He had made two bogeys early, and then he finished looking like the guy that won this FedEx Cup, won the Tour Championship a couple of years ago.

Yeah, I, I went and watched a little bit of his round, um, early, in the second half of the front nine.

And, and I saw he was over, but I, I never saw someone who looked kind of like Viktor Hovland was a little while back.

You know, cobbling on the golf swing, you know, l- looking very animated.

I saw a guy that kinda just dug in, looked pretty c- uh, comfortable, uh, was hitting quality shots.

And he sort of stabilized the round there and put himself in a place to have that good second nine.

Because take this six, seven months ago when he's bouncing around between golf instructors and you can see the unsurety about what he's doing.

Mm-hmm.

What were your initial takeaways from this new format?

I have a few.

First one is this idea has been brewing for a while.

Um, the, the Tour has had this idea in the back pocket for a bit, and they were obviously just waiting for the Tour Championship to release it.

Secondly, apparently Twitter is pretty strong and has a lot of influence with, uh, folks around certain leagues, because h- think about how many people, including former members of this podcast, were crowing for match play at some stage during the playoffs.

Remember that? So the Tour are listening, and the Tour are listening to what the fans want.

That's what I'm seeing out of this.

What'd you pick?

Yeah.

Okay.

It was manic at the end.

I mean, the crowds were awesome today.

It, it really...

St. Louis showed out.

Uh, and if the commissioner's watching, I need him to realize that, you know, big met- metropolitan centers are a good idea, but the real fans are in spots that are other than New York and San Francisco and these kind of places, you know? This was a-

Yes

But how is it holding up for the world's best right now?

Well, well first off, uh, the golf course is fantastic.

It truly is.

Um, when I went around here this morning, I could remember I would say probably 14 of the 18 holes from eight years back, which speaks to how memorable they are.

And the ones that I missed were par fours that are kinda just in between some fantastic par threes and par fives.

Um, it's presented in sensational shape.

If, if, if you had to see what the TV compound and some areas where they keep all the, um, industrial stuff and the green keeping stuff, there's mud everywhere.

[laughs]

Get on it.

Yep.

But in the era of strokes gain statistics, like I'm on countless shows where I'll speak with these analysts, these data analysts, and they'll be like, well, the best player right now is Joe Pro because strokes gain total, he's better than this guy and this guy and this guy.

I'm like, I'll take the other guys over your guy any day of the week and twice on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays because I know that my guy has won and played at the highest level.

So because, now what I'm saying about blurring, and I'm not poo-pooing strokes gained, but if you're purely looking at statistics the entire day, it's not giving you the entire message.

Because you could hit 280 shots during a golf tournament, right? And still come up one shot.

And you could be leading strokes gained off the tee and approach and stuff and still lose.

Could you take us behind the scenes of when you were coaching your brother, Trevor, to his greatest triumph?

But everybody is going to have, have teed it up, so crisis averted there.

Yeah, and I'm wondering if certain folks got calls from Ponte Vedra to say, "I think you need to kinda put your best foot forward." Now, that's conjecture, so don't quote me over there.

Uh, yeah, well, it's good to, to see because at one stage ...

Well, not, not at one stage.

I've been concerned now and for the foreseeable future about some of the stars just deciding, no, I don't wanna play that many events, and then they go and do their own thing because they, um, what's the word? Um, they're, they're own business entities.

They're independent contractors.

So yeah, it's, it's been cool to see.

What, what can viewers, what can we expect out of Bellerive this week?

[laughs]

...

so the greens don't die.

[laughs] My on-course assistant Barb hates it, so I make a point of using the word moisture as much as I can in the broadcast.

Uh, anyhow, that's an aside.

So back in the day, this golf course [laughs] was really gettable.

And then they came in and they redesigned the place.

Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, we'll see where that motivation is.

What, what, what of note would you like to tell the people?

My day was great.

Michael Brennan is really good.

Um, he, uh...

I was proud of him 'cause he overcame the nerves, uh, over the final nine holes, because look, on the front nine, he, he couldn't put a foot wrong.

He looked almost robotic, and then gets to 10 and absolutely, um, smashes one down the fairway.

He's got, like, 80 yards to a back hole location, and doesn't mishit it, but just underhits it because it was defensive to a back hole location, and long was bad, and makes a good two putt there.

[laughs]

He too at 11 under par.

Zack of a player.

I had his group on Saturday at the RBC Canadian Open, and because we, it took so long for us to get to the golf course from our hotel, we were getting there way early.

So I watched his entire pre-round warmup, from the short game to the bunker play to the hitting, and it, it, it's, it's just... he's got all of the tools.

Um, he kinda looked a little bit like deer in the headlights to start the round 'cause he got off to a slow start, but he did rebound, and he sort of balanced things off.

But you could see there was pedigree there.

Um, and I'm really not surprised to see him up here because I feel like with Jackson Covey winning here recently, it's said to Michael Thorbjørnssen and now Ben James, it's like our contemporaries can win at this level too.

Looks like three.

so w- w- was there a, a somewhat of a sibling rivalry, uh, where, where he being that much younger, he would try to beat you, but the age difference might not a- have allowed it, uh, or?

You know what? Initially, um, I started golf at like age 14 or so, and with him being nine years younger, he was sort of four, five-ish, whatever it was.

And, um, it turned into some really nice babysitting for my parents.

And so he'd show up at the golf course with us little tots and, you know, we were teenagers then, and we wouldn't suffer fools, and so we had to, um, you know, he had to just keep up and learn to keep up.

So le- he got good at the short game really fast and then, and then I went off to college and, um, during that time, he all of a sudden became like one of the best juniors in the world and was winning tournaments around the place.

And my first vacation home, went Christmas, I was at that stage about 22 maybe, I think.

And so that must have made him 13 or 14 or I forget my arithmetic.

[laughs]

[golf club swooshes]

I want you to remember that golf is always about context, and I heard the coolest story from Butch Harmon.

It's a lesson he learned from his father, Claude, Masters champion, fantastic instructor, and Claude called them his pearls.

And he'd say to his boys, "Listen up, I'm giving you pearls." And one of the stories, one of the pearls he shared with Butch, and I paraphrase, is he said to him, young Butchie, and Butch was playing tournament golf.

He said, "Butchie, if you're on the 18th tee at Pebble Beach, and you have a one-stroke lead, if the toe overtakes the heel on your tee shot, you lose.

If the heel leads the toe through contact, you probably win." Now, that sounds mundane, but the reality is there's wisdom in that.

Simple images.

[laughs]

But I will say when I was three under through 15-

15-I did have three opportunities to get birdies again, but I was just, that's when I was like- Just get this thing in the house.

[laughs] Yeah.

I literally, I literally was like, "Tap this up." And on, on the 18th, it's a par five.

I had seven feet for a birdie, and it was a down right to left slider, and I just said to Dave, I was like, "No chance am I going for this.

This is getting tapped." But, but that's part of the golf IQ thing too because r- remember the whole hammer and nail thing- Yeah ...

and the holistic approach? That's golf savvy to know a shot like that.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, so I'm gonna ask you in this way, what is it about Muirfield Village that, uh, has not allowed Rory McIlroy to get over the finish line?

That is a really good question, [laughs] to be very honest with you.

Um, you know, as I look at the golf course and I look at g- uh, golfers' skillsets, um, Muirfield Vill- Village lets you drive the ball a little bit.

Um, there is space on the par fives.

You can go ahead and take advantage.

But just like, um, Augusta National, in a strange way, a lot of the really dangerous trouble is down the left-hand side.

If you miss to the right, largely you can play.

Mm-hmm.

66, 65 to get himself into that tie for second going into the weekend.

Well, unless I'm missing somebody, he's the only real one on the leaderboard that can re- I, I would cl- characteris- characterize him as a real bomber, 'cause he can move it off the tee.

The rest of them are long, functionally long, and then you've got some shorter guys like Henlee and that sort of crowd.

Um, uh, and so Michael is kind of the outlier right now.

Um, he is so very good.

Th- the only thing about him...

Well, well, it's a good and a bad, in my opinion, and I've called him a few times.

It was, it was shocking to me, but he's still six under.

Let's talk about it.

It was just a, a really great tournament all around.

Um, you know, we saw f- almost four seasons.

Uh, the golf course was tremendous.

I thought the setup was very fair because like I'd mentioned on Wednesday, if they'd got and had the greens fast, folks with a wind may not have finished.

We, we would've scored so, seen some ludicrous scores.

Um, I, the players must be absolutely exhausted.

Uh, and, and he took it emphatically, and I think that is, uh, very impressive and something that will, to your point, Rick, age well.

It was basically six putts, uh, from, I dunno, six feet in, seven feet in, and missed every single one of them.

It's gonna be the difference, those putts that he missed.

You know, someone tomorrow is gonna make those things, and someone's gonna miss them, and that's gonna be the difference, because that's what this golf course is.

I've said to you guys before, um, we've got a big selection of Donald Ross quotes, and of course, Donald Ross was the original designer of this golf course, and his belief was it takes great skill to hit a long iron.

And so that's why there's some long par fours, where you hit long irons in there.

But then he always said that the green was the heart of the hole.

And this golf course's defense are these greens.

That is a gear, uh, that very few in this field have.

He's showing off that moxie that you referred to, and he is looking to change his entire career trajectory in the course of a month.

Yeah.

[laughs] Um, I, I think I said this to you guys, [clears throat] excuse me, after, uh, New Orleans, where I've always been impressed with him, ever since I watched him play in college, because he's got some swagger about him.

You know, you know, if you look at a group of young collegians coming out, he would stand out because of the way he carried himself and the way he'd take on shots.

And we saw him take on some shots coming down the stretch there in New Orleans, and he carried his brother Matt, um, to that victory in the end.

Um, but I, I, I watched him hit a few shots today and, and it's like he all of a sudden believes in himself.

He had a tee shot down 14, the drivable four today, where the hole tilts from right to left.

Give me that," and, and so far so good this week.

What is it about this place that makes it so fond for Rory? It's

long.

It starts that way.

It loves you to drive the golf ball well.

And when the rough, the rough usually can get quite thick around here with overseeding stuff this time of the year.

But it isn't as thick from all the reports I'm getting.

But the real thing is around a lot of these sort of modern day major championship golf courses is dog legs are turned by fairway bunkers and such.

It's just such a built-in advantage that gives him this incredibly high floor to find success at a golf course like this.

The Americans have not.

You know, Rick, that's the million-dollar question.

Um, I, I, I think a lot of it boils down to when the Europeans are playing in Europe, a, a lot of them like to get to a place like Crans-sur-Sierre in Sweden, in the Alps for argument's sakes.

Um, you're not taking your private jets in there.

Everyone flies in the same plane.

You get into a big travel liner bus that takes you up the side of the mountain to the little town, Montana, Crans-Montana, where the golf tournament is.

So people stay toge- travel together.

[laughs] I do.

yeah it's funny right we love this in majors i mean i think we think of i mean augusta for sure but also us opens it's like as the week goes on it's like those beautiful greens turn to more beautiful browns and and you know i think the thing that's beautiful about it is you know there have been controversies in the past with usgas of like oh did they lose the course did they get too close to the line like imagine having that thought at augusta right it's like nobody has their finger on the pulse of exactly how to get a golf course in shape but also exactly what you want in a golf course like i think that's the beauty of it is if i saw maybe other tournaments or other majors trending this way i go oh man i don't know if it's even going to be fair by the time sunday rolls around i think it'll be a stiff test but i also think it'll be it'll be playable and it's just that's part of the beauty and charm of this this course is you just have all the faith or the this tournament is you just have all the faith in the world that the powers that be are gonna are gonna have know exactly how to kind of handle whatever is thrown at them from a weather perspective

Yeah, no doubt.

That's a very salient point you make there.

It's the one thing about the club is they understand exactly how to set it up.

They've obviously got the facilities with the sub-areas and stuff under the greens to control how it goes.

And they can also control scoring with hole locations.

Like yesterday in round one, We on Amen Corner, so we've got 11, 12, and 13.

What was your feel on Rory coming into the tournament, and what did you make of his day yesterday? Yeah.