Speaker 1: This October, the PGA Tour It's coming to Black Desert
Speaker 1: Resort in southern Utah. Come share the excitement of this
Speaker 1: lifestyle PGA Tour event with friends and.
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Speaker 1: Black Desert Events dot com, Black Desertevents dot Com.
Speaker 3: Doing trum solos. Now you know John Wright, John right
Speaker 3: to Van. That's like write down John Right Valley. We
Speaker 3: have a Dave Fox Live coming up on site here
Speaker 3: at Epic Brewing Company right downtown. It's eight twenty five
Speaker 3: South State Street. They are pushing their Utah hipcheck ice Logger.
Speaker 3: We are giving away very very nice four ounce beer glasses,
Speaker 3: first come, first served, one apiece.
Speaker 2: Please want a piece. Let's act right, But we've.
Speaker 3: Been pretty football hockey, little soccer centric today. But the
Speaker 3: PGA Tour is making its historic return to Utah Black
Speaker 3: Desert resort coming up on Thursday. Our next guest knows
Speaker 3: a thing or two about the game of golf. John,
Speaker 3: Right on a Tuesday, John, Happy Tuesday, buddy.
Speaker 2: How are we doing.
Speaker 4: I'm doing well, spent, how are you doing well?
Speaker 2: I'm excited for this.
Speaker 3: So, as somebody that is very plugged in to the
Speaker 3: golf community here in the state of Utah, what's the
Speaker 3: the buzz level, what's the excitement level? The PGA Tour
Speaker 3: rolling back into our state for the first time in
Speaker 3: sixty years.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's amazing. Everybody is so excited. And the Monday
Speaker 4: qualifiers were full and everybody's trying to get a chance
Speaker 4: to play, and the tickets are flying off the shelves
Speaker 4: and everybody's ready. It's been the first event in sixty
Speaker 4: three years here in the state of Utah, and we
Speaker 4: got it for four years, and then we have the
Speaker 4: LPGA coming next year as well, So everybody, the Utah
Speaker 4: is becoming a golf state now, Yes.
Speaker 3: Sir, and you know it's been a golf state John
Speaker 3: for a while. Well, as you know better than anybody.
Speaker 3: You know, we've been talking about this on the program
Speaker 3: the in preparation for this event coming up. When you
Speaker 3: travel around when you were, you know, playing in your
Speaker 3: career as well, and you tell people you're a golfer
Speaker 3: from Utah.
Speaker 2: What do it?
Speaker 3: Because we always ask like, what do NBA fans think
Speaker 3: about Jazz fans? What do college football fans think about
Speaker 3: Utah football?
Speaker 4: B YU?
Speaker 2: What is the golf community nation?
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 2: What do they think about when they think of Utah golf?
Speaker 4: Well, I think mostly and this is fitting for this weekend,
Speaker 4: and they think of Southern Utah, they think of Saint George,
Speaker 4: they think of sant Holo. It's a new Black Desert
Speaker 4: golf course and all those beautiful red rock golf courses
Speaker 4: down in southern Utah. So it's become a real golf
Speaker 4: destination for you know, the boys going on their golf trips.
Speaker 4: They make it Saint George and people talk about it.
Speaker 4: They love them. Sand Hollow is consistently ranked in the
Speaker 4: in the top hundred of courses you can play, and
Speaker 4: Black Desert is going to be in there as well.
Speaker 4: I unfortunately haven't gotten to play it yet. It's so
Speaker 4: so popular with its grand opening, I haven't got out
Speaker 4: to to play it yet, but it is I have
Speaker 4: heard nothing but bravery views and it's it's going to
Speaker 4: be a mainstay in Utah golf and this tour event
Speaker 4: makes it even cooler for everybody.
Speaker 3: Well, now I know that I have played one course
Speaker 3: that John Wright has not, so I can put that
Speaker 3: in my you know, putting.
Speaker 2: My tool belt there. It's awesome.
Speaker 3: I'm excited for you to play it so you can
Speaker 3: kind of see what it's like. What is I don't
Speaker 3: know much about Tom wise goff. I've learned much a
Speaker 3: lot more about him after him, you.
Speaker 2: Know, kind of designing the thing.
Speaker 3: What sort of elements is he known for as the
Speaker 3: architect and the chief designer here of the Black Desert
Speaker 3: Resort golf course.
Speaker 4: Well, he's a real thinker. He plotted his way around
Speaker 4: the golf course. He was never he was never a
Speaker 4: power hitter, and he was never a freak athlete of
Speaker 4: any sort. He was just really smart and really precise.
Speaker 4: And that's what his golf courses are like. He's he's
Speaker 4: done quite a few golf courses. And unfortunately, here's our
Speaker 4: claim to Tom Wiscott. He passed away recently and he
Speaker 4: had been getting treatment at the Hunts and Cancer Center.
Speaker 4: So he has a strong connection to Utah. As well,
Speaker 4: so he was going up. His heyday was against Jack Nicholas,
Speaker 4: so that's why we haven't really heard much about him.
Speaker 4: He was second to Jack Nicholas and the Masters, I
Speaker 4: believe in nineteen seventy six, and second to him and
Speaker 4: a couple other majors. He did win a couple of
Speaker 4: British opens, but he was a phenomenal player and a
Speaker 4: real thinking man, and his courses are well thought out
Speaker 4: and they're very strategic, and he took a beautiful piece
Speaker 4: of property down there in southern Utah and made it
Speaker 4: into this masterpiece from what I understand, all right.
Speaker 3: One of the cool stories as a result of this
Speaker 3: tournament making its way to descend on Saint George is
Speaker 3: that of ja Don Blake, who's a Saint George native
Speaker 3: and he's a resident, and he's playing in the Black
Speaker 3: Desert Championship via a sponsor exemption, and this will be
Speaker 3: his five hundredth PGA Tour start. Put that into context
Speaker 3: for me and your thoughts on this great story that
Speaker 3: jay Don Blake is going to make his five hundred
Speaker 3: start in his own backyard.
Speaker 4: Well, between Jada and Blake and I, we have five
Speaker 4: hundred career start. That's contact. I mean, it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 4: He was a legend at Utah State University back I'm
Speaker 4: a little bit younger than him, well ten or for
Speaker 4: so years, but his legend was already being written at
Speaker 4: Utah State. I heard stories about him just getting up
Speaker 4: out of a team van and walking to the first
Speaker 4: tee and with untied shoes and just striping it down
Speaker 4: the middle and shooting sixty five and win in the
Speaker 4: golf tournament. So he's a phenomenal talent and a crowd uthon.
Speaker 4: He's always represented Utah and our state so well, and
Speaker 4: he's won three times on the Champions Tour and once
Speaker 4: on the PGA Tour and had a long, very successful career.
Speaker 4: So good for him. He's always been a Saint George's
Speaker 4: resident from the very beginning. He stayed true to his roots,
Speaker 4: and this is a great way for him to kind
Speaker 4: of wrap it all up.
Speaker 3: We have eight golfers with Utah tiyes, including Mike Weir.
Speaker 3: I always kind of push back on the whole Utah's
Speaker 3: Mike Weir. He's from Canada, but ultimately he lives here
Speaker 3: and went to BYU.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on seeing Mike down of this field.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm lucky enough to see Mike occasionally and play
Speaker 4: with him even sometimes. And he's aged well. He and
Speaker 4: I are the same age, and he's still playing well
Speaker 4: out on the Champions Tour, and he just recently captained
Speaker 4: the President's Cup team for the international squad and they
Speaker 4: came up short. But Mike is an absolute legend in
Speaker 4: Canadian golf. At one point he was pulling more popular
Speaker 4: than Wayne Gretzky up at Canada right after he won
Speaker 4: the Masters. So Mike is most stranger to being a
Speaker 4: high level figure, and I think he'll play well. Black Desert,
Speaker 4: from what I gathered, is not particularly long, and with
Speaker 4: all that lava everywhere, he's got to keep your ball
Speaker 4: in play, and Mike is very good at that. So
Speaker 4: was jadaen Blake, and so were some of these other
Speaker 4: players I look for. You know, you talk about players
Speaker 4: with Utah tie, Zach Blair is one to mention. You know,
Speaker 4: I played a lot of golf against Zack when he
Speaker 4: was an amateur, and Zach won every single time we
Speaker 4: had a tournament with Saint George, Like I can't remember
Speaker 4: a time where Zach was in the field in a
Speaker 4: tournament in Saint George that he didn't win, So I
Speaker 4: would love to see that happen again.
Speaker 3: Any of the other local players in the mix, you know,
Speaker 3: reference that there's Zach Jones, There's Peter Cass, There's Bowen Moss,
Speaker 3: there's Dustin Volk. Any of the other local players do
Speaker 3: you think will potentially be in the mix coming up
Speaker 3: on Sunday?
Speaker 4: Well, a lot of these are young players that are
Speaker 4: getting their first shot and their you know, high school
Speaker 4: or well college kids, and Bowen Moss and Thatch Jones.
Speaker 4: Zach is a phenomenal player, great, he's gonna do great
Speaker 4: for BYU or he has been doing great for BYU.
Speaker 4: And then Bowen Moss is in Arizona State commit. And
Speaker 4: Dustin Bulk has played in the PGA Championships. He's a
Speaker 4: local PGA professional. So I look for them to to
Speaker 4: be a little more comfortable than they normally would in
Speaker 4: such a big start because they're playing, they're playing up
Speaker 4: the way above their level right now, and uh, they're
Speaker 4: certainly good enough to compete if they can manage their nerves.
Speaker 4: Patrick Fishburne is one we should take a look at.
Speaker 4: He's a He's played on the PGA Tour now for
Speaker 4: a couple of years, so he's used to he's used
Speaker 4: to the pressure. He's used to playing on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 4: He's back home. He's an Augdam kid, and uh, he
Speaker 4: hit the ball a long way. If he can he
Speaker 4: can keep that ball and play down there, he could
Speaker 4: he could contend as well. I would love to see
Speaker 4: the Utah contingents really contendent and make their make their
Speaker 4: presence known. This season, we've.
Speaker 2: Got six Cougars and no utes. Man, what gives I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 4: I think we need to lobby the tournament committee a
Speaker 4: little harder or something, because you know my utes. They
Speaker 4: opened up their first two college events, one at Washington
Speaker 4: State and one at Washington with two resounding victories. So uh,
Speaker 4: I don't know. Maybe they need to play a little
Speaker 4: bit better in that Monday qualifying. And that's another thing
Speaker 4: we could talk about. For the first time ever. I've
Speaker 4: been following Monday qualifiers since I started playing, and for
Speaker 4: your listeners that don't know, every Monday, prior to a
Speaker 4: PGA Tour event, they have a Monday qualifier where there's
Speaker 4: a full field of players playing for four spots in
Speaker 4: the field. And it's become so popular that players have
Speaker 4: to pre qualify to get into the qualifier. And there
Speaker 4: was some controversy and some players that shouldn't have been
Speaker 4: eligible to got to play and then they qualified, and
Speaker 4: so that's been a big talk amongst the diehard golf
Speaker 4: fans this week. But no, I know, Mitchell Skal, the
Speaker 4: former ute, former State Am champ, missed by a couple
Speaker 4: of shots, and some of the other Utah players just
Speaker 4: barely missed. But those Monday qualifiers are absolutely brutal. You
Speaker 4: cannot make a single mistake. The qualifying score was sixty
Speaker 4: five exan hollow and for anyone who's ever played there,
Speaker 4: that's a great golf score there. And I don't think
Speaker 4: a single player that made it made a bogie.
Speaker 3: So wait a second, John, you know the dark arts
Speaker 3: of sports socc radio. If there's a controversy, we're talking
Speaker 3: about it. That's the deal. I did not know that
Speaker 3: this was a thing, So please elaborate. What's the controversy
Speaker 3: surrounding the Monday qualifiers.
Speaker 4: Well, normally, to enter a Monday qualifier, you have to
Speaker 4: be at a certain status, having played on a PGA
Speaker 4: tour or some of the other Auxit, Hillary Tours or
Speaker 4: there's other qualification levels. And a couple of players, there
Speaker 4: were four of them, they didn't meet those criteria, but
Speaker 4: they went ahead and entered anyway, and there was a
Speaker 4: clerical error and they were allowed to play. And you know,
Speaker 4: just just the way things work out. A couple of
Speaker 4: them played really well and qualified and there was some
Speaker 4: complaining and some things, but you know, it's it happened,
Speaker 4: and it's it's not a it's not a huge deal,
Speaker 4: but it's it. It shouldn't have happened. And and so
Speaker 4: now we've got a couple of we've got a couple
Speaker 4: of upset people that were in the Monday qualifier that
Speaker 4: they would have made it had the other two didn't
Speaker 4: and all that. But you know, the thing about golf
Speaker 4: spent is shoot the lowest score and then you don't
Speaker 4: have to worry about anybody. You don't have to be
Speaker 4: like uncle Rico and say if Onlly the coach would
Speaker 4: have put me in. You know, if you shoot the
Speaker 4: lowest score, you're in. And that's the bottom line with golf.
Speaker 4: Just shoot the low score and you're in. So they
Speaker 4: didn't do it, and don't complain, Just go to the
Speaker 4: following week. Next week is in Las Vegas. Go play
Speaker 4: down there?
Speaker 3: Are you going to tell me the names of these
Speaker 3: cheaters on air? You get to text me off air?
Speaker 4: Absolutely not cheaters, And I don't know any of them.
Speaker 4: I just read about that. All they did was enter
Speaker 4: a tournament and play and it was no fault of
Speaker 4: their own and frankly, no one's fault, just a mistake.
Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 3: So let me ask you, and you know, we had
Speaker 3: the managing partner on the show this week and he
Speaker 3: explained and described exactly what's going on with Tony. Tony
Speaker 3: fen now and he's choosing to be a father to
Speaker 3: his son this week for a tournament that a son
Speaker 3: is playing in and Tony is captain and kind of
Speaker 3: the group.
Speaker 2: So of course Tony's.
Speaker 3: Gonna pick the the side of things where he's gonna
Speaker 3: be there for his child.
Speaker 2: I totally understand that. But what are your thoughts on
Speaker 2: Tony not playing? Like if we took that dynamic out
Speaker 2: of it, which we can, because that's what he's.
Speaker 3: Doing, do you think he would have played and what
Speaker 3: would it have meant to see, you know, the best
Speaker 3: golfer in our state play in this event for the
Speaker 3: PGA Tour coming back for the first time in sixty
Speaker 3: three years.
Speaker 4: I think it's just a really unfortunate scheduling conflict. I
Speaker 4: have no doubt Tony would have played, and that Tony
Speaker 4: wants to play. But I believe that, you know, with it.
Speaker 4: I believe it's the PGA Junior Series that Tony is
Speaker 4: the assistant captain of with his son's team, and they're there,
Speaker 4: they've done well, and they've moved on until they have
Speaker 4: a big event this week. And I think he'd always
Speaker 4: planned on being there and this just happened to conflict
Speaker 4: and he made his choice, and you know, let's not
Speaker 4: I would be very slow to criticize Tony for that decision. Everybody, sure,
Speaker 4: everybody makes their own priorities. And he's got those five
Speaker 4: children that he that he wants to be around for,
Speaker 4: and he travels so much in his job and he
Speaker 4: wants to be a part of that. And I have
Speaker 4: nothing but great things about Tony Feno, and I know
Speaker 4: that he would he would love to play there and
Speaker 4: represent us all. And frankly, he's he played the Vegas
Speaker 4: event when that was the closest one to Utah and
Speaker 4: had hundreds of fans that would make the track from
Speaker 4: up here and go down to Vegas, and so he
Speaker 4: loves to play in front of his home crowd.
Speaker 3: So to speak.
Speaker 4: And this just didn't work out. But I have no
Speaker 4: criticism at all for that decision now for sure.
Speaker 3: So I wonder your reaction to the field that was released.
Speaker 3: So for me, if I have heard of you, that's
Speaker 3: a good sign. And I've heard of plenty of these golfers.
Speaker 3: You know, brand Stedecker is won nine times. Lucas Glover
Speaker 3: won an Open, US Open. We talked about, of course, Mike,
Speaker 3: we're a major championship, winning the major.
Speaker 2: For golf nerds, who are the names that when you
Speaker 2: saw the list, you're like, oh sweet, that guy's going
Speaker 2: to be here.
Speaker 4: Well, you mentioned one if you want to see great golf,
Speaker 4: and Claire was near the top of the world there
Speaker 4: just a few five to ten years back. Lucas Glover,
Speaker 4: and he's had a bit of resurgent at the about
Speaker 4: a year ago right now. At the end of last
Speaker 4: year in the playoffs he won a couple of times.
Speaker 4: So there's someone you can go and watch. For those
Speaker 4: of you who enjoy the broadcast, broadcasters and the commentary
Speaker 4: Kevin Kissner, who was up there doing some great commentary
Speaker 4: with the President's Cup and has been working on a
Speaker 4: lot of the events. He's in the field as well.
Speaker 4: Joel Damon there's another guy who he's probably one of
Speaker 4: the best follows on social media. He and Maxcoma. If
Speaker 4: you guys love Instagram, those guys are fun to follow.
Speaker 4: Joel will be there and JB. Holmes for people. A
Speaker 4: few years back, he was at the top of his game.
Speaker 4: He's had some injuries and he's trying to work his
Speaker 4: way back. So some of these guys. Spencer is kind
Speaker 4: of in that dead zone, that competitive dead zone between
Speaker 4: the ages of like forty two to fifty, where you're
Speaker 4: still good and you still like to compete, but you're
Speaker 4: not old enough yet for the Champions Tour. And these
Speaker 4: guys can still play amazing, amazing game of golf, and
Speaker 4: there's no shortage of talent down there. It's just you
Speaker 4: haven't heard a lot of these guys. But I'm telling
Speaker 4: you all these guys in that field are capable of
Speaker 4: winning any event on the PGA court, not just this one.
Speaker 4: The the talent level is extreme and for anyone going
Speaker 4: down to watch. There's there's plenty of great players to watch.
Speaker 4: There's Aaron Bradley's another one as well. He's been around
Speaker 4: a long time and as a fantastic player who's just
Speaker 4: continuing to play well throughout his career.
Speaker 3: All right, Johnny, before I say you loose, would you
Speaker 3: be so bold to give me.
Speaker 2: A pick to win the thing?
Speaker 3: It looks like as of now, Keith Mitchell is the
Speaker 3: favorite at sixteen to one.
Speaker 2: You could throw a couple of names out there. Who
Speaker 2: do you think gets it done? And why?
Speaker 4: You know what? I like Kevin Kissner. I know that
Speaker 4: he is now a broadcaster, but he's still trying to
Speaker 4: hang on to his playing abilities and he wants to
Speaker 4: he wants to continue and play, and to do that,
Speaker 4: he's going to have to maintain some status and he's
Speaker 4: got to play well in these Fall Series events. So
Speaker 4: I look for him to play well. And I know
Speaker 4: that Joel Damon is playing well right now as well.
Speaker 4: And Keith Mitchell is a good pick too because he
Speaker 4: just barely came up one shot short last week in
Speaker 4: Mississippi and so obviously he's playing well. But I mean
Speaker 4: the real that I would I want to pick someone
Speaker 4: I want to. I want to pick Zack Claire because uh,
Speaker 4: he just he's he's just Saint George through and through.
Speaker 4: His father owns some golf courses down there. He's from there.
Speaker 4: Well he's not from there, but he lives there. He's
Speaker 4: got a lot of connections down there, and I think
Speaker 4: he's just super comfortable down there, and I would love
Speaker 4: to see him climb up that leaderboard and really excite
Speaker 4: the fans down there because he's he's he's been a
Speaker 4: mainstay on the PGA Tour now for seven or eight years,
Speaker 4: and uh, it'd be cool for him to get his
Speaker 4: first win on home soil.
Speaker 3: All right, John, Well, thanks for the time, man. It
Speaker 3: should be a fun week, so enjoy it and we'll
Speaker 3: get you back on soon.
Speaker 4: Yes, thank you. It'll be fun. Everybody tune in. It'll
Speaker 4: be on Golf Channel all weekend.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, the PGA Tour making its historical JOHNA you
Speaker 3: Black Desert Resorts starting on Thursday going through Sunday. Tickets
Speaker 3: available at Blackdesertevents dot com.