John Swantek visits with ESPN.COM senior writer Bob Harig to discuss Tiger Woods and Jonathan Wall from PGATOUR.COM delivers his weekly equipment report.
Talk of the TOUR Golf Podcast
ESPN.COM senior writer Bob Harig and PGATOUR.COM equipment editor Jonathan Wall
# # # And welcome to the Talk of the Tour Podcast for April 22nd, Friday. I'm John Swanson. Great to have you along. Let's have some fun coming up, Bob Herrg. Seniorwriter, ESPN.com, Jonathan Wall, PGA Tour.com equipment editor, hops in for his weekly segment. You can now listen to and download Talk of the Tour by visiting PGA Tour.com/podcasts. You can access the show and our other audio content programming as well. The iTunes, tune in and stitch it. So just head to PGA Tour.com/podcasts and subscribe today. Well, big story hit ESPN.com yesterday written by Wright Thompson about Tiger Woods and the Death of Tiger's dad setting a battle raging inside the world's greatest golfer, how he waged that war through an obsession with the Navy SEALs. It was a really thorough, well researched, well written piece by Wright Thompson. Mr. Thompson's colleague, Bob Herrg, senior writer for ESPN.com, joins us to chat about it and other things happening in the golf world. Bob, thank you for the time as always. Did you know this story was kind of coming down the road? I did, yes, you know, and hopefully we were aware that Wright was working on that for some time. In excess of the year, I believe, and he's a heck of a writer, heck of a reporter, wasn't quite sure which direction he was headed, although I knew that at some point it was sort of geared to coincide with the 10-year anniversary of Earl's death, Tiger's father, which is actually coming up here first week of May. That was sort of the timeline, and obviously if you were at it, you did and others, it delves into things starting with his dad's death and how that impacted his life. I think we got a great sense of how much his dad meant to him and how much his upbringing in the military meant to him. In ways it was fascinating. It just shows a completely different side I think most people probably weren't aware of. Yeah, even for someone like you that's covered at Tiger and covered the game so closely for so many years, there were some revelations there I guess, weren't there? No question. You know, those subjects were things that never really came up in public. They were touched upon in Hank Haney's book to some degree in Steve Williams' book about Tiger or his Titan as a caddy. You know, Tiger had this interest in the Navy field and the military, and there were occasional instances where it was known that Tiger is a military base or he might maybe want to train at Fort Bragg, what have you, but nothing to that extent obviously. That showed the serious of it, how much it meant to him, how much he liked it, how much he studied it and wanted to know about it. And, you know, let's be honest, it also, you know, raises the possibility that he might have been in here doing it. There was a cover story in Sports Illustrated a few weeks back written by Alan Shipnook in the Splashy Tunnel was what happened. Now this expose written by Wright Thompson, I wonder what Tiger's reaction to stories like this are at this stage of his life, Bob, you think he's just numb to it, he's immune to it, does he care more about the public perception people have of him or does he even read and engage in this stuff, what do you think? Yeah, that's a great question, I'm not really sure how to answer that. My sense is that he would prefer all that to remain private, otherwise he'd have talked about it. You know, I think in this story itself, we'll never know for sure, but had he discussed it with Wright, I think there could have been a better appreciation. But let's say he simply answered questions by saying, hey look, yeah, I was very interested in this stuff, you know, I thought it was a way to honor my father, I learned so much from him, I heard him talking about it, and it was a great way to train, you know, and he could have probably put it in a context that people might have appreciated. Now was he answering questions about whether he got hurt or not, I kind of doubt it, and it's hard to know for sure, you know, I think it's clear he did get hurt at times, but did it lead directly to the injuries that we were talking about today, I don't know, it's hard to say. You know, we don't really know exactly what happened with Tiger and his latest back surgery, you know, the information on that was not forthcoming, really, we don't know exactly what happened, and why there's a lot of mystery to his return, it's seemingly more serious, you know, so if he's not going to talk about that, I'm not sure he's going to talk about, you know, any of those things leading to an injury that could be hurting him today, but just a big picture of his interests outside of golf, and also, you know, the timeline was incredible. He was winning at a huge, incredible pace and going off and doing this kind of in the meantime. It's kind of, you know, it's kind of amazing to think of it that way. The injuries as far as Hank Haney maintains, and you've probably heard Hank's take on this, is that Tiger has always sort of worn his injuries as a badge of honor, more like an athlete in another sport that endures injuries and plays through pain. It's very different from the golfers of the last generation, certainly, and if that's the case, as Hank has described it, that's sort of the post-career narrative here that we might be stepping into with Tiger. If in fact this is the end or near the end of his competitive greatness, Bob, that it was simply injuries and physical shortcomings that thwarted his greatness in the end, and nothing more than that. I don't see how you look at it any other way. I mean, certainly he had back there in 2009 about personal stuff, and that was going to take some time to overcome, but when he did, he won, you know, he won nine times worldwide in a little over two years, or actually in less than two years, if you include the World Challenge and three PGA Tour titles in 12 and 5 and 13, and, you know, people want to look and say, "Well, he didn't win any majors." Well, you know, a lot of people didn't win majors during that time. It's some nature of the game. You don't always win majors. He did have some opportunities. He had several top 10s, but I mean, when he came out of 2013, if you remember, everybody was looking at 14 as a great year for him, you know, where the majors were going to in 2014, you know, venues that he liked, Pinehurst and Royal Liverpool and Valhouse, but it got hurt. Something happened. You know, his back started to bother him, and he's not been right since. So it's kind of hard to say that, you know, injuries weren't the problem. They clearly were. He was number one in the world when his back started bothering him, and he's never been the same since, and now does he have a chance to get back, even close to where he was? That's, I think, what we're all sort of fascinated to see. There were some quotes that were really telling, one from Michael Jordan in particular, who said, "I love Tiger so much that I can't tell him he's not going to be great again." That relationship, that connection he has with Michael Jordan, I think has been really important and of great value to Tiger Bob, because not many people in sports understand the suffocating nature of celebrity like Michael Jordan, and I don't know how many people Tiger feels like he can trust in his life, but Jordan seems to be one of them, doesn't he? Yeah, I mean, I think from what we know he is, I mean certainly it seems like they would have talked about these things, and I'm surprised, though, he felt okay to say that a reporter and not say it to Tiger, kind of weird, because aren't you just saying it? Right. You're explaining that if it's going to appear in a piece like that, and obviously that quote made a lot of headlines. But it's complicated, I think all of this kind of puts in perspective just how little we know, how hard it is to get what's going to happen, just all this stuff related to his comeback. Who really, really knows what's happening with that? You just don't know exactly how much he's been able to practice, work on his game, just because he's hitting ball and playing holes doesn't mean he's ready to compete. But yet, again, if he wants to get out there inside the world and go through the process that way a little bit, which I think is, you know, if people will give him the, you know, if people will get him to benefit the doubt and lower direct expectations, then he's just perfectly fine. You know, he's going to have to go, you know, go through some ups and downs on the golf course in public before he's going to get to the point where he's going to be competitive. That's a little bit of a bleed-through for the PGA to a live control room coming through. We're trying to iron out some issues with the phone line. To some people inside Tiger Circle, Jack Nicholas's record of 18 Majors was not as important to Tiger as it was to golfing media and fans. He never mentioned it. This is right from the article. Multiple people who've spent lots of time with him would say that when Tiger did talk about it, it was someone else who usually brought it up and he merely responded. That was revealing to me and probably to a lot of people, I would think, Bob. Yeah. I mean, that's a bit of an off opener. I think Haney wrote about that a little bit as well, that you know, they never discussed Nicholas's record. That wasn't really his motivation, you know, but I mean, I think whether it was or it wasn't, you know, as he was getting to double-digit Majors and so fast, you know, obviously he got to 14, he was, what, 32 or 33 years old? Yeah. And we all thought, you know, he's got oodles of time to get this done. You know, there was talks about, you know, when, not if. So that was always going to be a big narrative. I'm not sure that it was with him, but yet he didn't shy away from it. You never heard him say, "Look, that's not my intention," or, you know, like, Warriors tried to back off about a look there. Yeah. And that's smart. You know, it's ridiculous to think you're going to get to that number. And, you know, as Nicholas always said, he still has to do it. And, you know, even when he came back in 2010, and that became the focus again, he still needed four more. At the time, it was the number that Phil had won in his entire career, you know, it's very hard to think that some of you think he's that, you know, it's what he's winning his career. I mean, it's a career for many. So, but still, it was, it was, how could you not think about that chase throughout, you know, throughout his, throughout his time? There was this quote from a friend, I guess it was an anonymous quote, who said, "Frankly, the real Tiger Woods isn't that marketable. Tiger was a natural introvert, but the financial interest, financial stake for him to be extroverted was what motivated his public personality, I guess, Bob. And that's what sort of drove a wedge into who Tiger really was, and what our perception of what a superstar is and how a superstar should act, I guess. Yeah, I mean, I think we can all look back now and see how uncomfortable he was in the spotlight. And not that he appeared uncomfortable, but just his lack of wanting to be doing that, you know. His interviews were kept brief, he typically didn't offer up a whole lot, he didn't give a lot of one-on-one interviews, you know, he hasn't been as, he's, he's, he's really picked his spots, you know, he's, he's, he's guarded his privacy. I mean, the, the idea of committing the tournament late, there's so, there's so much about where he tried to control it, and, you know, you just don't see that with other guys, but of course, other guys aren't him, you know. Other guys haven't had to endure that kind of scrutiny, and, and the attention and the demands, I mean, you can imagine the request, the endorsement request, the speaking request, and, was it the, he was at a, at a clinic, at a junior golf clinic on, on Thursday night, you know, that was kept very hush-hush. I mean, those sorts of things are, you know, how, how does that develop? How does that, how does that even occur? How do you get him to do that? You know, he does clinics for his own foundation, he does that sort of thing, so, you know, I think when you look at the big picture, comments like that kind of make sense. Yesterday, there was an indication that something was happening, I think it was Chase and Sobel actually that sent a tweet out that said, the golf Twitter world is going to blow up on Thursday, and we all just instinctively thought Bob that it was going to be some release of Tiger's schedule, and this has turned out to be something entirely different, but as far as his schedule goes, I mean, we've been reading that he's been practicing pretty thoroughly several hours a day, we can only speculate as to what that means, and when his return might be, but looking at a couple of big events just down the road, Charlotte for the Wells Fargo, then the players' championship, what's your sense? And I know it's nothing more than just a gut that you might have. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I have a sense that he's going to come back at one of those tournaments, possibly. It's just I think he feels like maybe it's now time to test it a little bit. Again, it's just a guess, but it seems to be leading to that. Now, I'm not sure that's a great idea. I just wonder how could he actually play the golf? There's the whole thing in the gamut he's got to go through, hitting all the clubs in the bag, feeling comfortable doing that, spending a bunch of time on the range. Does he have setbacks? Is he sore afterward? Can he practice for two or three hours and then take a break and then do it again? And I would think you'd have to go through a process of that, and then you have to go through a process of actually playing 18 holes and walking, and then doing it again in four days. Is he going to do that, or is he going to do that on the job? Well, his playing 18 holes and walking and a prolam, all that stuff, will that just be part of comes back, and that'll be his way to work back into form. Actually, if that's what he wants to do, that's fine. I just think people have to understand it. You have to understand that in golf, I've said this and times, there's no minor league rehab starts when David Price or something like that gets hurt, and they come back, they usually start out in the minor leagues, and they might pitch a couple of innings there, but nobody's looking at their one loss record. They're just looking at them getting the reps. Well, when Tyre comes back, there is no avenue like that. He's got a plane on the PGA Tour, and when he does, people keep score, and probably they shouldn't. They should not worry about the results so much as how he looks and feels and can he practice and all that sort of thing. If that's the approach that he takes, I think it'll be fine. I don't think anybody should expect that he's contending internment when he comes back. Bob Herrick is our guest, seniorwriter, ESPN.com, former president of the Golf Riders Association of America. You may be eligible to compete in the Olympics at this rate, with players jumping overboard. VJ Singh, Adam Scott, Louis Eustaison, three within, I guess about a seven-day stretch here, Bob, saying they will bypass the Rio Games this summer. Are these three representative of the minority view on the Olympics from the players? Do you get a sense from talking to these guys that the majority of them are fired up about competing? I have gotten a sense that the majority are looking forward to it. But there has been an underlying current that, hey, look, the Olympics are not to be all end-all and golf. We've got the majors. It's going to take time for that to develop. For our generation, it just doesn't mean as much. I get that. I understand that. I think what's really gone on here is the schedule has made this very tough. There's other issues, too, the Zika virus. Do they not like the format? I think that's really kind of secondary, the format. The Olympic drug testing gets ratcheted up here in a couple of weeks, and anybody using the Olympic pool of candidates is subject, and it's a lot more strenuous than the PGA tour. You've got to be available. You've got to make yourself available every 24 hours, and they can come and test you anywhere. I can see where a guy like Adam Scott wouldn't want any part of that. Not that he's worried about failing a drug test, just being convenient. He doesn't want anybody showing up on his door in the Bahamas, but yet that's what they're subject to. There's all sorts of things here that come into play, but I really think about it. You've got the British Open in Scotland, then the Canadian Open for those who play, then the PGA Championship in New Jersey, week off, then the Olympics in Rio. For guys who travel a lot, five weeks, three different countries, perhaps four if you're going to Canada, it's just a lot, and I think it's unfortunate that the schedule worked out that way, and I think it gets closer, guys are starting to realize, man, that is a burden. That's going to be tough, and then you've got the FedEx Cup right after it. For the Americans in European place, there's the Ryder Cup on top of that, and they're all important. So it doesn't surprise me, but I think what's happening now is the holding up the door for others to say I go in either. Yeah, I think maybe as we get a little closer, the player's stance and position on the Olympics may change a little bit. We'll see. I want to ask you about Bryson DeChambeau as a well-respected journalist who's covered this game for a long time, and has seen a lot of campness prospects come and go through the years, some successfully, and some not so much, the golfing sidewalks are littered with guys who are supposed to make an impact and never did. What do you see in this kid, Bob, that's a little bit different, sets him apart, makes him special, makes you think that he could have a long-term impact on the game here? Well, I guess I had my doubts there a little bit too. I mean, there's been a lot of great players, or suppose the great players as amateurs that haven't panned out. There's still a long way to go with him, obviously, but I think the amateur track record does give us some indication. Winning the NCAA's and the US amateur in the same year has been done by a handful of players, and all of them have been successful, except for maybe, he's just not in the same category. Ryan Moore is not in the same category as Nicholas Tiger, Phil, for example, who did that. Obviously, he's been a successful pro, he's been out there for a long time, he's nailed out of money, he's won tournaments, and so I think Bryson has that all going for him. His unique approach is really kind of fascinating to watch. It's just interesting to see how this is going to go, he clearly has a good nerdy about him that seems to allow him to not get shaken too much, and there's a pretty good performance there at the Masters. He had the one bad hole on the Friday, or he's right there going into the weekend. And then last week, you know, he had a very good final round that moved up there, made sure it's in the top 10, he doesn't have to use a sponsor exemption this week in Texas. And so he's well on his way to, you know, certainly to getting temporary status and then with the goal of getting his card without having to, you know, go through the web.com or any of that stuff. So it'll be interesting to see if he makes it if he keeps this up, but I think it's been an impressive start. I'll leave you with this. I saw this note on your Twitter feed a couple of days ago. In fact, Jean Vandevelle turns 50 next month. His epic collapse at the '99 Open Championship in Karnusti is an indelible image that any of us that follow the game will never be able to shake. Well, he's going to make his PGA Tour Champions debut, Bob, at the Senior Open Championship next July, a few months from now, at Karnusti of all places. That's a bit of a twisted serendipity there, isn't it? It sure is. I give him credit for being able to, you know, go along with that whole storyline, you know, because obviously I think whenever he made his senior debut, it would have been of great interest. Sure. I don't know. I don't think he would be exempt on the PGA Champions, but on the European side of things he would have, and he certainly would have the ability to come over here and try to qualify and get sponsored exemptions about any issue. But to do it at Karnusti of all places, I mean, the irony is pretty rich, and you know, he never, well, they only played one Open there since, and he tried to qualify and didn't make it in '07, although he's been back numerous times. He's never played in a tournament there since that happened, and it's kind of hard to believe all the time this past, he was like, what, 33 years old at the time, and now he's about to turn 50. And you know, good for him to go back there, it would be great if he had a great week. He's been a really good sport about what was a horrible, obviously, situation the way that went down for him, and you know, I think he's taken it about as well as the person could for as difficult as it was. So much with her at Bob Herrick, and read his excellent work at ESPN.com. Bob, good catching up with you, man, thanks so much for the conversation, I enjoyed it. Great, thanks John. And my thanks again to Bob Herrick for his thoughts on Tiger, etc. The obsession of the golfing public for woods and woods news continues, doesn't it? It's only fueled the teams by his absence and his inactivity from competition, which might not be for much longer. Bob Herrick indicating that he's got a gut feeling that we may see Tiger either at the Wells Fargo in Charlotte in a couple of weeks, or the players' championship in three weeks. That would be cool. Last week's PGA Tour stopped, the Valero Texas Open, the second round happening at the moment as we record this on Friday and welcome in our next guest to Jump Simper's weekly segment, The Equipment Report. John at the wall, PGA Tour.com's equipment editor and insider is still in San Antonio as a matter of fact. Usually you're like an early round, early week guy, then you head back to your home base in Dallas, but you're still there at the Valero? I am, I'm doing some tournament coverage this week, so probably five or six times a year, but it's all kind of nice to switch gears and do a little bit something different, but close enough to a home game, I guess, but about a four-hour drive, so it's not so bad. Yeah, I've enjoyed the coverage that you've done this week, branching out a little bit. Very adept at doing so, it's no surprise. Really horseshoe, using Zach Johnson's wedge, going to make you the investigative reporter now. Let's get to the bottom of this. What's going on with that? Yeah, you know, this is quite possibly one of my favorite stories I think I've written in the years that I've been with PGA Tour.com, you know, so it was actually last week I saw Billy at Silt Head, you know, peeking his back, and I said, and before I could even finish, he goes, all right, all right, let me tell you the story, let me tell you why I've got Zach's Wedge's back. And so he went on to tell me this story, and I should have written it last week, but, you know, it's like everything was going on in the day with a new putter and complete for God. So I saw him again this week. And so here's the deal. Why in the world does Billy Morchill have a PxG wedge, you know, Billy and Zach are both PxG staffers. Why does he have a wedge with Zach's name on the back? Billy told the story actually, it was kind of an erupt to the masters. He and his instructor, how to understand what we're, you know, looking at, and things in the bottom of Georgia, trying to get ready, and he said, look, Billy, we're going to need a different wedge with a little bit more of a shave down back to increase for that. It's a little bit wider on the turf or a gust that just isn't that firm turf need a lob wedge that's just a little bit tighter on there. So Billy has one that has a little bit more of a rounded gradient. So definitely not conducive to the conditions at a gust. So the next day he's looking at Zach's bag, because Zach was actually out there at Frederica Gulf, from Jason's Island, and he's the wedge, he goes, "Oh my gosh, this is the wedge that I need." So as Zach, hey, can I borrow a contest? Zach says, "Sure." He goes out, Billy loves it, and Zach told him, "Sure, take the wedge." He had a fresh back step ready for the masters, and liked it so much that he kept it in play for a gust, where he did the quarter best finish, T-17, plays with it and Phil Head, plays with it again this week at Valero, and I asked him, "I said, you know, Zach, okay, with this, you using the Zach wedge?" And he said, "Yeah, he probably doesn't really like the fact that he's continued to use it, so he's going to try and put a fresh one at some point, but again, some of these guys are kind of superstitious, and I don't know, Billy, with the way he's playing with it right now, said he's going to probably put in a stamped wedge with question marks on it, because he's not even really sure if he wants to put his own name on it, because he's not sure if it's going to work. So, really funny story, and normally this doesn't happen. You don't see guys sharing clubs, but every though often, especially since you're good friends, you might see him share a wedding, too. Yeah, these guys paid forward. That's a great story. I'm watching Brent Stenaker on our PGA2 Live coverage. You had a note in your coverage this week that there was a putter change that Stenaker was considering this week, which always raises eyebrows because that's maybe the best club in his bag. Did he end up doing it? Now, he stayed with the Trustee Odyssey Rossi that he's been using for going back to college. So, for two days, he actually tested out the huge change in, but honestly, as a new toe up design, it's got a little bit more mass out towards the toe, so actually, if you were to hold it on your finger, the shaft on your finger, the toe of his putter stands straight up in the air. So, they've actually kind of maneuvered the mass around a little bit, but still the same number nine had designed. So, not a big change, but I was actually surprised to see him testing something new, but so I missed a couple of shorties actually today. So, I don't know if he's going to get to consider putting it in at some point here in the next few weeks. But the fact that he actually tested it for two days tells you that he's definitely strongly considering making a change, and who knows, maybe we'll see you down the road. We talked last week about the limited edition red spider putter that Jason Day had gone to. This has now gone to retail, and I would think the novelty of it is going to be very appealing to a lot of people to say that they used the same putter that Jason Day, the top ranked player in the world, is using how deep they're going to have to dig into their wallet if they do so, John. Yeah. You know, it's kind of cool to see that that tail of me is going to release Dave's putter because in the past, this prototype that is used, it wasn't available for retail. So, I guess they're kind of seeing that there is an interest in what Dave's using and why not. I mean, he's the humble player in the world, so you might as well capitalize on that. So, they're going to come out with the two versions, the one that Day had, which has the all red head. It's going to be called the spider limited red, we're only going to produce 2000, and it's going to be 300 bucks, so it's a little bit pricey for putter. But again, you know that the small production line tells you that it's going to be a very limited run. They're also going to come out with one if you don't like an all red head, it's going to have black head, similar to the one that Day was using previously, but with the red bumpers on the back. So, a little bit splashed or red, 15,000 produced for 220. So, it's one of those things again, you know, we've seen companies come out with these limited run putters or limited run clubs in the last few years, and I think Taylor made see to give that bet there's a market for this, and I think they're trying to strike on it. On the apparel side of things, we always get a kick out of the guys that do their outfit fashion scripting in advance of tournaments. Ricky Fowler's already looking down the road to the players' championship in a few weeks. He's got some pluma kicks that he'll be rocking one day that week, and I had a look at these, John, and even for Ricky, these are kind of splashy, aren't they? They, you've got so much of base one, you're not going to miss it. They were in these, it's proven new, Ignite tricks is what they're calling golf shoes, and Fowler actually, I think, kind of in his players' preview last week, he had these on as he was, you know, going through the photo shoot. So, Dave gave everybody a little bit of a preview, but they are wild. So, one of the shoes, people just, if they haven't seen the photo, about half the shoe is a bright neon yellow, and then the back is kind of, it kind of goes from a little bit of neon yellow to black, and it has a hot pink pluma logo on the side, and then the other shoe is a flip flop. So, it's hot pink for the first half, and then a bright yellow pluma logo on the other side. So, it is, it looks like Fowler actually went into his closet and pulled one shoe from each and then put them together. I'm not sure if, you know, if that happened, and he just thought, "Hey, you know, this would be a cool idea," but, you know, he's one of those fashion forward guys. We've talked about him a lot with the high tops of the jogger pants. You know, he's always trying to do something different, and a lot of people really like his fashion sense. So, I am not surprised that he's going to be rocking these shoes at Sawgrass, but that's, they're definitely out there. You're either really going to love them or you're going to probably say, "Hey, no thanks." Yeah, I don't know if this is something that he dreamts up on this vacation that he's on with Justin Thomas and Splykoff and it's, I don't know about you, John. This, this reminds me exactly one of my spring breaks back in the day. You? Oh, yeah. You know, I used to go to private islands and hang out with my buddies, you know, private cabana, like golf, it's like, I mean, this is unbelievable. It's one of my favorite things about, you know, social media ages, a lot of these players give fans, even the media, access into their lives, when they're going on these sun trips together, because I think a lot of people are wondering how much time do these guys spend? Do they see each other on a regular basis, not your own tour? How much time do they spend off the course? And it's really cool to see, you know, four of the, you know, rising stars, you know, obviously to space already a star, but to see some of these guys out there, you know, having some fun and not taking themselves too seriously, it looks like they're having an absolute blast. And it's, it's fun to keep chronicling it on Snapchat wisely. All four of them have stayed away from College Station, Texas, where earlier this week there were reports of public intoxication and nudity, or as Johnny Manziel would call it Tuesday. What is going on? It's your alma mater, man, to defend, defend them. I, it's funny I can't because, you know what, I see, I see these things posted on Twitter from the, from the College Station Police Department, and I nod my head and I, I close my eyes and I remember back when I was in school there, and I'm like, yeah, that sounds like a pretty normal Tuesday or Wednesday evening in College Station, especially over on Northgate. But I know that you, you mentioned it on Twitter. There are so many Manziel jokes there with, with the fact that the guy was running around screaming, am good, am good, and really, I wouldn't actually be surprised if it was Manziel and, and they just didn't want to mention my name. You know, I've enjoyed your coverage this week, seriously. The non-equipment stuff, the round up that you've done, the competitive round up on pj2er.com. Steve Flesch in the first round and the way he played was a really nice developing story, John. This is a four-time tour winner who's not playing much anymore these days. He's doing some commentary for Fox Sports, in fact, he was planning on going to Oakmont for a media day next week. He didn't even think he would be around this weekend, but he was in the conversation after a day. That was pretty cool to see. You know, these are some of my favorite stories to, to kind of chronicle are the guys that, you know, get, get these opportunities. It's until we were talking about, you know, journey and that, that happens when before on tour. But you're right. You know, Steve Flesch last played a full season on tour in 2011. He was third alternate this week and didn't really expect him to feel didn't fly San Antonio. And he said on Tuesday, it was, it was literally in about a 90-minute window. He received three phone calls from the tournament and he went from being out to being in and then he said, you know, scrambling around, trying to get stuff ready, you know, doesn't even, he's not even able to get in a practice round on Wednesday, so he was able to see the golf course, it's, it's fun, you know, he's a great guy and, you know, he, he had a fun career played almost two decades on tour. So he knows the ins and outs and he, you know, he said it's difficult when you're not playing a whole lot, but you know, he's got other, you know, he's got other priorities now with his family and with Fox Sports, but it was fun to see him play well and shoot 400 in the first round. And I think again, he's just like a lot of guys, he's trying to take advantage of an opportunity. Mark's so good. At Jonathan R. Wall is the Twitter handle, you can follow him there, you can read his stellar work as the equipment editor at PGA Tour.com and this week some tournament recaps as well on the website. Thanks, John. Enjoyed it as always. Have a good trip back to Dallas. Thanks again, Swan. I always appreciate it. Okay, that'll do it for the Talk of the Tour Friday podcast. Hope you dug it. My guests, Bob Herrick of ESPN.com and Jonathan Wall from PGA Tour.com. Remember, listen to the show, download it, visit PGA Tour.com/podcasts and you can check it out there, access to show our other programs as well via iTunes, TuneIn and Stitcher, just head to PGA Tour.com/podcasts and subscribe today. Next pod scheduled for this Monday, April 25th, I look forward to it and your company as well. Thanks for listening, being part of the show and remember, what we know is so little. What we presume is so much. Think about it, people. Have a great weekend. I'll talk to you on Monday. [MUSIC PLAYING] (upbeat music)