US Open Pinehurst Preview, Memorial & LIV Houston Recap, and PGA Tour-PIF Meeting Update

Jake Hower: 00:00:01

Welcome back to Beyond the Tour. I'm Jake and with me today, as always is Luke. How are you?

Luke Manning: 00:00:06

Hi Jake, I'm doing well. I know you'll chip me for saying that Brisbane doesn't have a winter, but certainly the weather's turned a lot fresher out there, but it does make for some great golfing conditions.

Jake Hower: 00:00:18

I do not feel sorry for you at all because as I look outside, it's dark and gloomy and it's been raining all morning.

Luke Manning: 00:00:25

bright blue skies here in Brisbane.

Jake Hower: 00:00:28

We've just come off the end of a long weekend. the King's birthday used to, I'm so used to saying the Queen's birthday, but it was the King's birthday down here. I've been at a relatively busy weekend with the family running around and doing whatnot. So I didn't get a huge chance to sit in front of the TV and watch a lot of golf, but

Luke Manning: 00:00:44

play

Jake Hower: 00:00:44

not sure if I didn't know yeah, it was really just a family all weekend really.

Luke Manning: 00:00:50

I got out to Royal Queensland on Friday and absolutely hacked the course up, so nothing to write home or talk about there.

Jake Hower: 00:00:59

so I'm a little bit scared of the golf course at the moment. My game has been in not a very good place for a little while, and I'm trying to stop the urge from going out there and trying to fix it up because that's a rabbit hole. I'm not sure I've got the time to go down at the moment.

Luke Manning: 00:01:12

Yep, swing your swing, mate.

Jake Hower: 00:01:14

All right, let's jump straight into it. Have a quick rundown of the week that has been. So we had the Memorial held Scottish Sheffler was a winner, not entirely comfortable. Coming down that backstretch there he ended up winning by a shot over Colin Morikawa. What were your thoughts on that particular event?

Luke Manning: 00:01:32

Muirfield Village, I think was probably the star in the end really showed its teeth and it was a true test of golf for these players, which is something a little different to what we see normally week in week out on the PGA Tour stop. So refreshing to see these challenging conditions. I think there were 11 players overall in the field that finished under par. They didn't have it all their own way, as they usually do. Scotty, fifth win this season, first time anyone's done that since Justin Thomas did it back in 2017, so a great achievement. just continues to power on and totally dominating the PGA Tour this year. It's quite incredible the form that he's been in. under pressure on Sunday, mainly because of his driving. I think he only hit 50 percent of his fairways and that gave Morikawa and Hadwin a bit of a chance, but neither of them could get the job done in the end.

Jake Hower: 00:02:30

it didn't really, I didn't have a lot of confidence in Morikawa really. The main thing with that, and I think it's fairly obvious very quickly into a round, just with how his putting is, and you can see if it's on or not. And so he had a lot of chances coming down 15, 16, he had a sort of 10 footer when sort of Scotty drained one on him, I think to hold that was it a par putt on maybe 16. And then he had a 10 footer and it just leaked off on the low side. And yeah, when his putter is not hot or not on if he's not inside five foot, you don't know whether it's, he's going to make really much of a charge,

Luke Manning: 00:03:04

We saw that at Valhalla in the PGA Championship where his putter went stone cold he was just stuck in neutral whilst everybody else was charging. So it is the key for Colin, his iron play is elite.

Jake Hower: 00:03:16

elite.

Luke Manning: 00:03:17

about him, I think, when we get to the US Open preview.

Jake Hower: 00:03:20

Absolutely. Any other standouts for you?

Luke Manning: 00:03:23

No other standouts for me. I think Scott is just the dominating headline That was the main takeaway from me. His 11th career title, two majors now, he's equaled already the career of someone like Zach Johnson, effectively not far off Justin Thomas's career achievements. And 13 events to go in the PGA schedule this year, you'd have to think that he's easily going to get his sixth win for the year.

Jake Hower: 00:03:47

I agree, but there is one glaring problem in his resume at the moment. I don't know when he's going to win in May.

Luke Manning: 00:03:54

Will we ever know?

Jake Hower: 00:03:55

Yes. So he debunked that theory that he's unable to win outside of February to April, which is always going to happen. it's an anomaly for it to be there in the first place. But he is by far the best golfer on the planet right now. Regardless. I know there is still a little bit of commentary and discourse around the PGA tour fields being weakened, but there's no one on the Liv side at the moment who's playing anywhere near him. So if they're in the field, they're not beating Scott regardless anyway.

Luke Manning: 00:04:24

I think they're not beating him consistently. And that's the thing with Scotty. His consistency has just been incredible. Every time he tees the ball up, he is winning or he's heavily in contention. And it's just shot after shot that he's striping it down the middle of the fairway or hitting a green. And he is actually putts half decent. If he's positive in terms of strokes gain putting he invariably wins. And Rick Gaiman had a really good graph of this on X where he showed basically each time he gets into the green instead of the red for strokes gain putting he's going to win a championship or a tournament. Scotty will be wanting to putting form into Pinehurst this week and total domination, as we say.

Jake Hower: 00:05:12

at Lift Houston Carlos Ortiz won over. Adrian Maronk and Patrick Reid had a sort of good sort of finish as well, being the home favorite there.

Luke Manning: 00:05:21

Reid, that's right. Performed well in front of his home crowd. Probably was never really a chance because Maronk and Ortiz had opened up four stroke gap between the rest of the field coming into the 15th. Unfortunately for Maronkey, found the hazard off the tee in the par, on the par 5 15th there and made bogey in the end. And that was the difference because Ortiz was able to birdie that hole and the two shot swing was all she wrote. So with his first win on live celebrated very happily with his Torquay teammates showered with champagne and he will be looking to take that forward for the rest of the season.

Jake Hower: 00:06:06

Lucas Herbert did quite well from an Aussie perspective. If he had a T6 Brooks Koepka is probably the other one of notes in that final round to shot a 65 which is typical of Brooks leading into a major.

Luke Manning: 00:06:18

I think that seven under par round in the final round at Live Houston will definitely have a lot of people with their eye on Brooksy coming into Pinehurst this week. as you say, Lucas Herbert played quite well. The, so did Leishman. From a ripper perspective Smithy, not having four doubles and a triple in the final round there and shot an 80.

Jake Hower: 00:06:42

Yes. And on the team side, we had the Cleeks for their first team win.

Luke Manning: 00:06:46

off the back of some good strong play from Richard Bland and also their captain Martin Keimer, met with the expected parody from Tron at NLU. Some interesting tweets, support for the Cleeks. He thought they'd never get it done, but of course they have now.

Jake Hower: 00:07:07

with all four scores counting, it's, you get some wild fluctuations, don't you? It really does see, it's hard to pay attention to that team side from my perspective until the final couple of holes, because the swings are so fast and so violent.

Luke Manning: 00:07:22

And I just wonder whether they should make all four scores count on either all days or maybe just the final two days, that certainly would put the cat amongst the pigeons.

Jake Hower: 00:07:34

I think so. And I think we've discussed it in previous episodes about, I think where that becomes really interesting, I think, is when you add additional players to the roster who are not necessarily starting, because if you have players who are completely out of form on your team and you've got all four scores counting, you can't have any weaknesses. So you can change out players and that probably plays into that mid season draft or that draft at the end of the year as well, where we see a little bit more player movement. To fill those sort of gaps and to try and build on that team side of things potentially.

Luke Manning: 00:08:05

and we saw that the players can come in and do quite well. Ben Campbell, I think, had five or six under par for his round coming in as a substitute. I didn't see what Wade Ormsby shot though.

Jake Hower: 00:08:17

He was one under, I think he might've ended up at one under.

Luke Manning: 00:08:21

But certainly, Ben Campbell performed really well coming in at last minute there, and there's certainly some evolution that can happen in the team side with Liv.

Jake Hower: 00:08:32

Wade Ormsby was a one under in his final round and one over in round two. There was, So that's here's there, thereabouts. What was trying to watch both tournaments? They both finished essentially at the same time. I think Houston is in a, an hour different time zone to the memorial in Ohio, but it's. It seemed to be a little bit of a whiff from my perspective with live having the ability to control their start time why they would run it to finish at the same time as the memorial.

Luke Manning: 00:09:03

and obviously they've got less events in their calendar, so more flexibility with their scheduling to start with in terms of the weeks that they schedule events. And as you say, with the shotgun start, that probably gives them another level of flexibility again as to when they actually kick off. Was difficult to watch both and to really get in, engaged in both the way that you'd like to as a fan. And hopefully Liv can work around that in a bit more sensible way going forward.

Jake Hower: 00:09:36

I think obviously the reason it's been done is because we've got the U S open this week. So they're trying to get reps into players, or it's probably from a, from the perspective of the players where they want to be playing the week before. Yeah. And of course they're probably a little bit hamstrung in the fact that therefore probably needs to be in the U S which they've running up with issues in terms of getting courses and putting so that all plays into it, I think, but they'd certainly had control over the start time. Ideally this would be a West coast event West coast in June is probably a good time to be over there. And we don't see a lot of West coast golf. After sort of February, March. So I think that would be ideal to be there. It puts you into a time zone at three hours prior or three hours after the East coast, and it would be very complimentary to be able to do that. And now obviously potentially it's the courses or trying to get access to a course that they. Can actually do that on given that, that the monopoly that the PJ holds in the States at the moment.

Luke Manning: 00:10:32

that's right. So there's no doubt some challenges that. sit behind the scenes that we don't see, but hopefully it is something that they can iron out and get the scheduling right for next year.

Jake Hower: 00:10:45

definitely. I think, as I said, just at least get it out of the same sort of finishing time, because it should be complimentary if they're going to compete against each other.

Luke Manning: 00:10:53

I'm sure there's some Trump courses in California that, welcome Liv there might be some choice there.

Jake Hower: 00:10:59

Yes. Now over on the DP world tour, we had the Scandinavian mixed event, which was won by Lynn grant for the second time in three years, that was, it looked like it was going to be a snooze fest. I went to bed before even turning it on because Soderbergh was, I think it was Eight shots up or was he 11 at one point, even potentially,

Luke Manning: 00:11:19

Lynn was 11 shots behind to start the day, and as you say Soderbergh had an eight shot lead there. And just a tragic sort of finish for him, where he got the putting yips and Grant came from the clouds to win it. A great achievement for her. she was the first female to win on the DP World Tour and now she's the first woman to win twice on the DP World Tour. You've got a feel for Soderbergh. I saw some footage of him in the scorer's hut afterwards, where he looked pretty inconsolable as you would be missing, I think he 3 putted 18 to fall out of a playoff. So, sorry scenes for Soderbergh and happy scenes for Lin Grant.

Jake Hower: 00:12:02

I'll tell you what, when I woke up in the morning, I went to check the scores and I'm like, Jesus he's just choked that away. And I wanted to go and check his hole by hole scores. I couldn't work out how to find hole by hole scores on the European tour website.

Luke Manning: 00:12:16

you'd think they'd have that worked out pretty well. The other thing that I noticed, so just before we jumped on the pod, I was looking for some footage on the DP World social accounts for Soderbergh's highlights, or lowlights we call them, and they've been scrubbed from social media history. So shooting 77 in the final round, you probably can't complain too much particularly where Lynne Grant went out and shot 65.

Jake Hower: 00:12:41

On the LPGA tour, we had Linnea Strom, who had a 60 in the final round. She went out in the third group of the morning and held on to win by a shot.

Luke Manning: 00:12:52

Just unbelievable. Narrowly missing out on the Magic 59. Another Swedish winner for the week. I don't think she could believe what had happened. And certainly when you look at the scores there it is quite unbelievable. Some decent players in the field too there with Megan Kang and Titical. And I see Jenny Shin rounded there. the top 10 there at T9.

Jake Hower: 00:13:13

Now let's move on to the US Open this week. Now I think maybe just to tie in from the live Houston Cam Smith finished the day, um, double, triple, and ended up with four double bogeys in his last sort of eight holes, I think it was plus the triple. Did you see what happened there?

Luke Manning: 00:13:33

No, I didn't see any of it. it would have been dropped from coverage with having that many scores, but certainly quite shocking to see. We know that Smithy can get wayward with the driver and that course there in Houston certainly does have some trouble lurking, but It has to be more than just a wayward driver to be shooting, 80 and having four doubles and a triple in your round.

Jake Hower: 00:14:05

It's not it's not super promising coming into the U S open. Now this was what I'd pencil marks this particular U S open venue Pinehurst as being camps probably. most suited us open venue playing similar to what we see on the sand bout down here in, in Victoria. And him being used to firm and fast conditions lots of shaved runoff areas with, and with cams short game it looked like it was setting up perfectly for him, but his form doesn't look perfect. Very good of recent time.

Luke Manning: 00:14:36

No, and I think the things that you've called out on the course are the things that would be licking his lips at and he may still well perform. talked about the, the narrowing sort of the firm and fast conditions. Sorry, you talked about those and we do expect it from what we're hearing to be that way. I saw some commentary from last year's champion Wyndham Clark saying that greens are already borderline whether accurate sandbagging and a shot across the bow of the USGA early on from the players remains to be seen. but yes, it. It certainly does set up where those players that have supreme short games and excellent putting skills should be able to come to the fore. I saw a clip from Golf Channel earlier where they had, Johnson Wagner out there putting him through his paces again, chipping off the type Bermuda grass onto one of the greens. And he demonstrated not only how he's struggling with his own chipping game at but I think more so he demonstrated just how good these elite players are with their short game. The level of precision and pure strike that you need in order to hit your landing spots. If you're, chipping from the collection areas and the tight grass these greens the level of precision that you need is extreme and that's, Very, as you say, very similar to sandbelt conditions and also, a course like Royal Queensland where Smithy's won before. We'll have to see how he turns it around in a short amount of time. You'd think it's going to be a major challenge for him to be able to do that. But he is a major champion and he's got that Aussie fighting spirit that we love to see.

Jake Hower: 00:16:33

he's been positive strokes gains approach in two of his last eight events. That has typically been an area of his game, which has also been quite good. his driver has been a liability, but his approach game has been a liability of recent time as well. And he's been really heavily reliant on his putting and around the green.

Luke Manning: 00:16:53

And this golf course at Pinehurst is very much a second shot golf course. The flyovers that the UF's GA have put out in conjunction with Pinehurst show small the landing areas are, And the green complexes are similar to Augusta in that sense, where you've got a small target, and if you hit your target, you're rewarded with a short birdie putt or a good look at your putt. But it will repel mediocre or poor shots and really force a very tough up and down. Strokes around the green, strokes going around the green will be important. Putting will be important, but also to avoid putting yourself in those difficult spots, the strokes gained approach will be a premium as well.

Jake Hower: 00:17:42

going to be really interesting to see this week. We're now 10 years since we last went to Pinehurst on the men's professional side, just to see what effect distance has had on how they play the course. I went through Google earth this morning, just looking at landing zones and where potentially greens and bunkers pinch in the fairways. It looks fairly open still to me. Like it, it looks like playing quite aggressively might be might if you're not an elite iron player playing aggressively might be your play because you're going to get close to the greens you're going to have a better chance of getting it and keeping it on the green as well. Potentially as well, depending on how firm they are, but that may blow it out a little bit about how many competitors and who's going to be competing, but certainly. Scotty Scheffler's number one. He's regardless of the course, he's probably the player.

Luke Manning: 00:18:32

There's a couple of different schools of thought on how the tournament will play out with the course set up. Listening to the fried eggs preview was very much a thought that the pinch areas in the fairway, the narrowing of the fairways around the sort of 300 to 315 yard landing zone could well disadvantage some of the bigger hitters and give the shorter hitters, say someone like Isaac Blair more of a chance in this particular tournament. So you've got that school of thought, but the big hitters do tend to work it out. When Bryson won at wing foot a lot of people said, he's just not going to be able to bomb and gouge. His way around that course, it will find him out. The green complexes are too challenging for him to be able to do that. Yet he still found a way to win. A couple of different schools of thought and we'll have to wait until sort of Monday morning, our time to find out.

Jake Hower: 00:19:28

What else do we got on that? So yeah, Scotty Morikawa, obviously we touched on him earlier. he's having a good season to date starting really. he's formal and started turning around at the masters, but since then he has been competing most weeks. With the caveat of that putter still not getting hot in, in any of the weeks, really.

Luke Manning: 00:19:46

That's right. The Iron Plays Elite. He's trending well in terms of his form. A big question mark though on how he plays in the wind. We know that he's got that stock shot of the butter cut or the baby fade and in windy conditions that ball just gets eaten up. If it does get windy at Pinehurst that may change his chances. But certainly, If conditions are mild, his approach shot and his current form, I think we'll see him in contention,

Jake Hower: 00:20:19

It's looking like the forecast is pretty mild and benign conditions, most of the weekends, maybe Saturday, it looks like it gets a little windier, but we're not talking anything that would affect someone like Colin, I wouldn't imagine. We're only in the early sort of teens kilometers per hour winds. That won't affect a professional golfer. Okay. So continuing on a few of the other sort of, I'd highlighted a couple others looking at, I actually looked at Rick German's site as well. Looking at his Rick runs good some of these custom modeling and whatever, and picked out a few things Rory, I think he's certainly someone that is going to be again up there. He's games quite well suited here. I think as well. He's been. Putting pretty solidly. He's approach game this year, I think has been more, has been improved compared to previous years. Obviously he's a driver is elite. So he's a huge chance I think at this particular venue.

Luke Manning: 00:21:13

but it's a major Jake.

Jake Hower: 00:21:15

It's a major, I know I didn't.

Luke Manning: 00:21:17

No, look, you'd never say Rory can't win. Of course he can win and he's good enough to beat anyone. In the world, anywhere in the world, so you would never write Rory off. A decade since he won a major and we have seen time and time again, him get close, but not be able to close it out for various reasons or come screaming through with a backdoor top 10 or a top five after being out of contention in the earlier rounds. Certainly not putting a line through Rory, but how many times can he fool us into believing? Ha

Jake Hower: 00:21:51

I know it's, he's going, he has to win one. Surely he's going to win one.

Luke Manning: 00:21:55

ha, we say that every major.

Jake Hower: 00:21:57

Xander is also, again, he's the second best golfer in the last 12 months. Didn't have a fantastic week at the Memorial, but he should be well in the mix again this particular week. And I'm very much positive. Xander now that he's got that monkey off his back and he's won a major. I think that will maybe free him up a little bit and hopefully he can capitalize on it. Given how informed he is.

Luke Manning: 00:22:21

it'll be interesting to see how he goes now that he's broken the major seal, and whether He feels a lot more comfortable in the major environment and he truly believes that he can get it done. A good test for Xander to see how he backs up in this next major coming off his win there at Valhalla.

Jake Hower: 00:22:42

John Rahm, he obviously WD'd out of Houston with a foot infection, I think it was like a blister or something in between his toes. He was playing reasonable golf, on that first day after there was a clip going around of him wincing in pain. Having hit a tee shot, but after that, he got himself to three or four under. So he was playing reasonably well. And then WD'd after six holes on the Saturday.

Luke Manning: 00:23:06

It's hard to know how bad the injury actually is. I saw some reporting this morning, I think maybe from Brentley Romine, that he wasn't on course on Monday and not likely to be on course at Pinehurst on Tuesday either. So maybe he's giving himself the maximum amount of time to recover. It's been pretty quiet, so there's been nothing publicly released to my knowledge about. The finer details of the injury and as we know, a lot's been made of the various, by the various talking heads of Ram being unhappy at live and he's a shadow of his former self, et cetera. I think all those things will just play into Ram's hands and I say beware the wounded Spanish bull.

Jake Hower: 00:23:52

Other chances from the lift guys Brooks as we mentioned a few minutes ago, it's major Brooks. Expect him to be. Performing quite well. I think probably the one thing that from his game, that sort of stands out when I look at him, look at the numbers is his putter seems to be very problematic at the moment and it's very unusual compared to major winning Brooks. So I'm just not sure there's that little question mark on that putter or whether or not he can get that right.

Luke Manning: 00:24:20

you can't talk majors without talking Brooksie, and it seems that he just relishes the big events the harder the better for him. So I expect him to be up this week. As you say the putting can be not where it needs to be at times. I think we'll get an indication early on in round one. How he's going to be, if he makes those must make five, eight footers, then I think we'll see a real charge from Brooks because the rest of the game is just rock solid and so dependable when the pressure is on. We saw that in Singapore event where. He was asked to hit a number of and testing shots coming down the stretch and he just never faltered, so expect him to be in the mix if he's putting's on song.

Jake Hower: 00:25:16

What do you think of Bryson's chances?

Luke Manning: 00:25:19

Look, I think Bryson is a good chance in the sense that he's won this event before. I think he's a more mature and well rounded player now than when he was during his win at Wingfoot a few years back. He's contended at the Masters. He held the lead at the Masters earlier this year but eventually dropped away. He finished only a shot back from Zander at the PGA. So he's really given both those majors a good shake. his live form last week at Houston was average, I would say, and he had quite a few bogeys on the card. But I think he'll work that out on the range and one thing is for sure, is not afraid of hard work and he will put in the hours and the time to get the results and so I do expect that we'll see a really big turnaround from what we saw at Live Houston the week just gone. To what we're going to see now at Pinehurst this coming week.

Jake Hower: 00:26:23

I think this is gonna be a big test just to see how he's going to handle the hard conditions. Bryson seems to be able to bully of course, and he performs really well when, not necessarily super hard. Just with his sort of temperament. He seems to get a little bit, we saw it a little bit on the Sunday at Augusta where when things got hard he just made a few silly mistakes. So it'll be interesting to see how he handles golf course, which is going to be so demanding mentally. And yeah, he certainly got the game, all aspects of his game to actually compete, but it's just, I think mentally we'll see, and we'll know that quite early as well, I think.

Luke Manning: 00:26:59

The other thing I'm interested to see is what sort of crowd support Bryson has. I really feel like, Bryson has a corner in terms of his public support and maybe much of this has got to do with the YouTube and social media content that he puts out there. He's really good with the fans. We've seen. Many clips with him being genuine and engaging with the fans. And if you take that back a few years ago, where he was parodied by a lot of commentators and golf influences He was awkward and I guess he was a bit of a villain in the game. I feel like that persona, he's been able to shed that to a large extent and has tapped into more mainstream support now, which I think is great to see. And look, a lot of that's probably due to the fact that he has matured and. Maybe showing a bit more of an authentic and genuine side to him in terms of his interactions with fans and whatnot. But if he's got the support of the crowd at Pinehurst, I think he'll be really buoyed by that and will ride that for all that he can.

Jake Hower: 00:28:10

There was a, I was thinking about him the other day. I think the topic of slow play come up and he was someone, obviously it was written very hard early on because he was a turtle. He was so slow and he almost for a time refused to believe it, but he. Went off and over the past 12, 18 months has sped right up. Like I watched him at at Adelaide and he was up the backside of the group in front at all times which is a real credit to him. The other thing that he was getting a lot of criticism over was he's not calling for when hitting a wayward tee shot and the same thing. He went off and he fixed it up and he's now, he's probably gone the other way where he's, it's a bit of a show seeing him yell for, because he's so loud and so verbose over it. But I think that one thing about Bryson is that he, learns and he wants to take in as much as possible and trying to make himself better. So maybe that's going to hopefully prove me wrong in terms of maybe that mental side of the game as well. Maybe he will learn from the mistakes he's made in the past.

Luke Manning: 00:29:14

And I'll be the first to admit that I've done a full 180 on Bryson. I was totally out on him many years ago and actively rooting against him in some of those tournaments. And now I can appreciate him as a player and as an ambassador for the game. still has his quirky. Moments, no doubt. And as everybody, I guess does but I'll certainly be hoping to see him up the top of the leaderboard and really in contention because I good for golf.

Jake Hower: 00:29:43

that is absolutely. And I've always loved Bryce. And I think when I come into sort of golf back in 2015 sort of him coming up through his amateur stage, winning the the U S amateur, and he come down to Huntingdale. And he played in the the Aussie masters where he ended up second, but I was watching him, following him around and watching him interact with the crowd. He was really good. It's very quirky. And so I was playing Cobra clubs because off the back of him, really. So here's my first sort of golfing crush.

Luke Manning: 00:30:12

And I saw him play at the 2019 president's cup and this was probably peak sort of anti Bryson moments. And the crowd was the Aussie crowd was very anti Bryson. And I think he struggled with that. He copped a lot of. shit from the fans. Some of it in good humor, but some of it probably over the top in reality. And he did struggle with that. But I do remember seeing him hit just an absolutely blistering tee shot going up 18. I think he ended up winning that final singles match on the last day there. The guy has just got incredible talent and now if he can garner the crowd support as well, that can be a pretty potent combination.

Jake Hower: 00:30:56

Hey, speaking of change, do you think Scotty has changed since his celebration? Like it wasn't a huge celebration, but it meant a lot. You could say he gave the big fist pump after hauling his pot on Sunday. I think that's probably from my perspective, the most emotion I've seen from him.

Luke Manning: 00:31:12

I'd agree with that. That stood out to me as well. It was a much more pronounced celebration than we've scotty. Don't know whether the memorial any particular meaning to him terms of, family history or whatnot. But it definitely did stand out. Sure if it's correlated to the arrest, maybe blowing off a bit of steam but certainly it did stick out in my mind too.

Jake Hower: 00:31:39

he seemed to have quite a lot of support there as well in terms of the crowds. So you'd probably expect that at Pinehurst, he is gonna come into this with a lot of pressure on him, so that will also be quite interesting.

Luke Manning: 00:31:50

and Scotty is more of a subdued personality, but his crowd support and his fan base has been growing and growing. Having the results that he's had almost demands the attention and the fandom but certainly you can feel that swell of support for him and the public's interest in him growing.

Jake Hower: 00:32:10

Now just before switching to the Aussies in a few a couple others that I had highlighted, I think that probably good chances on the live side, I think Tyrell Hatton looks like he's going to be someone that should perform quite well here. And then outside of those guys again, probably looking at me and Dean. He's in pretty good form and yeah, not too many others that I see on the live side that are jumping out at me though.

Luke Manning: 00:32:34

I'm interested to see how David Puge goes, he's really been trending well and now that he's got the opportunity I expect he'll be wanting to grab it both hands. So that'll be interesting to see how he goes. Burmester's been one of the standout live players, I would agree with you on that point of view. I guess Sergio is the other one as He had a sneaky finish in the Live Houston event has been playing pretty well year. We'll see how he travels as well.

Jake Hower: 00:33:10

We can't consider Martin Keimer as we can't. Can we?

Luke Manning: 00:33:13

I don't think so. He had the lead there at one stage at Live Houston fell away in the end. And I suspect even if he gets hot for a round or two at Pinehurst, it'll be nothing more than sentimental reminiscing. And I don't expect him to be there come Sunday afternoon.

Jake Hower: 00:33:32

Now Aussies in the field if I'm just gonna read down the list, we've got cam Davis, cam Smith Jason Day, min Lee, Jason Ner, and Adam Scott.

Luke Manning: 00:33:42

I'm not particularly bullish on the Aussies chances this time around. We've talked about Smithy, who both of us had him penciled in as the Aussies best hope, and our confidence in that's been really shaken by what we saw on the weekend. Not ruling Smithy out, but It's going to be tough work to turn that around in such a short amount of time. Cam Davis, I don't think he's shown that he's a big time major player yet. poked his head up on the leaderboard at the Masters and crapped the bed almost as soon as he got up there. I don't think Cam's really going to be giving it a shake. Jason Day for me is probably our best chance outside of Smithy in the sense that his form this year has been reasonable. We know that he's got a great short game and he's one of the best putters on tour. So those things stack up well for Pinehurst. It probably just comes down to his iron play,

Jake Hower: 00:34:49

Yeah.

Luke Manning: 00:34:50

and whether he can be as accurate. in hitting those small targets on the greens as he needs to be. But if he does, we know that he's going to be, deadly with that putter if he gets a lot of looks at eight or ten feet. So Jason for me probably is the Aussie's best chance. For me is a bit of a wild card. know Minwoo can go really low. This is not a usual sort of PGA Tour stop or DP World Tour stop, so having probably not seen a lot of the course or played it a lot, it might take a while for him to work out and whether you can give these really top guys a head start like that remains to be seen, but Woozie's probably a bit of a wild card for me. Jason Scrivner has been battling on the DP World Tour. I think, 109th in the race to the bystandings at the moment has missed three of his, three out of his last, sorry, missed the cut in three out of his last five events. So think that's going to be a really big challenge for him to make a splash at Pinehurst in this event. And then I'd be interested in your thoughts on Scotty. He's. now going to be playing in, I think maybe his 94th or 95th consecutive major, which is an incredible achievement. But is he doing anything more other than making up the numbers?

Jake Hower: 00:36:17

Oh, I think it'll probably depend a little bit around how he's performing around the greens. He's pretty solid iron player. Obviously off the tee. He's more than competitive and he'll hold his own there. And his putter has been relatively solid as well, I think he's probably, he's going to be up there with Jason Day, maybe as Australia's best chance, just depending on how he's around the greens.

Luke Manning: 00:36:35

And I expect to see Scotty putting Martin from around the greens. I don't. think that he will be mixing it up, a lob wedge or a 56 degree on this tight grass. We have seen him do this before in terms of putting on undulating greens from off the green. So that will be his plan of attack around Pinehurst. your point is well made about the iron play. If he can hit these greens and have more greens in regulation, then that puts less pressure on his scrambling game. And I think that's where he gets unstuck for me is his ability to scramble repeatedly, where he's constantly putting that short game under pressure. And that's why I think we see too many bogeys on the cards, apart from the occasional errant tee shot. But, If you need Scotty to get up and down your life better not depend on it. There'd be a lot of other players that you'd want the club in the hands of.

Jake Hower: 00:37:36

Yeah. I think as long as it's going to come down to where he's missing it, isn't it, with his approach, if he's missing in the right areas, he's going to be able to pull out that putter and maybe take a bit of pressure off that short game, but if he's short sighting himself or missing in the wrong areas where he can't use that putter it might get pretty hard for him.

Luke Manning: 00:37:52

Yeah, I agree. Just a few more questions on Pinehurst before we move on. We've got 12 live players in the field. I think for Valhalla, that was 17 and we set the overs and unders live player in the top 10 line at one and a half. I think we keep it at one and a half. what's your sort of take this time around?

Jake Hower: 00:38:13

I'm not as confident as I was there. I don't know, as, I'd be impressed to see one in the top 10, to be honest, if we're anything more than one. So I guess I'm taking the unders.

Luke Manning: 00:38:22

Take the overs and unders top live player in the field.

Jake Hower: 00:38:25

I think I've gotta pick one. I'm going to say Hatton.

Luke Manning: 00:38:28

and then top Aussie.

Jake Hower: 00:38:31

Top aie. I'll take Scotty.

Luke Manning: 00:38:32

You'll take Scotty. Yep.

Jake Hower: 00:38:34

How about you?

Luke Manning: 00:38:35

I think Unders for Live players and top 10 B1. Top Live player, I'm gonna say Brooks. And then top Aussie, as I say, I think it's Jason Day or a red hot Min Wu who catches some lightning in a bottle.

Jake Hower: 00:38:52

Do you have an outsider?

Luke Manning: 00:38:54

That's a good question. Look, I think from an outsider's perspective, it's hard to say who's actually an outsider

Jake Hower: 00:39:03

outsider?

Luke Manning: 00:39:04

Right. When you don't see this course played a lot of times and it brings a lot of other players into contention. But look, I am gonna go a real outsider and say, I think DJ is due for a big, big

Jake Hower: 00:39:21

That's he's considered absolutely an outsider. So yeah, I'm happy with that selection. And I'm going to take for an outsider, I'm going to take Alex Norrin. Now, I think that's a decent sort of look at Pinehurst, isn't it?

Luke Manning: 00:39:34

Yeah thorough, review or preview of and just can't wait get it now.

Jake Hower: 00:39:39

Likewise. Yeah. this is probably my most anticipated US Open for a little while. you know what one I was really impressed with was Chambers Bay. I liked the ball on the ground. I like options. This style of golf is. What I play a lot of down here, a lot of linksy style of golf, but yeah, a lot of options. So we're going to see a variety of golf being played. So it's going to be a good weekend.

Luke Manning: 00:40:01

it'll be much different to a place like Bethpage Black or those types of courses. So I think it's going to be a fantastic tournament.

Jake Hower: 00:40:09

Now, actually one last thing on that. Did Adam Scott end up getting in through his final qualifying or was he admitted through the top 60? In the end he finished 61st in OWGR, but I think the death of Grayson Murray might've pushed him up potentially. I'm not sure where,

Luke Manning: 00:40:25

my understanding is that he was brought forward off the alternates list. May well have still made it even if he remained on the alternates list, but was elevated because Grayson Murray has been removed from the top 60 OWGR rankings and that made way for Scotty to get the tournament.

Jake Hower: 00:40:46

Other event, there's only really the, or there's yeah, they have a major event really on the LPGA tour is the Maya Classic and that's over in Missouri and who's playing in that one.

Luke Manning: 00:40:56

so we've got some notables in the field there, Nellie Corder, Lillia Vu Celine Boutier, Lexi Thompson, and a couple Aussies in Minji Lee and Grace Kim. Solid event, but it'll be struggling to gain attention against the US

Jake Hower: 00:41:10

I think maybe is Lilia Vu, she's been off for a little bit. Hasn't she? I think so. Is this may be her first tournament

Luke Manning: 00:41:17

appointment? Yeah, I

Jake Hower: 00:41:18

think they're right. That's right. And return event. All right. So in other news or other sort of occurrences through the week. We had Brandel going on the NLU podcasts. Yeah I haven't listened to that particular episode yet. So I don't have a lot of context to add. Have you, I believe you have.

Luke Manning: 00:41:33

I've seen the grabs as we know, Brandel and Solly, two of the outspoken golf commentators going around had a bit of a Twitter spat earlier in year where were arguing with each other. Either advertising and production quality for the broadcasts. And so it was interesting to see Brandel go on the NLU pod. Credit to both of them for getting in, leaning into the conflict and the controversy. It's we've been talking about on this pod where there's. great engagement to be gained from that. Not surprisingly. I understand they bonded over their mutual disdain or distasteful Liv. And there were quotes running around from Brandel talking about how lives a laughable product. They play music, they don't play the courses the way the architects intend them to be. And. He's still banging on about the corruption and the blood money from Saudi Arabia. He doesn't seem to realize that the rest of the world has moved on and that the sports washing and blood money argument is just falling on deaf ears, largely. There's a small cohort of people that still get riled up about that, but When they look more broadly at what's happening in global sports like soccer and Formula One et cetera, and even women's golf the argument just doesn't stack up anymore for being a reason to avoid the investment. Yes, they had Brandel on the pod there. And afterwards tweeted out that this is what happens when people who exist in a bubble get together and complain to each other, which draw a pretty sharp and quick response from Tron at NLU where he said to Luke, look, I'm shocked that the USGA have asked you to commentate on the Pinehurst event coming up for the international feed and he tweeted a meme of a shark with a suckerfish attached to it indicating or implying that Luke was the suckerfish to the shark. Always a bit of banter and a bit of fun in and around the NLU guys.

Jake Hower: 00:43:39

Yeah, those two

Luke Manning: 00:43:40

and Brandel, I guess

Jake Hower: 00:43:42

Brandel is another story. But Tron and Luke Alvey seem that this is an on running, been running for a long time. I think pretty much for it since at least since live come on the scene and Luke started talking about it. But yeah, I'm not sure what Tron's problem with Luke is because I don't know. Listening to Luke stuff is controversial in that he's supporting live and whatnot, but he doesn't seem like He's way out. I don't know. It's just, it's a weird one to me.

Luke Manning: 00:44:06

No. And look, maybe there's some backstory to it that we're not aware of, but. Yeah. it's interesting watching anyway, nonetheless.

Jake Hower: 00:44:14

And Brando, of course, he'll fight with anybody. AK is the other one that is getting a few headlines at the moment with him and Brando getting quite personal.

Luke Manning: 00:44:22

That's right. Yeah. I did say that.

Jake Hower: 00:44:24

And probably the other really big news for the week was really not news in itself. Anyway, really, at the end it was the PGA tours transaction subcommittee meeting with the PIF in New York.

Luke Manning: 00:44:34

Much, much to do about nothing in the end. Tiger and Adam Scott, I think, were the player directors to meet with the PIF in person along with the other senior PGA Tour brass. Rory was playing at Memorial, so he wasn't able to join in person, but we understand he joined virtually for the meeting. Rory made some interesting comments about the meeting, saying that it was big boy stuff. I think more interestingly were his comments around Liv saying that he doesn't see Liv slowing down in the next couple of years and that he hoped to see more of a collaboration and cross pollination with players being able to play on both tours. Now, I think that would have irritated a number of the US player directors and Players that have been wanting to see sanctions and penalties and reparations against the live players that defected. And also, the fans and the players that just want to see live shut down In its entirety. So, interesting comments from Rory. PTA Tour released a statement after the meeting, which was just really a lot of words saying absolutely nothing. So for me there doesn't seem to be any meaningful progress. Jake, are we ever going to see a deal happen? And at what point do they call it quits and decide to move on?

Jake Hower: 00:46:02

I don't see, I don't think it's beneficial at this point for a deal to happen really, it may be an understanding of there's a few probably points that both sides would like to see conceded, but, it seems like where we are now is probably me. Yeah. Where it's going to fall. And maybe there's just a little bit of pollination, cross pollination, not much I can't say.

Luke Manning: 00:46:22

And it feels like there's many vested interests working against the deal. So it just seems to be dragging on. We're past the 12 month mark now. So we're a year and five days beyond June anniversary. And You would think that if a deal was going to be crunched, it would have been crunched by now. And that gets back to my point of when do you draw a line in and say, okay is not going to happen.

Jake Hower: 00:46:47

We're just not seeing any sort of concessions or any goodwill at all being made, particularly on a behalf of the pj Or maybe we are starting to see that a little bit with the DP World Tour. But yeah, like the stuff around Blandy not, them going out of their way to Disinvite Blandy or to make it clear that he's not in welcome on the Champions Tour or even some of it was a burn weisberg not being able to play in the co sanctions or the PGA tour owned co invited, I wouldn't call them co sanctioned, but co invited DP World Tour PGA Tour tournaments because he has played in live events in the past. So I think they're still going out of their way to make sure it's clear that live is not welcome in the That was very

Luke Manning: 00:47:27

petty, wasn't it? Yeah.

Jake Hower: 00:47:28

It was, and yeah, I think maybe the DP World Tour is waking up a little bit in, into what their position is and maybe that's where a deal is going to get done.

Luke Manning: 00:47:38

And the only concessions that we're seeing are actually coming from the majors. So they're seeing the writing on the wall in my view. but we've got the transaction subcommittee And the player directors continuing to maintain the line that things are progressing well, and it's all positive. It's just a complicated thing that takes some time to work out. You can merge two massive companies in a very complex corporate deal much, much quicker than what's happening here.

Jake Hower: 00:48:05

from my perspective it's all PGA tour site. I don't know, there's so many interesting, I think there's been so many hidden interests in the tour and how money is made in and around the tour. I've said it previously about the PGA superstore and ownership structures there. I think there's a lot of these deals that have happened over the course of time, which have funneled money. Away from the players that it's just too hard to it's so intertwined that maybe they're just afraid of breaking that up. what would happen in terms of some of these other people knowing where the bodies are buried.

Luke Manning: 00:48:37

I think that's true. And so it's not surprising that we're not seeing any progress in that regard.

Jake Hower: 00:48:44

And then finally, Nate Lashley, feed off on Jay Monaghan.

Luke Manning: 00:48:48

Yeah, I had some choice words for Jay. Nothing's, nothing surprising, but said that he's a chicken shit and won't stand up to a handful of guys. I'm not sure who he's referring to. Possibly Tiger and Co. But we know that Nate's had form before in terms of leaking on the tour where he published the full PIP results on account. So always good to keep an eye on Nate's up to.

Jake Hower: 00:49:12

Yeah. And, I think Mostly being hamstrung maybe he's protecting himself a little bit by not speaking up and trying to get himself looked potentially, but for the most part, I think it's clear that he doesn't have much power anymore.

Luke Manning: 00:49:24

Not at the moment. It probably different pre six June last year. Yeah. And. He abused that power and he broke the trust of the people that are of his main stakeholder groups, i. e. the players. So the fact that got no power now is just a function of the way that he exercised that power in the lead up to the, Framework agreement being announced. And I don't have a lot of sympathy for Jay. It would be a difficult position for him to be in, it is one of his own creation. For me, I think he's dead man walking until this is resolved. They're going to let him try and be a caretaker CEO or whatever. Whilst others are calling the shots, he's there to implement and do as he's told and once a definitive decision has been made on the way forward for the PGA Tour and what looks like, I think Jay will be making way for a new leader.

Jake Hower: 00:50:24

All right, Luke, that's a good coverage. Looking forward to the weekend of golf and hopefully come out with I'd prefer not to see a random winner. I'd like to see one of the big names take something.

Luke Manning: 00:50:35

Yeah, it's going to be a great weekend ahead. agree you We don't want a winner. We want a worthy winner of a US Open at Pinehurst. And I look forward coming back talking all things with you in a recap next week. Lovely. Thanks for tuning in guys. We'll speak to you again in seven days time.