack was able to overpower a golf course the way Jack sort of outthought everyone the competitive desire sort of that lion inside Tiger Woods that drove him to be better than everyone else those two things yes I think it’s a good combination of the two yeah I think it’s interesting like I certainly I think the Tiger comparison is apt because Scotty is even though he sort of has this nice guy persona like he is as ruthless of a competitor as you can possibly get on the PJ tour he’s one of the best iron players ever he has incredible hands the through the bag completeness the wanting to beat you not by one or two but by four five or six I think is unique to a very special kind of talent as well but I also see a lot of Jack whether it’s the consistency in the major championships all of the major championships whether it’s the high hands with the swing the way he plots his way around the golf course you know it seems like he’s not making any mistakes he’s not having he’s not hitting perfect golf shots but it never seems like he’s in trouble he has been magnanimous both in victory and defeat but the big one Rex they are both dedicated family men and I I had a moment thinking of Jack Nicholas and Barbara Nicholas on the 18th grade meredith Sheffller for the second year in a row comes out with their young son Bennett and yes it was a beautiful moment that these guys experienced on the 18th read until until Meredith sort of shying away from the camera delivered a little bit of news to Scotty and what he was going to be accepting with Bennett Sheffer in his arms he had so much fun watching the movie um all over his back [Applause] oh yes folks that is that if if you’re if you’re squeamish please turn away from television’s look away yes that is indeed a blowout from one-year-old Bennett Sheffller i’ve spent like the last hour trying to go through my iPhone to find similar photos uh of my son who is now six there was one instance in the bouncer where we literally had to tote him away in a public’s bag it was such a vicious one uh I have another picture that you deem not suitable uh for a family program where there’s just barf stains all over them when I was holding him as well uh anyone can relate to what Bennett Sheffller and Sky Sheffller were experiencing on Sunday but yes like the whole Family Men persona Scotty Sheff like I do think that that’s an apt comparison as well like he’s literally borrowing the best qualities from both of those two all-time greats no and that’s a good comparison for Fred and I’ll give him credit on that one and to go to lean a little bit further into the Family Man idea is there aren’t any distractions in Scotty’s life let’s go back to the Netflix special that he was on during the first season the most exciting thing that he and Meredith did at that time I don’t think Bennett had been born yet was to sort of walk to the corner coffee shop for a cup of coffee and that to me spoke volumes about this is someone who is so comfortable in his own skin he doesn’t need a fancy boat he doesn’t need fancy cars he doesn’t need a huge house he doesn’t need a private jet none of those things matter to him what matters to him is his family his wife Meredith Bennett his mom and dad are at every single event the the family is always around those are hallmarks and that’s much more Jack Nicholas than it is Tiger Woods this guy Chevro did season one of Full Swing on Netflix and he’s like “Nah fam i’m good go find other guys i’m perfectly content with who I am.” I think one of the things that really stood out Rex uh on Sunday at Mirfield Village was Scotty Sheffller as a closer because you just don’t see these types of stats very often where Scotty has now won his last nine events when holding the outright league dating to 2023 i mean that alone is tiger-esque dominance it is harder than ever to win on the PGA Tour with the depth we see all the statistics if Justin Ray was on the program he could say verbatim you know what a a player’s win percentage is by one or more shots like I’m thinking it’s probably a 40% chance if you’re one shot ahead into the final round of the pizza event and Scotty has slammed the door now nine consecutive times what does that tell you about him in sort of this era of dominance that we’re in with Scotty that he gets to that level where he’s playing well and the difference this week versus last week again there’s a comfort level that he had this week that wasn’t there last week but if the comfort level is there and the game is firing as we’ve seen this week and well three out of the last four weeks if we’re being honest once he gets to that level he knows that no one can catch him let alone beat him i remember having this conversation with players about Tiger Woods when he was in his prime about Tiger had never given up a 54hole lead in a major championship and Hank Haney who was his swing coach at the time thought it was the most obvious thing in the world he said if Tiger is leading after 54 holes he’s playing really good golf that’s not going to change when you get to that level of athlete when you get that to that level of performance of course he’s going to close it off because it’s going to take such a performance to come and catch him that no one has the ability to pull that off again I keep going back to the idea Scotty didn’t have to do anything special on Sunday at Mirfield Village and he knew it he could probably have gone out there and shot what did he end up what did he end up finishing um he could have shot he ended up shooting a 70 you shot a 70 so it it was a very straightforward performance for him and I think in this particular case when he is playing his best golf he’s able to put himself in this mode where everyone has to come catch him and as as well as Ben Griffin did and look we can talk about him and how impressive he has been over the last few weeks ben Griffin put himself in positions trying to catch him that he ended up making big numbers on holes and that’s sort of how it’s going to play out yeah there’s I think there’s a couple I think this is like a multiaceted thing where he and Caddyy Ted Scott clearly have a great game plan and he also has the physical skill set in order to execute that right like he’s never putting himself in a spot where he’s possibly going to drop two or more shots and Mirfield Vills is a pretty punishing golf course with a lot of water fronting the greens might not be the most strategic golf course but I think there’s certainly a penalty for weward shots that you don’t see week in and week out on the PJ tour and Scotty he made I know he made a double bogey but for the rest of the time I mean he made he made four bogeies for the rest of the of the golf tournament when you look at that some of the other contenders like they were making mistakes left and right so I think there’s certainly something to his game plan and his execution level i think there’s certainly a comfort level when it comes with Scotty Sheffller now holding the 54 hole lead sleeping on it understanding his routine like we’re a long way from that that Masters the long ago Masters where he said that he was in the fetal position not sure if he was ready not ready in the sense of winning a golf tournament by that point he had already done it he was figuring out if he was ready for all of his life to change so he has come a long ways right over these last three years basically faced every scenario possible i think there’s a certain comfort level sleeping on a lead on the PJ tour as well but I think the big one to the point that you made is this guy is number one on the PJ tour in bogey avoidance and so it puts so much pressure on their opponents and it just forces them into mistakes and so Scotty Sheffller he’s not intimidating in the traditional sense right like a a staredown he’s not going to hit it 350 like a like a Bryson he’s not going to go on sort of these epic bur binges where he’s whipping the crowd into a frenzy but there is a certain intimidation level I believe in like there’s a resignation among a lot of the field of if Scotty plants his name at top the leaderboard sure he could stumble briefly but he’s likely not going to come back to you and that just puts so much undue pressure on the rest of the field to feel like they have to play perfect and I think that’s why you see some stumbles i think that’s why you’re seeing Scotty play solid golf shooting 70 in the final round but increasing the margin of victory from one shot to four shots and over the course of a season over the course of a career the numbers are just going to be incredibly gay and on this front Scotty is what his record says he is he hasn’t done it we haven’t seen a situation where he’s gone into the final round with a commanding lead and spit it up so until he actually does that I will go to champion tour championship back in 2022 uh yes yes he stumbled a little bit there um I don’t know in the final round if he if he completely enjoys that that golf course but I’ll keep going i’ll go back to what Jordan Speed said it’s a bummer for players knowing that he doesn’t do it if if at all then very very rarely and especially if he’s playing the way he did on that golf course would set up so well for his game it seems like every T-shot fits his eye it seems like it’s a second shot golf course so it’s much like Augusta where it sort of brings out the artist in him it allows him to be creative and go out and he knows the spots where to be aggressive and he knows the spots where he can lay back and play for par and you’re right having Ted Scott on the bag probably makes all the difference in the world having Randy Smith by his side i did I did find it fascinating during the telecast they were talking with Jack Nicholas about his work with Jack Grout all of those years side of growing up in Columbus how how important it is to have a swing coach have that continuity from a very young age throughout your pro year throughout your formative years and then into your professional years and then as you made uh as you became successful as you started to be as you started to win at the highest level and it was fun to hear Jack talk about how important that was that he never had to start from scratch tiger Woods being the primary example here he had to start from scratch on numerous occasions from the time he left Butch till he started working with Hank Haney and Sean Foley and Chris Como it seems like every time he would start from scratch jack Nicholas never did that with Jack Grout and it seems like Scotty Shuffler is never going to do that with Randy Smith yeah i mean the fundamentals the team that he’s surrounded himself the long-term commitments he’s made to them and they’ve made to him I think give him a lot of stability another thing that I think stood out to me Sunday Rex was sort of Scotty’s bounceback ability like when you look at what he did over the course of 72 holes he made four bogeies and he made a double bogey over 72 holes at Mirfield Village he came back with a birdie on three of those four holes immediately following a bogey hole and he erased the double bogey with consecutive birdies and you may line it up and say “Yeah look it’s a par five or yeah it was the short par4.” And of course his wedge play is going to put him in great position you still have to do it there’s a reason why he’s a top five player on the PJ tour in addition to all of the ball striking stats with bounceback on the PJ tour he even said as much uh pre-term I believe not just in the interview area but also with an interview with you on Golf Channel how much pride he takes in that bounceback ability not letting the mistakes bug him bouncing back fighting we’ve seen sort of fits of anger from Scotty Chef over these past couple years it doesn’t last long but there’s the occasional heated moment i covered him a lot in junior and college golf it was he was certainly not um you know he didn’t have the equilibrium he didn’t have the calmness inside the ropes that we’ve seen during this dominant stretch over the past couple years that he did back in the day but he also said Rex that like those little fits of anger that he experiences the drop shots the bogeies the silly mistakes he can almost attribute that to maybe a brief lapse of of concentration or focus during a 72-hole tournament which is going to happen you’re out there for a long time and those moments snap him back into the moment refocus him the bounceback ability is amazing i don’t want to turn this into like a 52minut slobberfest but like when you’re looking at the Scotty Shler package like that I think is a huge factor in why he’s able to put together so many great rounds to put himself in contention so often and if you look he lost strokes to the field in two out of the four rounds on the greens so it’s not as though he putted lights out fin squarely middle of the pack finished 34th in the field strokes game putting this was a ball striking ordeal which you would expect at Mirfield Village but this is such a quintessential Scotty Sheoffller victory where he did everything he had to do so well and you’re right the bounceback i think that speaks to what we just referenced when if you’re making the comparisons to Tiger Woods you’re never going to compare their swings to to each other i don’t even know if you necessarily compare their games to each other because it’s not as though Scotty Sheffller when when Tiger Woods was young in his career he overpowered courses you don’t necessarily see that from Scotty Sheffller he’s much more of a surgeon he’s going to pick you apart but the one thing I think that is the greatest comparison is his ability to bounce back as you just outlined scotty Sheffller proper player the player who was closest to him his biggest challenger on Sunday Rex was Ben Griffin he was a shot back of Scotty for much of the final round got it within two late even after double bogey ended up finishing four shots behind solo second a lot of points in a signature event on the PJ tour continuing a great run of form that we’ve seen basically since the Zurich Classic at New Orleans when he teamed with Andrew Novak to get his first victory on the PJ tour and then won again a week and a half ago at Colonial you putting him on your US RDER Cup team as we sit here on June 2nd i think we had this conversation last week thanks to other Andrew thank you other Andrew for bringing that up a week early um I I will he’s 13th right now in the US points list and that’s not counting what he did so he’s going to move up even higher i think he’s the type of player that Keegan Bradley would probably gravitate to because Keegan Bradley kind of came from the same mold keegan Bradley was not the all stud everything coming out of St john’s in college he was a very very good player in college but he wasn’t Scotty Sheffller he wasn’t some of the other players we see that come out onto the PGA tour and have immediate success success ben Griffin sold mortgages he didn’t even think coming out of UNCC Chapel Hill that he was good enough for the PGA Tour so I think there’s going to be a connection between he and Keegan Bradley already on that front and if he continues this pace and there’s no reason to think that he’s not that it’s going to be a very if it’s not an automatic lock for a bit if he’s not going to earn a spot onto the team I think he’s going to be an easy pick he’s 15th in the world ranking right now and keep in mind he didn’t get any points for the Zurich Classic win so that’s just based on what he’s done outside of the Zurich Classic and I’ve told this story a couple of times now but it was last week at Colonial when I was talking with his caddy Alex and he was telling me I I was asking about where is Ben’s confidence right now and he said that they actually sat down early in the week at Colonial and sort of started talking about some of the things Ben wants to accomplish in his career didn’t give up any detail player details players are pretty guarded when it comes to that but Alex was taken he said because we had never done that before he had never sat down and said “Hey I want to play I’m assuming a Ryder Cup i want to contend in major championships i want to do X Y and Z over the course of my career i think that’s a mentality that once a player takes a step over it and you have the talent of a Ben Griffin that you don’t know how far you can go at that point yeah I mean I certainly think there’s a grittiness to him to your point his his confidence has never been higher than it is right now i think he’ll take a lot from looking Scotty Sheffler in the eye on Sunday and giving it all he had did not seem like he was overmatched uh whatsoever i would have more confidence at least as we sit right now in Ben Griffin than some of the other contenders who are on the outside looking in sort of that 7 through 15 slot in the US RDER Cup standings uh he’s one of the best chippers pitchers and putters on the PJ tour and as he outlined in uh incredible detail uh with reporters at Mirfield Village the amount of speed and distance and pop in his bat that he has gained in particular over the past year I think is going to be a great fit uh for Beth Paige Black and the US Rder Cup venue this year i I mean it’s not unrealistic to think that you could team with Andrew Novak just let those two guys go and I think they’d be a pretty formidable duo as they were at the Zurich Classic it’s just so early to make this declaration if you’re Luke Donald like you’d have to be licking your chops thinking the Americans are going to be penciling a a player who’s in a very torid stretch the best stretch of his entire career three months out let’s see who’s playing well uh at the Open Championship the FedEx Cup playoffs before we make these sorts of declarations i did want to bring up Ben Griffin though Rex because he was one of the players who early week coverage on Golf Channel you did a walk-in talk with him right this was on Friday afternoon he’s leading the golf tournament it’s wet it’s soggy you’ve got your slicks on what happened actually let’s let’s just listen let’s just listen to what happened because you got absolutely savaged afterward should I ask you what your energy levels were like and your wife had one answer she said she was exhausted you said you were fine how are you i’m great i’m ready to keep going um but no uh it’s been a it been a nice long stretch i’m excited to take an off week after this um and prepare for some of the majors this summer appreciate your time play well yes I I can’t stand that the interview on the golf well can’t stand it hey you’ve always been candid no no yeah let me tell you how I fake yeah how I feel no I mean seriously here’s a guy who’s leading the golf tournament he’s just hit the edge of the rough he’s got a very difficult shot on a very difficult hole and you’re talking to him about stuff that totally takes his mind off of what he was doing how would you how would you think Hogan would respond to that question um times have changed you would you would not have any teeth left if you didn’t hit you right in the face with it seven under we’ll come back see if it affects him at all uh in a moment hogan would have punched you in the face had you sauntered up to him during the second round of the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday if he was leading the golf tournament i mean he didn’t say Rex that he can’t stand you jack Nichols did not say he can’t stand you he just said he can’t stand the premise of doing a walk and talk please defend yourself against the greatest champion of all time uh Mr nicholas we don’t uh we don’t hit in my family so I’m not quite sure uh you know what i I heard it i was I was actually hustling back to the tea box i had to do another interview right after that one uh with a person from the Folds of Honor which actually Mr nicholas did like that one after it aired he said how much he liked that interview just to be clear uh she obviously was not playing in the tournament to be clear on on two fronts here he did not say he was going to punch me in the face he said that Ben Hogan was He would have he and on that account I I have no doubt that Ben Hogan would have knocked my teeth out yes if I showed up with back in the 1950s with a microphone as he was walking down the 18th fairway at Marion trying to win the US Open I don’t doubt that Mr nicholas would punch me in the mouth on the other side of this and I have been very outspoken on this podcast longtime listeners will back me up on this i too am not a fan of those walk-in talks i I I don’t feel entirely comfortable with them it’s something new we we keep trying um I will say I have uh it is my voyer this is a dark side of me i check Awful Announcing which is a website about like sports broadcasting almost every day just because I’m shallow like that and uh I checked it yesterday and when when I saw that I was on it I was nothing but uh just riddled with fear and uh just terror throughout me however even on a off announcing they said that there was nothing wrong with the questions it’s just that Jack took exception to that and I would agree that these are new and that it’s a work in progress we started doing them last fall i would ar I would counter to Mr nicholas the legend and say that players have started to embrace them much more so really over the last few months ben Griffin being one of the primary players i remember talking with him early in the week at Colonial before he won we were supposed to do a walk-in talk with him that week and about some of the things that these are the questions I’d like to ask what would you like for me to ask you and so I think it’s moving in a better direction but I agree with Mr nicholas i’m not a huge fan of him right now either i mean Jack Cle was not part of the fan forward survey in which the PJ tour looked at 50,000 fans fans who want to they want to know more about Gri Ben Griffin they want you to strap on your little headset and your little belt pack and ask two or three questions before you shuffle on off to to the next one this has become standard fair Rex now in in other sports not just golf like you see it in baseball games between innings you’re seeing it between quarters either in the NBA playoffs the NFL playoffs uh players or coaches who are warming up for a big game like viewers just want to be brought closer to the game than ever before does the walk and talk accomplish that yes I think it does is it illuminating for a viewer are you learning something about Ben Griffin that you wouldn’t ordinarily know no i think there’s probably a different way to present that information but I don’t I don’t see any harm in doing it as long again as the players don’t find it intrusive as long as the players aren’t finding it um you know off-putting with sort of the the deep questions you might be asking them i I don’t I think it’s a pretty innocent way to bring viewers closer so I in that respect I think I disagree with Jack well wow they were going on a limb on that one uh and I do want to say and there was a couple of stories written and I just want to make sure it’s perfectly clear these interviews are clear days in advance not the day of days in advance ben Griffin was approached by the PGA Tour about possibly doing a walk-in talk on Friday afternoon so these these are locked in long before he ever shot a decent first round or a decent second round whatever the case may be those are first and foremost the PGA Tour also has lists of players who some who are open to the idea some who are lukewarm and some who are absolutely not and so the players have been very very clear you can tell probably about who you’ve seen with the walk-in talks and who you haven’t seen with the walk-in talks scotty Sheffller has not done a walk and talk it’s probably not going to happen some of them are where I stumble as a reporter as someone who’s actually asking the questions to your point yes I would I would like to be able to ask a little bit more probing questions enlightening questions about conditions about what you’re thinking about on a on a certain shot however your hands are tied to a large degree about the things you can ask it’s pretty much just ask about the golf that day that you’re not going to revisit anything else i’ll give you the perfect example during Colonial I interviewed John Pac on day two and he was leading after day one and he shot a 63 on day one and he credited that to the New York Knicks losing in the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Indiana Pacers and he said how that fired him up and so the last question I asked him on Friday was the uh the Knicks are playing tonight do you anticipate getting fired up going into tomorrow’s round and he actually gave a really good answer probably one of the best answers I’ve ever got cult who was on the telecast with me actually said like “Yeah that’s a good answer.” I was told after the fact that let’s steer away from the non- golf things and so your hands are kind of tied about what you can ask yeah i just I don’t want to see a reversal like anytime we’re getting inside access inside the ropes i feel like that should be encouraged even if it’s not particularly enlightening informative illuminating for the viewer like I just I just I don’t want to go backwards every other sport is innovating in that respect hate to see golf which is already behind the times do that as well some of the other reporting Rex that you had up on NBCports.com/golf pertain to mudballs we saw the issue of course with the PJ championship and the PJ of America deciding not to play the ball up preferred lies let’s clean the place wherever your parliament is going to be for the opening round cake balls were caked in mud everywhere a lot of players namely Scotty Sheoffller Xander Sheffley pretty clear that they thought the PJ of America aired that way another soggy start to the week at Mfield Village as it typically is for the Memorial Tournament what were players telling you as it pertains to the lift clean and place policy in the PJ tour i’m tired of writing about mudballs just to be clear so Fred I won’t be writing any more columns on mudballs i promise you that i’m sure he just rolled his eyes the second I filed that one on Saturday afternoon however players were talking about it and it’s just not players there are certain players who are going to complain about anything because there’s oxygen in the room and it has to be used in this particular case it was players who I have a lot of respect for you have a lot of respect for Maverick McNeely for example who was on the pack he’s going to be on the policy board going forward he wasn’t necessarily complaining his question was I don’t know when we would play live clean and plays preferred lives again whatever your parliament is if we’re not going to play it on Friday and Saturday last week it was a torrential downpour you just saw the walk and talk that was on Friday it pretty much rained all day long and then normally it’s the day after one of those dousing rains that the mudballs are at their worst keegan Bradley had the exact same thing to say brand Snaker had the exact same thing to say i needed to this is different though because as you pointed out the PG of America which is run by venerated Kerry Heg as the setup man there’s a lot of respect there but he is not going to play live clean and plays that’s just not in his wheelhouse people might have been players might have been mad about it but no one was surprised that they didn’t in this particular case they were surprised because the PGA tours seem tends to lean more towards players so I talked to officials about it and you’ll love this you you really love this there is a standard there is a philosophy and and the philosophy is quote unquote air quotes extreme mudballs and so of course your question would be what is an extreme mudball correct correct so the idea is that’s not mud on one or two balls over the course of a round that’s mud on pretty much every single hole which in my counter to this official I was talking seemed like that was the case no that was the case and then we we got into the weeds a little bit on exactly what mud and just a dirty golf ball are so that’s a discussion that I didn’t particularly want to get into because that sounds about as boring as you can possibly make it however it it goes back to what Scotty Shuffler said so eloquently at the PGA Championship that he has perfected his entire life this craft he does this one thing better than anyone else and you’re taking that out of his hands by not allowing him to live clean and place the official actually agreed with me and said “This is our standard right now it has always been our standard.” and he pointed to the fact that right now the players have more power player empowerment than they’ve ever had it’s a very strong pack and a very strong policy board and if they want change they go change it however this official did warn that that could lead to a situation where you play live clean and place every week and you probably don’t want that either so it’s a very nuanced conversation yeah like I don’t know how you would necessarily rewrite the language other than extreme mudballs to to how that could potentially be used that was funny i don’t know why that was funny to me it I mean it is interesting that the PJ tour tends to air on the side of the players here like I I always roll my eyes if there’s a little bit of a of of rain on Tuesday or Wednesday and it’s going to be soft particularly in the summer months when afternoon thunderstorms pop up like they’re probably going to play lift in place scoring is going to be outrageous there’s going to be 59 watches like I I totally get it if the US Open it’s golf’s toughest test they’re going to play the ball down pj Championship i was surprised that’s supposed to be golf’s fairest test with Carrie Hey a master of the setup i would have thought in the interest of fairness that they would to play the ball up at least in the opening round when it was it was clear that they were pushing it just to get it in with how much range they had fall at Quell Hollow i’m not sure what the reason was i don’t think Jack Nichols would have had any sort of say in let’s let’s play the ball down over over the memorial tournament he did not and and I I talked about this with the official he he he has no say whatsoever and just to give context uh go back to Dallas where Scotty Sheffller won the Byron Nelson they played lift clean and plays three out of four days go back to the Houston Open which was in April they played lift clean and plays three out of four days so they do it they just didn’t feel like it reached that standard at Mirfield Village yeah it’s a tricky thing like golf’s not a game of of perfect if you’re going to play more lift clean and place what about the divot rule and moving the ball out there what constitute a divot like I think it gets into a little bit of gray area as well as it relates to this week’s RBC Canadian Open let’s hope for warm sunny skies firm and fast conditions no mud balls whatsoever that way you don’t have to write it again on NBCports.com/golf coverage of the RBC Canadian Open begins Thursday on Golf Channel roy Mroy two-time winner is in the field okay Rexi it’s time now for some punch shots maya Stark is the winner of the US Women’s Open were you more impressed with Maya Stark were you more impressed with tournament host site Aaron Hills which was back in the spotlight for the first time since the 2017 US Open i was very impressed with Stark to win for the first time well to win her first major championship to win for the first time on the LPGA and there was a lot of pressure to have Nelly Corda right there i mean that would be akin if we were having this conversation of having Scotty Sheffler coming up right behind you so there was a lot going on on that Sunday i enjoy Aaron Hills don’t get me wrong I kind of had to go back to the 2017 US Open that Brooks Kepka won it seems like a one-dimensional golf course though it seems like the one thing Kepka did that week was drive the ball well and and I think that’s what Maya Stark did she drove the ball she drove the golf ball better than anyone’s in the field i’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing and you want a complete test and I’m not completely against it i actually enjoyed Aaron Hales i thought it was a good venue kind of out in the middle of nowhere i don’t think logistically we need to be going back there for another US Open anytime soon but it’s probably not at the top of my list of US Open venues i don’t want to gloss over My Starks i do think she’s really really talented i covered her a bit in college and amateur golf big time player she’s already been on two European Soulheim Cup teams like she’s got so much firepower a lot of personality like I think she’s going to be very very good for the LPJ and I’m happy that she’s now won a major championship i do think that Aaron Hills got a little bit of a bad rap following the 2017 US Open just because the scores were so low it clearly does not look like a traditional US Open golf course it was soft that week jt tied the scoring mark that Johnny Miller set a long time ago it was like it was not US Open like and it stood out I think because Chambers Bay just two years prior was a disaster oakmont the year before was shrouded in that rules controversy the year after that was Shinakok and you had uh the issues with with that golf course being pushed over limit as well so it didn’t necessarily it was not surrounded by great USJ championships as well but if I’m the PJ of America and the PGA has sort of struggled to have an identity for its major championship I want to lean into these sorts of venues that are newish that are interesting i completely disagree with your idea that it’s a one-dimensional golf course i think it’s really rewards great shot making and you see the ball running along the ground which is something you traditionally do not see on American style venues and so I think it’s different in that sense i think it’s a stout golf course I think whether it was the US Open whether it was this week’s US women’s open like it produces a very good leaderboard i don’t know to me it seems like a a slam dunk for not just a women’s major championship but a men’s major championship as well speaking of the US Women’s Open Rex Lexi Thompson following a miscut there at Aaron Hills fired back at some of her critics not just because of slow play that was one of the things that she was harping on about there’s pictures of Charlie Hull uh sitting on the greens and tea boxes clearly not happy with some of the pace of play but a bigger issue that she took to Instagram to to voice was reminding fans that she is not retiring she’s merely stepping back from the LPGA do you understand whether this is a false narrative or what Lexi Thompson’s actually trying to accomplish here no if that’s what she wants to do I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with it the idea that there you see her comments that were on Instagram if she still wants to play at certain venues then by all means she has earned that right we see it right now with Tiger Woods i mean we all want Tiger Woods to play more i would argue that the women’s game needs and wants Lexi Thompson to play more she is a draw at whatever event she goes to i I just would like to have some sort of clarity i don’t remember her stepping away whatever it was two years ago when she when she sort of made the announcement i remember retirement if that’s not the case that’s entirely fine by me the part about her in slow play for two rounds she missed the cut at the US Women’s Open i I sort of dismiss that entirely because it’s 156 player field on what was a really big ballpark and yes she might have been slower than her playing competitors who she was with certainly Charlie Hall is but those two are very fast i think it’s probably unfair they’re very fast and there’s never going to be anything slow and I I think in the her Instagram post she actually points out that they were waiting on every single T-shot so there is no reason for her to rush ahead to the next hole or to rush through a shot because it’s only going to get slower as you go so I I don’t have the the pace of play thing was sort of ridiculous i would argue that the one thing that I got hung up on is if you want to pick and choose your schedule that’s all well and good but in this same Instagram post you say that your game you weren’t ready for a major championship that probably goes to the fact that you’re not playing a regular schedule those two things are are mutually exclusive and I want to be very clear here this was a retirement tour because the LPGA itself put out that Lexi Thompson was quote retiring during the middle of last year you don’t just basically get to pick and choose your schedule moving forward even if you do have a little bit eligibility she was retiring that’s why they had all these good emotional goodbyes that’s why they had the farewell tour that’s why they basically had a Lexi Thompson day at one of the tournaments in late 2024 this was for all intents and purposes a retirement and yet Lexi Thompson has now made five starts on the LPJ this this year even after missing the cut at the US Women’s Open if she gets to 10 tournament starts I think it’s going to be something that that that sort of bears watching over the remainder of 2025 i think you could probably make the argument that Lexi Thompson is just trying to shy away from the spotlight but she also wants some of the bonuses that comes along with X number of tournament appearances you know that’s how a lot of these things work and so if that’s it just admit it i just say I just want to scale down my schedule to 10 to 12 events i don’t think anyone would have a problem with that she’s been in the spotlight for two decades now as an LPJ player has she underwhelmed has she overachieved i don’t know i don’t particularly care but right now sort of playing the woe is me victim card does not make a whole lot of sense as it relates to Lexi Thompson speaking of teenage prodigies how about Charlie Woods in some kudos to Tiger’s son who won his first big-time title taking the AJ AGA Invitational over a worldclass field that included 60 of the top 100 juniors in the world rex you think this is Charlie Woods’s hello world moment i don’t think it’s his hello world moment i think that’s it it’s you could make an argument now that he could have a hello world moment because up until this point his junior career had been pretty underwhelming to be quite frank and that is against a really good field on a golf really good golf course out of stream resort and it’s a great step in the right direction and we have seen him sort of develop as a golfer over the last few years certainly at the PNC championship when he plays with his dad you’ve seen him go from a very very tiny small kid that couldn’t hit it very very far to now he’s suddenly right there longer than Tiger Woods which is pretty cool and now that he’s actually doing it in against competition I think it’s great for junior golf you can only imagine how good it could possibly be for college golf and then going forward the always the the trap door when it comes to Charlie is no one can just be happy in the moment you always want to look ahead and be like well that he he did something that Tiger Woods never did just enjoy the moment and allow him to develop and I know that’s the hardest thing when you’re the son of someone as great as Tiger Woods was jack Nicholas kids found out tiger Woods’s kids are gonna find out the same thing yeah I loved an interview clip that I saw with Charlie Woods where he said “I had not proven myself against this caliber of field.” So to know that I can do it deep down is huge for his confidence i mean the kid clearly has a lot of game i think anyone who watched the PNC championship it was jumping off the screen at this particular AJ Invitational he made 26 birdies and an Eagle that’s a record for an AJ invitation which again is the best and the brightest junior players from all over the world he was 604th in the country with Charlie Woods heading into the tournament he now jumps into the top 20 great timing as well as he’s now two weeks away from college coaches beginning their recruitment in full being able to contact him i don’t think he was going to have any shortage of suitors anyway you think he was under the radar before winning at Stream Song is that what you’re saying but no but now I think he’s got the resume to to really back up all that interest you know I I know he has access to a lot of things that that other junior players don’t but he also plays under a spotlight that none of his competitors do as well like if Charlie Woods somehow becomes a standout junior player a standout college and amateur player I think that’d be an incredible achievement uh we’re certainly rooting for that to happen all right just as a reminder we do this podcast actually twice a week only once a week on Linear Television rex and I’ll be back on Wednesday for another edition of the Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lav with a full preview of the RBC Canadian Open and also wrapping up golf’s longest day coverage which begins Monday on Golf Channel okay Rex as expected we got a lot of listener feedback as it relates to the changes that are coming this year to the PJ Tours Tour Championship first of all you’re on the ground at the memorial with a few days to digest the news going away from the staggered start format did anything that you learned in your reporting change your mind about what you think as it relates to what East Lake is going to look like this year uh no i think what we leaned into on Wednesday is still true right now that whatever it looks like this year 2026 and beyond is going to look vastly different that whether if that’s field size or format or whatever the case may be this is very much a bridge year when I interviewed the commissioner Jay Monahan he referred to this being a journey so whatever it is we have this year I think you can just count on something there will be more changes ahead all right you guys have plenty of ideas as to how to fix the tour championship let’s start with CB Howard 428 who said basically just do like other sports where it’s a top 30 seed you put them in match play one and two on opposite sides rex are you okay with this idea what do you think no and I’m going to shoot down i appreciate the question and I think match play is always an interesting conversation i think you’ve been harping on that for decades now i think a lot of people have been harping on the idea that maybe we should do match play at the Tour Championship where I will circle back around and just make some notes here versus what I said on Wednesday what I said on Wednesday still stands that TV executives corporate types they’re not big fans of match play because it in those situations your stars go away really really quickly and so they don’t like the idea of Scotty losing on day one and not being there on Sunday i still believe that stands however now that I’ve spoken with some people who were in the room some players this was very much player driven as most of this is the players don’t like match play the argument from their point of view is we use this one format all year long to decide who the best player is 72 holes of stroke play without the starting strokes nonsense and this is what they wanted to revert back to so whatever changes are in 2026 and beyond I don’t think it’s going to be that part of the format i think what you’ll end up still is 72 holes of stroke play without starting strokes there will be no match play i mean it’s the same thing we just saw at the NCAA championships on the women’s side stanford just had a historic season in stroke play gets to the match play final ends up losing you can’t have one format all season and then have it in the end i think match play only works Rex as a season finale if you have stroke play qualifying leading into the match bracket or if it’s like a double elimination match play but again I don’t think it’s necessarily ideal how about this idea from Tim Keller this was actually a long thoughtout email to me he said “Top three in ties at the TUR Championship then compete in an aggregate threehole playoff.” What do you think about that one i’m not against that one and I think actually that email was interesting it was very well thought out and we appreciate it Tim thank you very much uh I will say that when I was talking with the commissioner this week reporters being reporters he was getting peppered with a lot of these very similar ideas and he stopped Alex Miselli our colleague and said “Whatever it is you can think of off the top of your head for the for the tour championship I can guarantee you they’ve already bounced it around.” So they’ve gone through the ideas of this where an aggregate playoff they’ve gone through match play they have gone through the idea as you pointed out maybe you have two rounds of stroke played and cut the field to eight and then you play mass play the rest of the way they have gone over this time and time again and they keep coming back to what I just said this is the way they identify champions on the PGA tour and they felt comfortable going forward with 72 holes of stroke play yeah I think the shootout format has some potential however let’s say Scotty Sheffller wins after 72 holes by five shots then all of a sudden he has to go in this aggregate playoff with the other players who he just drumed over four days at East Lake and then he loses the three-hole aggregate playoff that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as well there’s a lot of golf being played potentially not rewarding the best player and this from our longtime listener Joseph Boza dream courses wrecked where would you like to see the Tour Championship played somewhere in the Northeast when I saw that question I got excited because of the time of year it is not that I have anything against East Lake i think it’s fantastic venue if you’re there the right time of the year it’s just always hot and steamy and the golf course is soft we would play the Deutschbank Championship at TPC Boston back in the day in a very similar time frame and there were times when you were up there that Yeah that you would get a little bit of a season change not that I’d want to go back to TPC Boston there’s a lot of other places that I’d rather go to but somewhere during that time of year where you would get the flavor of the fall and there’s plenty of places in the Northeast you could play i mean Pebble Beach would be amazing i don’t think anyone would not want to go to Pebble Beach twice during a PJ tour season i think Chambers Bay I think anything on the West Coast is going to be very appealing to try and get that in the prime time slot during the summer but I’m with you chicago Philly Boston New York plethora of good options i think that could showcase the PJ Tours grand finale in an even bigger light all right you and I both have Golf’s longest day today you are in Ohio i am in Georgia what are you most looking forward to on golf’s longest day this is the Springfield site and it’s usually the sort of the secondary site from Columbus most of the players who played the Memorial play the Columbus site but because it’s a signature event now you don’t have a lot of players i think there’s one player in the field this week in Springfield or today in Springfield Brandt Snedker who actually played the Memorial but it’s such a cool site it’s a very short golf course it’s got some really funky greens it’s sort of an old school one and the last couple of years we’ve had some really cool finishes so I’m looking forward to that yeah i’m at Piedmont Driving Club uh which is a great track looking forward to getting out there as usual I have a collection of junior players college standouts PJ tour players like Aldrick Poter who nearly won this year on the PJ tour as well as uh veterans like Zack Johnson Jason Duffner all on the field all competing most likely for just three or four spots it’s always a fun day you guys are going to be locked to Golf Channel all day long you guys know where where to find us as well on mcupports.com/golf and I’ll be out on Monday we’ll talk to you on Wednesday thanks for listening thanks for the support talk to you guys in a couple of days