Players Thursday: Inside-the-ropes observations with the super-group
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Hello and welcome to this edition of the Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lab. We have a three-way tie. Top of the leaderboard at the Players' Championship, Lucas Glover, JJ Spahn, and Camilo Villegas sharing the lead after one day at TPC Sawgrass. But Rex, I've got a feeling your eyes are on something different from the top of the leaderboard.

No, I mean, you look at Roy McIlroy just one stroke back. You look at Scottie Scheffler. He played pretty solid. Even Xander Schauffele. And we're going to break down. I don't know. I think I called it the super threesome teeing off this afternoon. That certainly interests me because we had this conversation earlier this morning when we glanced up at the leaderboard. This place has a tendency to produce early leaderboards.

Thursday, Friday, maybe even Saturday, that probably don't blow you away, probably don't have the Q rating that you would want, but I would go back to the history of this event and it delivers more on Sunday than not.

I mean, that's certainly the case. You look at 2019 in particular, since the shift back from May to March, basically big dogs only. Roy McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Cameron Smith, Scotty Scheffler, back-to-back. But yeah, like you look at the top of the leaderboard, it doesn't necessarily dazzle you. It doesn't blow you away. That's the byproduct of having a 144-player field on the strongest tour in the world. You're going to get this, especially on a golf course, Rex.

which is not, you're not seeing much separation. Obviously those three side of the top at six under 66, a handful of players. I mean, you look at the number of players under par, we're recording this slightly before the first day is over. We already have 63 players who are under par for the day. Beautiful sunshine, not a ton of wind. Golf course is still very receptive, particularly in the green. So you're not seeing a lot of separation there.

at this point. But if you look at the history of this event, you're absolutely right because it is only, it only gets harder as the week goes on. And you could probably say that about every golf course, but it seems to be exaggerated here at TPC Sawgrass. The greens dry out. We had a whole lot of rain on Monday and they continue to dry out the,

The forecast calls for more wind. Now, Sunday's forecast is a little sketchy, but I would imagine 66 is probably going to be one of the better scores of the week. I'm not saying someone can't get to 65 or 64, but that was a really good score. And I will say it's interesting to point out that

of those three players right now who are at six under one played early Lucas Glover and two played relatively late JJ spawn and Camilla Vajayga. So it's not as though if you went out early and caught the golf course soft, you were able to make up some room pretty much all day long.

Yeah, and I think that's probably the case. Like, you look at the trends, and we may come back on Sunday night and be like, oh, yep, another early-late waiver. When the Players' Championship's going to happen again, it's 14 of the last 17, it's 8 of the last 9. Scottie Shuffler was the exception last year. It did take a bit of a Herculean...

effort let's get into the super group rex because you and i were both out there i went the whole back nine with roy mackray scotty scheffler xander shoffley in order those players rory shot 67 this guy scheffler shot 369 and xander shoffley doubled the last actually to shoot an even par round of 72 biggest takeaways from seeing those guys up close and personal scotty is grumpy yeah i

I mean, let's get to it. You and I are going to talk about it. We just left the scrum area where Scotty just did his interview. And I mean, he kind of bit your head off over a pretty mundane question about the golf course. And I'm not even trying to be mean. I'm not trying to be funny. I'm not trying to stir up controversy, which apparently some people think I was trying to do yesterday on the podcast. He's grumpy, which is understandable because probably he's not playing the game the way he's accustomed to playing it.

It's as simple as that. If you break it down statistically, he wasn't quite as good today as he was last week at Bay Hill when it seemed like he was back being the normal Scottie Scheffler. That means strokes gain tee to green. He's either one or two, which he was last week. Strokes gain off the tee. He's either one or two, which he was last week. That wasn't the case at all today. And look, I think the putting is going to be frustrating. I just glanced at it. I think he was 99th in the field and strokes gain putting. It's not as though that hasn't been the M.O. in the past.

It's not as though this isn't something he's dealt with in the past, but I think all of those things combined that the level of frustration is clearly there. You pointed out there was some really interesting footage of him on the practice putting green earlier this week. And he was working with Phil Kenyon, his putting coach who has done fantastic work with Scotty, but you could tell Scotty wasn't happy and he doesn't particularly like to voice those things. And so I think when he's in a situation like this, where everything is not going his way, he's frustrated, pertinent,

Certainly understandable, but the takeaway is Scottie is grumpy.

Yeah, Scottie said he played okay, and that seems like a reasonable assessment. I mean, he made just a single bogey, but nothing about his round was particularly noteworthy. Like, he drove the ball reasonably well off the tee, hit 10 of 14 fairways. His approach numbers weren't great, but they were still very solid. That's not going to hurt him. You mentioned the putting. I see he's 88th at this point, took 29 putts, made just 73 feet worth of putts. The two questions that really got Scottie

to be at his snarkiest or his most sarcastic or to use your word, his grumpiest one was about his putting and someone asking him, you know, essentially what do you boil down those missed putts to? And he goes, well, the hole's about this big. And sometimes you're putting from 10 feet and it can go here. Other times it can go here. There's no real rhyme or reason to it. So quote, you tell me. Okay.

Okay. So he's already in a little bit of a negative frame of mind. I then jump in with what seemingly was a benign question about the golf course. And when I was walking around the golf course, and when I've been walking around the golf course the previous couple of days, I was very surprised.

How soft TPC Sawgrass had played. We've had abundant sunshine. We've had a little bit of wind over the past couple days. This is a golf course that drains exceedingly well. Yes, we did have plenty of rain in the Ponte Vedra area on Sunday and Monday, but it's still very soft. Doesn't matter whether you're hitting a five wood like we saw at Kalamorkawa yesterday.

hit on number eight. It doesn't matter if you're Harris English who stopped a five iron almost immediately. It doesn't matter what club you're hitting into the greens. The ball is essentially landing, stopping, and if not, spinning a little bit back. So my question, seemingly innocent, seemingly innocuous to Scotty Scheffler, was are you surprised at this point with all the sunshine that the golf course has not firmed up more? He apparently thought that I was writing a story about the golf course, which again, I cannot...

I cannot stress enough. If I'm writing about the golf course, we have absolutely nothing to talk about. And that's definitely a me problem. Basically just making conversation. He said, I'm not going to bite you.

on that storyline i said okay just kind of shrug it off let's do wait a minute i want to do full disclosure the question i want to read it from the transcript are you surprised that the greens haven't firmed up the past couple of days with all the sunshine simple i mean it sounded like we got a lot of rain sounds like you're trying to write something about the golf course so i'm not going to bite but i appreciate the effort and he shot you a knowing smile

Yes, it was a knowing smile. I'm not sure what there was a smile about. I would have appreciated a more in-depth answer. But I think the kicker there, Rex, is that Roy McIlroy came into the interview area next.

And he was talking about what he's expecting from the golf course over the next 24 to 48 hours. Here's the exact quote from Roy McIlroy. Again, two or three minutes after Skye Scheffler vacated the area. Quote. Now we're reading transcripts. This is such a bad podcast. We apologize. We're sorry. To greens. I would have expected the greens to be a little bit firmer today than they were. Why is this important? Because it relates to core strategy. Because if you're hitting it to 30 feet, those aren't actually good shots. But you can take close aim and you need to sort of take advantage of

of these benign conditions, of these receptive conditions. Because again, the golf course is only going to get more difficult as the week progresses. I talked to a resident meteorologist, Steve Borkowski, who was anticipating wrecks, 30 mile an hour gusts over the weekend, some storms on Sunday as well. Like this is very gettable. This is very scorable. And I think there's an adjustment that players need to make. That's why I'm not sure what sort of the sarcastic response was about. However, moving on,

Roy McIlroy, what was your takeaway with the 67 from the 2019 Players' Champion? It was a little smoke and mirrors, to be honest. Yeah, statistically.

He did not drive the ball particularly well. And I did ask him about go back to last week at Bay Hill. And we addressed this on Sunday, the podcast. I think we even talked about it last night on the preview podcast. The idea that he was tinkering with some new equipment last week, at least for the first three days of last week. He admitted probably not the best time of the year to be tinkering with new equipment. Switch back to the old stuff on Sunday and the vibe coming out of Bay Hill was it will be fine.

I'm back to my old stuff. I'll be the, the Rory McIlroy that you saw at pebble beach who can be dominant off the tee and do special things today was not that at all. And he did do a really good job of breaking down. Exactly. I asked him specifically about, was there any progress from Sunday to today? And he talked about just where his swing pattern is right now, his best shot, uh,

And that's what you need to do here. You just need to be able to rely on something is just a shot that peels to the right, something that he can just kind of pull and he knows it's going to drop to the right. The problem today with most shots. And if you look at it, look at the scatter chart, it certainly backs this up. The idea that everything was missing to the right.

He can certainly turn that around. And yet somehow he was still able to scramble. I mean, that's probably the best birdie I have seen on 18. I don't know that I can compare one. He hits it way right with the three wood into the trees, into the pine straw, which we're used to seeing on 18 because that's pretty much your only miss. And then punches a five iron. We were joking because you and I were walking along with him. Punches a five iron all the way up to the green to about 15 feet, maybe 20 feet, somewhere around there. No less than that. That was about eight, eight, nine feet is an incredible shot.

Makes the putt and a very unlikely birdie. And I think that was probably the epitome of his day, that he clearly did not have his best of tee to green, but was able to score. And Roy's talked about sort of the last two starts at Torrey Pines and again last week at Bay Hill. Those results that he had that were still top 20 finishes were just about the worst that he could have possibly had. Really sort of let it go on the weekend in both of those instances. I would argue that the 67 that he shot here at TPC Soccerist was probably the best

score that he could have mustered at this point hitting just four fairways and you look at the birdies in particular that he made on the back nine number 10 that very much out of position blew it right with the driver played an incredible flop shot over a palm tree that ran out to about 10 feet made that putt on 11 blew it way right ended up having to pitch out uh got it up and down from about 150 yards was able to make birdie that way on number 12 the drivable par 4 way right once again

lobs it over a palm tree, makes birdie that way. And then obviously you mentioned 18 and sort of the bullet punch. 16, he was left in the pine straw. Yeah, exactly. And did not make birdie on 16 and then 18 you mentioned with a low sort of bullet

cut that ran out to about 10 feet. So this is essentially the best score that he could have shot. I did think it was an interesting strategy that he has employed because he said that the times that he lets it go with the patterns that he is now experiencing, it's probably going to go left. And on TPC Sawgrass, as I will get to Xander Shoffley here in a minute, left is most of the time dead. You're either in jail with the trees, you're in bunkers, or you're going to find the water. Rory has sort of done the calculus that these little peeler shots to the right, if they do miss at all,

We'll just wind up in the right rough, and it's sort of gettable from there, even if you are slightly out of position. This was the exact same strategy he said that he employed back in 2019 when he won. Like, he's still hitting it plenty far. It's not like he's, like, dinking it out there and bunting it out there. He's still second in the field of driving distance, total average of over 300 yards using, you know, assortment of driver iron and 3-wood. He's still hitting it plenty long, but this is giving him the control that he craves when he doesn't have quite the full control

of his greatest weapon. How about Xander Shoffley, Rex? This is the first time that I've seen him in the comeback in 2025. Did anything stand out to you about the way that he was swinging, the way that he was hitting it as he is now making his second start since coming back from that rib issue?

Just not sharp. I talked to Colin Swatton, who is on the call this week for PGA Tour Live. He's a swing coach back working with Jason Day, and he just said it was scrappy. If you just kind of looked at a swing, his take was he seems to be caught in between a couple of different thoughts. I would say this is probably just more rust, I

considering that he really had no offseason and that he's coming in here. I think he has played twice this season, the first being the century. And then, of course, he played last week at Bay Hill. It was to be expected. And this is not the kind of course you can show up and not know exactly where you're going to hit it. You're going to feel uncomfortable. 18 is probably the epitome of the day for him as well. He blew it.

right as well into, I mean, he hit actually hit it over the cart path has to lay up essentially just over the trees with a wedge and it's pretty straightforward. I mean, it was a front left pin, so it's a little tricky, but you can throw it by the hole. You pointed out it's soft enough that the ball's going to come back and just lay side of it. I mean, it's a terrible shot. He was lucky to get away with a bogey. And I think that's probably the best he could have shot.

Yeah, and I think, like, he did hit a couple of, like, really nice touchy shots. When you look at sort of what he did well last week at Bay Hill at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, his first start in two months, like, ball striking-wise, he was actually okay. His speed was fine. He was hitting enough fairways. He was hitting enough greens. His scrambling was really shoddy, which wasn't all that bad.

unexpected you know he's he's obviously focused on making sure his speed is there making sure his long game is there after such a long layout that yeah the touch in the field is probably going to be the last thing to go but I thought particularly like the shot that he hit on 16 to get up and down after missing it left for birdie like he was in a position to put to put a round together to put a 70 on the board then come back with fresh greens on Friday morning instead he let it get away from him a little bit with a double bogey on the last hole and so look he's got

I think at least in Xander's estimation, a long way to go before he feels like he's in top form. But I don't think it was an outright disaster. It's clear the swing is just not comfortable at this point. A lot of left misses, a lot of sort of rehearsing certain patterns that he wants to get in in the golf swing. It's just just not quite there. But I don't think he's all that far off either.

And it's worth pointing out, you're on the back porch here at the media center. I'm in the media center itself. All three of those players are still out of the range. And it's been, I don't know, 40 minutes, 45 minutes since they finished off their round. So clearly none of the three felt like they had their best stuff. To be fair, we all know Scottie Scheffler goes to the range after good rounds or bad. That's just the way he kind of cools down. But they clearly have something to work on before tomorrow. All right, Rex, what are you looking forward to? Since this is a mini podcast, we'll be wrapping up this year shortly. What are you looking forward to seeing most from

Friday at the Players' Championship. We talked about how this golf course kind of has this ebb and flow to it, where you've kind of had players that you probably didn't pick coming into the week. Maybe some did. I think day two is sort of the weeding out period. Who has the ability to sustain? Can Lucas Glover continue to play like he did today? He made 120 feet of putts. That's not on brand for Lucas. Can he continue that?

To be quite frank, Billy Horschel, who's playing very much a home game, he birdied the last three holes. Can he continue that pace? This clearly means a lot to him. So I want to see who can keep pace because in the back of my mind, I know there will always be, to your point, a Rory, a Scotty, one of those top players who are going to end up there come Sunday.

But Rex, if these greens just don't get firmer, you're not going to see the separation that you typically see at the Players' Championship. It's just going to continue to be a bunch leaderboard, don't you think? You and your narrative. I'm not biting. I'm not getting into this. Absolutely not. You're trying to do something, and I'm not biting. Make sure you go to golfshow.com or mbcsports.com slash golf to read about the course that I'm certainly not going to be writing about. There's so many players, Rex, who are lurking, who I think could pop up, particularly depending on their tee time, if they do get some pretty docile conditions.

On Friday morning, I mean, Ricky Fowler was in the house with a 68. Some of the pre-tournament favorites that we were thinking about, whether it was a Sepp Strzok, in my case, came in with a 70. Russell Henley came in with a 72. Kyle Morikawa came in with a 70. No one, you know, sort of absent a Max Homa or a Victor Hovland, players for whom expectations were already going to be lower. I think Justin Thomas was a little bit surprised turning in a 78.

Very few players, Rex, blew themselves out of contention that you wouldn't have anticipated. So I think it should be a fun Friday for us to tackle plenty of storylines that we'll be able to tackle as well on Live From. It's scheduled to be about 11 a.m. Eastern time on Friday if you want to catch us on Golf Channel.

All right. That is going to do it for this mini pod edition. Golf channel podcast with Rex and lab. You guys have the drill. NBC sports.com slash golf for all latest news, notes, and updates, including the story on the golf course conditions. Just kidding. We're back on Friday night for plenty more reaction from the players championship. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. We'll talk to you guys Friday night. I'm just not fighting it. Experience the performance of Lexus racing, the thunderous V8 engine.

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