Sean Zak, Golf.com and Golf Magazine
This podcast episode delves into the profound exploration of the golfing lifestyle as recounted by Jeff Tracy, who engages with author Sean Zach regarding his recent work, "Searching in St. Andrews." The conversation elucidates Zach's transformative experiences during a summer spent in St. Andrews, a period marked by the juxtaposition of tradition and modernity within the realm of golf, particularly amid the upheaval introduced by the emergence of LIV Golf. As Zach reflects on his time in the hallowed grounds of the Old Course, he articulates the deeper meaning he derived from golf, emphasizing its capacity to foster connections among individuals, irrespective of their backgrounds. Furthermore, the episode offers insights into the cultural nuances of Scottish hospitality and the communal spirit prevalent within the golfing community. We invite listeners to consider how the sport not only serves as a source of personal fulfillment but also as a medium through which we can engage with and learn from others.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- birdieball.com
- Golf News Network
- Golf.com
- Golf Magazine
- LIV Golf
- PGA Tour
- Korn Ferry Tour
- Pumpkin Ridge
- Weston Kia
- Squares.com
- Painted Hills Beef
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
It's time for grilling at the Green.
Speaker A:Join Jeff Tracy as he explores the golfing lifestyle and tries to keep it in the short grass for the hackers, new sweepers and turf spankers.
Speaker A:Here's Jeff.
Speaker B:Just open up the door and let's take good times.
Speaker B:Tomorrow's gonna be better than today.
Speaker C:Hey, everybody.
Speaker C:Welcome to grilling.
Speaker C:It's green.
Speaker D:I'm J.T.
Speaker C:Of course.
Speaker C:We are based out here in the Pacific Northwest in Portland, but we also have stations in Seattle and Tex Listen parts in between.
Speaker C:And we're part of the Golf News Network.
Speaker C:We'd like to thank the folks@birdieball.com for sponsoring this segment.
Speaker C:If you want a really good practice green, that's you can pick it up and move it, roll it up, take it with you.
Speaker C:Go to birdieball.com well, it's a new book to me, although it's been out for a bit now.
Speaker C:Searching in St. Andrews by Sean Zach.
Speaker C:And if you're familiar with Sean's name, it's because he writes for Golf.com and Golf magazine and probably hither and there other places, but he agreed to do this interview, and I'm very grateful for that.
Speaker C:And I'll say right off the top, it's a great book.
Speaker C:But Sean, welcome.
Speaker B:Thank you, Jeff.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's always fun to talk about St. Andrews.
Speaker B:It does not matter how long the book will be published or what month of the year it is.
Speaker B:I continue to get emails from people about it who just recently went.
Speaker B:I think that's something people get surprised at, is you.
Speaker B:You can kind of play golf there year round, even if it's chilly in the winter.
Speaker C:Yeah, it.
Speaker C:Let's get the obvious question out of the way first.
Speaker C:Why did you write it?
Speaker B:Oh, well, why did I write it?
Speaker B:I think I was convinced of the actual book nature of my experiences over there.
Speaker B:Maybe halfway through the summer that I lived in St. Andrews, it just felt like this summer that golf was changing.
Speaker B:It was the summer that live golf launched.
Speaker B:It was the summer of the Open at the 150th Open at the Old Course.
Speaker B:And it was just.
Speaker B:It felt like the intersection of this old traditional game of honor with the other things that kind of bend society.
Speaker B:Greed, money, you know, corporate businesses and stuff like that.
Speaker B:And so it felt like it was all on display in the home of golf that summer.
Speaker B:And so I lived there during it, and it just started to make sense.
Speaker B:Like, no, this is.
Speaker B:This is something that's like, much bigger than a.
Speaker B:A single feature or a chapter like, it's probably 17 chapters or however many there are in that book.
Speaker C:Yeah, there's a lot, but they're all really good.
Speaker C:So I got to ask you something kind of personal.
Speaker C:Are you still eating bacon rolls?
Speaker B:Not here in Chicago, unfortunately.
Speaker B:But I promise you, whenever I'm in St. Andrews or Scotland, it is just the simplest meal.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I love breakfast and it is just bacon cooked well on a bun, a soft bun, the way they do their bacon.
Speaker B:Of course, it's.
Speaker B:It looks a little bit more like ham in the States, but there's just a little bit of a salty cooking to it as well.
Speaker B:That makes it pretty delectable like it is.
Speaker B:Oh, gosh, now you got my mouth watering.
Speaker C:Well, there was the one.
Speaker C:One episode in there where you said you weren't able to keep it down the next morning, but that had nothing to do with the bacon roll.
Speaker C:That was from other.
Speaker C:Other activities.
Speaker B:That's correct.
Speaker B:That is, you know, the.
Speaker B:Just a hellish evening of Scottish whiskey and all kinds of other drinks.
Speaker B:That and the herky jerky bus ride from Edinburgh up to St. Andrews that ended with me.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Not being able to keep my breakfast down.
Speaker B:But you know, just one of the, One of the things I ran into that summer, which was, you know, we.
Speaker B:I played in a member guest with a pal at Royal Burgess, which is an old.
Speaker B:It's an inland club.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's way more parkland than any of the links courses and the like member guest event.
Speaker B:There is this six sums event in which you.
Speaker B:It's your alternate shot with two other groups playing alternate shot at the same time, one big group of six of you and yeah, it just turns into an absolute drinking fest.
Speaker B:And I was, I learned my lesson that day that I don't have it anymore.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:Well, you.
Speaker C:You got to kind of be in shape.
Speaker C:Not so much physical shape when you do those things.
Speaker C:You got to be.
Speaker C:Your body's got to be accommodating.
Speaker B:Well, and what do they tell you when you start drinking at any point in life?
Speaker B:Like, do not mix drinks.
Speaker B:Well, that day we mixed about six or seven, I feel like the whole gambit.
Speaker B:We hit every type of liquor that day.
Speaker B:And yeah.
Speaker B:So you, you.
Speaker B:I absolutely earned what I got.
Speaker C:I loved it.
Speaker C:You, you talk about.
Speaker C:You have one chapter in the book where you talk about caddying for Joel Damon.
Speaker C:And I don't know Joel.
Speaker C:I've never met him.
Speaker C:I know one of his uncles just happenstancely because Spokane boy and Washington Boyd and our neighbors to the north, there how is Joel?
Speaker C:Is he just a cruiser?
Speaker C:He looks just like.
Speaker C:He's kind of a. I mean, he can get intense.
Speaker C:I know, but most of time, he looks like he's just kind of happy, go lucky and going through life.
Speaker B:That's a good question.
Speaker B:Joel is.
Speaker B:He definitely can be intense with himself.
Speaker B:He's never intense with other people, which makes him an easy person to caddy for.
Speaker B:But he has high expectations for himself, and I think he gets upset with himself when he doesn't reach those expectations.
Speaker B:But the outward Joel, if you are experiencing anything with him, you know, he is a learner.
Speaker B:He likes asking questions of people.
Speaker B:You don't always get that on the PGA Tour.
Speaker B:A lot of those guys, they live a very individualistic life, and all things in their life revolve around them and their golf.
Speaker B:And Joel certainly has that.
Speaker B:But he branches outward, and he will be the kind of guy who has a conversation with a stranger at the bar, which is just, I think, a really good way of being a.
Speaker B:A human.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:Like, just, oh, who's that person sitting next to me?
Speaker B:Let's find out.
Speaker B:And frankly, that's why I think he has a ball going over Scotland, because Scottish people are the same way.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I think they're very open.
Speaker C:And I have some friends from Scotland, and they're.
Speaker C:They'll talk about anything.
Speaker C:You know, it does.
Speaker C:It doesn't have to be golf.
Speaker C:It doesn't have to be haggis or anything like that.
Speaker C:They'll.
Speaker C:They'll talk about, you know, a car going down the street or a horse in the pasture or whatever.
Speaker C:They.
Speaker C:They're open to it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's special, the way that they make you feel interesting.
Speaker C:The.
Speaker B:That's just one thing that I.
Speaker B:You know, I lived in st. Andrews for 90 days by myself, and, of course, colleagues came through during open week, and you end up meeting people in town that become pals of yours.
Speaker B:But a lot of the time, you're interacting with strangers on that kind of journey, and that's what a little bit of was.
Speaker B:One of my biggest takeaways is, like, golf puts you in front of so many strangers if you allow it to.
Speaker B:And you can take something away from all of them.
Speaker B:And, like, in particular, Scotland, they just don't treat you like a stranger.
Speaker B:They treat you like.
Speaker B:Like a friend.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:No, they're.
Speaker C:They're very open, and.
Speaker C:And I. I really like that about them.
Speaker C:We're gonna get more into depth in the next segment.
Speaker C:We'll talk about the live experience and all that.
Speaker C:What is your Biggest takeaway from being there for 90 days.
Speaker B:You know, I think I learned a lot about what I was looking for from the game, which is just I wanted to have a little bit extra meaning of, like, what I wanted to get from golf.
Speaker B:Because I work in golf.
Speaker B:I spend every day of the year thinking about golf at some level.
Speaker B:And I just wanted to, like, really, really, really believe that this is, like, the best sport for me and my future.
Speaker B:And I think I was going through a period of time where I wasn't so sure about that.
Speaker B:And Scotland, the home of golf, is the kind of place that will make you sure of it.
Speaker B:And that was kind of the takeaway of the summer.
Speaker C:Did you ever get that girl's phone number?
Speaker B:No, I did not.
Speaker B:That's like.
Speaker B:That's like the first question everybody asks.
Speaker B:I'm glad that I wrote that into the story because I think people really enjoyed that little part of that chapter.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But no, I. I never saw her again.
Speaker C:Oh, that's unfortunate, buddy.
Speaker C:Yeah, that is unfortunate.
Speaker C:That could have.
Speaker C:That could have been, you know, an across the pond deal that who knows where it would have.
Speaker C:Which turns for sure taken.
Speaker C:Yeah, we're gonna take a break, but before we do, I want to mention again that we're talking with Sean Zach.
Speaker C:Finding the meaning of golf during the game's most turmulent, turbulent summer is the subtitle.
Speaker C:But the big title is Searching in St. Andrews, And Sean spent 90 days there, and I think it changed his life.
Speaker C:But we're gonna find out more about that when we come back.
Speaker C:Stay with us.
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Speaker C:Birdieball.com welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker C:I'm JT and today we're talking with Sean Zak from Golf.com and Golf Magazine, and he's his book, Searching in St. Andrews.
Speaker C:It came out last fall, didn't it, Sean?
Speaker B:Last spring, so about 18 months ago.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Great book.
Speaker C:I don't Know why I didn't catch it before this, but I'm glad I did.
Speaker C:When the previous segment you were saying that you were searching kind of for some meaning and, and in golf and, and all that, what did you ultimately come up to the conclusion?
Speaker B:You know, I think, Mike, one of the conclusions is a little bit of what I said earlier is that I'm.
Speaker B:I'm just way more of an extrovert than maybe I thought, in which I really enjoy getting things from and getting in front of other people.
Speaker B:And golf, unlike any other sport, does that to you.
Speaker B:And that if, if you use golf, whether you're good at it, bad at it, you know, whether you love it or you just are, you know, a little bit of a hobby like golf will put people in front of you that you can learn from, that you can have experiences with, you know, and St. Andrews in particular, the way they do their tee times at the Old Course.
Speaker B:There's a lot of people playing with strangers that they have never met before.
Speaker B:And I think it really speaks to a really connective tissue of the sport, is that, I mean, right now it's connecting me to you.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We're talking about the game, and I, I, you know, I don't know how I would have met you otherwise.
Speaker B:And so this sport is a connective one.
Speaker B:And I think that is just, like, maybe the most heartwarming part about it to me is like, I'm going to meet someone next week playing.
Speaker B:Playing golf, and I don't know who they are yet, but, like, I'll be interested in some aspect of who they are.
Speaker C:Oh, sure.
Speaker C:So, as I mentioned in the first segment, Sean, you were there the summer of live.
Speaker C:It wasn't particularly the summer of love, it was the summer of live.
Speaker C:You know, I have my own feelings about live.
Speaker C:They've.
Speaker C:I will say they've calmed down a little bit over the last couple of years, but still, when you touched on it at the top of the show and you talked about the, you know, greed and corporate stuff, to me, live is an exhibition for a lot of money, and they want it to be a big party, that's fine.
Speaker C:I mean, if you want to do that, that's your right to do that.
Speaker C:But I don't consider it serious tournament golf.
Speaker C:That's me.
Speaker C:Okay, tell us about your experience there.
Speaker C:Between going to the, you know, the opening, I think you went down to London for that, and there was Norman there and some of the folks from the Saudi fund and all that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Was that a real, like, oh, wow, what the hell's going on here?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think that's a pretty accurate way of what I was like that week.
Speaker B:Eyes wide open and fully aware that, like, things were changing in the pro golf world.
Speaker B:And they were changing, like, every 10 to, well, 12 hours.
Speaker B:It seemed like I rode a train down from Edinburgh, down to London.
Speaker B:It went out to Centurion Club, which was a course I had never heard of, and went to the first live golf draft.
Speaker B:And so you.
Speaker B:You've literally got Phil Mickelson drafting players to his team.
Speaker B:And it was the first we'd seen Phil in months.
Speaker B:But then next to him is Dustin Johnson drafting players to his team, and across the hall is Sergio doing the same.
Speaker B:And it was like, gosh, golf has never looked this way.
Speaker B:I'm not sure it'll look this way forever, but it's different.
Speaker B:And so it's surreal.
Speaker B:And I need to take note of it and record it for people so that, you know, journalism is the.
Speaker B:They say the first rough draft of history is like, someone needs to be taking note of all this stuff because something's happening with some of the best golfers in the world.
Speaker B:And then that continued to the first round, where within the first three holes, I believe, of competitive play there Jay Monahan, at that point, the commissioner of PGA Tour, sent out a press release saying all those guys are suspended.
Speaker B:And so it was just like every six hours was something new.
Speaker B:The first round featured Liv, Golf's first ruling in which a player was trying to call a penalty on another player.
Speaker B:And how are they going to handle that differently than pro golf is normally handled on Sunday, or it was on Saturday, I guess.
Speaker B:Charles Schwartzel wins.
Speaker B:And you have the leader of the Saudi Piff talking to the.
Speaker B:To the entire group of people there saying, if anyone ever shoots 54 in a live golf competition, I'm going to pay them $54 million.
Speaker B:And I was like, holy hell, this sport is.
Speaker B:Is going somewhere it has never been before.
Speaker C:I kind of equate it to, like, rollerball or something like that.
Speaker C:You know, it's.
Speaker C:I understand why some guys did it for the money, and especially the older guys whose careers were getting pretty soft.
Speaker C:You know, I get that, you know, but trying to come steal some of the younger, up and coming talent.
Speaker C:And they do it, but I don't think when they did that, I don't think those guys had a real clear image of the side effects, if you will.
Speaker C:Sean, I, I think, you know, like you said, every six hours, somebody was sending out a press release about something.
Speaker B:So yes, yeah, well, and you know, it's one of those things like the, the, the DP World Tour ultimately was not okay with it.
Speaker B:The World Golf Ranking ultimately was not ready to grant points.
Speaker B:I, the one thing I will say about live golf that will give them credit is that the PGA Tour was ripe for disruption.
Speaker B:Like pro golf at at large, it was filled with a lot more people that play golf exclusively for money than I think the common fan wants to believe.
Speaker B:And I think it showed that the current structures of the sport were ready to be disrupted.
Speaker B:And so there is more money in the game than ever before.
Speaker B:The PGA Tour created signature events and 20 million dollar purses.
Speaker B:The Players Championship has a 25 million dollar purse for a reason.
Speaker B:And the reason is what lift golf did.
Speaker B:Now just because things are bigger, maybe more efficient, etc than ever before doesn't make them better.
Speaker B:And I think that that's where it lost track is like you can put as much money as you want into something.
Speaker B:You can get as many people to sign on as, you know, our major champions, but you can't guarantee that they play good golf.
Speaker B:You can't guarantee that they enjoy their time there.
Speaker B:You can't guarantee that fans show up and you can't guarantee that fans will actually watch on television, which ultimately is the most important thing.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:The PGA Tour has a 10-12x advantage on live golf events when it comes to television broadcast.
Speaker B:And that's here in its fourth season.
Speaker B:Like we are still going down this path and there has been no advantage gained by live golf.
Speaker B:So you know, it's, it's still somewhat fractured game that's healing at a very, very small rate, you know, and I.
Speaker C:Think, well, we need to take a break and I'll bring this up on when we come back, Sean.
Speaker C:But I also think the Tour stepped on its own toes too a couple times there.
Speaker C:Sean.
Speaker C:And I'll be back and talk more in just a minute.
Speaker C:Don't go away.
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Speaker C:Foreign welcome back to Grilling it to Green.
Speaker C:I'm very fortunate to have Sean Zach with us today, searching in St. Andrews.
Speaker C:And we've been talking last few minutes about when he went to the live golf draft process and kind of opening ceremonies, if you will, in London.
Speaker C:Like that, like you said, some of those bigger purses, signature events and all that, that is a direct reflection of what LIV Golf did.
Speaker C:But I also think that the Tour kind of, I mean, they've lost some sponsors and stuff because they said Honda or I'm making up stuff here, so bear with me.
Speaker C:Honda, I know you've been with us for 20 years, but if you don't want to give us the 20 million, see you later, you know, like that.
Speaker C:And I don't see as they had 55 companies in line to take their place, you know what I mean?
Speaker C:And a lot of tours, a lot of areas, I mean we had, we didn't have any big tour, but we had Korn Ferry Tour here and of course we got LPGA here in Portland and then there's some in Seattle, etc.
Speaker C:But they took away the Korn Ferry Tour event here a few years ago, which was held at Pumpkin Ridge, which is where the first live golf event was held out here in state.
Speaker C:And lives never come back.
Speaker C:But I just, I don't know, this kind of almost like knee jerk reaction to things.
Speaker C:I, me personally, and I wouldn't want to be the one making the decisions, but I think they could have handled it a heck of a lot better.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think Jay Monahan backed himself into a corner a little bit with a bit of ignorance and a bit of pride and got to a point where they had to change their structure.
Speaker B:They had to, to chase after sponsors that were going to be willing to fork up $20 million for these purses because they were facing, I think they, that, that is their way of saying, yeah, that is an existential threat.
Speaker B:Liv Golf is offering up $100 million for Xander Shoffley.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And if we, if we lose, you know, let's say they lost 15% of like the golfers that really matter.
Speaker B:If that grew to 30% like we, it starts to become a slippery slope.
Speaker B:And so I think the Tour backed itself into a corner and found that, oh crap, we don't have the, the funds on our own to fight this battle.
Speaker B:We really need to change things.
Speaker B:And like, ultimately, I think where the Tour is going now is probably where it should have been going years ago.
Speaker B:So there's a little bit of like backed into a corner now I have to fight kind of stuff that made this happen.
Speaker B:But gosh, it's been a bumpy road.
Speaker B: ween the PGA Tour and live in: Speaker B: mewhat different next year in: Speaker B:And it's just amazing that this civil war, this kind of cold war between organizations continues.
Speaker C:What did you, when you got back on the train from London and after the live thing was over and you were going back to Edinburgh, what did you sit there and go, what just happened?
Speaker C:Or how did you process that?
Speaker C:Because you talk about it in the book, but I mean, how did you process that?
Speaker B:Well, that's a really good question because I spent the entire night prior, up until three in the morning, just kind of writing like a full recap of the week, which was like, holy cow, like Greg Norman and his, his league are coming for the sport.
Speaker B:Is the sport ready?
Speaker B:And then, you know, got a little bit of sleep and then was on a train.
Speaker B:And so, like, how did I process it?
Speaker B:I think I got excited about the Open even more because I was on my way back to St. Andrews.
Speaker B:That is the entire reason I was over there to begin with.
Speaker B:And that is the next time that I would see a lot of these live golfers.
Speaker B:And so, you know, a month would have passed, they would have played Pumpkin Ridge then, then they would have played, or they would have played the US Open, then they would have played Pumpkin Ridge, and then they would have.
Speaker B:Then, then everyone would have come back to St. Andrews.
Speaker B:And I just felt like by then it will be even more fascinating.
Speaker B:And so, you know, it probably sounds in the book like I was confused, but I really am enlivened by change and human nature.
Speaker B:And Liv, golf is just one massive human reflection, which is the things we talked about earlier.
Speaker B:Greed, corporate business structures, money, sports washing.
Speaker B:It's all in there.
Speaker B:And to tell a story about that through the lives and decisions of pro golfers made for a very fun job.
Speaker C:Oh, sure, sure.
Speaker C:Little footnote here.
Speaker C:When I told you before that they, they didn't come back to Pumpkin, they, and maybe you already know this, Sean, but they had a number of members retire their memberships from Pumpkin.
Speaker C:And so they made some massive changes to the course just for the live event because there's two courses there, right?
Speaker C:And so they, they used a little of both of them.
Speaker C:I Did not go out to the event.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:I did not.
Speaker C:But they did that and they left.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And people at Pumpkin thought, well, maybe this is going to be an ongoing thing.
Speaker C:And it wasn't.
Speaker C:And so I know Liv gave them some money for that, but I think the cost of the changes to the course, I mean, you can't do anything on a golf course, especially when it, you know, encompasses a bulldozer and, you know, 50,000 man hours.
Speaker C:You.
Speaker C:You can't do that for 10 grand.
Speaker C:You know what I mean?
Speaker C:It's not going to work.
Speaker C:So I think it really left a bad taste in the membership, and I know it left a bad taste in some of the locals, not because it was live, but because they had kind of semi, with a wink and a nod, promised it would be back, and they left everybody hanging.
Speaker C:So anyway, that's little sidebar story, but I found it interesting.
Speaker C:Let's get back to St. Andrews here.
Speaker C:Were you a big fish and chips fan before you went there?
Speaker B:Yeah, I don't think I was as big as I became.
Speaker B:I mean, it's just.
Speaker B:It's such a simple meal.
Speaker B:And I grew up in.
Speaker B:In Wisconsin, you know, the Midwest, with its Friday night fish fries.
Speaker B:And so I definitely love deep fried fish and, you know, the way they do their chips, if you will.
Speaker B:The French fries, right, is.
Speaker B:Is definitely different.
Speaker B:A little bit like thicker cut than we do often in the States.
Speaker B:But it's such a.
Speaker B:It's such a sufficient meal.
Speaker B:It is.
Speaker B:It is a good piece of fish and it is, you know, filling fries and you drape a little like lemon juice over it all and some salt and that's it.
Speaker B:Like that.
Speaker B:That is it for me.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:This year at the Open at Royal Port Rush, I found myself.
Speaker B:I had.
Speaker B:I had fish and chips six straight.
Speaker B:Six straight nights.
Speaker B:Because it's like, you know what?
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:I don't need anything different than this.
Speaker B:I really enjoyed it last night, and I'm going to enjoy it again tonight.
Speaker C:Well, you throw a little lager or Guinness or whatever on top of that.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:It's all.
Speaker C:It's all good.
Speaker C:Yeah, I. I just.
Speaker C:There's something to be said for that.
Speaker C:The fish and chips, you know, just like that.
Speaker C:I was just checking our time here.
Speaker C:I want to talk about Ian.
Speaker C:Is it finis?
Speaker C:Did I say that right?
Speaker B:Yes, quite.
Speaker C:Quite the caddy.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Tommy Fleetwood's caddy.
Speaker B:He is a.
Speaker B:He's a.
Speaker B:He's a good pal of mine who we kind of have bonded over our Shared love of the Everton Football Club.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But Ian, yeah, he.
Speaker B:He's like six foot six maybe.
Speaker B:And Tommy Fleetwood, you know, the guy caddies for is maybe five foot eight or nine.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:He's not very big.
Speaker B:He's this towering presence out there on the PGA Tour and has become a good pal.
Speaker C:So I found it interesting when he said you guys had been in the pub and then he got the phone call.
Speaker C:So he goes out and it's dark and he's walking off the course and getting his measurements for, you know, his yardage book and stuff.
Speaker C:I thought, now that dedication.
Speaker B:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker B:But you know what?
Speaker B:That's something about St. Andrews that it.
Speaker B:It brings just a little bit something extra out of golf sickos.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And his nickname is Finno.
Speaker B:And Finno is just.
Speaker B:He's a golf sicko.
Speaker B:He grew up on the west coast of England in Liverpool area, and.
Speaker B:Which is like truly one of the best golfing areas in the world.
Speaker B:People.
Speaker B:People forget about that place.
Speaker B:But he says St. Andrews is his favorite place on earth.
Speaker B:And so every time that there's a golf tournament played in St. Andrews, it seems like Tommy's showing up in part because Finno wants to be there.
Speaker B:And so, yeah, Finno got the.
Speaker B:You know, these caddies, they get a text of, you know, a link to a PDF on the night before the Open and it's the hole locations.
Speaker B:And so he just went out and walked all 18 holes because he can't get enough of St. Andrews.
Speaker B:He.
Speaker B:It wasn't even so much like, I want to be ready for this as much as, like, I love this place.
Speaker B:I'm not tired yet.
Speaker B:I'm going to go have one of the coolest walks in the world and just start seeing the course, visualizing it, I guess.
Speaker C:Oh, cool.
Speaker C:By the way, I'm sorry about your Milwaukee Brewers.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, same if you're an Ironers fan.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, I get it.
Speaker C:We'll talk about that on another show.
Speaker C:Sean and I are going to take a break.
Speaker C:We'll be back in about two minutes and finish.
Speaker C:Finish up grilling at the Green.
Speaker C:Thanks for being with us.
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Speaker C:Birdieball.com welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker C:I'm J.T.
Speaker C:forgot to tell you about Squares Golf shoes.
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Speaker C:So it's, it's a good outfit there.
Speaker C:We're talking with Sean, Zach, his book.
Speaker C:I'd hold it up, but I've got my studio dark today.
Speaker C:And then I was going to tell you, Sean, I got real tricky and I was going to put a picture in the book, which I poached offline behind me so I could show it.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:There, you can kind of see it.
Speaker C:There you go.
Speaker C:But it came out to be about 9 million pixels wide by 20 million pixels deep.
Speaker C:And I couldn't, for some reason, I couldn't condense it.
Speaker C:So when, when I do the social media stuff, I'll make sure I put a picture of the book in there for you.
Speaker B:Like, oh, perfect.
Speaker B:Sounds good.
Speaker C:It's, it's all good.
Speaker C:You talked about, we're a big LPGA town out here, and you talked about Ashley Bui there, and she won.
Speaker C:And I got the kick out of her husband standing there with the whatever, whatever flavor he was having that day.
Speaker C:But he was supporting her.
Speaker C:But he was also supporting his own stature, I'll put it that way.
Speaker C:Like that.
Speaker C:Let's talk about the OPGA for a second here.
Speaker C:I think it's growing.
Speaker C:I think it's great.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:And I think we've got stars there, all ages, all shapes, all sizes, everything there.
Speaker C:If you've ever played golf with an LPGA player, they will smoke your butt.
Speaker C:That I'm just going to tell you.
Speaker C:Right there.
Speaker C:Right there.
Speaker C:So give us your take on the LPGA right now, Sean and Ashley.
Speaker C:Yeah, I, I, Ashley played Portland a couple months ago.
Speaker B:So, yeah, Ashley, I, I never actually met her as much as I met her husband.
Speaker B:And it was just a good reminder, this was at the, at her Open victory that summer at Muirfield, that one of the most interesting stories that you can tell about a golfer's victory is what it looked like for their family members.
Speaker B:And David Buhai is this massive Towering figure.
Speaker B:Again, he's probably 6, 4, 6 5, like the kind of guy who you feel like could step in and play right tackle in the NFL.
Speaker B:And he was just nervous.
Speaker B:You don't see men like that get nervous.
Speaker B:And he was, he was restless.
Speaker B:And, you know, she was competing in this four hole playoff and it was just, you could see it taking him, taking over him.
Speaker B:But yeah, that.
Speaker B:You know, these people that are pro golfers, they have people around them that are there on the, on the rope line among the fans.
Speaker B:They're trying to see as much as we are.
Speaker B:And to tell their story is often, like, extremely fun for me.
Speaker B:But the LPGA at large, I, I give this a lot of thought because you're right.
Speaker B:There are some, there are some absolute stars and some stars in the making on that tour.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:The one thing I think the LPGA is really missing is maybe stars that want to be stars.
Speaker B:Like, there's a little bit of a chicken in the egg thing where Nelly Cordis golf is as good as we've seen from any female pro or any pro in the world in years.
Speaker B:And Benelli, like, does not want to be in front of the camera.
Speaker B:She wants to be behind the scenes.
Speaker B:She does not love the attention, and that is completely her right.
Speaker B:But I think to propel the sport forward, I think she and a few others need to be a little more comfortable being fully out there in front of everything.
Speaker B:And I think that, I think that the sport or the women's game will be held back a little bit until then.
Speaker B:If you think about the men's game, you have Rory, you have Scotty, you have a couple of the people in the past, even Jordan Spieth and Bryson and desha and, and J.T.
Speaker B:and it's like those guys don't get along.
Speaker B:J.T.
Speaker B:and Rory are, are decent pals, but Rory and Bryson are not pals.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Like, they are rivals in a lot of places.
Speaker B:And Bryson has created a little bit of rivalry with Scotty.
Speaker B:And you can apply that to Patrick Cantlay.
Speaker B:Rory and Patrick Cantley do not see eye to eye.
Speaker B:And I think that even though that is like angst and it's a little more business of the PGA Tour related, the fact that not all these PGA Tour players love each other or will not come out there and say like, oh, best pals with so and so, it's definitely different on the LPGA Tour.
Speaker B:There's so much love.
Speaker B:There's so much like, you know, feel like you're talking in line with the company mandate.
Speaker B:There's not a lot of moving away from center when it comes to LPGA tour, and you see it in these tiny little bursts.
Speaker B:But like Charlie Hull, for example, has opinions on everything.
Speaker C:I love her.
Speaker B:She's incredible.
Speaker B:And I think most of the people in the world of golf have appreciated Charlie's personality more than her golf game.
Speaker B:And thankfully she has personality and the golf game to match it.
Speaker B:But there's a handful of people on the LPGA who don't quite show that personality as much as.
Speaker B:As it.
Speaker B:As it comes out in the men's game.
Speaker B:And I think that that keeps just a few fewer cameras on them and a little bit less focus.
Speaker C:Yeah, I love Charlie when I think she quit when she was, you know, smoking the heater there.
Speaker C:And she's looking and you got a beer over here.
Speaker C:This was not on, not during a tournament, but looking at.
Speaker C:I'm going, yeah, I could play golf with her.
Speaker C:I wouldn't care if I shot 250.
Speaker C:I would just be fun to play golf with her.
Speaker B:Totally.
Speaker C:Sean.
Speaker C:Okay, we're running short on time, but we do a little bit of an after hour show here, too.
Speaker C:But where can people find your book and also where can they find everything you do that you write?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So the book is truly wherever you get your books.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So it's on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and everywhere.
Speaker B:But the publisher is called Triumph Publishing.
Speaker B:It's based in Chicago here.
Speaker B:It's a sports book publisher.
Speaker B:So if you're keen to buy from either local bookstores or from the publisher, that's the name of it.
Speaker B:And then my writing is all@golf.com you know, I'm on social media at Shawn underscorezoc.
Speaker B:But you know, golf.com is the place where it all really begins and ends.
Speaker B:So you'll definitely find a lot of me there.
Speaker C:Cool, Sean.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker C:And again, folks, the name of the book is Searching in St. Andrews, Finding the meaning of golf during the game's most turbulent summer.
Speaker C:And it was.
Speaker C:Sean.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker C:We are going to be back next week with another edition of Grilling at the Green.
Speaker C:Until then, have some fun.
Speaker C:Be kind, go out, play golf.
Speaker C:Take care, everybody.
Speaker A:Grilling at the Green is produced by JTSD Productions, LLC in association with Salem Media Group.
Speaker A:All rights reserve.
