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Speaker 2: Get there. My goodness, it's been too long.
Speaker 3: And Paul Pugmer, I've got to say I was very
Speaker 3: excited to see you on the rundown, but I knew
Speaker 3: it was going to hurt my heart to talk about
Speaker 3: golf as I'm recovering from a rotator cuff injury and
Speaker 3: the weather is still cold and I'm just pining to
Speaker 3: get out.
Speaker 2: How are you dealing with the cold weather, sir?
Speaker 4: I'm grumpy, I'm short tampered that I've been thinking about
Speaker 4: your spence. I've been wondering how the shoulder's doing. That
Speaker 4: one is a big suck. That's a tough one, man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was rough.
Speaker 3: Is I just finished my sixth week of physical therapy,
Speaker 3: and my physical therapist at the start of the process said,
Speaker 3: you have to make me one promise and I said,
Speaker 3: what's that. He said, you will not swing a golf
Speaker 3: club until I tell you that you can. And I said,
Speaker 3: I promise, And as of today he told me that
Speaker 3: I can. So I'm going to start swinging next week.
Speaker 3: I've not swung a club, Paul in probably three months,
Speaker 3: and it's breaking my heart.
Speaker 4: Yeah, get stretched out, get warm, make sure you're warm
Speaker 4: before you do it. You don't want to re injure
Speaker 4: that thing.
Speaker 3: No, for sure, I want to be healthy when the
Speaker 3: weather's warm. Here's a question that as the golf expert
Speaker 3: on the program, you can answer for golfers such as us,
Speaker 3: with the conditions as they are right now. What's the
Speaker 3: best way to keep momentum up when you're not able
Speaker 3: to get out as much as you want to make
Speaker 3: sure that when you start playing come spring, you're not
Speaker 3: super rusty.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Obviously we can now talk about a wide variety
Speaker 4: of options and really good options. On simulators. There's there's
Speaker 4: three or four different kinds of simulators in the market.
Speaker 4: There's several simulator facilities I'm most partial to t Box.
Speaker 4: I think they've really cracked the code on marrying all
Speaker 4: of the different aspects that need to be accomplished to
Speaker 4: succeed with golf. They do fitness and training together with
Speaker 4: golf experience and golf training with track Man, track Man simulators,
Speaker 4: and so there's a lot of opportunity with the track
Speaker 4: with track Man and others like it, with the simulators. Now,
Speaker 4: to really answer your question, get out on the golf
Speaker 4: course as much as you can. Simulators don't yet replicate
Speaker 4: well the experience of hitting off of grass, and then
Speaker 4: one you're there, the key to making it work is
Speaker 4: to really tamp down your expectations. You just want to
Speaker 4: swing and move and hit some shots. Trying to make
Speaker 4: a score in really tough conditions like this is just
Speaker 4: a recipe for making yourself feel bad.
Speaker 2: That's no fun, Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 3: So I want to ask you, as a result of
Speaker 3: the you know, the PGA Tour coming to Utah and
Speaker 3: good players, good golfers coming out of Utah, are we
Speaker 3: seeing a state that is now firmly on the map.
Speaker 3: You know, people from around the country planning trips to
Speaker 3: southern Utah and such as a result of the exposure
Speaker 3: that our golf scene has received over the past couple
Speaker 3: of years.
Speaker 4: No question. Yeah, and that's a really good observation. Yes,
Speaker 4: black Desert in southern Utah plays a really big role
Speaker 4: in that Sand Hollow plays a really big role in
Speaker 4: that San Hollo already has for the last decade, has
Speaker 4: been on gosh a couple dozen different best of lists
Speaker 4: of various kinds, and and so the the the Utah game,
Speaker 4: but it's players especially, and look, Tony Fenale is leading
Speaker 4: the way with that absolutely, but there are others. You know,
Speaker 4: Peter Quest was the number one ranked college player for
Speaker 4: most of his senior year that got a lot of
Speaker 4: attention nationwide. Right now, the junior game in Utah is
Speaker 4: getting a lot of attention with Lone Peak High school
Speaker 4: senior Kiakina recently named to the USGA junior national team.
Speaker 4: And then you know other native Utah players in addition
Speaker 4: to Tony, obviously Zach Blair, Patrick Fishburne, Daniel Summer Hayes.
Speaker 4: We're a time when we have as many native born
Speaker 4: players on the tour as Arizona does, and so it's
Speaker 4: it's really it's a very good time for Utah Golf
Speaker 4: and then it all circles background to Black Desert. And
Speaker 4: not only the PGA Tour coming, which it did last
Speaker 4: fall and will again next fall, but the LPGA coming
Speaker 4: in May as well.
Speaker 3: So you reference Tony, I'm pulling up the Genesis scoreboard
Speaker 3: now and we'll get to where he's at so far.
Speaker 3: I know he struggled round one, but overall, how would
Speaker 3: you characterize the start of the season for our guy,
Speaker 3: for Tony Fino.
Speaker 4: The big thing to keep in mind with Tony is
Speaker 4: that he's coming off a knee surgery. Remember, it kept
Speaker 4: him out of the Grant Thornton that he would have
Speaker 4: played with Nellie Corda. It kept him out of the
Speaker 4: Hero and which is unfortunate. This was a think of
Speaker 4: it as a stress fracture kind of. It was a
Speaker 4: MILEG kind of a kind of an injury. There wasn't
Speaker 4: anything impact or or catastrophic in his getting hurt. He
Speaker 4: just wore around. And so he's still coming back from
Speaker 4: the knee surgery. Obviously the doctors say he can play,
Speaker 4: but his results are a little spotty. He's had a
Speaker 4: couple of good showings, he's had a couple of cremy showings.
Speaker 4: It's really interesting to see how yesterday he really struggled
Speaker 4: at Tory Pines. Now, granted Tory is a great and
Speaker 4: very difficult golf course, anybody can struggle, but it was cold,
Speaker 4: it was wet, it was really uncomfortable, and there was
Speaker 4: no joy in Mudviill yesterday down at Tory and Tony
Speaker 4: did not do well, and I think it had to
Speaker 4: do with trying to get his surgically repaired knee around
Speaker 4: the golf course. And today he's playing fine. Today it's
Speaker 4: warm and sunny and he's playing fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he is.
Speaker 3: I just saw three under today and hopefully he'll make
Speaker 3: the Cotton play through the weekend.
Speaker 2: Let's stay with the Genesis.
Speaker 3: You know, I've heard Paul in the past a lot
Speaker 3: of players talk about this is one of their and
Speaker 3: I think maybe even Tony at some point talked about
Speaker 3: the Genesis as being one of his favorites, and a
Speaker 3: lot of golfers saying, as far as non majors go,
Speaker 3: they really look forward to this tournament.
Speaker 2: Can can you help us understand why it is?
Speaker 4: It is a one of the world's great golf courses.
Speaker 4: It'll be in the top twenty of most any list
Speaker 4: of the top courses in the world. I'm talking about
Speaker 4: the South Tory South. There's thirty six holes there and
Speaker 4: it has hosted a couple of major championships. US Opens
Speaker 4: there won by Tiger Woods and then John Rahn, so
Speaker 4: of course brings out the best of the best in
Speaker 4: the best tournaments. They It's a place where the Tiger
Speaker 4: has won eight times in the rotation when it goes
Speaker 4: through there each year on the Farmers. It's right on
Speaker 4: the cliffs overlooking the ocean that is spectacular. It also
Speaker 4: gets real exposure to weather. It's a terrific design. It
Speaker 4: is simply a great golf course with great history, and
Speaker 4: it's a place that people like to come and play.
Speaker 4: And then also they like being in San Diego when
Speaker 4: they're making a visit there. It's a pretty spectacular venue.
Speaker 4: And you know, last last year I was there in person,
Speaker 4: and the way things accidentally worked out, I ended up
Speaker 4: with twenty twenty five minutes just sitting talking with Tony
Speaker 4: while he was waiting for something to happen, and we
Speaker 4: ended up kind of talking like teenage kids, geeking on
Speaker 4: how cool toy is. And it's very clear Tony loves
Speaker 4: this place.
Speaker 2: Very nice.
Speaker 3: So let's dig into the start of the season for
Speaker 3: some other players here as the genesis right now is
Speaker 3: being led by oh, you know, Scotty. Of course, I
Speaker 3: just I just looked. I just look because I know
Speaker 3: Danny was up after round one. So Scotty Scheffler, let's
Speaker 3: let's dig into his his game a little bit, because
Speaker 3: of course he's coming back from a really a historically
Speaker 3: successful year last year and be a really weird one
Speaker 3: where my man got arrested and then cut his hand
Speaker 3: like cooking, and so you know, we have seen him
Speaker 3: back on the court for a couple of different tournaments,
Speaker 3: and every time I'd watch, the analysts would say, look,
Speaker 3: he's still getting you know, he's still kind of getting
Speaker 3: his form back, and once he does, we're going to
Speaker 3: see Scotty do Scotty things.
Speaker 2: And here he is leading the tournament.
Speaker 3: So what's your take on the start of the season
Speaker 3: so far for the world number one golfer Scotty Scheffler.
Speaker 4: Well, apparently the ham surgery worked for him. He seems
Speaker 4: to be okay.
Speaker 2: And you know this, this is.
Speaker 4: Exactly the kind of golf course where Scotty scheffer game works.
Speaker 4: He Scotty is so good at not giving away shots,
Speaker 4: at not putting himself in a position where he's got
Speaker 4: to be a magician to just hold serve. And that's
Speaker 4: what he's been doing today. I've been watching some of
Speaker 4: it today and he just hole after hole is putting
Speaker 4: himself in the right position. And then he gets to
Speaker 4: fifteen and it's a par five, knocks one in out
Speaker 4: of the bunker for a three and picks up two
Speaker 4: shots and Bam is tied to the lead. He Scott
Speaker 4: Scheffler's game is built on the not spectacular, which you know,
Speaker 4: good Land Nicholas did well with that approach to it,
Speaker 4: Hogan did well with that approach to it, Tiger did
Speaker 4: well with that approach to it. And Scotty is the
Speaker 4: number one player in the world right now by being
Speaker 4: smart and not getting shopped away.
Speaker 3: So tied for third is where we find young, well
Speaker 3: not so young, but Rory McElroy was young once upon
Speaker 3: a time.
Speaker 2: He's still a young dude, but you know, you know
Speaker 2: the deal.
Speaker 3: And it's been interesting, Paul to watch Rory to start
Speaker 3: the year because he is on that wild major you
Speaker 3: know streak where he hasn't won a major in a
Speaker 3: number of years and he nearly did it, you know,
Speaker 3: a couple of times, and missed some putts last year.
Speaker 3: But he wins at Pebble Beach, he wins the AT
Speaker 3: and T Pebble Beach Pro Am, and he's off to
Speaker 3: a phenomenal start to the calendar year. It's only a month.
Speaker 3: Do you think this is the year Rory gets it
Speaker 3: done in a major? And what do you make of
Speaker 3: the start of the season for Rory McElroy.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I really hope he gets it done.
Speaker 4: Rory is so easy to cheer for, love watching him
Speaker 4: play the game. And look when his wedges are solid,
Speaker 4: that's where he gives away strokes normally. When his wedges
Speaker 4: are solid, he's going to do great things. However, I
Speaker 4: did have to grimace and laugh at the same time
Speaker 4: a moment ago he missed a four foot downhill left
Speaker 4: right slider, which was exactly the putts he missed on
Speaker 4: a seventy second hole at Pinehurst in US opened last year.
Speaker 4: I thought, Rory, I think that might be a rich
Speaker 4: vein to mine to pick up some shots there. I
Speaker 4: would love to see Rory do well. The big difference
Speaker 4: with Rory this year so far is. He has said
Speaker 4: that he is disengaging going he's getting off the field
Speaker 4: of play in all of the politics and organizational issues
Speaker 4: of the game. He's simply going to be a golfer.
Speaker 4: And you can see what he can do. You see,
Speaker 4: I saw that at a pebble and what a great
Speaker 4: what a great win to put on your resume Pebble Beach.
Speaker 4: When he's focusing on his game, that's what he does.
Speaker 3: Let me let me ask you about Tiger and his
Speaker 3: mother who passed. You know, a lot of the attention,
Speaker 3: you know, historically when Tiger was becoming Tiger, and then
Speaker 3: when he was dominating pro golf, and then when he
Speaker 3: became a global icon, was the SoundBite you'd hear from Earl,
Speaker 3: his dad, who when Tiger was a kid, he'd say
Speaker 3: he's going to have an effect on the planet.
Speaker 2: That's a kin to Jesus and things like that.
Speaker 3: And you know, Earl was the one who was front
Speaker 3: facing about who Tiger was and who Tiger was going
Speaker 3: to become under his watch. But when I read the
Speaker 3: biography then watched the documentary, it's clear that Tiger's mom
Speaker 3: certainly had a very very big influence on him as well.
Speaker 3: She has passed and Tiger elected not to play this
Speaker 3: weekend after we thought he would. So can you illuminate
Speaker 3: us a little bit on just what this relationship entailed
Speaker 3: for Tiger Woods and your thoughts on her passing and
Speaker 3: what this could mean for him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was sad to see her pass away, no question.
Speaker 4: I think she was remarkable. I think she's one of
Speaker 4: the great women of our time. She knew that she
Speaker 4: was raising a genius when he was two years old.
Speaker 4: She knew that she was raising a kid who had
Speaker 4: potential to be certainly the best in the world and
Speaker 4: among the best of all time by the time that
Speaker 4: he was an early teenager. And she did it. And
Speaker 4: I think that's a really difficult place to be. And
Speaker 4: she stepped up and she did it. Earl Woods enjoyed provocation,
Speaker 4: He enjoyed rattling the bells and getting response. And Clofita
Speaker 4: Wood did. Woods did not. She was very averse to
Speaker 4: attention to the spotlight. She did her great work behind
Speaker 4: the scenes and in a low key fashion. But there's
Speaker 4: no question all along when you read about Tiger's upbringing,
Speaker 4: you when you know about Tiger's him becoming Tiger and
Speaker 4: I love the way you said that, It's not just
Speaker 4: him becoming Tiger when he's at Stanford or a young
Speaker 4: pro or whatever. No, it starts when he's two years old.
Speaker 4: It's him as a five year old winning eleven and
Speaker 4: twelve year old tournaments. It's him as a teenager getting
Speaker 4: to tee it up in the Genesis. It's those are
Speaker 4: the years he really was becoming Tiger Woods. And those
Speaker 4: are the years when his mom, cale Tita, really had
Speaker 4: her big influence and her big impact. And I think
Speaker 4: she was a great person.
Speaker 2: So what do you and look at?
Speaker 3: I know that Tiger is far past, you know, being
Speaker 3: who he once was, but he still is that dude, right,
Speaker 3: So yeah, do you think we're going to see him
Speaker 3: much at all this year?
Speaker 2: And what are you hearing about how healthy he is?
Speaker 4: Well, he's not that healthy, we know that, but yes
Speaker 4: we will see him. We will see him because a
Speaker 4: fire burns in that man like burns in no other.
Speaker 4: And he is by many statistical measurements, he is the
Speaker 4: most transcendent athlete of any sport. And you just don't
Speaker 4: keep that kind of greatness down. Now. The reality is
Speaker 4: he is now I lose track forty eight or forty nine,
Speaker 4: I think forty eight years old, and his body has
Speaker 4: been just beat to smotherings. But if anybody can find
Speaker 4: a way, it's Tiger Woods. And I've said this before,
Speaker 4: Tiger's not done until Tiger says he's done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I'm with you. I'm with you.
Speaker 3: So you reference that Rory McElroy has elected to just
Speaker 3: kind of hone in on golf. Well, he still is
Speaker 3: talking about what the future of pro golf could be,
Speaker 3: and he believes, like a lot of people believe, at
Speaker 3: some point, this live PGA thing.
Speaker 2: Has to just happen. I've kind of tapped out of
Speaker 2: all the updates.
Speaker 3: And I'm just more of like, all right, just let
Speaker 3: me know when this is going down.
Speaker 2: But there are a.
Speaker 3: Lot of really good players that are on the live
Speaker 3: tour that I just miss watching play. And their overnight
Speaker 3: rating for the last tournament came in and nineteen thousand
Speaker 3: people watch live golf. That is the same rating that
Speaker 3: a show called here Comes Honey Boo Boo pulled in
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen at one am on Turner. So people are
Speaker 3: just not watching it, Paul, and I don't know what
Speaker 3: they're going to do to try to gain traction because
Speaker 3: they already have the players that they thought that they would.
Speaker 2: Need in order to draw eyes.
Speaker 3: So it's not working on live. But I mis watching
Speaker 3: those guys play. I wish we could get this done
Speaker 3: just before we get to some local stuff what you're
Speaker 3: understanding of as far as where we're at in the
Speaker 3: process of maybe finally some sort of reconciliation.
Speaker 4: They're getting closer by all by all outward appearances, and look,
Speaker 4: j Monahan doesn't call me and ask me what I
Speaker 4: think or given the updates, which is annoying, but it's
Speaker 4: it's the way it is. But I do follow it,
Speaker 4: and I'm totally with you. I miss seeing these players.
Speaker 4: I miss seeing Jen Ram where Tory Pines this week.
Speaker 4: This is where gen Ram got his first tour victory
Speaker 4: and where Jen Ram won a US Open. And he
Speaker 4: has said that he really misses a lot of the
Speaker 4: PGA Tour and the most especially he misses Tory Pines.
Speaker 4: So I get that, and I miss seeing John Tory Pines.
Speaker 4: And I want to see Koepka and Des Shamble. I
Speaker 4: want to see Patrick Reid for having's sakes. I like
Speaker 4: watching him play, as polarizing as his personality can be.
Speaker 4: I would like to see some kind of resolution. The
Speaker 4: source of the money remains so deeply distasteful, just if
Speaker 4: not outright offensive, but it is what it is, and
Speaker 4: a lot of that got taken away when the PGA
Speaker 4: Tour said they would take Saudi money as well. But
Speaker 4: I think that there have been so many, so many
Speaker 4: boundaries crossed in a positive way, so many steps taken
Speaker 4: in a positive way over the last two years, that
Speaker 4: even though they haven't got it done yet, they're on
Speaker 4: the verge of getting it done, and I would be
Speaker 4: unsurprised to see a reconciliation come here shortly. I was
Speaker 4: really intrigued with what Rory had to say about it,
Speaker 4: Even though he said he's going to get out of
Speaker 4: the politics of it. His last point was we've all
Speaker 4: got to just start from zero and let the past
Speaker 4: be what it is. That's going to be a hard thing.
Speaker 4: I think for everybody. What he's saying isles Folcus on
Speaker 4: the golf and I want to see Kopka and day
Speaker 4: Chambeau and play against McElroy and Scheffler at Tory.
Speaker 3: Pines Ryder Cup back this year, so the US Ryder
Speaker 3: Cup team will have revenge on the mind before we
Speaker 3: get to the local stuff. Just handicap the chances that
Speaker 3: you believe Tony has of making the squad.
Speaker 4: First of all, his chances are enhanced by his history
Speaker 4: with it. The whole system of the Ryder Cup is
Speaker 4: comfortable with picking Tony f now, so if he's around
Speaker 4: the bubble, there's a history there and people are used
Speaker 4: to picking him. And part of the reason that that
Speaker 4: history will be enhanced is because Tony's got a solid
Speaker 4: record in a national team play both Ryder Cup and
Speaker 4: President's Cup, and so he's a reliable dude. You can
Speaker 4: you can roll him out there and know that he's
Speaker 4: going to be in the game. He's not going to
Speaker 4: get blown out, and he's going to compete and he's
Speaker 4: going to win points. And so that's really to his advantage.
Speaker 4: The big thing is he's got to get his knee
Speaker 4: strong so that he can get quality repetitions so that
Speaker 4: he can build points. He knows that. I do think
Speaker 4: getting into the warmer part of the year will make
Speaker 4: a difference for that with Tony. We're still so early
Speaker 4: in the year. There's a lot of there's gonna be
Speaker 4: a lot of Joscelyn in the Ryder Cup standings, and
Speaker 4: I expect Tony to be a big part of it.
Speaker 3: All, right, Paul, before I said you lose the latest
Speaker 3: on the Utah golf scene, what you have your eye
Speaker 3: on here locally, and what our listeners can expect coming
Speaker 3: up on Utah Golf Radio.
Speaker 4: There's a college tournament going on in Hawaii as we
Speaker 4: speak after it's called the John Burns. After the first round,
Speaker 4: the University of Utah Utes were in first place. UIU
Speaker 4: is in fourth place. And part of the real fun
Speaker 4: of this is that Sergio Himenez the a sep on
Speaker 4: the hill for the Utes. In the practice round he
Speaker 4: threw down a slipt little five to nine, A fifty
Speaker 4: nine action for Sergia, I know, right. So the Utes
Speaker 4: are ranked number sixteen in the country. It's the highest
Speaker 4: they've ever been ranked in the history of the school,
Speaker 4: and they are showing it this week. It's a really deep,
Speaker 4: strong field at the Burns. Of course, everybody wants to
Speaker 4: go to Hawaii in February, right, and the youths are
Speaker 4: spanking them. So yeah, we're going to be looking at
Speaker 4: that on the show Saturday. We're going to spend some
Speaker 4: time talking with Al Riddell, who is Patrick Fishburne's new caddy,
Speaker 4: And we're going to get to get to know Patrick Slooper.
Speaker 4: That's going to be a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: Well, Paul, my friend, you've been coming on the show
Speaker 3: for over five years, so you know, February means it's time,
Speaker 3: you know, to really move on from this whole cold
Speaker 3: weather thing. And I'm ready to swing a club. So
Speaker 3: I'm trying to be more of solutions. We need snow
Speaker 3: for the ski resorts, but I'm ready to be out
Speaker 3: of Bonnie on Saturdays.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that much.
Speaker 4: I want to be there right there with you. I
Speaker 4: hear you, brother, my man.
Speaker 2: Thanks for the time, Toda, have a good weekend.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you, Paul pug Meyer, Utah Golf Radio always
Speaker 3: appreciate Paul's time. It's time now for you and to golf.
Speaker 3: PGA Tour updates courtesy of our friends. At you went
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Speaker 3: right now actually, And as I reference with Paul, the
Speaker 3: Genesis Invitational going on right now. Scotty Scheffler is your
Speaker 3: leader at seven under par Tony Fen now three hundred
Speaker 3: today to get back on the right side of the
Speaker 3: cut line.
Speaker 2: We'll see if he can hang during moving day tomorrow