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Chapter 1: What insights does Geoff Shackelford share about the U.S. Women's Open at Riviera?
I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a fried egg, fried egg, the dreaded fried egg, fried egg, fried egg, fried egg, fried egg, fried egg lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course. Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I'm your host, Andy Johnson, and today I will be joined by Jeff Shackelford.
Jeff is the founder of the Quadrilateral, really one of the... I would say, I don't know if he would like this framing, but he's one of the original gangsters of the golf internet, the OGs of the golf internet. Yeah. you know, I, I grew up, uh, reading his, his, his writings, uh, his books, his, his, uh, blog, Jeff Shackelford.com. Now, uh, he's got a great newsletter. It's worth reading.
Obviously a Los Angeles native, um, was onsite all week at the U S women's open. Uh, and it's been a while since we caught up. So I wanted to talk to Jeff about a myriad of subjects, including the women's open, his, uh, re-release of grounds for golf, as well as Shinnecock. So, uh, Before we get to Jeff, let's talk about our friends at Golf Genius.
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I mean, the ability to get your stats from tournament scores is really cool.
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Chapter 2: How has Geoff Shackelford's book 'Grounds for Golf' evolved over time?
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I welcome in the great Jeff Shackelford, the owner of the Quadrilateral, a must-read newsletter on Substack, well worth the subscription price every year. You're missing out if you're not getting it, to be completely honest. Jeff. you're, uh, you're fresh off a home game, getting ready for another one, a little homestand for you. Uh, the quadrilateral focuses on the majors of golf.
So yeah, the us women's open just this past weekend at Riviera. Uh, you're gearing up for the Curtis cup this week before hopping on a flight to shinny. Uh, this is the busiest the quads ever been here.
Yeah, not ideal, but not as bad as it is for the USGA staff. Different people are working at least two of the three weeks and trying to do all the things they do with golf so long as they stay in between.
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Chapter 3: What are the expectations for the upcoming U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills?
So I'm not going to complain. And it's a lot of fun when it's a home game. It just makes it a lot easier. So I've been excited about this Curtis Cup for a while now after just the Walker Cups. And I do do the cup events that matter in the newsletter as well. we'll leave it at that. Um, I'm, I'm, but I'm excited. It's, it's going to be a good run.
And I think Shinnecock is going to be a much better this time.
I'm just worried about you and the media center food for three straight weeks. You know, that's, that's what I'm a little worried about.
Yeah, it's, it's a challenge, but thankfully the, the current USGA group values a little bit, uh, well, they value food that's edible and occasionally healthy. So we'll, uh, And the coffee is key. They feed us great coffee, as you know. And that's really, riders really, the food isn't that important to us. It's the Wi-Fi, the parking, and the coffee situation.
So when you look at it that way, the USGA usually does pretty well.
I don't want to date you. Were you ever in media centers as a young, young enterprising golf journalist where smoking was allowed?
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Chapter 4: What role does golf course architecture play in the game today?
No. I grew up... I've been on airplanes with smoking. I am old enough for that. But no, no. I've been in a press center with... what was the thing after typewriters? They're, they're sort of, um, they're not a teletype, but it's a, it's, I watched Jim Murray work on this, uh, with, with water dripping from the cart barn roof there at Riviera, just unfazed.
I, so I try to think of that when I'm really whining one day, like, you know, I've got literally, I can, I have a camera in my phone. Uh, I mean, the equipment's amazing. I can put it all in a backpack. I've got a laptop and, uh, and I think, uh, You know, Jim Murray was trying to bang out brilliant stuff, which he did in far worse working conditions.
So I can't even imagine a room full of typewriters and smoking. And I just I have asked people about the old Augusta. They said it wasn't just that. Then it was the Quonset hut and the acoustics were just it wasn't like our little cafe there now with a nice wood ceiling. It was just aluminum. And I don't know how everybody got anything done, much less wrote a decent article.
I feel like, you know, I just think about this. This is probably true of like a lot of professions, like anybody that watched Mad Men and like, you know, just the day the day of a New York admin.
Chapter 5: How did the setup of the U.S. Women's Open impact the players' performance?
It's like, you know, with the boozy life, like the the thing that made golf journalism or any sports journalism go was like a concoction of cigarettes, coffee and alcohol.
Yeah, and that is the one area where I do gripe still. It's like the Masters serves up ā they open the bar right after the Champions Press Conference, and you can tell how I feel about the winner based on if both hands are full with an azalea with the Casamigos, although they changed tequila this year.
But, yeah, I've gotten some funny looks in recent years, Sandy, when I've asked, do we have any ā We have any beer or wine? You know, these stories don't write themselves on a Sunday night, especially when you get a Brian Harmon win or something. And they, you know, New Times, they look at you like, huh? And Longhurst just brought the gin in. Of course, we can't even bring something in.
And then he, of course, famously had a, he was hammered on the air on CBS. He had a vase. I have no idea how he got up and down that stand on 17. It's scary. But he did it.
Not to do a hard transition. Well, I will say, you know, one of my great regrets is that every Sunday of the Masters, it looks like just such a wonderful time. The bar opens and I'm always scurrying out to record a podcast.
yeah it's just like you know the world's smallest violin hazards of your occupation but that's what i always have to do i bypass the bar say good say goodbye to everybody it is always interesting to be also who's already got their story done uh by the time yeah it's like their story is all written i've just thrown in a quote here a quote there and i'm hitting the open bar
Yeah, that's the newsletter world. I can't do that.
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Chapter 6: What are the challenges of setting up golf courses for major tournaments?
And I understand why people do it. But especially the last couple of years, it's it's it's actually fun to be there late, see who's grinding. And and it does help to have that little bit of lubrication in case it's. But I mean, the last two have been pretty special to write about. But you can probably imagine there were a couple others recently that were were a little more more work.
All right. You've watched a ton of golf at Riviera through the years and professional events. You've played a ton of golf at Riviera is probably the golf course you've spent the most time at in your life. I'm guessing. What was it like watching the greatest women take Riviera on at this week's U.S. Women's Open?
It was incredible, Andy, and it unfortunately will make me more bitter and more obnoxious about the distance issue, but it was just stunning to see how certain holes played, what it was like to watch certain hazards and bunkers have meaning.
Um, and, and really the setup was, uh, was just right in terms of being generous or yeah, I have my quibbles with whole locations, days used and some teas were up surprisingly short that weren't needed, things like that. But overall, uh, the rough was perfect. Cause it was, it was, um, It was tough, but you could get some good lies. You could get some horrible lies.
And Nelly had some incredible recoveries from it that my fellow Angelenos didn't really quite understand how good they were. we can talk about that.
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Chapter 7: How does the growing interest in golf course design affect the sport?
It was, I'm very, I'll err on the side of an ignorant cloud crowd over a, an obnoxious one. And this was just a wonderful crowd. The, the, the vibes out there were, were just amazing. And, uh, and a lot of kids too, but yeah. So to see the 10th hole, uh, play the way it did, uh, yeah, I put a stat in the newsletter today, the women largely laid up and even the ones who drove it, uh, got, uh,
you know, typically nobody really finishes on the green when they drive it. And they still hit 69% of the green shots and regulation hitting into the green. And the men this year were 73 all basically playing as a par three. Nobody nobody laid up this year. And
To me, if the data gurus who have driven this mindset of just drive the green and take your chances thing, I would hope they'd look at that number and go, huh, so we're only 4% better doing the bomb and gouge thing, and yet by bringing in all this stress with the ā
The shenanigans that can take place going back and forth and the bunkers and the bottle brush trees and all the stuff you see there. So I doubt they will, but I think it'd be interesting to know how those conversations go before the next Genesis based on what the women did laying up.
Well, what's interesting too about that is if you take a U.S. women's open field, like the bottom third of that field is like, I mean, you're comparing the Genesis, which is a small signature event, literally the 100 best players in the world. You know, of course, before the live people get mad. Right, right, right. Roughly 100 of the 120 best players in the world are at that event.
And, you know, the U.S. Women's Open, you have, you know, young kids qualifying.
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Chapter 8: What can be learned from the differences between men's and women's golf?
You have a wide array of players and skills just because of the open nature. It's one of the things that makes the tournament great. But it is like an aspect of it's this giant field. And there's a lot of players that aren't up to stuff of Uber elite.
And so the data numbers, and we have a lot of unfaithful data experts in the data community of golf, but a faithful one that was really using their brain might move that number up even more because of to kind of try and equal the data out. Yeah. Or the takeaway is that women are significantly better wedge players than men.
I think that's a discussion that's legitimate to have because, you know, I sit back there at that green a lot with Doug Ferguson over the years, and it does shock me that there's literally Alex Noren and Justin Thomas, who are some of the last guys to lay up, and Tiger hit a shot similar to this that hit a high-cutting, soft-landing wedge.
It's just unbelievable how many of these guys just hit this thing that's just coming in hot. You're like, well, what do you expect it to do when it lands? And Thomas always hits this high, soft thing, and it takes one soft bounce, and that's why he used to lay up. Even he drove it this year. But I think it is a legitimate thing to wonder about as to what are you doing with a wedge in your hand?
Do you not have other shots that you can take something off it? Because you do need to hit it with a little bit of cut spin, just the way the green is shaped.
Yeah. Were there any other holes that kind of stood out besides 10 as ones that you just hadn't seen played in that manner in a long time?
The par fives, all three of them, even though they played the 17th, which is historically a long par five that was never reachable until recent years. People literally knew the players who had reached it over the years. Weisskopf, John Daly, Tom Lehman. It was literally a one-page list until the juiced equipment era. And now it's reachable, if there's any helping wind, for probably...
at least half the field of a normal genesis. But so, yeah, watching so number one had had real meaning. You had woods going into it. The wind picked up yesterday. Got a couple, I think one or two, maybe long irons in. So that was fun. That boomerang green had had real meaning in terms of I saw a lot of women, I thought, misplay it. By the way, surprising how many women played a draw.
And because you just don't see a draw anymore with the men unless it's an intentional shot trying to get around a corner or something like that. And I was surprised at that because it really, it's a beautiful green to hit a cut into it with a wood and feed it down to pretty much every hole location. But maybe yesterday's, which is in this back wing. And then a number 11.
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