That's Just Golf (Front Nine)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I mean, we were hitting shots and making smart decisions. Except for that hybrid from the ball above your feet lie, and it just wasn't working. You hit a ball right up the fairway or whatever you think is gonna be great, and then it ends up somewhere else. Or you hit a ball where you think you need to on the green and it just doesn't go. It's just. That's just golf. I mean, a lot of times you're gonna play the most sound decisions you can possibly make, and it's still just not gonna work out. It's just not. And that's the hardest thing about it. I'm good for the rest of the day. I don't have anything else. [00:00:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you have to be done at 5:30? [00:00:34] Speaker C: It got canceled. [00:00:35] Speaker B: The. [00:00:35] Speaker C: I had a. Like, a baseball dinner thing. It got canceled, so. [00:00:41] Speaker B: Well, let's get started. We got a lot of golf to cover. I played. I don't know exactly how many, but I did the quick math in my head over. I've averaged over 18 holes a day for the last seven days. I just finished. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, this is my seven. This is my first day of the off week cycle, basically where I've got the kids for the next seven days. So I won't be able to play probably at all in the next set of days. But I got a lot in. In the previous seven Mike played Golf. So that's. That. That's a headline right there. We can leave it that Tony and I played in the trifecta. That's a story. [00:01:18] Speaker A: That's a novel. [00:01:19] Speaker B: That's a. Yeah, yeah. We already know the title of this podcast before we even started recording, because we had a phrase that we said so many times that day that Tony finally said, that's the title of the next podcast. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. And my week has only continued to follow that trend. So what's the word? [00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah, the title of this podcast is that's just golf parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. [00:01:46] Speaker B: It might be the. We might rename the whole podcast Golf Podcast. At this point, it's the. For now, the best golf podcast ever. So welcome to the Mike, Tony and Garrett show, the best Podcast. Thanks for giving me top billing today. [00:02:01] Speaker C: I appreciate that voice. [00:02:02] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you're just. You're on the left side of my screen, so your name popped up first. I don't know. Before we get into all that, I have a quick little story I want to share. So I think it's safe to say I may have reached a new personal all time low or high, depending on how you look at it, in the level of obsession that I have with this stupid little game. Okay? And here's how I know this. I get home last night again. The seventh day of my seven day stretch to play a lot of golf. The previous two cycles of this. By the time Thursday rolled around, I was like, sick of golf and tired of it. Ready to be done. Not this time. This time I'm texting Tony from the 36 tee box. I gotta fix my release patterns that I can't control the club face and I gotta. So I get home and it's still daylight and I'm like, you know, there's this little field out behind my apartment that's got like, it's like 80 yards long, about 40 yards wide. Really perfect place to go hit some little pitch shots to kind of test some. Some release patterns. So I go out there and I drop a couple balls down. I'm velcroing up my glove and somebody walks by and I hear them say, that's a great idea. And I'm like, what? So I turn and look and it's a really cute Burnett walking by, like athletic wear. And she's like, that's a really good idea. I was like, what's a good idea? She's like practicing right here. That's a really cool place to. To do it. I was like, yeah, we've got a. You know, there's a lot of cool places here. I got the putting green, I got a chipping area, which isn't really a chipping area, but there's a putting green with grass around it. So that becomes a chipping area. I've got the, the studio where I can go hit balls. And I go on and on for a couple of minutes talking about all the great amenities and how it's helped help my golf game and all this stuff. And she says something back about, you know, she had just gotten back from the VR room and was trying to hit golf balls in there. So we, you know, she's talking about that and then there's just kind of like this little pause and she's like, well, have fun or enjoy your time or something like that. And she just kind of walks on off and I hit the first couple of shots and I start to walk up to retrieve the first two balls. And it, it dawned on me like I should have tried to talk to her, like at least give her my name or something, but, you know, introduce myself, just do something like a normal Human being would do. I have no idea if I had a chance or not. Right. But the fact is, it didn't even dawn on me to try. [00:04:24] Speaker A: Right, because you had practice to do. [00:04:26] Speaker B: Because I had. I was way more concerned with my release patterns than that girl's number. And then that's a real problem. I mean, I've been chasing scratch forever, but I've been. I had time to chase other things too, before. Now it's like, no, I've got one thing on my mind, and if this brunette can't fix my hook, then I don't care what her name is. [00:04:46] Speaker A: Maybe she could have. [00:04:47] Speaker B: Maybe she could have. Yeah, I will. If. If I get another opportunity, I will. Will fix that. [00:04:54] Speaker A: So she lives at the apartment complex too? [00:04:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Presumably pretty close. I don't know where. She's around here somewhere. [00:05:01] Speaker A: You might see her in the sim room. [00:05:03] Speaker B: Oh, I'm gonna be working hard on my. My release patterns out there in that field for the next couple of weeks. We're gonna. We're gonna see if I can come across her again. Give me a mulligan on that one and I might. I'll do it differently next time. [00:05:15] Speaker A: I was just waiting for the. Yeah, I was waiting for the home run or the. The drained 18 foot birdie putt. And I got a number we're gonna go play golf on. No, no, no. [00:05:24] Speaker B: Did not even. Didn't to. To quote a. A little line from 10 cup. Hell, it never even occurred to me to try. I believe David Sim said that at one point in that movie. It. It did not even occur to me to try until she was long gone. And. [00:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway, lessons learned. We'll just have to focus a little bit more next time. But. So, yeah, played a lot of golf. Right after our last podcast, I was completely committed. I'm not going to be tinkering my swing anymore. I'm going to stick to my process, go out the next day, play Riverwood, get a nice ball off the tee. I caught a flyer lie on my second shot, and I thought it was gonna be a flyer, but there's water short, so you can't play for the flyer and be wrong. So. But I caught a flyer from hell. It flew probably 160 yards of the pitching wedge. I'm 30 yards over the back of the green, hit a. I thought a decent chip that rolls all the way into the water. So now I'm dropping four, chip and five. I end up walking away with like a seven or something. Seven, eight. Some big number. I texted Tony, long story short, I get to the fifth hole, I'm plus nine through five holes and I've only hit one bad shot. And I'm like, I really don't know what to like. I've just, no matter where I hit it, nothing's working out. And then we played the next day in the trifecta and oh my gosh, that made my 87 the day before look like a walk in the park. Oh, no, mean, seriously, the 87 on Friday, I don't think I, at the end of the day, I think I had like two or three shots that I would say I wanted back all the, I mean, I hit it great shot 87 in the trifecta. Tony and I shot even par in the two man scramble portion after starting, what was it? [00:07:15] Speaker A: Birdie, par, par, birdie. And every hole, every hole had a really good look at a birdie putt. Birdie putts are just like raising the edge. So we're like, okay, we got this, it's going to be great. Yeah. And we shot an even. The guys we were playing with shot a five under on that scramble or something like that. I think it was. And if you had asked, this was kind of the theme of the whole day. So to recap for those who didn't see the last episode, the trifecta is it's a 27 hole golf course and it's, each nine is a different format. You've got a scramble, a best ball and a modified alternate shot. So anyway, three different nines, three different formats, and we drew the first format to start with with the scramble. Typically in those three formats of scramble is your best chance to have a low score. Right? And I guarantee you, if you had just watched our ball striking tee to green and asked 400 random people what we shot and you showed them what the other twosome that we were playing with shot or their teeter green balls and you know, drivers and wedges and everything and asked what they shot and you gave them the two scores, 400 out of 400. People would say Tony and Garrett shot the five under and the other guys shot the even just because like, and it's not that they were playing poorly or anything, but we were just that dialed like hitting shots and for whatever reason, the putts didn't fall. All of their putts seemed to fall. And that trend continued for the next two formats. Now they had just verticut the greens at the golf course. So what that means is the grass is sticking up a lot. And so our balls were just Wiggling, you know, you'd have like a. We both missed a three foot putt on one of the holes because mine wiggled to the right and missed the hole. His wiggled to the left and missed the hole. We had to putt through a improperly seated old cup at one point. And same thing. Mine hit the old cup hole and scooted right, his scooted left. Just stuff like that you can't control. [00:09:13] Speaker B: I was thinking about that putt. That putt probably stuck in my head longer than it should have. Cause I, I could not for the. I mean, this was literally a two foot putt. I'm gonna say that we both missed [00:09:23] Speaker A: a two foot putt in a scramble. [00:09:25] Speaker B: Yes. And this is like after, my God, after I saw him miss it, I miss it. And as I thought about this, first of all, no disrespect at all, intended to the fine folks at Riverwood. Okay, this, the, the greens there are really, really tough to put, especially right now. And my theory on this is it's been really hard, really firm, not a lot of rain, and it's really hard to find your ball mark when you hit the green. I mean, my ball doesn't usually move more than a foot or two after it hits and I still can't find my ball mark. So. But just because you can't see it doesn't mean there isn't a small indention being made. You just can't see, see it. So the. I think if you were like an ant crawling around, you would see a ridiculous amount of bumps that aren't visible to the eye. So you see a lot of putts, you know, wiggling. You know, I've seen putts break four or five different times throughout the putt. You know, go left, right, left, right. It's just playing plinko through there. But that two foot putt, there's an old cup literally exactly halfway to the hole. And I think what happens if you think about the geometry of a circle, if you hit that old cup slightly off to the right, going to move. Curve is going to move it to the right. And if you hit that old cup slightly to the left, it's going to curve it to the left. And that's. I think that's what happened because yours missed right, mine missed left. But this we were talking about, the statistical odds of me and him Both missing a two foot putt are like one 10,000 or something. I mean, I'm 99% at least from two feet. And I know you are too. Whatever the math is on that. It's not very good, but yeah. [00:11:04] Speaker A: So, you know, when you, when you shoot, even on a scramble with two birdies and two, three putts in a scramble, it's just, it's no good. So after that first nine, you know, the beer starts flowing. I didn't get to drink any beer because I got the gluten allergy, but Garrett goes, I'm gonna go get a beer. And I was like, go get a few. Like, we gotta, gotta oil up, you know, swing lubricant for the next two rounds. And so then we get to the modified alternate shot, and our very first hole, we have a triple bogey. [00:11:38] Speaker B: Second hole. No, second hole. [00:11:40] Speaker A: Was it the second hole? [00:11:41] Speaker B: First hole. You hit it to eight feet and I missed the putt. Surprise, surprise. Second hole. [00:11:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:11:49] Speaker B: Now, I, I, I'm gonna have some fun with this because we joked on the last podcast that alternate shot was gonna be the part where, you know, he had to play my, my go. Well, second hole, we choose my ball off the tee. I think you had hit it. I think you were out of play. I think you hit it. [00:12:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I tried to draw it around the thing because you were safe, and it was too much trouble. Yeah. [00:12:10] Speaker B: Now, I know what Tony's going to say, and he's right, but I'm still going to say this. We're 195 yards to a front right pin on a hole that just, that's a really, really hard pin. If you're short of it, it's going to kick in the hazard. If you're long it, there's another hazard. And if you hit it basically right at the flag, it's going to kick, lift probably 45, 50ft from the hole. The only way to get this close is to land it basically in the right fringe and let it kind of kick long and kind of curl back in. And it's 195 yards from the ball is probably, what, 6, 8, 10 inches above your feet on a slight uphill upslope. And I've been playing a lot lately and realizing that I'm really not good at all from 190 yards. And I'm not the one hitting it. Tony is. But I kind of jokingly said to Tony, like, I think if this were me, I think it might would make more sense to lay up short of the creek and then pitch it on and take my chances than to try to hit that shot. I think this might be one of these situations where backwards, as it seems to think this way, maybe we ought to Lay up. And especially since you're hitting my Pro V1, maybe we don't hit it. Trees and the rocks and stuff, you know, treat it, treat it gently. He's like, no, I got this. It's just a hybrid. It's just a little hybrid. I'm just wild. [00:13:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Granted, we're also blocked out. You know, there's trees all down the right side. So the only way I could have really got it closer was to try to hit a cut off a ball above your feet. Lie with the hybrid from 195. Probably not the wisest shot that I tried to pull off, but, you know, when you shoot even through a scramble, the brain stops working logically and it starts working in press mode. And yeah, we were like, how much worse could it be? But then we actually battled back on that nine. I made probably like, what, a 40 foot birdie putt on the par three, the toughest par three. Then I made another 18 foot birdie putt on the Par 5, and we started clawing our way back. And then we get to the last hole, and Garrett hits a tight shovel. Four feet. It's breaking left to right. The group or the guys we were playing with, they hit a putt from the same line, but like 12ft. It broke hard right. So I'm like, okay, I've got to play this. You know, left edge, just outside, or right on the edge, hit the putt, goes dead straight. So we missed that one. And then I dropped three more balls, hit it again. The next three all broke right. It's just like, you gotta be kidding me. [00:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:46] Speaker A: And they didn't even touch the hole. So, you know, it's just. There was just some really weird, goofy things that were happening. But we. We did better on that nine. We battled back. You know, modified alternate shot is a really tough format, but we hung tough and kept our heads in it. After a triple bogey to shoot, I guess it was one over. We missed that birdie putt. I missed that birdie putt to shoot even. But we were really proud of that. Few more beers for Garrett at the turn and some lunch, you know, and then we went to the best ball side and played really good. We started making a charge. I think we were at two under at one point total. So we had shot three under on that side. And then that's just golf, you know, Stuff happened. It is what it is. There were so many really good swings and poor outcomes. Just so many good putts and poor outcomes. There's nothing you can do about It. And it's just, it's the most frustrating thing because at least in other sports, you know, you guess wrong on the fastball or the change up. It is what it is, right? You, you, you can at least account to I guess wrong. Or you call a play in football, you know, the Seahawks and the Patriots famous Super bowl where they called the throw, they called the pass, and probably should have run it, but at least they can say, well, that was the wrong call. I mean, we were hitting shots and making smart decisions. Except for that hybrid from the ball above your feet lie, and it just wasn't working. You hit a ball right up the fairway or whatever you think is gonna be great, and then it, you know, ends up somewhere else. Or you hit a ball where you think you need to on the green and it just doesn't go. It's just. So that's just golf. I mean, a lot of times you're gonna play the most sound decisions you can possibly make, and it's still just not gonna work out. It's just not. And that's the hardest thing about it. [00:16:25] Speaker B: Well, and I wasn't stat tracking that particular day because of the format, so it would have been hard to track stats. I did think about a couple things afterwards. 27 holes of golf and I hit one shot all day long that I was like, oh, that sucked. That was when I chunked the two iron on four or five, whatever on deer. I just. That I hit terrible shot there. Other than that, I didn't hit a single shot in 27 holes that I felt like was a bad shot. They weren't all A plus, but they were all B minus or better. Like I'm, I'm totally fine with that shot. I lost one ball off the tee with a driver because I tried to drive a 350 yard dogleg. Right. Impossible to just. Tony was in the middle of the fairway, so I took a shot at it. Other than that, didn't miss a driver all day long. Hit my irons great. Tony putted great. Tony hit the ball really well most of the day. You kind of got a little squirrely at a couple of places during the, I guess the start of alternate shot, you were struggling with the drivers a little bit, but. But other than that, I mean, we hit teeter green, I mean, and for the mo. But it was one of those days too, where we would hit our shot and we think we're gonna be six feet. We get down there and we're 20ft. And we'd be when we did get an eight foot putt. We, it had three feet of break to it or some crazy crap like that. And you know, to your point, to the, to the. That's just golf. It's funny. I actually finally, after ever how many rounds, got to see the other side of that a little bit yesterday because I hit my tee shot down the middle of the fairway, hit a lousy six iron in so thin I thought it was going to skip across the pond. And it just barely clears the pond. Bounces up to three feet. Now tap it in for birdie. Next hole, missed the green. Up and down for par. 3 stripe a three wood, stripe another three wood, get it up close to the green and yank A gap wedge 10 yards left of the green, hit it on 2, ended up making bogey there. And I joked to the lady I was playing with that that was the hole that I actually hit the best shots on. And I made bogey. The holes that I hit it terrible on, I was one under. And the holes that I striped it on, I was one over. But that's just golf right on the side of that. Sometimes you hit that shot that has a backstop and gravity loses occasionally and the ball stays up there. And now I've got a 30 foot putt that I have to basically tap two feet and it's going to roll all the way, you know, 10ft past the flag. And you think, gosh, if it would have been 2ft shorter, I would have been 10ft for birdie instead of for, you know. And you know, and again, that's. That's just golf. And you have to. I'm trying so hard and dag on it, it's hard to accept that, you know, it's like I hit that shot exactly, exactly where I was looking. Why is it in a hazard or why did. You know what, how did I make bogey when I did not hit a single bad shot on this entire hole? And once in a while it bounces the other way on you. But it does seem like it's. It goes in spells though, doesn't it? I mean, I feel like it went four or five days in a row there where it was just. I could not catch a break with a fishing net. It just. Everything was bouncing the wrong way. [00:19:49] Speaker A: And you know, we kind of joked about this as we waxed poetic on just life and karma and philosophy or whatever. It was like there's times where things in your life are not going good. Like I had a really bad 2025 and 2026 has been better, but it's not perfect, obviously, right? With all the things I got going on in my life, and it's just like, man, can I just get a good break for once on the golf course? Can the ball just. Instead of bouncing right into the hazard, can you just bounce left and it just, it, it, it starts to wane on you and, or wear on you and feel like, you know, just nothing can go right. And that's, that's. So you have to be careful to not let that happen. Because, yeah, if you do, it'll make your game, make your golf just miserable because you're like, well, I can't even, even this doesn't go right. You hit a perfect shot, and even that doesn't work right. So it's, it's easy to fall into that trap. [00:20:38] Speaker B: Well, and the other thing about it, too, is it, I, I caught myself doing this Saturday in the trifecta that once you lip out a couple of 20 footers, once you hit a ball that you think is going to be 20, it's going to be 5ft. You get down there and it's 20ft. Once you, you know, hit the perfect shot and it doesn't take the slope and now you've got an impossible up and down, I swear it makes the target shrink so much that you feel like you're. I mean, I'm. By the time we got to the best ball portion, I was literally, like, trying to stick every single shot to two feet because I felt like that's the only chance we got to make. Birdie. If it's four feet, we'll miss it. We've got to damn near hole out, basically, to feel like we can. Can do anything. And then when you press so hard that just, it compounds it and makes it worse instead of, you know, you're not. When I. That one round, I think I was 9 over through 5. I texted Tony when I made the turn and said, I'm going to shoot 30 on the back. Now I shot 49 on the front, and I'm like, I'm gonna shoot 30 on the back. And I was joking later. Clearly, if I had the ability to just turn it on and shoot 30 at wheel, I wouldn't have just shot 49. I. It's sometimes you just. That makes it worse. I think that's how you turn. Another story I'll get to. That's how you turn what should have been an 81 into a 90. [00:22:00] Speaker A: Well, and it's. Again, it's one of those games where it's. It's exhausting too, because you can see people who clearly are not as skilled, right? They're oohing and ahhing over your driver, they're oohing and ahhing over your wedges and your irons, and yet they're beating you, hitting worm burners. Right? So it's, it's just one of those things where it, it doesn't always make sense. And the logic, the math doesn't. Math always where, like, you can be highly skilled and still not score how you feel you should have. Right. Um, and that's just the game we chose to play. It is what it is. You know, it's just golf all the time. [00:22:35] Speaker C: That's why, that's why you play the game. You know, on paper, you guys should, you know, be near the top. You know, you see that in all, in all types of sports. What the Dodgers on paper should win. They should go 162 and oh, they got a hundred million dollar more. They spend a hundred million dollar more than the neck, the team below them, but yet they're still going to lose 60 games. They may win a hundred, but they're still going to lose 60. So you never know. That's why you play. [00:23:05] Speaker A: And it's not. We're not sitting here trying to, like, complain or whatever. We're just trying to hopefully give some empathy. [00:23:13] Speaker B: That's why I get on here is so somebody has to listen to me complain about all the things that didn't go my way that should have. [00:23:19] Speaker A: So hopefully, you know, other golfers can relate to this and be like, oh, yeah, I've had those rounds and just understand you're not alone. And the best thing you can do is try to shake it off and just say, let's just golf. And, you know, hopefully you get some better breaks in the future. Just place play the best golf you can, make the best decisions you can, wise decisions and hit it as best as you can, make the right reads and hope the putts fall, because that's all you can do. There's no. Yeah, as Agar was saying, there's no magic will. You can't just all of a sudden will the ball into the hole. I know Tiger sure seemed like he was able to, but, you know, I don't think that's actually scientifically based. I think it's just our perception. [00:23:59] Speaker B: Free fall, it's a burn. [00:24:02] Speaker A: I'll say. There's lots of free lyrics you can go from after that. [00:24:08] Speaker C: Are you guys drinking? [00:24:10] Speaker A: I got a seal box here. This looks like it's all whiskey. It's not all whiskey. It's only about half whiskey and half champagne. [00:24:17] Speaker B: I'm responsible down drinking water. [00:24:19] Speaker C: Knowing you, you're going to be spitting in the empty cup here pretty soon. [00:24:22] Speaker B: No, I've got. I've got a separate bottle for that. A little bit or.