PGA Thursday: Talk of mud balls, player-friendly setup dominate Day 1
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Hello and welcome into this edition of the Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lav. And in the interest of full disclosure, this is actually our second take on doing this podcast. The reason? Because when we did the initial version, Jonathan Vegas was nowhere to be found on the first page of the leaderboard at the 107th PGA Championship. Instead, Johnny Vegas comes home in 30 on the front side of his final nine holes at Quail Hollow, including birdies.

on five of the last six holes, including three in a row, including a 40-foot bomb on the 530-yard ninth. And so, yes, we scrapped the first edition. This will be the better version of the podcast. Rex, the floor is yours. Please enlighten us with all of your Johnny Vegas notes.

Johnny Vegas was the story of the day. It's pretty amazing that we even consider sitting down to do a podcast without, didn't mention him, didn't even talk about him. We were fine. We finished the podcast. We looked up and,

Johnny's having a good round. We'll be fine until we weren't fine anymore. So it happens and we're here for the, for the viewers. We're here for you. We realized that that wasn't going to work. That was a, that was a terrible product. No, the storyline today was, and this is fantastic. It was, it was millionaires complaining about mud balls. It was the PG of America pushing back on the idea that they would do anything other than play by the rules of the game. It was a glorious day. If you like to sit down and write columns about things other than what has consumed the game the last three or four years.

And keep in mind when, when you're writing, when you're talking about major championships, there's a certain ebb and flow to it, right? Like,

On the first day, you sort of pick maybe an oddball leader or an unlikely storyline. You picked mud balls. I picked the super group, neither of whom played particularly well on day one, even though Sky Shuffler scored the best, shooting a two under 69. Roy McIlroy shot a 74 in his first major championship round since completing the career Grand Slam. Santa Shoffley, defending champion, shot 72 more on them in just a little bit. But I'm with you.

I mean, the story of the day on day one of the PGA Championship was the mud. And we anticipated this. If you guys listen to the podcast, if you guys listen to our preview podcast on Wednesday, we talked about it. We thought the mud balls were going to be an issue at this championship after Quail Hollow received more than four inches of rain over the past week because...

When it gets warmer, as it did on Thursday, 85 degree temperatures. When it gets windier, as it did on Thursday, and as is expected to do over the weekend with 25 mile an hour gusts, the mud rises to the surface. All of a sudden, you get a muddy underfoot on overseeded non-sandcap fairways. Except it happened, I think, a little bit quicker than players expected.

observers and fans probably were anticipating. And keep in mind, PGA of America on Wednesday evening sent out a bulletin saying they were going to be playing the ball down. No preferred lies, no lift clean in place. I don't ever remember Rex, like tournament officials, basically issuing a preemptive strike saying, take it or leave it. This is what's going to happen.

Could be tough, might not be. Get over it and just go play golf. It was a pretty extraordinary move by Kerry Hagan Company, but it may have backfired at least as it relates to player approval of the decision.

And my column today, as you pointed out, was on the Bud Balls, was on the player reaction. And we did. We spent a good amount of time last night talking about it. And my take was it was short sighted. And it's important to point out that almost every player that we talked to about this today, no one was surprised that they didn't institute preferred lives for this round, because that's simply something that Kerry Hague, the chief championships officer of the PGA of America, does not do. It's been nearly a decade since.

since he did it. And even under that, it was extreme circumstances. They had to finish up two rounds on Sunday to make sure there wasn't a Monday finish. That is how he's going to use or why he would use preferred lives. He's not going to do it on a Thursday when you have a golf course that drained well enough. There was no standing water. No one was getting rulings. It was pretty amazing considering all the rain it had. And the greens were actually firm and a strange universe because there are new greens and the sub air and everything that goes into it. But I say it's short-sighted.

Because Kerry Haig would be at the front of the line along with anyone else that sets up golf courses for major championships and will tell you that the simple tenet that they live by when you're setting up those golf courses is you want to identify that week's best player. And by not using preferred lies, you put that in jeopardy.

Because you've taken the biggest skill in the game out of those who are really good at it, out of their hands. And that was Scotty Scheffler's point very vocally, which is kind of weird. You and I both know Scotty is not one to complain. He's not one to second guess anyone. He's going to put his head down. He's going to get on with his business. That's his hallmark. That's who he is. And there was an element of him probably not wanting to talk about it today, but he needed to. And this really boils down to what happened on the 16th hole.

hole. And that power group that you talked about, that you wrote about, you had world number one, Scotty Scheffler, world number two, Rory McIlroy, world number three, Xander Schauffele. All playing together, all on top form. It was going to be the best of days. And on 16, Xander and Scotty hit brilliant drives, 322 yards, right down the middle of the fairway, setting up easy approach shots. And both of them snap hooked their irons

into the water. That's never going to happen in any universe under any circumstances unless there were mud balls. They did have mud balls. You were taking two of the game's best preeminent ball strikers. Brilliant at what they do. They perfected their craft over decades since they were children and you're taking that skill out of their hands. That's not the way you identify the best player this week. And Scottie didn't go on a tirade

He didn't necessarily go on a rant, but he certainly had a detailed explanation and an impassioned plea for why he believed the ball should have been played up. They should have played preferred lies on Thursday at the PGA Championship. Basically, his point was twofold. One, that golf is already a game of good and bad luck. Bad bounces, good bounces. And now you're introducing even more luck when you are basically accomplishing the hardest thing to do in golf, which

which is to hit it long and straight down the middle of the fairway. Being punished for that, in Scottie's mind at least, in plenty of other players' mind, seems unfair. Secondly, and this is probably unique to Quail Hollow, is that the golf course is in such immaculate condition. It is so perfectly manic. You're basically Augusta National Light with these overseeded fairways that there is not much advantage to be gained because all of the lies are perfect. And so if you're hitting the fairways and everyone's cleaning their golf ball,

there's really not much of an advantage to be gained. Whereas if you're having balls that are caked in mud and it can go anywhere, that's where I think you're going to see more dispersion. That's where I think the luck and misfortune is introduced. I thought Xander Schauffele, Rex, made one of the more compelling arguments is that all of a sudden now you're potentially forcing players to

maybe even change their trajectory on tee shots with this in mind, thinking forward to could mud influence my next shot, right? Like if you were playing your typical trajectory for a tee shot, which is to hit it as high as you possibly can, because keep in mind, these fairways are waterlogged, they're soft, you're not getting much run out. So everyone is hitting it higher to try and carry the golf ball further. That runs the risk then of plugging and picking up mud.

Zander's point was, are you now going to change your shot trajectory off the tee to try and hit it a little bit lower, try and skim it or skip it through the fairway to try and not just advance it forward, but also potentially wipe the golf ball

of the mud. You have a golf course at 7,600 yards. It's basically been tipped out. And then you were going to be leaving yourself longer into the green because you're, you're thinking on the off chance that that might help. That is not a healthy way to play our major championship. It's to me, that sounds unfair. You want to, you want to test these players, the best drivers of the golf ball, the best approach players, uh,

on the planet, all of a sudden you're introducing an element that quite frankly is just, it's too lucky. It's too much of rub the green. And I understood where Xander was coming from. However, there are no guarantees that you're not going to end up with a mud ball. Even if you do hit it lower, you're still just playing the percentages here. And maybe it goes under 50, 50, which was the number he threw it out there. And he also said two things that we need to point out. One, he felt like he got lucky a couple of times today where the mud was actually on top of the golf ball.

off ball. And that at least you can predict a little bit. That's probably just going to make it come out a little bit flatter, a little bit less spin than what you normally have. If you end up with it on the right side or the left side of the ball, you have a general idea what happened, but

you're kind of guessing at that point and nothing drives a tour player crazy like having to guess and uncertainty and the things that I know I hit this shot 136 yards and I usually have about two feet of draw to it. That's the way they live their lives. You have no idea where that ball is going to go and Xander also pointed out

which you mentioned, it's only going to get worse, at least tomorrow. We don't know what to expect on Saturday, but as it warms up, we get more sunshine. The mud just kind of gets to the point where it starts sticking more and more, and you can't necessarily go to preferred lives now. I wouldn't expect Kerry Haig to change that. So, yes, all of those things seem like a missed opportunity and short-sighted.

Yeah, I think it's unfortunate because Kerry Haig, the chief championships officer of the PGA of America, prides himself on presenting the most fair, most complete championship test of all the four majors. You can sort of quibble with that if you want to. And now, because of this decision, because of the prevalence of mud balls, it's introducing major elements of luck that might not have otherwise been present. It just seems counter to what sort of the ethos of the PGA of America setup crew has always been. I would also...

Point out Rex, just watching the coverage going out on the golf course today. I'm sure many viewers have a similar sentiment that the PGA championship set up at Quell Hollow does not feel a whole lot different than what used to be the Wells Fargo championship on this golf course. The sight lines are the same. The Mow lines are the same. They didn't really, the rough might be slightly different,

marginally longer and more dense, but it's not, it's not a demonstrable difference. But I think the biggest thing that felt like a missed opportunity for the PGA of America is some of these lack of shaved areas. I'm thinking right of seven in the fairway, potentially leading into the Creek. I'm thinking left of 14 in the drivable part four. I'm thinking left of 15, uh,

the reachable par five. I'm thinking of 16 long and left of that very difficult par four, even I think even long and left of 18 where we saw Justin Thomas's ball hang up there. There were a number of instances, whether it was Brooks Koepka's ball hanging up there, whether it was Justin Thomas's ball hanging up there on 16, ended up allowing him to chip in, whether it was other players who missed left

a 14 when that ball could have run into the water. Rory McIlroy on 15 when the ball could have run into the water. It seemed a little bit too player friendly when this seemed like a golden opportunity to distinguish between

Quail Hollow, the major championship venue, more penal for errant shots, more punishing for errant shots. And Quail Hollow, the PGA Tour stop. There did not seem to be a line of demarcation between those two. And to me, that felt like a big missed opportunity. This is essentially just a PGA Tour event on steroids. And you've been workshopping that all day long. And I tend to agree with you. You're right. They could have tinkered and shaved some banks, really. But...

Everyone talks about this looks and feels like a PGA Tour event because it's on a PGA Tour course that we see every single year. There is only so much you can possibly do to this. And they can add a little bit of yardage. You can shave some banks. But when you show up here, it's going to look like what we see every single year. And it goes to kind of what

a couple of our colleagues wrote on Wednesday in the media center, the idea that the PGA championship lacks an identity when you compare it to the other major championships, the masters, Augusta national, the history, the tradition, everything that goes into it's us open, the toughest testing golf, but if you want to lean into that or not, and of course the open on links and in the weather that you get there.

I would say the PGA Championship has always been closer to what you get on a week-in and week-out basis. I'm not saying that's wrong. And maybe you're right. Maybe Kerry Haig could have increased, could have done something to tinker with it incrementally. But that's not in his DNA. We know now, and he is going to get the benefit of the doubt for the decisions that he made today because he is one of the best in the business.

By and large, he almost always makes the right decisions. So I don't see this lingering and being an issue going forward. But if they really want what you and I have talked about, the idea, a new identity, you almost have to start from scratch because its identity is it's, I don't know how to put this, but let's say a PGA Tour event plus. Yeah, a PGA Tour event on steroids, as I just said. I think a separate factor that may have influenced

some decision-making here is talking to some members at Quell Hollow. This place was in primo mint condition last week, playing exactly how the PGA of America would have wanted it. And so I think if you had shaved some of those banks, it ran the risk of being a little bit too diabolical, almost to the point of unfair where if the ball's bouncing and it can't stop, all of a sudden you have balls that were not terrible shots all of a sudden being severely punished. And the PGA of America obviously would not want that.

with its setup. I wish they could have pivoted once they saw the forecast, once they saw how soft it is, because now you have a situation where the fairways are already playing significantly softer, significantly wider than they otherwise would have been. And you have this tangly rough where the ball is going to hang up and you have potential hazards that,

on 7, 14, 15, 16, and 18 where the balls are hanging up after bad kicks that otherwise should have tumbled in the water. So I think, you know, maybe they could have pivoted. Maybe they couldn't. Maybe it was too late. Maybe it would have been diabolical. These are all things that just sort of left me with a

I don't know, a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth watching at least the round one coverage here at Quell Hollow. All right, 14 minutes of mud balls and course setup. Let's actually get into, Rex, some of the highlights from the day. Non-Jonathan Vegas...

not notwithstanding what sort of stood out to you, either from the super group or other players who could play their opening rounds here at Quill Hollow? Well, no, I was excited. I think all of us were excited about the super group. You have numbers one, two and three going in the world going out. Rory McIlroy was probably the biggest surprise. If you if I want to start at the top of the list and it's not that he didn't play particularly well. I mean, I think the idea of a postmasters hangover is not just a theory. I mean, that has to be a real thing. His life changed dramatically historically.

And he has not had the same routine. And I'm not going to steal your take because clearly I've heard it already. I'm going to leave that to you. When it comes to Rory McIlroy, I will go with what I originally said. What I found interesting that the one thing that made him the easy favorite on this golf course that essentially makes this TPC Rory McIlroy, that he's won here four times, holds the course record. Everything that we know about him is because he can drive the ball better than anyone else ever.

and do the one thing that this course requires. It's what he won the Masters with. It's what he has really sort of crafted his entire career around. And he drove the ball terribly. He ranks 83rd, I think, in strokes gained off the tee. That's just not what he has to do. We all talked about he's the easy favorite for that particular reason. That one surprised me. That certainly was surprising. Thank you for not stealing my take. When you look at at least his day one performance, I think it came down more –

to his putting and his driving. Yes, his putting, or excuse me, his driving was poor, uh,

compared to his lofty standards and how he has typically driven the golf ball around this golf course. Keep in mind, of his top five stroke game performance ever, top five ever in his career, three of them have come on this golf course. It clearly suits him from a tee shot standpoint as well as an approach shot standpoint. He was okay, a little bit substandard. Putting, though, it really came down to that today. He was 136 in the field in putting. And keep in mind, there are 20 club professionals

in this field of 156 majors, 44 feet worth of putts. I think he easily, Rex, could have shot closer to one under, even par one over. And I think you're looking at his opening round a little bit different. I think you're looking at it more like a Scottie Scheffler and his ender Shoffley round as opposed to now. He's got a lot of work to do. What, 10 shots behind Jonathan Vegas after the opening round. This, Rex, actually, thanks to our friend Randy Robles,

who is a statistician for the Elias Sports Bureau. Randy killed it today. He sent out probably 50 questions.

Little data points throughout the course of the day. But he made a great point that this has been a historically poor day for the heavy hitters in golf. And this is exactly word for word from Randy Robles dating back to 1994. There has only been one instance at the PGA Championship where there were zero players among the top 10 in the world on the top 10 on the leaderboard. In other words, the big stars did not show up.

Yes, it feels at this point a little bit dire that we may be subject to a surprise winner, a no-name winner, a winner who isn't necessarily among the best players in the world. I would like to exercise caution. I would like to exercise patience. There are still plenty of big names lurking. Are there not, Rex?

whether it is a Scotty Scheffler, who now finds himself five shots back. There's a Colin Morikawa, who is a shot further back. A Ludwig Oberg. Terrell Hatton had a good day. Victor Hovland had a good day. There are plenty of players in the mix who I think on Friday, if you can shoot something mid to upper 60s, all of a sudden I think this leaderboard could have some turnover, and all of a sudden I think there could be some panic quelled among the Randy Robles crew.

I don't think you ever exercise patience in this particular instance. So that shows an incredible amount of growth for you because normally you would be panicky because you're looking at that leaderboard and trying to figure out how in the world am I going to write any of those stories? Not just one story, not just... Or talk for 52 minutes on Sunday. Yes, all of those things can be true. I will say that you have enough of the quote unquote heavy hitters who are close enough. Scotty Scheffler is only three strokes back, as you pointed out. Bryson DeChambeau, John Rahm. I think there are enough names looming about

that there's no need to panic. And as they say, it's early days. We have 54 more holes to play. And I only think the golf course is going to become more difficult as it dries out. It's going to get, I'm not going to say firm and fast because I don't think that's in the cards, but certainly the greens are going to get firmer. And we saw surprisingly firm greens today. And it'll bring everybody back to the median. If we don't have a top 10 player in the top 10 tomorrow, I would be shocked.

I'm with you on that. Tommy Fleetwood as well also had a good day. Bryce DeChambeau, nearly a 17, came back and bogeyed 18. I think he's still right there at even par. Colin Morikawa had a great day going, ended up making a double bogey. I think even a player like Justin Thomas, who hit just four greens in regulation, still ground out Rex's 73, I think was something more JT-like, at least we've seen from JT over the past couple of months. I think even he still has a chance.

to win this golf tournament. All right, real quick. Is there a player that you are most interested in watching on Friday at Quail Hollow?

A couple, Brooks Koepka, who had an awful day, shot a 75, and he will have to do something pretty good, not special necessarily, but pretty good on Friday to make the cut. And it's only interesting to me as we became so accustomed to Brooks being able to quote unquote flip the switch when it came to major championships that he could be playing poorly in regular PGA Tour events. And he showed up at these big events and somehow he was just able to turn his game around, turn his mind around. And we saw what he was able to do in a very short timeframe to win multiple major championships. We haven't seen that.

in a minute. He missed the cut at the Masters. It looks like he's going to miss the cut here. It's a small sample size, but you're always curious of what is wrong with this player that wasn't wrong before. I would think John Rahm, who had a much better day, I wouldn't expect him to miss the cut, but I want to keep an eye on him as well. So there's some fascinating storylines that aren't necessarily close to the leaderboard that I think are worth watching as well. Yeah, Brooks Koepka never missed the cut.

in the PGA Championship before. Does not look like the same player as the one who won at Oak Hill just two short years ago. Has not been a factor in at least the last six major championships. You stole it from me. Jon Rahm, to me, is my player to watch on Friday. Going to be going out in the afternoon, shot one under. Seems like he's not quite the Rambo that we've grown accustomed to.

But I think he's starting Rex to show some signs. Had a good weekend on the, excuse me, had a good weekend at the Masters. Ended up getting himself inside the top 15. His stats all look pretty good besides scrambling, at least here on the opening round. I mean, a couple years ago, had you put Jon Rahm on this golf course, you would have said, boy, perfect fit for the way that he drives the golf ball. So I think this is such a great litmus test for where Jon Rahm is.

in the golf landscape that I'm curious to see how he plays, not just Friday, but for the rest of the week as well. Again, one under par 70 on Thursday, finds himself just six shots off Jonathan Vegas's lead. All right. I can assure you folks that the second edition of this podcast was much better than the first. Consider yourself blessed.

We bring it all to you. All right. That's going to do it for this edition of Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lab. You guys on the drill, NBCSports.com slash golf for all latest news, notes, and updates from Rex and I both on site here at Quail Hollow. We'll be back on Friday for another edition of the mini pod. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. Talk to you guys Friday night.

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