Kyle and LKD spend an hour building the statistical revolution golf should already have — crushed-percentage, unforced errors, momentum adjustments, Ryder Cup psychology, all of it. It’s deeply nerdy, perfectly Normal Sport, and sometimes emotional (because Rory). Jason Page joins as producer-commentator and occasional philosopher.
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00:00 Technical Difficulties and Pronunciation Challenges in Podcasting
03:28 From Golf Dreams to Golf Digest: Luke Kerr-Dineen’s Journey
08:06 The Stark Skill Gap Between Amateurs and Professional Golfers
16:23 Revolutionizing Golf Stats: Power Percentage and Player Performance
22:51 Enhancing Golf Analytics with High Leverage Performance Metrics
29:50 Seed Golf’s Quiet Rise in the Premium Golf Ball Market
30:14 The Debate on Momentum and Confidence in Golf Performance
40:06 Analyzing Unforced Errors in Golf for Better Broadcast Insights
43:04 The Importance of Data and Stats in Golf and Baseball
50:13 Rory McIlroy’s Struggle Between Aggression and Conservatism in Golf
57:55 Sponsorship Highlights: Holderness and Born and Ogio Luggage
59:00 Guessing Golf Majors Based on Player Leaderboards
1:07:58 Aaron Baddeley’s Potential Major Win with Stack and Tilt
1:11:47 Crafting Golf Content That Resonates With Players and Coaches
1:17:44 Challenges and Dynamics of Media Access in Professional Golf
1:24:22 Falling in Love With Golf Through Sergio Garcia’s 1999 Shot
1:25:52 European Ryder Cup Success Due to Deeper Investment and Continuity
1:28:54 Golf’s Greatest: Faldo, Rose, and the Tiger Effect
Welcome back to the normal sports show. I am here uh we we’re having just all kinds of technical difficulties today. Uh trying out a bunch of different things trying to this why we’re this is why we’re doing it in the fall because if we’re doing it in the spring during the players championship or masters we would be just catatonic over the state of I feel like the shotgun star right now just our audio and our computers and all kinds of stuff. But I am excited because we do have uh for the first time uh at least as kind of in a a different role, Jason Paige, you and I have done a couple podcast together, but it was more back and forth. This time you’re going to play the producer commentator role. Uh are you do you feel comfortable in your new role? I’m happy that I don’t have to run the show, but I’m happy to pop in and out. So yeah, feel I feel very good in that position. Perfect. You’re going to pop in and out. And uh the main event we’ve got LKD, Luke Kerdin. Uh how do you how do you pronounce the second part of your last name, Luke? You just nailed it, Kyle. Cardanine. If you asked my dad, it’s the C that’s the issue. He likes to pronounce it Cardanine. Even though it’s not pronounced that way. It just sounds cooler that way. But yeah, no, you nailed it. Cardanine. Brava. I’ve got a buddy that uh he’s from Louisiana and so he uh the other day he sent us this video of himself ordering a happy meal at McDonald’s uh for reasons unknown, but he was he was trying to say meal and he kept saying meal. I I’d like to order a happy meal. And I I texted back to the whole group and was like I know what you think you’re saying but it that is not what is coming. that’s like not the way it sounds coming out of your mouth. So, are there words in like in America that you just struggle with as like with with you know like just over the years? No, I’ve mostly just succumbed to the American pronunciation of stuff like I say I say soccer and American football. So, I don’t have a football. Those are just the two cuz that’s the best clarity. Uh the only one that gets Oh, aluminum instead of aluminium. I’ve just given up. up. I say aluminum now, but the I I every time I order fast food, uh the one that trips up the service is water for me. I say water. I’m holding firm on that. I’m going to I’m not going to pronounce my A’s. Damn it. I’m I’m going to let them ride. Except uh they just don’t understand. So, I end up having to say water and then they and then they get it. But that’s I’m going to die on that hill. I’ve given up enough, Kyle. Like a lowbrow American. I need some water. Give me some water with a D. We’re We’re water in Philly. You don’t want to You don’t want to talk about that in Philly. Oh, that’s so good. Um Okay. Okay. D I wanted to have you on. We You and I always have fun and good conversations at when we hang out at major championships and uh we’re kind of trying something a a little bit different today. We’re doing uh kind of a segmented show. Um, I think up until this point it’s been a little bit more free flowing and and this will still be free flowing and we’ll talk about whatever comes up. But, uh, I wanted to segment it out a little bit and have some have some structure around it. So, the first thing that I would like to get into, actually before we get into it, I I would love for you to kind of tell people your background in golf because I think you have brought you’ve brought a ton of context and insight within the golf world. Um, if people don’t know, you have worked for Golf Digest for a long time, and you’ve done a a really good job of providing some context to the professional game through the videos that you that you guys are making and putting on YouTube, through a lot of swing analysis and different things like that. So, just walk me through like what is your background? How did you get into not just golf, but like everything um in in golf media over the last several years? It’s funny. Uh your question reminds me we were I was walking around with Max Homer at the memorial and he was like he said the same thing. He’s like how like how did this happen? Like how does somebody get this into the golf swing into the golf nerdy stuff? Um yeah know. So I my background I I fell in love with the game in like 1999 which I’m sure we’ll get into a little bit but like I just caught the bug. I was living in England at the time. I came to the game kind of late. I was like 12, but I got really into it and ended up moving to America cuz my mom’s American and I went to the International Junior Golf Academy, which is down, it was down in Hilton Head Island at the time. So, I came over here in like 9th grade and just was so obsessed with golf, you know, obviously it’s like a highly technical environment, like we were doing golf swing stuff from such an early age and studying it and I was just like so into it. Um, and so, you know, that was through my high school, still really into it. didn’t get burnt out somehow. Went to go play college golf stuck in the same area at the University of South Bufort. And then about halfway through there, I was like intent on being a pro golfer. Like I’m going to be a pro golfer. And then you just start looking around and playing college kids. I played a ton of golf with Kyle Stanley and you’re like, “Oh yeah, like I am not good enough to be a pro golfer.” You know, like I remember this is a bit of a subject, but I remember one day so like Kyle Stunning obviously a really good player, PJ tall winner, but not like alltimer, right? like just solidly good PG tall player for a long time. I remember he would just like chip and part all day and we’d go out and play and on this one hole at Berkeley Hall I hit a driver a 3-wood and then like kind of a 50 yard wedge shot call it you know and I was like yeah I’m feeling pretty good. He had driver seven iron into it and I was just like yeah like this is he’s just an alien like I’m not good enough at this. So that’s when I started getting into other stuff. I I got into student government at USCB and I was editor of the student newspaper and started doing internships along the way. I didn’t think I wanted to cover golf for a while. Um thought I wanted to cover politics and then after getting a small taste of that world I was like this is just the worst. I don’t want to cover Liz and the PJ just so much worse. Um, and I had met Aean Lynch weird. Lou took me out to lunch and said, “You should go talk to Jerry Tardy because he loves hiring good golfers.” And I went and talked my way into a job with Jerry Tardy at Golf Digest. And you know, I left since then and came back. But that’s kind of how I got into golf. And uh it’s just kind of ultimately the com cul combination of just this really player specific technical background that I had in school combined with this like journalism background that I had through grad school and college and stuff and the two just kind of came together. So kind of lucky how it all worked out. What was uh I think we all are in on to some degree. What what was the part of covering politics that you got into that you’re like ah I think I’m think I’m good. So I was covering like the breaking I was on so my first internship was at USA Today. I was on the breaking news desk. So it was like a lot of like that was during the whole like um like this is a bit of a deep cut but the whole like cut cap balance Obama era stuff you know so it was like there were these constant gridlocks where the government’s just like shutting down and everyone hated each other. It was like the real first taste of that and then I covered that following election just as like a kind of freelancer and you know people it was just like a weird combination of really clubby and you know really clubby and tough to get in and also just kind of like this slightly slimy world where you just feel like people aren’t actually uh like talking with like some kind of shared common ground. It’s all just like teams. They kind of and they kind of love it, but it’s kind of like this gross little game they’re all playing, but they kind of are like really into it. It just the vibe, I guess, is the simple ones. The vibe was just off, Kyle. I didn’t like it. Yeah. No, that makes sense. Was Was Stanley the guy that uh cuz I was I asked people this that used to play sports. I I was I was college baseball. I wasn’t I wasn’t golf. I was high school college baseball. And there’s always somebody that people who used to or who played at at a competitive level at high school or beyond where they run into somebody that plays the same sport and you’re like, I I can’t do that. Like what? I don’t I don’t I don’t think uh I don’t think the future is looking too bright for uh for old Kyle here after seeing what, you know, so and so did you know over over eight innings on Friday night. So, was he the one or was there anybody else that you ran into that you’re like, “Uh, that’s going to be problematic.” It’s funny. Um, so I went to high school Steuart Hagstad, too. So, he was super good, you know, but it’s funny. So, I was in the like Ricky Fowler, Peter Uline generation of golfers, but those guys were like studs and they went to Oklahoma State. So, in some ways, you can rationalize that as being like, “Oh, well, those guys are obviously going to be awesome.” It was Kyle, you know, and Stuart Hagstad was a little younger than me, but he was awesome. But it wasn’t quite apples to apples cuz we weren’t in the same age group competing against each other, even though he was way better than I was. Um, but Kyle was the one for me because he was obviously this like incredibly good player, like a top college player, played at Clemson, all this stuff, but he wasn’t he was like just below that cut of like obviously going to be awesome players, right? and you’re like, “Wow, if this if if he’s this good and he’s not even like the best, what what what chance do I have?” Um, that was So, that was probably the one that opened my eyes the most. Yeah, cuz there’s what 200 spots, 170 spots on on the tour and you’re like, well, like, okay, if he’s number 140, like I mean, what are we doing? And and it’s like when you sometimes it’s it’s worth backing up a little bit like walking the range with like Brentley Roman. It’s this is like the perfect guy to do it with and I do it every now and again. And sometimes when you back up and you realize like oh my god these are all like NCAA champs, all Americans, you know, they were all just absolute studs at every level they played in. And they are just like one of the many out on the PGA tour. It’s just it’s it really is just incredible like the level you have to be just to get in the conversation. Well, that was the thing for me. You and I looked this up a couple like a year ago in Major League Baseball there there’s obviously more spots than there is on the PGA Tour, but every year there’s turnover of about I think 200 to 250 players. So 200 guys out out of the whatever 750 or 800 that are in there. So 200 guys out, 200 new guys in. If you don’t I think it was 250 out. So if you say let’s say 50 of those new spots are international, I think that’s probably undershooting it because there’s a lot of international baseball players that come into Major League Baseball. So let’s say there’s 200 spots for Americanborn players, which is again probably pretty generous. That means every year, like for my age group, you have to be one of the four best in your state. If we’re saying every state sends four guys, you have to be one of the four best in your state. So now you have to think, am I even the best guy in my on my team, in my town, in my city, in my broader region? Like there’s only four guys from each state that that that jump into it every year. And once you start thinking about it like from a mathematical standpoint, you’re like, I have no chance of of and and I think the the the the underbelly of that is the minor league addition of of trying to chase it professionally, whether it’s cornfairy or lower or for major league baseball, single A, double A, trip, that’s a hard life and you have to like really want to enter into that to to to continue chasing it. And something I don’t think we really talk about is it’s that uh catching up is it takes just like a miracle in order to catch up because it’s not like if if you’re like the fifth best guy in your state, right? And you can say, “Okay, well the four guys ahead of me, maybe one of them is going to burn out. Maybe bad injury luck.” Now you’re suddenly in the conversation, whatever. But like if you’re the 12th best guy or the 15th best guy, maybe you’re like it’s kind of a miracle if you can get up to being the eighth best guy because like these guys are going to continue improving too. It’s like the uh the interest compounds, right? So, they’re going to keep getting better, too. So, in order to catch up to them who are already getting better, you have to like clearly be better than them in sort of every facet of the of your practice and all this stuff in order to be not just keeping up with them, but to actually be gaining ground on them in a fairly quick amount of time. I mean, it’s it just it’s it’s it’s really it’s a really really difficult. Yeah, it that’s a great point. And I think maybe Kyle Stanley will be my new go-to for like I I tell people all the time like you have no idea how good Scotty Sheffller is because I’m pretty sure you have no idea how good Kyle Stanley is. And Scotty Sheffller is standard deviations better than Kyle Stanley and like so and you know I play a ton of golf with a buddy of mine Sed. He runs Aros. He is like we’re about as good as each other. He’s like a little better than a scratch and he is like the best putter I know. He is phenomenally good at putting by any standard. You go out with him, you’re like, “Oh my god, this guy doesn’t miss. He’s amazing.” And when you look, you know, because he runs alcohol, he keeps all his stats. He is PG average putter. Like I think a hair better than average. And you’re just like he is literally the best putter I know. Like and he is like would be okay on tour at partying. It’s just it Yeah. Sometimes the context it’s easy to take for granted, but just like again, these these guys are good. Yeah, they they are very good. Jason, what’s up? I mean, I’ve I’ve often thought of the context of golf when you think about even like localized golf legends or or people who have won like a bunch of club championships and that the number can sometimes be really like mind-blowing, but then you think like did they have any competition? Were there how were the years in which they played? Um, I mean, you also have people who shot their age like a million times. You think like, did they do it in Florida or did did they do it in Pennsylvania? I mean, there’s there’s so much nuance to it, but yeah, context matters. I guess this is a I kind of generally hate like hokey takes, but this so this is a little hokey, but I do actually believe this one where they’ll say somebody told me like a scratch golfer is closer in ability to a 90s shooter than he is to a pro golfer. So, you know, you’re talking just over 18 shots. And I honestly kind of believe it. Just seeing these guys, playing with these guys, it’s incredible. I remember when Shane Bacon made the US AM. And uh I think it was the one at Cherry Hills if I’m if I’m not wrong. Yeah. Yeah. And Shane Bacon is the best player I’ve ever or the best nonpro I guess I’ve I’ve ever played with. Like he’s he’s unbelievable. Like he’s so long. He’s so good. Um we played this course called Old American in uh I think it’s in the Colony up here in in Dallas. They play a LPJ event there and I think they do. I know they play some US Open qualifiers. Uh and I went out and played from the the men the you know regular TE’s and shot like 89 or 91 or something and and felt like I hit it pretty good. And he played from the tips and shot like 73 and it was like easy like it was it was not a stressful 73. and he gets done playing the USA amate hills and he’s like I like I don’t understand and these are amateurs. These are like I mean they’re very good amateurs but he’s like I don’t understand like like how much better the these guys are than than I am and they’re not even professionals. And it’s just like like the the the statement of hey a scratch golfer is closer to a 90s than a pro. I I totally believe that. Like I think that’s completely valid. or like I did this YouTube series once called the grid which is you basically you have to you get pros trying to hit uh shots into certain distance shots and what I found is that they they’re like the rest of us if we hit 10 shots right we’ll hit four good and then we’ll thin a couple then we’ll tow a couple and that will change around the distance so like about half of the shots that you hit are like just baseline execution errors right like ah I have to throw that one out because I didn’t do that properly guys the the the pros don’t really make execution errors and they certainly don’t make big error like execution errors. So their execution errors are tiny. We’re talking grooves, right? Grooves high or low. And so and that doesn’t even happen very much. Usually what you’re seeing are like misjudgments, you know? Oh, it is a hard six, not a soft six. I should I should go ahead and hit the hard six, which is again just it’s just incredible like how they have managed to get to that level of excellence. Yeah, I think that’s really that’s really good context. Okay. Uh the first thing I wanted to do as we’re 20 minutes into talking about how bad we are at golf. Uh the first thing I wanted to do, you and I have had this conversation privately just at tournaments or whatever. Um, and I wanted to have it publicly and I wanted you to bring well I wanted us both to bring some stats to the table. So these are what we’re calling stats that aren’t stats but maybe could be stats and maybe should be stats. So yeah, what I mean by that is I think you and I are aligned in that golf is trailing some of the other sports in terms of its statistical revolution or statistical um, you know, evolution even. um is golf is everything can be measured in golf and yet we have sports where it’s harder to measure things like basketball and football kind of outpacing it in terms of the statistical output that those sports have. So you go we’ll let you go first and we’ll kind of trade back and forth and I’d love to hear what is your first stat that nobody is really doing or tracking that um isn’t a stat isn’t a real stat yet but maybe could and should be. Yeah, I feel like we haven’t even really reached the 1.0 no error in stats. You know, God bless Mark Brody for coming along, giving us strokes game because it just doesn’t seem like it’s a high priority in in Tall World. So, we’re kind of starting at a pretty simple baseline. Um, the one I would like to see is basically the equivalent of barrels in baseball. And this is really easy to do. I called it I wrote an article about this once. I called it power percentage. You could also call it like crushed percentage or something. And basically this is how close or how often a player hits a drive that’s close to their ceiling. So just to keep the math simple, let’s say that Kyle gets out there and hits a drive, you know, we know that his ceiling, the fastest drive he’s ever hit is 100 mile per hour ball speed, right? We know that that’s like the fastest. And then on the fifth hole, we’re playing around and then you get hold of one and it goes 98 mph. We know that you just you were within 98% of your best drive ever. And I think that this is something that would be again pretty easy to do cuz we have all these players as max ball speeds. We get their ball speed in real time on TV. And this would just provide context to like two things. First of all, how good is a player at like how close are they flying to the sun, right? Like how how good are they hitting the ball? How often are they like hitting uh are they flying close to their max? but also provides context for the viewer, right? If I’m at home and you hear someone Trev Iman pop up and say, “Oh, Rory really got hold of that one. He really smoked that.” And then something pops up screen that said, you know, Rory just hit a new high ball speed for the season. Or that was 99% of Rory’s maximum ever ball speed drive. Suddenly you’re like, “Oh, wow.” Like he he did hit that one. Or if somebody hits it poorly, vice versa, you’re like, “Oh, that was only 90% of what he’s capable of or 80%.” Um, again, just a little contextual information that I think I love that. I think my first question is how often is our players max ball speed their actual max ball speed like like and and I guess what what I mean by that is let’s say let’s say Feno hits 184 ball speed. Well, the reality is like if when we’re on the driving range like let’s say his max ball speed in tournament play is 184. when we’re at the driving range, he can hit it like 196, but he chooses not to do that in in a tournament. Yeah. Is that a is that a thing that would h And I guess it I guess it doesn’t matter because your max ball speed in tournament play is your max ball speed in tournament play. So you’re maybe you don’t have the confidence to go out there and and hit what your actual max speed is in in an in a real tournament. Yeah. So I I I think I land where you ad what you just said basically that we have to cap it somewhere we should just take your fastest drive ever if you do this stat that said Tony Fen is a good example because if you zoom out and you look at the data set of just like you have enough drives Tony Fen now like has gone after drives before in certain conditions. So we his max ball speed on tour is in the 190s but he’s a great example because his like power percentage is way lower relative to his max and that tells the story accurately about what Tony Fe now is right he has way more in the tank than he uses like Rory Maroy and Victor Havlin are two great examples of the opposite like they’re elite ball strikers elite drivers with lots of speed and they are like within they kind of average within 96% of their maximum ball speed just kind of on a given dead. But Tony Fe now, he averages more like high 80s%. Which is again, then you look at it with your eye and you’re like, “Yeah, that’s actually accurate.” Like Tony Fe now does do that because there are enough opportunities over the course of multiple seasons where a player will just really go after one. Yeah. I mean, to make to make the parallel to baseball, I think that’s such a good like source of stats uh and knowledge, but also history in terms of like when you go when new teams or teams go to a baseball stadium and someone hits a home run, they immediately know like that’s the longest home run that’s ever been hit in this stadium in the last 50 years or something. And that just enhances the viewing experience so much in that moment of like, is this the longest drive someone’s hit at Pebble Beach? I mean, you don’t Yeah, it’s interesting when it gets kind of tied to the location. It can also raise flags, too. Like Homer’s a great example. He’s struggled the past year and a half or so. His So, you know, his ceiling didn’t change, but his power percentage so as the how often he got close to that ceiling did it dipped way down. And that’s in some ways that can um that that that can raise a red flag, right? like, oh, he’s not, you know, he he’s not exercising what he’s capable of all of a sudden. So, um, and and yeah, that so that could have different gambling implications and stuff. Yeah, it’s really it’s really interesting. I think golf in general is pretty bad at context. And so, I think that uh at least professional golf is is generally bad at context. So, I think that having better context like this would enhance uh the fans experience and the viewers experience. My first one, LKD, is um and we could probably spend the whole hour and a half on this, but um is on just doing these stats is high leverage performance. And so I I mentioned this actually in a recent podcast with Jason. And what I mean by this, uh, there was a there was a quote from, I believe it was Eduardo Molinari who talked about how over the last several years, the European Rder Cup team measures your performance when you get near the lead in a in a tournament. And I think that is really valuable. It’s really meaningful information because and and the example that I used with Jason is that I think Roberto Castro was asking data golf on Twitter, which is an insane string of words there, an insane sentence, but he was asking, “Do can you differentiate between strokes gained in contention, strokes gained out of contention?” And they don’t have that feature. I think they probably could have it if they wanted to. I’m maybe speaking out of turn there, but that to me is just, okay, I think of somebody like Tommy Fleetwood’s an easy example of like, hey, when he gets in contention, maybe he struggles a little bit, but that’s also the eye test and me watching and trying to internalize some things. Is this actually true? Does he struggle compared to his baseline uh as it relates to being in contention? And people after we talked after Jason and I talked about this, they pointed out that data golf has the feature where it’s like, okay, did you start the round in within however many strokes of the lead? How did you perform relative to your normal? But I’m talking more about are you at any point near the lead of the tournament? And that’s a different thing because you can quickly you can start the round within one stroke of the lead, fall way out of contention, have a good round, but it doesn’t like you were out of contention already. So, I think that would be a really cool stat to have to kind of contextualize which guys are are good whenever you’re feeling some things that you’re not normally feeling on a Thursday or Friday. Yeah. And you could totally do this. Um, it just, you know, it would just need to be a priority for the tour, which it it just isn’t right now. Um, but, you know, it’s like you you could also zoom out where you could start weighing different things. So like a uh par you could say is a high leverage situation but not as high as a par plus a tournament uh plus plus a putt that uh to win the tournament or to get into a playoff or something right. So you can weigh all these different things. And Brody, Mark Brody’s found that paw parts and birdie putts, their make rates right about the same. That which is actually helpful because that means okay, this is what’s supposed to happen. That should be about the same. If one player is missing a ton of P parts, for instance, but making his birdie parts that then suggests like perhaps he’s not as good in these pressurized situations because, you know, there’s always maybe just intrinsically a little more nerve. It’s a little more nerve-wracking to be putting for P than Birdie. And uh that again that would just be a fascinating little insight, right? And same with if you manage to do with Ryder Cups if puts to win the hole versus tie the hole versus, you know, when your partner’s already close to the hole. Like that would be fascinating, too. Totally. I know who win. Justin Rose would win. Yeah, for sure. God, I I can’t Yeah, we don’t need to get into that. And even I I’ve gained insight even playing around with that data golf tool where it’s it’s okay. How did you when you were leading going into a final round, what was your strokes gain compared to what it was supposed to be compared to your historical norms? Like if you look through it, you get the insight. And I didn’t I wouldn’t have thought this going in necessarily. Maybe I would have, but but maybe not. Bryson’s a really good closer and somebody like uh Rory is is not. And the reason Rory wins so much is because he puts himself in that position more like twice as much as anybody. I mean, it’s extraordinary how often he’s in the top three going into the final round compared to even the top players. And and the same over the last two years is true for Scotty. So, you get a you get a fuller picture of the player and how they’re winning or what they’re doing to win. Some guys close out final rounds when they’re in contention. Maxoma comes to mind. Bryson does that. Some guys just put themselves there over and over and over and over again and things just happen to go their way. So it stuff like that is just I think it’s really important maybe more so for us than the casual fan but to have as sort of like okay this is the narrative of this player and it’s not just my perception of it which is important but it’s also like statistically true and I can show you how it’s statistically true and how it has evolved over the years. Yeah, absolutely. I mean this kind of remind this is kind of so my second stat which this very much reminds me of maybe they’re the same is the something like momentum adjusted strokes gained or momentum adjusted make rate and so the idea is that you know like the royal the recent Royal Liverpool British Open where Brian Harmon literally didn’t miss a putt inside of 12 ft or whatever it was something that’s like a dynamic that explains like okay now Brian Harmon has another 12-footer like what is expected make rate on this. It’s almost like your power you’re you’re adjusting the the make rate to account for what streak he’s on or vice versa, right? Like if your strokes if you’re a driver, if you know Rory’s obviously an amazing driver for instance, but let’s say he’s just hit two terrible drives cuz sometimes he can go sideways like a like a Philly cricket club over the summer, right? like is his expected like what is his expected strokes gain on this next drive with the information that he’s not hit a fairway yet this round? Like even if you just factored it in and did it in real time, that would be interesting. But again, if there was like a model that could maybe see like, oh, he’s expected to regress to the mean here or actually he’s probably going to miss this part because or he’s 15% more likely to miss this part because he hasn’t made one yet today. I don’t know if it works like that, but it would be fascinating to see something like that. Long before a certain left-handed Hall of Famer was boasting about hitting hellacious seeds, a small team based at a university in the Midlands of Ireland was quietly planning to upend the premium golf ball market. Seed Golf began in 2017 and probably makes the best golf balls you’ve never heard of. They’ve been racking up awards for their performance since then and have quietly become the darlings of golf reviewers all over YouTube. Go check them out at seedgolf.co and use the discount code normalport for 20% off your first order. Well, two thing two things come to mind. We’ll get to you in a second, Jason. Two things come to mind. One is we need to have just a PSA on what strokes gained is because I think somebody like my dad hears strokes gained and he just like can’t I mean he thinks in his head that it’s more complex than it actually is, right? I think maybe maybe Luke and I need to put together this PSA. We can bring Sully in also. But um and and Rick uh Rick Gaming. So, so that’s one thing and I think the second thing is actually a question for you Luke which is do you believe in momentum because I remember when I was like when I was coming up and uh like the money ball stuff in baseball and there was this whole thing about like momentum’s not a real thing. Derek Jeter hits the same uh he’s got the same average in the ninth inning with two outs as he does in the first inning with nobody out. And I haven’t delved into it enough to prove or disprove any of that specifically in golf. But man, I you and I have both played competitive sports and I just mentally that’s not how I feel. And so I would be fascinated to hear your take on whether you think momentum and streaking like a like a like a streak is is affects the way you actually play. Yeah, this is one of these like um if there’s no evidence for it, why do I keep seeing it happen thing like m maybe it’s uh maybe it’s just variance. Maybe it’s just random variance that happens in a very specific but it just that doesn’t feel right. This what what feels at least to me more likely is that we just haven’t figured out why this happens yet or how like we we we don’t we don’t understand like why momentum it why momentum happens what it is. I mean, uh, so I I just feel like I’ve seen it enough times where somebody gets going and they get this irrational confidence and then they just keep going and maybe the confidence comes because they’re riding this random variance good streak and vice versa on a bad streak. But I don’t know, it feels like, and again, this matches anecdotally what uh what pros say too, that I was feeling great. I feel like I couldn’t miss. And I don’t know it to me it just feels like uh where there’s smoke there’s fire situation especially you know like the 2025 Masters in some ways was classic example of you could once Rory dumped that shot into into the hazard onif on 13 you could just feel like everything drain out of the crowd out of him and there was momentum was going in the wrong way all of a sudden and it was just so yeah I don’t know I I think we just don’t understand it yet but I feel like I’ve seen these streaks happen and it maybe changes the mindset of players in a way that actually affects the outcome. Totally. And I think it the the window of time you’re looking at matters too, right? Because if you look at a long enough window of time, then sure, maybe it maybe it even it smooths out a little bit maybe. I don’t know. I haven’t done again I haven’t done this in golf but over a short enough window of time you’re like I I mean like look like like Brian Harmon made everything he looked at at at uh at Liverpool and some of that has to be because mentally he’s like I’m going to make everything that I look at because that’s what I I just again if you’ve played sports it’s just very very difficult to think that that’s not a factor at all. Jason go ahead. I mean, I’m curious to hear in your years on tour, both of you guys, have you heard instances of players reacting live or in time to um these kind of momentum swings or telling themselves like, “I wasn’t expected to make that anyway,” or putting other players performances into perspective. Yeah, totally. Um, I think pros on the whole tend to be irrationally confident, you know, like I think in order to be a pro, you have to have some level of like irrationality, right? So, you make your money like really trying hard and making that six-footer 4% of the time more than the schlub who’s down on the corner tour who’s also an NCAA champion, right? like this is and and so I think it’s like um I guess what I’m trying to say is I I haven’t I think this is exactly what pros struggle with is that they don’t miss a sixfoot and say well that happens 40% of the time. Whoops. Like they tend they get just pissed off 100% of the time because they think they should make it 100% of the time. Yeah. I think the thing that comes to mind for me, Jason, is is actually the RDER Cup and how I think I think that both teams are now entering into it knowing what the narrative has been over the last decade. And again, there’s there’s almost no way to prove this, which is part of why I love talking about the Ryder Cup because you can’t prove or disprove anything because the sample size is so small. But I think Victor Havlin enters the Ryder Cup thinking like, “Hey, I had the year I had whatever. I’m going to make every putt that I that I have at Beth Page.” And there’s just something about that. And and the flip side is true, too. Like I think the Americans enter like with not that kind of confidence. And you don’t necessarily hear them. No, nobody would ever say that. But that to me, I’m again, this is a perception thing. It’s anecdotal. I can’t statistically prove it, but I I feel like we’ve again watched it play out enough times that there’s something there um that is like a real mental emotional thing that like I I thought what Luke said is really smart of like, hey, there’s there’s literally no way to measure this, but man, I you can just when you’re out there, you can just feel it. Like you can you can literally like feel it. And I think that’s part of that’s part of why I love sports is cuz you you know we’re talking about all these things that we could or should be able to measure, but there’s some stuff that you’re like feels like magic and that’s why I love it. And uh yeah, so that’s a really um interesting and good question. My second one, LKD is and the mine are all strokes game, but uh strokes game playing with different players and or being paired with different uh different players because when I think about my own golf and going out and and playing with um different people, there’s just times where I’m more comfortable playing with certain guys than if I go out and play with three of my best friends, I’m more comfortable than if I go out and play with three people that I don’t Oh, and or or maybe a guy that I have met and I don’t really like that much. And so I I would I would be curious to see what guys or what players different strokes gained are when they’re paired with different people. And maybe you could only do it when it when it’s uh twosomes rather than than threes uh because you have you start to introduce more variables there. But I think that would be really really interesting. And again, maybe these are just tools that you and I would use in the way that we talk about or write about or think about some of this stuff, but as a fan, I would be fascinated. It’s almost like matchups in baseball, right? This pitcher against this hitter or or whatever. Uh this cornerback against this wide receiver. Like again, you’re not playing against that guy necessarily. It’s not match play, but you’re playing with them and and what how they act and what they do can affect how you feel and and seemingly how you play. Yeah. I mean like there would be the super users of this stuff, right? People who just like pile into it. But then I think the value of it is that it would be a resource that informs the narrative, right? So then all of a sudden found to be like ah Rory is playing with Shane Lowry in the third round. Like he always plays well with Shane Low. It just I think which we say but we can’t prove. We can’t prove it. And therefore we say things like oh momentum doesn’t exist. You know, people will say like, “Oh, momentum doesn’t exist because how do we It may be that momentum exists in part because there’s some Rory Mro is just driving with Shane Lowry and he’s making all these parts that he’s feeling, you know, there’s so it just I think it informs the overall narrative in a way that actually feels real, right? Cuz you can actually prove some of this stuff or it can get you excited too if if you say, “Oh, Rory’s playing with Patrick Reed and he hates playing with Patrick Reed. He always plays worse with Patrick Reed.” Suddenly there’s just some stakes. There’s some context. There’s some stakes to what’s about to happen, which I think golf isn’t generally very good at. Yeah, totally. And I feel like I’m I’m a little bit talking out of both sides of out of my mouth cuz I am very much a proponent of statistics and now I’m saying like I just I feel a certain way. But I think the part of the problem is what we’re getting at, which is the statistics to kind of prove what I’m feeling or getting at don’t even exist. And I and I and I’m I’m asking for them to exist. Maybe maybe you and I should just go make them because all the data I mean again this is not we’re not uh this is this is not even as complex as like what Mark Brody did. This is very basic stuff. It’s it’s it’s just databases and adding things together and and a bunch of stuff that I again don’t know how to do. But I the reason I’m I want them to exist is cuz I want to be able to prove or disprove some of these theories that I have of momentum of do are guys more comfortable of it is pressure a real thing? And I feel like you can’t you just yell about it right now. You can’t disprove or prove it one way or the other. Yeah. And like again, we’re not saying, “Oh, well, we should uh you I could think of a bazillion golf swing type statistics which would require actually hiring people to like capture this data in a very specific way.” We’re not talking about any of that. Like my third stat is unforced errors, which uh my way of doing it would just be like just combine a couple of high likelihood outcome situations and how often do players make them. So, like how often is Kyle Porter missing a green in regulation from inside 100 yards or missing a putt inside five feet, you know, like how many and then just like rank them on tour like we have all that stuff already. We we h we can see how often Rory misses a putt between three and five feet or whatever like and that would just be like one part and you just combine five stats like that or whatever and suddenly you just say this is unforced errors. It’s when you fail at in a high likelyhood outcome situation. And again, we’re not talking about capturing any data. It’s literally just this is like the equivalent of ops or something, right? Where you’re just combining and weighing a few different things and being like, “Oh, Kyle Paul has a horrible ops in golf.” For sure. I do. Uh, this is a good one because I think it I mean, I think about Pinehurst, right, with Rory. Was this was this an un? And and some of this is hard because I think strokes gain and shot link there are there are certainly flaws in it, right? Not all 4-foot putts are created equal. And so I think I think there’s some uh you you might have to amend some of that a little bit. Um, like Rory’s missed putt on the 18th hole at Pinehurst is is an unforced error when you’re putting on a flat surface at Harbortown, but maybe it’s not an unforced error when you’re putting, you know, downhill to win the US Open at Pinehurst with a whatever. Um, Data Golf does this thing where they have kind of the opposite of this like uh I can’t remember what bad shot I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. where they do it where like if you have a strokes gain that loses more than half a stroke, that’s a good or bad that’s a bad shot and vice versa for a good shot. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking they only had it for good, but uh maybe they have it for bad. I’ve I don’t I haven’t looked at tournament data in a while cuz it’s November 4th or whatever. But yeah, there is some of that. You have to dig a little bit and and um it would be it would be very this would be great context for the broadcast, right? You can go ahead. Oh, sorry. I’m just excited. I don’t mean to cut you off, but like you can also see how these things can start working together now. So, if you can be like Rory Moy makes more unforced errors uh in high pressure situations and so now he’s got this 4-footer at Pinehurst to win like what’s his expected like what’s he expected to do here? Or like Rory makes less unforced errors when he’s playing with Shane Larry. And suddenly you can like mix and match these things and you’ve got these like interesting storylines now like you know because Rory’s now coming down 15 at Augusta and something flashes on screen that says you know Rory unforced errors in uh final three holes this season high 12 or whatever. And again, it just provides some like stakes, some excitement, and it informs the view along the way. And then the rest of us can go right like why is Rory making unforced errors under pressure or whatever it may be. Yeah. Or even guys that, you know, it’d be interesting to look at that leaderboard for a season like who which player is leading the tour in unforced errors? Like what’s going on with them? You can ask them about it like, hey, you’re leading the tour in unforced errors. What’s what’s going on mentally with you this year? Right. What do you guys think is holding holding the powers that be back from implementing all of the the stats that you just proposed here? I mean, I think like I mean, you tell me. I mean, obviously I’m not inside like the global home or whatever, but I think it’s just the reason MLB is awesome at this is because they have taken their resources and built Baseball Savant and they’ve been like, we’re going to go in a data viz direction with this. we’re not going to go in a writing direction or a video direction or a broadcast direction. We’re going to do this, you know, we’re going to really hire up and make this awesome. Um, and so it’s just I think it’s just a priority thing. And look, listen, like there are guys smarter than me who are in charge of all the business side stuff and so I’m sure there’s reasons for it, but I it’s just not a I think I think it’s I’m not trying to be mean or whatever. It just isn’t a priority, right? They’re focused on other things at the expense of certain other things. And this is one of those other things whereas in baseball they’ve said no no this is a priority like we want to visual we want to wrangle all the data we have we want to visualize it as best we can we want to integrate it everywhere we can and that’s why baseball is like that’s why we’re talking about like RPMs and exit vos in baseball and in and in golf we’re like oh like I wonder how often Rory misses parts when it matters like it’s it’s a great question and I don’t really have a great answer. I do think I think it does come down to priority obviously. Um I do wonder if it’s a uh you know maybe maybe they don’t want stuff like that out there. You know, maybe that maybe they don’t want to go in the direction of of data and of stats and and things like that. I do wonder if, you know, I I don’t know all the people on the statistical side at at pjour.com or the PJ tour, but you know, I would question or I would wonder if they have deep golf storytellers on that side. So, so for example, if you put Shawn Martin in charge of PJTour.com stats, you would start to have some of this stuff because he’s thinking toward what what are what are questions that people are even asking or what are questions that I have that need to be answered by some of our uh by some of our data? And and again, I don’t know the people on that side, so I’m not specifically calling anybody out or anything like that, but I think that is probably part of it as well, because before you have the answers, and this is what Justin Ray is so good at. Before you have the answers, you have to have great questions, right? And and so before you have the data, you have to have great questions that lead to uh some of that data being being produced. Yeah, exactly. My uh my third one is is a little bit in conjunction with yours. We didn’t really plan this, but and this one is maybe a little too ethereal and not a real thing, but uh strokes gain wisdom. And what I mean by that is who who is the most willing to take on risky shots and who is the most uh risk averse. So, I think about your video that you made about Scotty Sheoffller. And if people, we’ll talk about it in a minute, but if people haven’t seen it, they should go on YouTube, just YouTube, Scotty Sheffler, Golf Digest, whatever. Uh, you you’ll be able to find it pretty quickly. Scotty, I think, and maybe this is not a stroke gain stat, maybe it’s just a risk versus risk averse stat. Um, I think this is Scotty’s superpower is he has a ton of humility in saying, “Hey, I know I could hit this shot cuz I’m literally the best ball striker on the planet, but I don’t think I should.” And that’s a really difficult thing to accept in the heat of the moment in the middle of a tournament where you need to make up two strokes or three strokes on the leaders. And so I’d be fascinated to see who is the most willing to play away from hazards, to play away from pins, and who is the most willing to take them on. And in again in different situation, high leverage, uh I’m I’m I’m chasing from behind. I’m leading from out in front. I I would be man, I could spend all day on on a some sort of database or site or whatever that presented that kind of information because it would either confirm or not confirm some of the theories I have about these guys in my head. Yeah, this would be a great one, too. And I think to your point uh to your question earlier Jason I think there’s in golf has this constant instinct especially by higher-ups to say like ah if we want if we want to make golf popular we need to make it more general. We need to water it down. We need to put the nerdy stuff over here and we just need to like focus on all these other things that have nothing to do uh have nothing to do with the actual like playing of the game. Whereas something like this is quite nerdy. But I actually think leaning into it would be net better for golf. I think it also says something about how how do you take your audience seriously and how do you also it’s kind of the thing of like they don’t know what they want until they see it. And once you start presenting them as options and you start enriching the broadcast then it’s like in baseball now you can’t you can’t watch baseball and imagine it without the extra information and you’re not overwhelmed or burdened by it. It’s really just uh it becomes part of the enjoyment which is uh yeah a testament to kind of the work they put in. Yeah. In some ways like you want to you want to move people down the nerdy rabbit hole is how I kind of think about this, right? Like you you want people to like catch the bug and like not really apologize for what golf is. Like you just want them to get really into it. Like Formula 1 does this really well. They’re not trying to like So like, oh, it’s really just a car with wheels, but look at this cool, you know? they’re like getting into the tech. And I think baseball does this really well and I think golf sometimes tries to apologize for what it is. One sure way to keep people not interested or not to engage them is just not showing them the content to begin with. How do you know what’s going to resonate if if you just sort of ignore it or leave it out altogether? Yeah. I think what you do when you get as nerdy as possible move what you call it the nerd funnel. Yeah. Move them move them down the nerd funnel. you create evangelists for your sport in people like me and LKD, right? And so, not now, no longer do you have to draw people in uh with commercials or with, you know, any number of initiatives. Now, now Luke and I are doing it in our free time because we’re like, “Oh, look at this thing is like so interesting to me. Let me tell you why it’s interesting and you should be interested in it as well.” And if you’re not doing that, then you’re losing so much of your grassroots ability to to to market your your product or your league. Y uh Okay, those were great. Uh Jason, did you have any questions on I know you asked along the way, but any final questions on those six stats that we threw out there? I had I had one quote that I’ve been thinking about that relates to the last one that you were talking about is the kind of uh aversion to taking on certain shots and it’s from the Mo and Me book about Mo Norman. Correct. LK, I saw you uh you posted something about Mo today and in in the book he says, “What happens to the mind and the swing? Is the will subservient to the imagination?” So, just this idea of taking on shots when you know you you know you shouldn’t or or or not taking on the shots that you know you should. It’s Yeah, I think it’s very interesting. Just want to throw that in there. Little Mo Little Mo Hello Mo quote. I mean, that was that was Rory’s ental entire final round at the Masters, right? Like that quote is the will what was it? Is the will subservient to the imagination? Yep. That’s Rory’s entire career honestly. And it was epitomized with that final round of like he literally said cuz Jason and I have been going through some of the master stuff from this year cuz we’re doing a book on it. Luke and he literally said like uh the shot on seven that he hit through the trees. Terry was trying to talk me out of it, but he but uh I said, “No, no, I think I got this.” And you’re like, “That’s like your whole career is people trying to talk you out of things and then being like, “No, I’ve got to,” you know, like that’s why you haven’t won the masters yet. And thankfully for his sake and honestly for the rest of ours, it it worked out this time. But there’s plenty of times where it hasn’t. Yeah. See, like, and this is so funny because I’m pretty sure I’m right, but my theory on this is that Rory’s bad habit under pressure is to get too conservative is generally his is generally his issue. Like, and this first occurred to me actually with you, Kyle, when we had a conversation after LACC and he laid up on I think it was 14 and it was really and then he dumped his wedge shot on the bunker, made bogey, blah blah blah. Anyway, um yeah, remember that? Like, and he does this a lot. Like I don’t I think he should have hit his second shot on 13. I don’t think he should have laid up there, but he did. And like he tends to get but I think the Masters for whatever reason he actually fought against this instinct and it almost always worked. Like on seven he got really aggressive and it worked. He was really aggressive into that pin on 17. 15 of course he was really aggressive and he you know so he didn’t like he was very aggressive off the tea on 18 both times. So, I think he uh I don’t know if he was doing it intentionally or if this was just a sort of instinctual thing, but he was actually getting quite aggressive during that final round. It was and then the one time where he maybe got a little too conservative, it actually kind of bit him. That’s really interesting. Um cuz I think about I don’t know that I had heard you lay out that theory in like with that amount of clarity. I think about the shot on uh Friday on 13 when it hits the bank and kind of jumped. I think it hit the bank and like jumped up and I think he made I think he made three there. Uh and he said afterwards like as the ball was in the air I’m thinking you idiot what did you do? And so I think that it’s such a and and this is this is the hard part about Rory is like he’s so overanalyzed that you could you could kind of talk yourself into any kind of theory like going like you could take one shot or one moment or one hole or one round even and build a theory on it. And I think the idea of looking at the the whole thing like you were saying and saying he’s actually too conservative. I mean a great a great example of this Kyle sorry to inter a great example of this is St. Andrews, right? Where like his issue there was that he was flagging shots into the middle of greens like because he was trying to do the tiger thing of protecting and playing safe and blah blah blah when it I I I somebody maybe somebody would catch me out here and say well actually here are all the examples of Rory being too aggressive in at biting him. But off the top of my head, it sure seems like Rory tends to go the other direction that he dials back and then he for whatever like he needs to be more like Arnold Palmer or Phil Mickelson under pressure and really go for it cuz he’s good enough to do it and he seems to work when he does. Is that a personality thing? Because with Tiger, we wouldn’t have said that. Tiger was super conservative and protected leads. Is it a not understanding the situation thing? like what why why is it that that Rory should be more like Phil and Tiger was more like protective? It’s funny my the best explanation I ever heard about this was from Rick Sessing House who is called Moricawa’s swing co well coach basically but he is very good in the kind of mental sphere and he his in a nutshell he says that everybody’s different and we all focus our best when we in different ways so for instance like Phil oh Bryson focuses his best gets into his flow state the best when he is trying to like figure out a problem that’s why when he’s like on the range late at night. He’s like looking at numbers. He’s like fully engaged because he’s just like addicted to figuring out this problem. Phil Mickelson, he maybe uh focuses his best when he’s like in a money match, right? When he’s like rolling the dice a little bit. That’s just what gets him locked in. Um Tiger Woods something else. So Rory, my loose theory, I don’t know him like you do at all. Um but he maybe focuses his best when he can be a little showy, right? when he’s got his Rory Strut going when he can have people like really looking at him and in order to be showy. It’s really hard to be showy when you’re bunting a wedge down the ferry and bunting a wedge on the green, right? Like this is there’s like a slight irrational streak here, but it’s like, hey, look at me. I’m Rory F and Maroy. Like look how good I am at golf. And so he needs to then like put himself in these situations where he’s actually harnessing this instinct of his to like show off and that maybe being a little more aggressive than like the textbook would say. That’s really interesting. I think that’s I think that’s spot on in terms of how like when he’s the most engaged, but I also think he it seems like he’s always fighting himself mentally in spots like this, right? where he he grew he watched Tiger and he’s like well like that’s how Tiger did it and like I’m close to as good as Tiger so maybe that’s how I should do like he he seems to have like spot yeah yeah he seems to have struggled with the the idea of whether he should be conservative or aggressive in these spots specifically at major championships late in major championships over the last you know 12 years. Yeah. And he’s a smart guy and he’s trying to do the mature thing. He’s trying to not be Tink Cup. He’s like, “No, no, no, no. I’m good, but I should do what the book says and I should just lay up and then I’m going to wedge this onto the green on 13 and then I’ll like but that’s just not in his DNA.” Sorry, Jason. Go ahead. I know. I think I mean talking about books, Mo and Me again. No, but Mo talks about it like letting letting yourself play, not making yourself play. And I think in Rory’s case, that’s really like when he’s swashbuckling, that’s just him letting himself be free. And when he makes those those errors that you were talking about, um, in those kind of inopportune moments, he’s kind of like forcing it or thinking like, what should I do in this situation? Um, not really trusting that he can handle any situation kind of. Yeah. Yeah. There’s a great uh kids book, by the way, called Don’t Throw It to Mo. It’s a little football book that my kids read. So, every time you you hold up Mo and Me, that’s what I’m thinking. It’s like this little kids book about Mo’s inability to to catch and overcoming the situation. So, my kids have ruined me. Today’s sponsor, Holderness and Born, is our oldest partner and the business that is probably taking the biggest chance on us, which I’m personally very grateful for. Their product speaks for itself. We’re always rocking it on our show, and I recently told Holderness and Born that I wanted to put Norman, our silly little sheep, on every single thing that they make. We can’t quite afford that yet, but our desire to go back to them for the merch that we sell in our store is a testament to the quality of their shirts, hoodies, qzips, and more. You can check them out at holdernessandborn.com. One of today’s sponsors and longtime sponsor of Normal Sport is OIO, which just dropped their first ever hardside luggage with the Renegade Vault. This is my favorite piece of luggage that I personally have ever owned. Uh, like its name suggests, it’s a rugged bag and was tested above industry standards for durability. If it’s something that carries stuff you really care about, OJO makes a premium version of it. Ojio built this bag with higher standards because hardside luggage has gone soft. Absolutely love that phrase. You can check them out at ogio.com. That’s ogio.com. Well, we could psycho analyze Rory LKD and I could for a long time. I don’t want to do that. I do want to do that, but I don’t want to do it today. Um, we’ve got two more segments. We’re not going to be able to get to everything, but I did have a new segment that I wanted to do specifically with LKD because I think it is uh I think it’s fascinating. And we are going to look at if you’re watching on YouTube, I’m going to show LKD a uh a leaderboard from a major and I’m going to start to reveal it from the bottom up. So, starting with the 10th place finisher in a major. These majors are not This is not the 1917 US Open, OKD. This is from the last 25 years. So, it’s it’s relatively uh recent. And uh I think you can Can you see that? Okay. Can you see what’s on my screen? I can I can see it. I usually suck at these things, so I’m a little nervous, but I can see it clearly. Okay. So, you can see it. I’ll for people that are just listening, I will uh I will say who which players I’m revealing. Uh, I didn’t put scores on there because that would uh help you figure out which major it is. Uh, so we’re going to go from the bottom up. Uh, this will be fun. We’ll talk about the major briefly afterwards and then we’ll end with five questions I have for for LKD. So, first player on the board, T9 at this major, Adam Scott. Adam Scott. All right, I’m going to need more than Adam Scott finishing in the top 10. Okay, we’ve got Ryan Moore finishing in the top 10. T9 with Adam Scott. Okay, this is I’m thinking this might be uh I I’m I’m thinking this might be then during like a rider the year Ryan Moore made the Ryder Cup at Hazeline. This is where my mind’s going with this. So I’m thinking 2016ish. Uh we’ve got Rory Mroy. Rory, he’s always inside the top 10. Not helpful. Doesn’t doesn’t do much. I need like a Shawn McKel type to pop up some. Okay, we’ve got next we got Oh, damn it. I got it. Okay, Kevin Chapel in the top 10. T7 alongside Rory. Kevin Chapo. He finished second at that US Open at Olympic, but that’s obviously not seventh. This I feel like this is an open. Eh, maybe not. I’m going to need another one. Okay, you need another one. Uh I forgot what major it was. I had to look it up. Okay, I’ve got it again. Uh, sixth place, solo six, Paul Casey. Man, this is hard. It is hard. Maroy Chapel Casey. This is the easiest one of the three that I was going to do. All right, hit me up. Okay, Thomas Peters T4. I feel like Thomas Peters play well in a Masters once. Okay, I’m I’m nailing this down to all right Matt Cooer along with Thomas. Couldn’t Couldn’t be more different as players. This is a 2006. This is 200 2006. Thomas Yeah, exactly. Sorry. Not not 2006. 2016ish, I think. Um, this is so funny. Okay, you want me to keep going? We’re at the top. We’ve got three. Yeah. I I I Don’t pity me. I want you to keep going. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would be right there with you. I wouldn’t be able to. Okay. Charles Schwarzel number three. Okay. This is I think this is going to be the 2016 Masters. That’s my guess. Okay, that’s incorrect. So, we’ll keep going. Uh, number two, Justin Rose. Uh, but Justin Rose has finished second. A sneaky amount of time in majors, especially at the masters. This is not the M. Okay. It’s not the 2016 masters is what I said. Is Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh was one of the 2016 majors. When did he when did he finish second at Okay, give me one more. I’m going to get this next one. Unless we’re running out of Unless we’re running It’s It’s the champion. So, I would hope you get it. Ah, it is. It’s the freaking Masters though. At least I got the venue. At least I got the venue right. You did. And you got it early. 2017 Masters. 2017 Masters. Yeah, 2016 was the Danny Wallet. That’s right. I’m an idiot. The fake. Yeah, that’s that. This is a This is a fun game, though. Some I bet there’s going to be people I bet there are going to be people out here who are super good at this. Like, weirdly good cuz they’re going to remember like, “Oh, I bet on Ryan Moore and he won T9 cuz he, you know, bogeied 16 coming home.” You’re like, “What? I didn’t even know Ryan Moore was in the tournament.” Uh, okay. That was fun. Jason, did you know it before LKD did? Yeah, obviously. Yeah, definitely. No, I didn’t. I’m I was totally out on an island lost there. No, I mean, you asked me like when did Sergio Garcia win the Masters, I would have to really rack my brain to think about the year. So, that’s that’s kind of where I’m coming from. I remember it because it’s the year that I got to play against National. So, I stand by my logic because there was a bunch of 2016 one and done Ryder Cupers in there. So what’s funny is that they were actually it was actually after they were good in the RDER Cup, not qualifying them into the RDER Cup. So Ryan Moore, Thomas Peters, Coocher was on that 2016 RDER Cup. Uh Rose and Sergio. Obviously these are all Paul Casey. I think he was on that team maybe. Think he was. Yeah. Kevin Chapel was I believe a 2017 President’s Cuppper. Uh all right. I think All right. Give me another one. I need another one now. I need red. Oh, you want to do another one? I was just gonna limit it to one. Oh, limit the down. We got gota do one more. Gotta do one more. Okay. Come on. Okay. Even though this was the on record as the easiest one. Let me pull one up real quick. Um Okay. You I don’t think you’ll be able to get this, but we’ll have some fun with it. Okay. Here we go. Uh T. Okay. Or T9. Hideki. That should probably do nothing for you. T10 Ricky Fowler. Okay. Oh, he had a he had a he had a moment. Gonzalo Fernandez Casta. Uh where did he have a moment though? I remember him being a trendy pick of the Masters, though. This isn’t going to be the Masters, I reckon. I think I feel like he played well in like a PGA. Oh, no. Keep going. Keep going. I’m going to need like two more. Okay. You probably need more than that. Number T10, Nicholas Koulsarts. God, see like somebody’s going to remember when Nicholas Koulsarts played well somewhere like Well, for some of these guys like Koulsarts and Gonzalo GFC, Gonzalo Fernandez Castio, they only had like three top 10 at majors, right? So like So if you remember one of them, you got a 33% chance. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Uh, okay. We’ll get to the uh I believe these are the T6s. T8 Steve. All right, keep going. I remember he played well at Marian, but this seems too low. I think Donald was kind of up there at Marian to 2013. Well, that was that was 2013 US Open. Give me one more and then I’m going to make it Hunter Mayhem. Is this 2013? Is it the 2013 US Open? Let’s go. Okay, D. Yes. Okay. I could I Okay, I feel I feel good now. Yes. Thank you. That was crazy. That was crazy. We guys Justin Rose Justin Rose obviously won. Jason Day, Phil when Phil was maybe miscloed, but I think this was the year Mayhem was in the final group of like four majors or three majors or something. This is Strick Hank. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz hit a shank during the final round. This was a good This was an underrated major. Yeah. Phil hold out in the final round. This was the year that uh Mayhem was in the final pairing at Murfield. Yeah. He lost to Phil when Phil shot 66 to win that open. That was like that was the crazy like Tiger, Mayhem, Phil, like everybody. Adam Scott was in that late. Um Jason Duffner I didn’t remember being T4 at this US Open. Ernie Ell was T4 at this US Open. Duffner shot like a bazillion under on Sunday. This was like a back door T4. This was the I think this was the round that Horchel hit all 18 greens in regulation. That’s awesome. Around octopus pants. He was wearing octopus pants. I remember that. And then Hunter Maym, Luke Donald, Steve Stricker. A bunch of RER Cup captains here. Uh Koulsarts Fowler Matsyama. Okay, that was fun. That was fun. Uh okay, LKD, I want to get you out of here on this. I’ve got five questions for you that uh these are questions that I’ve either meant to ask you or wanted to ask you or whatever along the way. So, we’ll start with this. What is your hottest major championship related take? Uh this is one that I just believed for a while and then just like backed into it. It’s that uh Aaron Badley would have won a major if he stuck with stack and tilt. So stocking tables is crazy was what an what a like I I love that it’s not like oh Tiger should have won more major majors. It’s Aaron Battley would have won a major if he stuck with the stack. This is the most LKD answer I’ve ever seen. Stacking was this like hugely controversial golf swing method that that defied it was it defied this like conventional wisdom that you should load up on your right side. He said no never load up on your right side. Stay left. And it looked kind of goofy. And Aaron Badley went full in to stack and tilt. And his swing looked weird. He was on the cover of the book. It was on Golf Digest, everything. And he was a generational putter. And doing this, it became a little sensation in the golf swing world. And he popped into the final round at Oakmont. And then uh he was the 54 leader at Oakmont and in the final group, excuse me. Except then he exploded and got nervous. And then that led to this kind of downward spiral. And my and I remember in I think it was at 2008 I was in high school. No, I was in Yeah, I was in uh just started college and I was at the Heritage and and I and I said, “Oh, Aaron Bad, are you still stacking tilting?” I was just some punk college kid. He said, “No, I was hitting the ball too low. I was hitting the ball too low.” But of course, he never got good enough uh doing this. So, I my the my theory back then that I formed that I just kind of have to believe now is that if he would have just stuck with this very simple type golf swing, his putting would have been good enough to actually have him win a major cuz he was having success with it. He just got spooked by a collapse during the final round at Oakmont. Yeah. 2007 US Open. Uh career top 10s for Aaron Badley at Majors. Zero, I think, cuz he Yeah. Zero. Yeah. Yeah. T13 at the 2007 US Open. I don’t want T13 at the 2008 PGA Championship. That was when Padrick won, I believe. See, but like he I think he won once in 2006 and then once in 2007 and then he got into the final group at Oakmont. And so he was like and people at the time were like, “Oh, Aaron Barry is pretty good cuz he’s a good putter and he’s figured out his golf swing.” But then, you know, this happens sometimes like a really bad traumatic high pressure situation. It can just throw you off course. And this is this is the backbone of my Yeah. strokes gained under under pressure. There’s a great story. one of my friends, kind of a a mentor, uh he was playing with Aaron Badley at a amor event, maybe the USA, and uh Mike Holder, who was the coach at Oklahoma State, uh was there watching, and my my friend uh went up to Mike Holder and said, “Uh, hey, Mike, I know who you are.” He was in high school. Uh I know who you are. I just wanted to say thank you for coming to to watch to see me play. Like it’s really an honor. Like it’s it’s really really cool that you came out here to to watch me. And Mike Holder legitim said I’m I’m here to see him. I’m here to see Aaron Bathley. I don’t even know who you are. It’s amazing. Aaron Badley was an amazing amazing amateur. Really great. Amazing amateur. Won the Australian Open. is a generationally good putter. It was just always his ball striking and for a moment he found something that I thought worked for him. Um but yeah, I don’t even know how firmly I believe this tape, but I’m I’m going to go to the gray believe making myself believe it. There’s a green jacket left on the left in the closet that has Aaron Badley’s name on it. He won the 19 1999 Australian Open as an amateur. Yeah, I don’t think I can find a leaderboard for that. Maybe maybe Jason can find it while we’re while we’re chatting. Uh, okay. Next question. What piece of content that you’ve made are you most proud of over the years? I’ve written a couple Rory things I’m pretty proud of, but it’s probably the Sheffller video I did that we mentioned earlier because it just took ages. It took ages. I went back and I looked at him during that hot streak that he had a couple years ago and I looked at, you know, went through all the shot link stuff and where was the pin? where did he hit ball relative to the pin. And I just went through it piece by piece by piece and then I made a whole video about it and it took me ages and I worked really hard on it and it was rewarding both to see the video perform well but and and also it had the what I call the trifecta the Luke trifecta which is I got the player the coach and the caddy all to comment on this and Ted Scott’s been really was has been really complimentary about my work because of this and a bunch and what’s most rewarding not just people but a lot of junior golfers have come up to me and said hey Luke uh my coach sent me this video, you know, and it’s really helped me, too. And that’s like one of these like intangible like, oh, cool. This is like if it’s helping junior golfers play a little better, and I worked hard on it. It was It’s cool. It was just cool to see it come together. I agree. To bring you down a notch, I just uh checked on I just looked at the video and one of the comments on there is, “This channel is great for my insomnia. Your voice never fails to put me to sleep, even during the day.” I get a lot of uh this guy should be reading Winnie the Pooh. I didn’t know Prince I didn’t know Prince Charles. Uh I didn’t know Prince Harry or Prince Charles or one of the princess new golf. That’s a lazy That’s just a lazy like England take. Like Prince Prince What? That’s like dumb. You know, I’ve been getting an uptick in Sam Alman comments too. They they say I look like Sam Alman. They say, “Oh, I didn’t know Sam Alman knew golf.” And I’m like, “Oh man.” Well, it’s it’s it’s an amazing it’s an amazing piece of content. I think that, you know, I think often times in our world, you spend hours and hours and hours on a a written piece or uh a video thing or a podcast, whatever, and you put it out there and it’s like crickets and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, like I put so much time, effort, and energy into this. Nobody cared about And I thought it was the perfect marriage of like it was very clear from watching it that you put a ton of time, effort, and energy into it, but it also translated in a way that really resonated with even like a high school golfer, a college golfer or somebody like my dad. It it it was easy for him to understand, which I think is way more difficult to do than you than than like you made it look in that video. So I I Jason and I reference all the time like if I reference if I say something about Scotty Jason in the literally in our edit in our document he always leaves a comment uh link to LKD’s video and I’m like oh yeah I got to I need to link back to that. Um so it’s I appreciate that. Yeah, it’s it’s really really cool. Thank you. Yeah, I mean my thing too is like I’m not you know I’m impossible writer but like I can’t write like you or Shane Ryan or KV. Like I need to find my edge. I think I’m pretty good at explaining stuff, making it simple, but I need to find my edge. Not in my like execute the by the way I write. I need to like do this other stuff. I need to go find stuff. I need to go do that’s where I think I I need to work especially hard and try to then use it to complement this thing that I think I do quite well. But because I can’t just like write pros like some of you guys. So um and I think I think I did that well there. So I was proud of myself. I I mean I think to jump in just the ability to pull things from all different corners of the golf world that also means like historical digging and then bringing the history into context and also talking about uh how Ben Hogan’s play relates to Scotty Sheffller’s play. I mean that’s that’s the that’s the good stuff. So yeah, all that digging is Yeah, it’s it’s fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, it’s uh it’s very very cool and it I I learned a ton from it which is um yeah it’s it’s uh God there was something else I was going to say about it. It’s it’s if people haven’t watched it they should they should Oh I was going to ask you who’s who’s like u pra not praise but like commendation or like kudos do you like makes you feel the most validated after you have finished something like that? Is it other media people? Is it the play? Is it like like how do you think about that? I mean, with love, I don’t necessarily care about what like other media people think because like it could be, you know, I don’t know. We’re all in the we all kind of come from similar backgrounds. You know, some people may like it because they just like that kind of content, whatever. I’m also not doing very adversar adversarial journalism, right? Like I’m doing a a lot of explainer stuff, a lot of game improvement stuff. So I always feel extremely validated when like a player or a coach comes up to me and says you you like you really got that right or I really learned something from that and that and that cuz that to me is like if a player came up to me and said hey I don’t think I you know was mad or whatever but my media people were supportive but the thing I wrote about was about how the player golf swing worked or strategy it probably means I got the thing wrong you know and my friends in the media center just being supportive so that that. So, I guess like when I hear like Ted Scott was like, “Yeah, man. You really nailed that. You like really did a good job explaining what we I was like, “Wow, this is awesome.” Because it’s like reassuring that I I like got this right. If that makes sense. Do players come to you come to you with topics that they’d like you to dig into? Increasingly, I mean, Kyle will speak to this too. I feel like they see you coming a little bit more on tour, you know, where like once they kind of get the gist of what you do then like some guys don’t want anything to do with me cuz they’re like who is this like guy who is going to make me think too much about like what I do in my golf swing? I don’t want to think on that level. But then some guys are just nerds and they get really into it. They want to know what they’re doing. They have ideas. Um, so yeah, it’s uh not polarizing is the wrong word, but some guys can see me coming and like it and some guys just don’t don’t want to go on that level. It has been interesting to watch that evolution cuz we’ve roughly been out there the same amount of time and you when you ask questions about the swing, which is uh some, not all of your questions, but in in press conferences or whatever. Yeah. And kind of most of them. Yeah. guys will engage in a way that if a local media person asked a question about the swing, they would be like, “Whatever. I don’t like I don’t I’m not going to give this person.” First of all, they probably won’t even understand. But they’ll engage LKD in a way that they know he speaks their language and so they’ll immediately dive below the surface and start speaking that language. I honestly Jason like half of the battle of media and player interaction is speaking their language. So if you can start rattle whether it’s about the swing or uh performance or major any of it like if you if you get into their world and start speaking the language that they speak there’s an immediate trust that they have um not complete but like a little bit of like okay I can trust this person. I can give them things. I know they’re not going to like ruin me with them or cuz from their point of view like they don’t know who I am. They don’t know who LKD I mean on like a personal level a lot of times especially when we first get out there. So you do have to start speaking the language a little bit to build that trust and I think LKD does a a really good job of that. I always just think in I mean with pros but also just in life like people I feel like you have about one sentence worth of real estate in other people’s heads you know and so like and I think it’s especially true with pros. So like if a pro is like oh you know this guy or Luke golf swing guy whatever you know that’s that’s about as much as I get like I and I think that just knowing that it can just in some ways to K’s point just give them some level of familiarity whereas if if you can’t really clearly answer that like what are you in one sentence to these guys like you’re just fighting a little bit of an uphill battle because then you have to get through the initial like mistrust or distrust. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t have that luxury. I basically have like I draw Terrell Haden as an Amish guy. That’s uh that’s my role. It’s not really a good opener, but that’s that’s what I do. Yeah. Uh it’s certainly unique. Okay. Uh last couple here. Uh OKD, what do regular people or just people even that you are meeting for the first time? What do they misunderstand about your job? Yeah, I think it’s it’s how common like skipping media is like how tricky access can be? You know, how like it’s kind of enabled by the tools. they’re really afraid of their players. They kind of let players skip all the time. Like there is no obligation for players to come and do media as you know like Rory’s talked about and stuff. And I think that this whole world of like oh so and so just played badly I’m going to skip media or so and so just doesn’t want to do media today and the tool’s going to like not make you do whatever is like a whole dynamic that I think people at home don’t really um are they don’t really understand works. It can be like a which is a constant headache for kind of the people who are actually trying to do this. Yeah. How how do you like does it make you mad? Does it make you like frustrated? Like how do you how does it make you feel whenever that happens? Yeah. I mean it’s to me it’s frust I mean yeah I it’s frustrating for me obviously because the a lot of the stuff I do is like talking to pros talking to coaches like um trying to figure out what they’re doing and that just requires like a bit of a one-on-one conversation a lot of times and um but you know like it’s it’s lucky like it’s it’s gotten easy as I’ve been out there more like players will come to me I go to players whatever I go to coaches um but it’s when it feels like the like the tour or whatever is like actively trying to like keep media away from players. It just feels like I’m not sure whose interest this is actually serving here. you know, it’s it may they may think it’s serving the players, but it’s actually not even in the players best interest because then people aren’t going to know who Brian Harmon is like and all these interesting things that we can talk we can share to the world about like Brian Harmon and how his approach to the game, those are just left in the bucket and the PJ tour may think like, oh well, we can tell these stories and we can be the one-stop shop, but just doesn’t work that way. Um, so yeah, it’s frustration, I guess, is the overriding emotion. Well, you got to keep you got to keep the crooked media at bay from some of these guys. I mean, that’s the thing, right? It’s like there’s no there’s absolutely no sympathy from readers and followers or or I shouldn’t say readers and followers, I should say like people in general about like the media’s plight uh as it relates to access to to talk to different people. And honestly, like I’m probably like what I do requires less of that. So, I’m more ambivalent about like if a guy doesn’t want to talk for a day or two, like whatever. Like I it doesn’t it doesn’t bother me a ton. I think I get um I get frustrated when it’s like like the Rory thing at the PGA where you like didn’t talk the whole week and you’re like what? Like what what are we Yeah. Like I was a little frustrated there because it’s like oh yeah, you want to go see your kid? Like I’m away from my three-year-old, you know? I’m here all week trying to do this and you know I have a life too and like you know oh cool it must be really nice that you can just decide to not do this like you know I’m not out you know it’s like there are a lot of elements of my job that are obviously really fun but I think there should just be some baseline respect here of like you know we all have lives too and we’re trying to like meet in the middle and do the best we can for this and so and it can be a little frustrating when it’s like oh like let’s just uh ignore what this group of people say that’s actually kind of in our interest because the short-term gain of of not having an awkward conversation with like this player it it’s just a whole frustrating thing. Yeah. And I mean the irony is that Rory is one of the few people that actually does understand that on a pretty like legitimate level. I think some guys they’re like they just don’t uh they just don’t like literally don’t understand it. They don’t get it. like they don’t understand that it is in their best interest to talk and to explain and to like like people are like you and I are not out to get them or to like catch them or anything like that. And Roy like that whole Yeah, that whole postmaster thing was was pretty weird. Uh okay, two more. I know we talked about this a little bit earlier, but what was the exact moment that you fell in love with golf? Uh when Sergio Garcia hit that shot off the tree at the 99 PGA. I was not into golf at the time and I watched it and I said that was really cool. How did that happen? And then from there it led to this just like aggressive golf like obsession that I’m currently locked in to this day. Was it? Yeah. Was it in your family? Like were there were there people in your family that you like picked it up from or My dad was pretty into golf but um that’s not how I got into golf. It was honestly just I was really into soccer. I was really into sport. But that 99 was the end of 99 was like a really, you know, I was basically just becoming golf aware or whatever. And I saw Sergio Garcia to do do that. And it’s like, oh, here’s this like kid who looks like me. I mean, he, you know, I’m 11 and he’s 19 or whatever at the time. But, you know, it’s like, oh, here’s a young guy who’s doing this amazing stuff. He’s running down the ferry. He hit the shot. He’s taking on Tiger Woods. He’s, he could be awesome himself. And then the Ryder Cup in 99 was this big dramatic thing too. And I was in England at the time, so there was like a lot of outrage. So it just was like, “Wow, all these interesting things are happening in golf.” And then I started playing it and just got aggressively hooked on it. Uh, okay, last one. And I know we could do a maybe we should do a whole podcast on this between you and I, but if you could pin the difference between the European success and American struggles at the Rder Cup on one thing, and we’ve talked about 10 of them even in this podcast, what’s the one thing that you would you would pin it on? Yeah. Like I’m not going to hit you with the dumb and Europeans care more take cuz that’s not true. But I do think European team takes it a little more seriously. And what I mean by that is that they have like professionalized the running of this, right? And they like built this out like a professional sports team. Whereas the US team, they basically operate in a way like imagine having a sports team the way the US RD cup team runs which is like yeah win or lose every two years we fire the head coach, we fire all the coaches and then we bring in a new head coach who’s never done it before and have him hire up everybody and then you know we just roll the dice, see what happens. and they’re going up against like a really dialed back room staff. And I think that this just seeps through the teams in all sorts of ways. Like the European players, they really buy into this being different and oh, we’re a we need to get out of our comfort zones this week. We are like a team. We’ve got this backroom infrastructure. Whereas the US team, they kind of are just constantly almost like playing catchup. They’re hiring up these guys. They’re these captains are trying to figure out what to do. They’re trying to make sure that like Scotty Sheffller can just feel the same way that he feels at Bay Hills because he wins at Bay Hill. So if he we just do that then he’ll win at the Ryder Cup. And that’s just it’s fundamentally different, right? And I think that the reason they can’t solve that problem consistently on the US side is cuz they just haven’t really seriously looked at how to run the back end of this the way the Europeans have. I think there’s a dozen reasons why that’s the case. like that that the Americans haven’t invested as much. One of them is is just the fact that there’s some continuity between the European tour running regular stuff and then also running the the Ryder Cup and there’s not that continuity with the PJ of America. So again, we could do an hour on that, but I am very much with you that um there’s been just deeper investment on the European side than than there has been on the American side. Shane Ryan uh he he um I can’t stop thinking about this since he brought it up. It’s like you know that meme where it’s like the bell curve and it’s like the dumb people in this smart people and yeah and he was like you know why Europe win Red Cup and the dumb takers like they just really care about it or you know they take it really seriously and then there’s like you know pairings and this and that and that and then like the the really enlightened viewers they just take it really seriously. That’s so it’s so true because we’ve and we and we’ve all traveled that meme like we’ve all started with like maybe they just care like about it more than and then we got to the middle of like trying to break down like and get in and you’re like and now I think we a lot of us have arrived on the other side of like they just like put more into it like I don’t know what to say like I think that’s it. Oh that’s so good. Okay. Okay, D. Uh, thank you for coming on. Jason, you got any final thoughts or takes? Any notes on what we talked about or I know you popped in intermittently, but uh, anything we messed up or any questions you have? Uh, I know you guys were waiting for the the leaderboard from the 2000 Holden Australian Open. Was that right? Where, uh, Badley won, Allan B finished second, Dick Green was in third, uh, Norman was in the top 10. Was that Mo or Greg? Yeah, Greg. Norman. Uh, I don’t know if that’s a really great place to finish, but there’s uh bringing in that info. That’s the perfect place. Were there any Americans that did that were like close? Uh, no, not really. Always makes my heart sing. A Faldo top a top is W. Smith. No. Is uh Will Smith. Are you con are you where are you on greatest European of all time between Sevie, Faldo, and Rory? I think those are the three contenders. It’s probably Rory. It’s It breaks my heart a little bit because I’m just such a Fou. I I just grew up so idolizing Faldo. It wasn’t even funny, but I think it’s Rory. The funny So, I think it’s Rory, then Fowler, then Sevy. But the funny alternate history here is that uh you know, Faldo converted a heck of a lot of his majors. You know, he got handed a couple. And a funny alternate history here is that if that doesn’t happen to Faldo and that does happen to Justin Rose, like suddenly we’re talking about Justin Rose as a top two, three European ever. And it’s just it’s funny to think about cuz man, Justin Rose had a lot of bad major luck fall his way. And Faldo had a lot of good major luck. And Faldo and Justin Rose ends up with one major and FO ends up with six. Yeah. Uh Nick Fo 20, let’s see, six major wins. So three masters, three opens. uh 26 top 10s out of a hundred. So 26%. Uh but 13 half of those were at the open championship which I think is uh really interesting. Justin Rose I’ve got uh obviously one major win. He’s got 23 top 10s in 85 events. So about the same top 10 percentage, but the wins I mean Justin Rose could legitimately have four majors. I know two Masters, a US Open and an and an Open Championship. I don’t know if he was ever that close at at the PGA. And think about like Faldo, you know, he had the Scott Hulk masters where Scott Hoke missed the tap in that fell his way. And then the Greg Norman historic collapse in 96 that fell his way. And this that is just two of the most historic chokes in golf history both ended up in Faldo’s hands. That’s before we get into the tactics of like there are other things happening in some of the other majors. I’m not obviously dissing on my idol Nick Fo. It’s just one of these funny like tipping points in history, right? Where the way we’re going to remember someone like Nick Fowler and Justin Rose is that we’re going to have to make an argument about how good Justin Rose was because his record doesn’t fully reflect it. Whereas Fowler, you know, because these things his record speaks for itself because these things spelled his way. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a great that’s a great point and that’s so much of Bacon and I talk about this like who are the guys that have one major that you’re like whoa whoa like this guy was a lot better than like it doesn’t it it’s not commensurate with how good that like Adam Scott is a great example. Yeah Justin Justin Justin Rose and Adam Scott are very Fred Coubles maybe is is a decent example. Uh by the way uh Justin Rose’s best finish at the PGA Championship 2012. Uh he finished T3 with Keegan, Carl Patterson, and Ian Poulter. He was minus four, nine back of Rory, who uh who shot 75 in the second round and won by a lot at Kioa. Do you know who finished? If you know who finished second that year, I’ll send you a normal sport hat. Oh man, I have no idea who finished second that year. Fellow Englishman. Fellow Englishman. Who’s was it like Chris Wood or something? Was it like a random It is random. It’s not Chris Wood. David Lynn. David Lynn. Man. Well, there you go. I’ll see you normal I’ll see you I’ll see you a normal sport hat. Anyway, this reminds me of one of my favorite weird golf stats ever, which is that in a world without Tiger, so all Tigers wins go to the next man down. In a world without Tiger, Shan McKielle has two win major wins. He finished second solo second at one of Tiger’s PGA WS. I that would be an interesting podcast or piece is just in a world without Tiger whose career changed because I think people would presume that it’s Phil or Ernie L’s. It wouldn’t have been Phil. It might have been L’s. I don’t you know DeMarco I think. Yeah. Like DeMarco would be a great one. He would be a m maybe a multiple major child, you know. Yeah. There was a couple guys in there that you were like, “Oh, that’s not who I Yeah, we’ll we’ll save that for the next one.” Uh okay. LKD, thank you for coming on. I always appreciate your time. Always learn from you. I have so many takeaways even from this pod that will inform the way that I think about pro golf, major championship golf in 2026. Uh so thank you for your time. We’ll send you some normal sport gear even though you miss David Bland. Jason, uh always enjoy chatting with you. What a treat. Uh sorry for the technical technical difficulties, but uh yeah, I hope people enjoyed the show and we will talk to you again later on. [Music]
