Kevin Van Valkenburg

Back when he first came in there, not every driver head was as big as possible it could be.

Not every shaft was maximized.

Track man was...

becoming prominent, but not every single golfer was optimized and maximized in terms of their speed.

I think Jacob Bridgman swung the golf club this year as fast as Rory used to swing it when he first came on tour.

It seemed like Rory had a massive advantage in terms of driving ability.

It shows you how much faster the game overall has gotten.

You have to be fast to compete.

Even he has...

continue to get faster and continue to get stronger and continue to stay flexible and i think that's something to be really admired i think one of the things i admire the most about him is that he used to be just a crap us open player you know he just used to completely on very tough courses he would make a double and then he'd just kind of eject mentally and now he is probably one of the best us open players there is like you could look at this the

the results recently.

And even though he hasn't won, like it really bothered him at Pinehurst because that was tough, traditional.

He was hoping hard track and he was so close to winning that and just let it slip away.

And I think that's one of his biggest goals going forward.

You'll see is like, he wants to prove I can win like a true championship.

like US Open I can win in like a very difficult Open Championship track and I think he's got the game to sort of do it and that shows the sort of evolution mentally of what he's overcome in the last 20 years yeah it's impressive because obviously money no longer a motivation and hasn't been for some time and you know it's funny I spoke to him a couple of years ago at an Irish Open about that US Open

This was interesting.

I think about the live guys, you know, like the courses they're playing in anticipation of majors.

Like is that, does it come to a head more when you see that there, are they optimizing themselves in terms of playing the kind of tracks that would get them in position to be ready for a major?

I think it's a fair question to ask when you think about that, when Rory did everything to focus towards the majors.