We have a guest join us Under The Covers this week to discuss Chris Gotterup's late surge on Sunday to win the John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run
Our guest, Brendan, went through a Titleist certified TPI club fitting for his Driver and Woods. A lot of great club spec information on the new Titleist woods
Kevin tries to stump Matt once again with Trivia
All is right with the world as Dominic comes out on top for One and Done's
Transcript
Dominic: Hello and welcome back to Under the Covers, a golf podcast where we deep dive each week into the latest PGA tour winners bag. We are your host, plus one today. We have Matthew with us. What's going on, Matt?
Chief Wedge Officer: Dom, Kevin, Brendan, I'm good. the team USA pulled a Jordan Speath last night. They got us all excited and then boom, T fifty eight.
Dominic: I was really I was watching leaderboard there. I was hoping he'd he'd kinda creep up a little bit more. that's great. So, like I said, we have an extra guest. Brendan is here. He is a friend of the pod, loves listening. Thank you for that. He's a friend of Kevin's and a gimme golf club member. Brendan, how you doing today?
Brendan Dolan: Hey, great, thanks for inviting me today to talk. I love your guys' podcast and excited to be a part of it today.
Kevin Spisak: Throw in an extra little tidbit about Brendan. He's not only just a Gimme Golf member, he just got elected to be a Gimme Golf Captain. So big applause.
Dominic: That's massive. That's massive.
Brendan Dolan: Thank you. Thanks, Kevin.
Dominic: How you doing, Kevin? We see you over there.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah, all good. I agree with Matt with the you know, USA poll to Jordan Speath. I was kinda thinking it was more like USA poll to Cleveland Browns and you know just got blown out, so
Brendan Dolan: you
Chief Wedge Officer: It would only be a Cleveland Browns if if if our, you know, country or our owner of the team was you know, one of the worst in the league, but well maybe we are. The Soccer Federation's not that good here.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: Hey, the jury's still out. The jury's still out.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: Alright, well, have a fun episode for you today. we brought Brendan on because he recently went through a TPI Club Fitting, which is the titleist performance institute. we'll get into that a little bit later because we have some important stuff to talk about first. And that is Chris Godterup. He wins at the John Deere Classic at TPC Deer Run. And he just kind of he did it again, essentially. insert. Jesse Pinkman. He can't keep getting away with this. He ended up going crazy on Sunday to end up with the lead. started off with a hot 66 and then a couple 68s and then a final round of 62 to end at 20 under. This is his fifth career win, third this year, winning the Sunny Open and Waste Management. I mean, five back on the day ends up nine under to tie with with Coles and very unfortunate. ending there. Matt, why don't you take us through the tournament a little bit?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah. you know, God or up it feels like at this point he like kinda has it or doesn't have it. Like it's it's like he's he either wins or he's like kinda not really in the hunt. maybe that's something to do with his golfing. But like you said, yeah, third win this year. pretty much auto on the Ryder Cup this year. or on the Ryder Cup next year and and definitely auto on the on the President's Cup Cup team. So that'll be interesting. you know, Ben don't shop in the Shopping the discount, Rat Coles, hooks it in the water on 18th. Not good. Hate to see that for Ben Coles. Still hasn't won on the PGA tour. but does seem like a good guy. had a good, you know, you know, stood up and did an interview afterwards and said sometimes you just you just make a bad swing. you know, we saw Max Homa make an appearance this week. ended up finishing second after after Coles three putted in the last hole. had a little Zack Blair showing. Don't see a lot of Zack Blair out there these days. It's amazing he can keep up on the PGA Tour with how short he is. I think he hits it like two s I think he hits it like two seventy five off the T, which is nuts to keep up. Zach Johnson is still getting sponsor exemptions somehow on the PGA tour. That's a disgrace. Hopefully Brian Rollette puts it puts a stop to that at some point. Hometow
Kevin Spisak: Ha. Mm-hmm. his hometown tournament.
Brendan Dolan: Absolutely.
Chief Wedge Officer: I don't think it's his hometown. I think he's claimed it's his hometown tournament. I know he's an
Brendan Dolan: He's from Cedar Rapids,
Dominic: The hot tape.
Brendan Dolan: which is about an hour away. So home state, home state tournament.
Chief Wedge Officer: Okay. Okay.
Dominic: Yeah, what do you say about that, Matt?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, I you know.
Kevin Spisak: Ha ha ha.
Chief Wedge Officer: after after his Ryder Cup captaincy he should be disallowed to have a a sponsor exemption again. and he missed the US Senior Open to play at the John Deere Classic, which I find interesting. but finished pretty good. Rio Hitsatsune is a top ten machine. Feels like every week Rio Hitsatsune up on the leaderboard. Mr Mr Big Hands, Lucas Glover, he made an appearance
Dominic: Weekend.
Chief Wedge Officer: Have you ever seen the pair of mittens on that guy up close? It's crazy. And the swamp ass. And then, yeah, Jordan Speeth, a non-competitive T58 cornflak Corn Fairy tour player Jordan Speeth is doing good things on the PDA tour. So that's my quick recap. I know not a lot of people watched because it was July 4th weekend, but I do love the John Deere Classic. It's a great tournament. Kevin Brendan Dom, what you got?
Kevin Spisak: And the swamp ass.
Dominic: I was gonna say the same thing. I wanted to say quick Whenever we were texting about this, I was like, Wow, Max Homa, where did he come from? This could be awesome. And then he missed his putt and Matt immediately texts Challenger series. Any any guy who's doing bad was just Challenger series. We can't wait to see him there. What you got, Brendan?
Brendan Dolan: Yeah, I on the drive home, I heard a really cool note about Chris Grotterup. So back in twenty twenty two, he actually reached out to the John Deere Classic seeking a sponsor's exemption. So that was actually his first tournament that he got into as a pro. Fast forward a few years later, he actually wins the tournament and was actually the highest seeded player playing in the tournament coming off of, I think. three or four weeks straight of playing and then now he's gonna go play Scottish and the Open. So really cool guy, really cool story going from sponsored just Jemisin to several years later actually winning the tournament.
Dominic: I didn't know that.
Kevin Spisak: That is awesome. And now he's gonna go defend his title at the Scottish. So he's on a heater.
Chief Wedge Officer: I find it pretty like it's pretty hard to do when you're the highest ranked guy in the field and you and you win. Like there's a lot of pressure on you, I feel like, whenever, you know, you're the number one guy, everybody's looking at you and and you pull it off. That's that's legit.
Kevin Spisak: So Scotty every single week.
Chief Wedge Officer: Pretty much, yeah.
Dominic: It's like what Matt was saying last week, Scotty would he would get second place and everyone says he's washed. You just expect so much. Yeah. So Chris Godd up, Kevin, let us know what does he have under the covers?
Kevin Spisak: Just can't w just can't win a tournament.
Chief Wedge Officer: All right.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah, We're gonna do a quick under the covers on Chris Godder up. He's a repeat winner this year. we didn't cover his bag earlier in the year, but it's very, very similar. he plays the ping G440 LST, so add another ping victory to the total. those are starting to rack up. He switched from the nine degree at the waste management to seven and a half degree. For the John Deere. and he plays the Hazardous Smoke Black 6.5 TX 70. So pretty stiff. We haven't seen a ton of hazardous shafts this year, but you know, very similar profile to some of the ones we have seen. Then abnormal, he's got the driver and mini driver. so tailor-made burner 13 and a half degree, hazardous black TX 80. And then goes from the mini driver to a seven wood. So when he won the waste management, he had been playing a five wood. So now he's in a seven wood QI4D. Add that one again to the total of fairway woods for the QI4D. Just keep racking up. I think the QI4D has got to be replacing the spider, you know, for Club of the Year so far. but Diamana Whiteboard 83TX on the 7wood. where the waste management he had a QI35 five wood. And then on his irons, he's been playing these all year. The Bridgestone Tour B 220 MBs, four through nine. his shafts, I get he's continued with these all season. So the KBS C Taper 130X. so those are some some flag poles, some stout shafts there on the 130x wedges, tailor-made MG5, 46, 52, 56, 60. he's got the C Taper 130X and his 46 degree, but then steps it down to a noodle like dynamic gold X100 for the rest of his shafts. And then his putter, kind of a unique setup he's got there with the spider X tour. So he's got you know the two club of the year so far components in his bag with the the QI4D and the spider. But he's got some lead tape, so I add him to the lead tape chronicles on the bottom, and he putts like toe down so and the heel is lifted up, you know. So We talked about like earlier in the golf season how that would s the loft would then end up aiming you to push the ball. you know, again, if you think of those couple degrees, but that's how he likes to putt. And they they were able to, you know, change his lie angle so that in his stroke, he really like delivers the club you know, how you're supposed to. So unique setup, but really good putter. Ever since he switched to the spider, he's been absolutely on fire. you know, he I feel like at the beginning of the year, he was like right at that like peak of the roller coaster of we're just seeing like now everyone switched to the spider and everyone's playing very well with it. so cool stuff there. and then his ball, he's got the Bridgestone Tour BX. so new addition there for under the covers on on the balls. Any comments you guys have on his clubs?
Chief Wedge Officer: Would like to I would like to know if you can buy the Bridgestone Torby irons. Like if I went and tried to go like if I was like I'm I I've got two grand, I want to go buy a set of irons, would Bridgetone sell them to you? I think that's like one of the coolest things. Also it just feels like everything he has is don't go left. Like if you look at everything his game is ever his game is just built and it's like everything's super stiff, it's just Ball doesn't go to the left, which is awesome. I think that's the way he plays golf and it seems to work.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah, those irons are on Bridgestone's website that you can purchase. he probably has, you know, some sort of like custom grind to them, but but yeah, Bridgestone is readily available.
Chief Wedge Officer: Really?
Dominic: Many guys on tour play those? I feel like I haven't really heard many people playing those.
Kevin Spisak: Not a ton. Brant Snedeker's played Matt Couture's played Bridgestone.
Dominic: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, I was gonna say, Dom your boy, Matt Couture.
Brendan Dolan: You
Kevin Spisak: I'm sure there's some other like big names that missin' but I feel like Bridgestone is like a brand we don't hear about like hardly ever, but they do make like pretty decent clubs. They're just like really not in your face in any sense.
Dominic: And then he has a C taper like you do, right? Or is it a different kinda?
Kevin Spisak: Yeah, and mine are not nearly that stiff. yeah, I I do have the C Taper one twenty stiff plus. So he's heavier and stiffer. Yeah, Brendan, have you ever tested any bridgestone clubs of any kind?
Dominic: Is he part of the book game?
Brendan Dolan: I haven't I used to hit the the Bridgestone golf balls I remember back when they had the Tiger ball the B XS I think he actually even still uses the B X But no, I haven't tried any of the irons. But yeah, I'm kind of intrigued by by like Matt is I I assume it's I assume it's it's it's pretty good
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. I so then I I think that's basically it for the for under the covers on Chris Goddard up. one more like piece of kind of equipment news for the week that thought was really interesting. We've been seeing, you know, Wyndham Clark has been on an absolute tear and has been playing the Project X Titan Yellow, which was new. Pro Project X is releasing now the Titan Green. So that's gonna replace the Hulk and the Hazardous line and be an even like stiffer, more low spin version of the hazardous green. So, you know, your boy has been playing the Hulk Shaf for a couple of years now. I might have to get my hands on one of these bad boys, but I'm sure it's gonna cost a pretty penny. but yeah, the Titan Green coming out pretty soon. I thought that was kind of cool.
Brendan Dolan: Some other club news that came out today is Titleist and Vokey are doing a black vapor version of their irons and wedges. And of course, Kevin, they don't come in lefty for the Vokey wedges.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. Nothing does. Nothing ever does.
Dominic: Or are you lefty?
Chief Wedge Officer: And are these
Brendan Dolan: Yeah.
Dominic: We got another lefty on the pod. That's huge.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: Or was is are the these are the wedges that have the alignment lines on to like have you seen that where they have on the hazle to help you with yeah, to basically help you with like shaft lean essentially, right? Is that that's what it's
Kevin Spisak: Brendan's very familiar with those.
Brendan Dolan: Yep, exactly. Yep, loft and lean. Yep.
Chief Wedge Officer: okay. You know, us artists we like to kind of do that by nature, not with science.
Kevin Spisak: I think me and Brendan would be in the science category. We were using a laser level to make sure our grips were straight.
Brendan Dolan: Yeah, definitely.
Dominic: You really? I love that out of you.
Chief Wedge Officer: god.
Brendan Dolan: Thank
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: That's cool. Well, beautiful. so big reason why we have Brandon on today. So he went through a very special club fitting that I feel like is getting a lot more popular these days. but I think I'll just kinda let you take the wheel here and just kind of explain your experience that how you got into it, what they kind of told you and yeah, we'll kinda just let you go from there.
Brendan Dolan: Yeah, no, sounds good. so for the last few years, I've, I've been a big title is fan, use, use mostly and exclusively their clubs. Mike, golf club here in St. Louis, Persimmon woods had an opportunity to try out all of the new GTS. drivers in woods a week prior to their public launch to the rest of the world. And so, yeah, I probably wasn't in need of a new driver or woods, but as a golf sicko, I had to try it out and see if it was just even a little bit better than what I had before and the experience did not disappoint. So they basically had fitters from all over kind of the tri-state area that were also Titleist certified fitters come in and do these fittings in St. Louis, even though they weren't necessarily members or golf pros at our club. I actually worked with a guy out of Kentucky whose day job is actually he's a professional bodybuilder. Shout out to Kevin is his name. And we had a great time. We started with the GTS driver. I feel like this might be a trivia question today, but GTS stands for generational technology. And then I was looking to see what S stood for and basically chat GPT said speed, stability and versatility. So I don't understand that last S there's an S in versatility. But, but this must be plural. Yeah.
Kevin Spisak: Ha ha. It must just be plural generational technologies.
Dominic: Yeah.
Brendan Dolan: exit technologies yeah there you go there you go
Dominic: That's what the Yeah. That's what the numbers for. They just keep adding S's every iteration.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Spisak: Ha ha.
Brendan Dolan: Yeah, so they've come out with three three woods drivers. There's a GTS 2, GTS 3 and GTS 4. Rumor has it that there is a GTS 1 model that'll come out in January of 2027. So for all the GTS 1 folks that are out there, don't fret. It sounds like there may be stuff on the way. As I was doing preparation for today's podcast, I listened to a few different folks at TPI and kind of how they're talking about the technology. And what was interesting to me is their sort of position is that with these three new drivers, it's actually six drivers. If you take the stock drivers with the stock weights that they have, It basically is the current GT lineup. So if you in the GTS2 keep the 11 gram weight in the front, 5 gram weight in the rear, that's going to perform very similar to the GT2. But if you swap those weights, it becomes a totally new and different driver. And so that's what I did. I started with the GT-S2 because I used, before I used the GT-2 and got very similar performance with the 11 gram weight in the front and the five gram weight in the rear. But then when we swapped the weights, got a noticeable increase in height, which then helps with land angle. and more optimized kind of flight. A little less spin, because I was hitting it a little bit higher on the face, because the CG is kind of pushed a little bit more rearward. And a little bit more carry, which was cool. the GTS2 is, out of all the models, that's the most forgiving model. And so a lot of amateurs are going to really enjoy that model. The big difference that's part of the GTS series is that there's this new, what they're calling PMP, which is their proprietary matrix polymer. So it was basically this polymer that on the GT2 was on the top of the head. So basically the crown of the driver head. Now they've been able to basically cover the entire body of the driver head with this technology. By doing that, they were able to drop 30 grams of weight from the driver, which then they could just use for other purposes, MOI, CG, you know, et cetera. And so not surprisingly, what you're going to see in the GTS models that you don't see in the GT is forward and rearward weights. So GT2 in the past always just had a rear weight. Now it's got a front and rear weight. Same with GTS3 and GTS4. They had sliding weights on the front. And now I think GTS 3 also has one in the back and I think maybe GT4 had a front and rear. But so that's that's been a that's been a huge change. They also changed their what they call sort of their speed sync. There used to be like a ring on the on the inside of the driver that that basically helped increase deflection. At the center of the face when you hit it in the center. Well now it's a horseshoe But by putting in a horseshoe you actually get a little bit of an increase in ball speed on on high misses high center misses So that's been another area where they've been able to find a little bit more speed and distance out of the drivers Yeah
Dominic: Real quick, that's that circle you're talking about, circle and horseshoe, is that on the inside or is that literally just like on the face, the little inscription?
Brendan Dolan: Yeah, great question. It's actually just on the inside of the face.
Dominic: Okay. Interesting. All right. This is that's crazy, the being able to drop thirty grams of weight just by like putting you said the P P all over it. That's wild. I'm surprised that that wasn't like tried before, or if that's just one of those things maybe they knew about it in the beginning, so they just were like, Let's try it out on the new one or whatever. That's that's really interesting.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. Yeah, that's a ton of weight. If you think of like the weights that you can switch on any driver that does configurable weights, like 30 grams is a ton.
Dominic: Yeah. So then and real quick, going back a little bit, you were saying you were able to get a little bit more carry was but then also you're saying you got more height on it. So is it more carry and it kind of it there's not as much rollout or are you also getting s a little bit more rollout? Like are you just hitting it farther or are you literally getting more height and kind of landing it where you want?
Brendan Dolan: Yeah, think it's more of the latter. Yeah, it's just more optimal height. And so it's not maximized for distance, and it's not maximized for forgiveness. It's sort of the mix between distance, distance, and control. Yeah.
Dominic: Nice. Okay. I like that.
Kevin Spisak: definitely surprised when I heard you were playing the GT2 and now GTS2 because I feel like you're you know an extremely good player. I thought you'd be in the GTS three or GTS four, you know, of of all those. So like what what led you to that primarily forgiveness or you didn't like the other two?
Brendan Dolan: Yes. Well, I think there are couple things one, with the gts3 It has kind of a pear shape look to it I used to be a huge fan of the tsi3 and I don't know why I ever went away from that I think it's just because I like to buy stuff and I have I have what some call shiny ball syndrome but I didn't like the shape of the gts3 and surprisingly with that weight
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. Yeah.
Brendan Dolan: more towards the front, it was just too low of spin for me that those two things combined. weren't a great fit for me. I do know there's another Gimmie member that recently purchased the GTS 4 and is really enjoying it. The other big change that they made on the GTS 4 is it used to be a smaller head. It was 430 cc. Now it's 460 like the other drivers. And so their their argument there too now is if you switch the GTS for weight front and rear, you end up getting like a GTS three and a half. So it's somewhere even between now GTS3 and GTS4. But I think largely my understanding with pros is they're still sticking with GTS3. There's a few, especially on like bomber courses.
Kevin Spisak: Okay.
Brendan Dolan: I know that Justin Thomas has used the GTS2 on occasion and then there's the few more that have migrated over to the GTS4 I think largely because of the change in kind of the size. But from a spin perspective I just wasn't getting what I needed from the GTS3 or the GTS4.
Dominic: And you said you you got too little of spin. This is a question for everybody unless if you didn't know specifically, but I thought you wanted as little spin as possible on a driver. Like what would too low of spin do for you?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, so like you still need enough spin to keep it up in the air, right? so there's like a there's like a perfect you need to like optimize launch and spin, right? So if you're spinning too high, it's not gonna go anywhere. If you're spinning too low, it's not gonna get off the ground. And you're still not gonna get the c numbers you need. You wanna get around, I don't know, anywhere between twenty five hundred and twenty seven hundred RPMs is kinda like the number that fitters shoot for depending on what your launch angle is.
Dominic: Okay.
Chief Wedge Officer: whereas like maybe someone with a lower swing speed they'll they'll they'll try to make it spin a little bit more to keep it up in the air. is kind of the normal normal area that they're they're going for there.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. If you drop below two thousand, y the ball will basically like knuckleball and like fall out of the sky or it's like really unpredictable in what it's gonna do. So like the backspin, you know, that you're getting also helps with control. so you'll see like people, you know, bring out like a three wood versus a driver and like they feel like they won't you know, like over draw something or overfade something because like a lot of that's been you know, is going backwards, if that makes any sense.
Dominic: Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, it does. And then which which one did you have too little a spin on? Which of the drivers?
Brendan Dolan: Yeah, the GTS3 and the GTS4.
Dominic: both of Okay. Cool.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. And do you guys remember, we talked about this a number of weeks ago, but when the Taylor Mint SLDR came out, like they were saying like guys were in like the eighteen, nineteen hundreds, you know, with spin and like loving it, and that's why they were playing like twelve or thirteen degree drivers back then, you know, was was then to like offset how forward that G C that C G was in that driver head. That that was a cool one.
Chief Wedge Officer: Right. Yeah. So couple questions. Did you so stuck with the same shaft that you had previously and you just swapped heads essentially?
Kevin Spisak: Wait, before you say what shaft it is, there's a trivia question that follows. So tell them what shaft you have. And then Matt and Dom, you gotta go into the under the covers archives. Tell me who plays that shaft. We've covered it.
Dominic: fun. Okay. Matt, let me go first if you already know it. All right, what's up, Brennan?
Brendan Dolan: So actually I was fit into a different shaft that at the time was giving out some pretty good numbers and mainly helping address kind of a right pull miss that I had. what they put me in, I wasn't paying too good of attention, but they put me in the Graphite Design ADFI 65X shaft, which I haven't played an X shaft in quite a But my my swing speed at all is always kind of teetered on a stiff flex and an extra stiff flex I'm usually anywhere from like 107 to like 110 range and so I can kind of go either way My old shaft was the Mitsubishi Tensei 1K Black, which is a shaft specifically made for Titleist as a stock shaft. As I played the ADFI more, it felt a lot more flimsy than maybe what I would like or I'm accustomed to. So actually right now I have my old shaft. in my current driver.
Kevin Spisak: So the trivia question was who had who did we cover that plays the graphic design tour AD FI? Matt's smirking like he knows. That's cheating. You just you gotta remember it. If if you don't already have it, I don't think you're gonna get it.
Dominic: Okay, I'm gonna pull up the list of names unless that's cheating. Okay. No. I feel like it's someone that's not it's not Hovlin, that's too recent. Is it Bridgeman?
Chief Wedge Officer: While Dom is thinking okay.
Kevin Spisak: What's that man?
Chief Wedge Officer: Nokie Dom Bridgman, is that your guess?
Dominic: Is it Bridgeman?
Kevin Spisak: No. You're nowhere close. Nailed it. There you go. Matt knows everything.
Chief Wedge Officer: Melly Corda.
Dominic: Miracles.
Brendan Dolan: Ugh.
Dominic: hell yeah. All right, Kevin, chug a beer.
Chief Wedge Officer: You don't get through engineering school without the ability to remember.
Brendan Dolan: I gotta go get a beer too.
Chief Wedge Officer: so
Kevin Spisak: No, that's not the official tribute question. No no beers need to be had there.
Brendan Dolan: Okay.
Chief Wedge Officer: So given that you're between a stiff and an extra stiff, I I know Gimme Golf has has some pretty good access to things. I would I would urge you to try a Ventus like a Ventus blue TR. like a stiff TR because that kind of sits between a stiff and an extra stiff. It's kind of made for that gap, that gap area. So I feel like that would be interesting just hearing kind of the the where you sit with shaft wise. because on this podcast, Inventus We Trust, is kind of our our tagline. So
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Brendan Dolan: I've had the Ventus in the past for sure. What's cool is, I don't know if you guys have ever worked in Ping Copilot before, but they actually have kind of a shaft kind of comparison tool. So you can put in the shaft that you have and compare it against Ping stock shafts.
Chief Wedge Officer: Okay. Okay.
Brendan Dolan: their upgraded shafts, other exotic shafts that they have. Not surprisingly, the closest shaft to the Tensei 1K Black, if you're looking for maybe a little bit higher launch, maybe the same sort of weight and torque, is actually that Graphite Design ADFI. they were on the right track. I just think... Some things you just can't change and the Mitsubishi wasn't broke so I'm not fixing it.
Dominic: Love it. Love it. Stick with your gut.
Brendan Dolan: The other noticeable thing before I talk about the fairway woods that I thought was a nice but subtle change that I don't think a lot of people notice and gets sort of overlooked. but I noticed it because I've been using Titleist drivers for a few years, is that there's clear lines now. So there's no grooves on the face of the driver, but there are clear lines on the face of the driver itself that I found it made it a lot easier because it's a dark glossy black face with a glossy body with a black face. that the new marks that they've put on the face itself kind of help square the face up at address a little bit better. And I thought that was a nice little subtle change that they made that I think could help some people. Because I often find with drivers sitting, just sitting down on the ground, they kind of look. And actually, if you go into like the Titleist Sure-Fit kind of chart, even at sort of standard lie, standard loft, it tells you that the face is actually about a half a degree open. So this does kind of help you aim a little bit better off the tee.
Dominic: Okay.
Chief Wedge Officer: We're seeing a trend of that, I think. Like, Scotty has the blue face, right, in his driver, and Taylor Maid put, you know, like the dots that you the fitting dots, and there's definitely been a trend to having things on the face that help you line it up, help you see loft, help you kind of set the ball set the driver down behind the ball. I think with how big driver heads are getting, it's probably something that might be needed of just helping helping you kind of center that that ball up. which I find interesting. But yeah, I've heard
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: I've heard good things about the new lines on the title list. I haven't got one in my hands yet, but I'm dying too.
Kevin Spisak: Hideki's w white out on his driver face. Yeah, yeah.
Brendan Dolan: He got DQ'd from a tournament for...
Chief Wedge Officer: Right. I he I forget what tournament. I it actually might have been the John Deere Classic got d DQ'd from back in the day. I don't it or maybe like yeah, something, but I do remember that. That was that was wild where he drew it on the he drew it on some some wood on some driver. But so yeah, let's what do you so then now we get into the woods, which right, the big change there is another thing with the face, right? They have the the silver face now on the on these woods. Kind of a same concept.
Dominic: Did he really?
Brendan Dolan: Yeah, yep, tour inspired, polished club face. I think it was made popular via prototype that was given to Cam Young, who then went on to win a couple times, including the tour championship. It definitely helps. That contrast definitely helps, I think, squaring the club face, seeing the loft versus the black face with the black body on the fairway wood. So that was a really nice upgrade. They now also don't have front and rear weights. They're sort of toe and heel weights that you can adjust. I ended up just going, I ended up getting the five wood. I haven't told Kevin this, but I have the three wood on the way as well. But I didn't end up changing the weights, toe and heel on those, but those are adjustable. And maybe just one more note on the drivers too.
Kevin Spisak: Nice.
Brendan Dolan: that 16 grams of weight front and rear can also be changed. So I actually, they have a weight kit and the weights that were optimized for me was actually a seven gram weight in the front and nine gram weight in the rear. So there's infinite, not infinite, but a lot of different options once you're dialed in on the right head and the right sort of front and rear weighting to really dial in the driver. In terms of the... The Woods, there's two lines right now, assuming there'll be another GTS 1 line coming out next year. The GTS 2 line and the GTS 3 line, they've tried to make it a bit easier for fitters and novices to kind of understand the differences. But the best way to describe it is if you have a shallower swing, the GTS2 is gonna be the better option because it's a shallower face, it's a larger head that's gonna help kind of with the more sweepy type of downswing. The GTS3 then obviously is the opposite and it's a more compact profile, deeper face for what they call strikers or those that have a steeper angle of attack that want less launch and spin as compared to the GTS2 folks. The other cool thing about GTS3 is they now have kind of like Some call it a seven wood option. I think it's more of a nine wood option, but they now the GTS three now comes in at 21 degree as well, which is cool.
Dominic: Ooh.
Chief Wedge Officer: Ooh. A little heavenwood.
Dominic: Yeah. The frumpy heaven would.
Kevin Spisak: Ha ha ha.
Dominic: That's
Brendan Dolan: And the other note I'd say is the GTS2. if you compare it to the old GT1, the face height is going to be very similar. So if you liked the GT1 line or the old GT2 line, the GTS2 will probably be good option for you. For whatever reason, maybe because it's closer to a driver. there is a slightly taller face on the 13 and a half degree GTS2 fairway wood.
Kevin Spisak: The the thirteen and a half degree, do you think that would kind of replace the GT one three tour right now? There we go. Yeah, Brendan inner introduced me to you know, since we're lefties, I don't get to test out that many of my friends' clubs and you know, we're able to bond over being able to share stuff. So I've already I've already purchased some things off of him, but
Brendan Dolan: Which- which is why i have an order
Dominic: Ha ha. Love that.
Kevin Spisak: he introduced me to his GT one three tour and that thing rips hitting bombs on the range before he took me out at Persumin Woods.
Chief Wedge Officer: I've heard I've heard good things about that club, so that's interesting.
Kevin Spisak: Thirteen and a half degree, that is is low.
Chief Wedge Officer: Basically like a mini mini drive.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Brendan Dolan: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: so I my question for that I think like so you get into the details, but so you do you have the driver in the bag right now? Like have you have you already put it in the GTS two? Or GTS yeah, GTS two?
Brendan Dolan: Yeah, GTS2 9 degree driver is in the bag and the GTS2 5 wood 18 degree is in the bag.
Chief Wedge Officer: So do you do you feel like you've picked up like do you feel like you're one, hitting it better and two, have do you actually measure how f how many yards you've picked up on a day to day basis?
Brendan Dolan: Yeah, good question. It's just getting into hot season, so the ball is flying further than maybe what it was over the last month and we've had some weird weather. So distance wise, I don't have enough data yet to kind of determine one way the other whether it's going better. But to that point, I just bought the Arcos Air system.
Dominic: Cool.
Brendan Dolan: which is very cool. Little motion sensor you put in your front pocket and you no longer have to have sensors on your club. It basically picks up the motion whenever you hit the ball and then after every hole or after every round you can go back in and plug in what club you hit on that and then it'll do its own sort of dispersion plot for you. So I'm starting to build that out with with my current clubs, the two things that I would notice that were things that I was looking to improve upon, right miss is less. So I'd say I've got maybe now maybe a little bit more of a left miss, which I'm okay with. And because of that too, then my dispersion pattern maybe went from like 38 yards down to like 31 for my driver. So. So some cool some cool benefits there. The five wood I think there. That's just a sort of a gap between my four iron and my three wood. And so I'm just looking for a specific 215 to 220 club and it's doing exactly that. The big change though between my current five wood and my old I had the old GT. to five wood is that this time around I put an 85S shaft in there. And so again, I think that's something that's kind of alleviate some of the left miss. So trying to have a one way miss, a little bit more consistent kind of dispersion pattern. so yeah, I've been really happy with that club as well.
Dominic: This is less of a club question, more of the Arcos Air. So have you tried the one where you have the sensor in your club?
Brendan Dolan: I have and the problem that I had with it was then I would start to grip up towards where the sensor was at and sometimes I'd miss hit it sometimes I'd bend the sensor and actually snap the little screw that's in it And so yeah, so the new Arcos Air is very cool. I've been told too that before Arcos Air came out, it's basically the same little sensor they had before that, and it was merely just a firmware update. so now you can basically do the firmware update and use it just like the Arcos Air would. It's got really cool technology. It's got its own AI caddy in it now too. So after a certain number of shots, it can tell you where to aim and what club to use from a strokes game perspective off the tee. And then it'll do the same for on the green. And then it'll also show you kind of like. good spots to miss and bad spots to miss around the green too. So Matthew Fitzpatrick has actually used it, I think to actually prepare for a few tournaments. It's still in beta mode, but it's kind of like having your own caddy. And then the other cool thing, it's tournament legal. You can print out kind of the recommendations that they have for tee shots and approach shots and have like your own little yardage book that tells you what club to hit. You can also customize it because you're like, maybe, maybe want to hit three wood instead of driver on a hole and you can you can customize it and then you know use it in tournaments or just you know casual play.
Dominic: Dang, that's crazy.
Kevin Spisak: That's awesome. If you use the sensors, can you avoid like having to go back and add afterwards?
Brendan Dolan: Yeah. Yep.
Kevin Spisak: Pretty sweet. I have the sensors on right now. I have fortunately never had the the gripping the sensors problem. So I haven't experienced snapping one of the little screws, but I I've really liked the all the data. You know, as a data nerd, I think Arcos is pretty sweet. And they have so many like different deals and stuff when you buy clubs or sign up with some like email trial, like you can get the sensors for free or cheap, you know, as long as you pay for the subscription. the membership of the app is pretty readily available.
Brendan Dolan: Yeah, I've I listened to the proving the Ping proving grounds podcasts, among many other golf podcasts. And with their partnership with Arcos, they're actually using that data to help with engineering. So even things down to like ideal weight of a driver head and. you know, other things. So they're actually using that Arcos technology to help with R &D, which is also really cool.
Kevin Spisak: It makes total sense like when you think of like how many shots, you know, add, you know, this giant data set that they're able to acquire. Yeah, it like makes sense why Arcos would give away the sensors for free because you know a manufacturer like Ping would pay to have all that data and know what clubs you're using, you know, be able to, you know, add to their repertoire to, you know, sell more in the future.
Dominic: assuming that's why Cobra you don't even need the sensors for Cobras. Like they they have to have some kind of partnership like that.
Brendan Dolan: They're...
Kevin Spisak: They they
Brendan Dolan: yeah.
Kevin Spisak: have the smart like grips. You can pay for those. so the grip is the sensor is inside the grip rather than having the screw. So I I had that in my driver for a while. I ordered my ping G425 with that that grip in it.
Brendan Dolan: I got a box of them for you Don when you're in town next month I'll give them to you.
Dominic: Are they are they righty grips or lefty grips? So ru going back to the the actual fitting, both going back to the actual fitting, can you tell us the process of how this kind of went? Like is this the one where it's the white tent on the end of the green? Are you inside on a simulator so you get more yardages? like how long did it take one on one? Like kind of give us some of that info there.
Brendan Dolan: both. Yeah, so it was outside. Nothing against any sort of indoor fitting, but since I've moved down to St. Louis from the frozen tundra of Minnesota, I don't think I'll ever do another indoor fitting. There's something about seeing the ball fly through the air and adjusting accordingly that I think is really valuable. you know, I think it also just. It takes you away from the numbers too. Sometimes you can get too wrapped up in, you know, launch, spin, land angle, all of that. That just like seeing the ball in the air, the way that you want to hit it, you know, there's just something very organic and natural about that that I think that's the way to go. What was interesting is we were for whatever reason, So persimmon has two ranges that kind of hit into each other. On one end it's got a little short game area with like little pitching targets and stuff. So we were actually hitting into the wind that day. And so... One cool thing with TrackMan and some of these other launch monitor companies is you can normalize the conditions. So even though we were hitting into a 10 mile an hour headwind, it was giving you kind of a normalized number, withstanding that headwind. The other cool thing is, and Matt will appreciate this, they had all clubs. If you wanted to try irons, if you wanted to try wedges, every single titleist club that they had and all of their stock. shaft options, all their upgraded shaft options were there to try. And I did end up, I used to play, I think this is maybe more because of the bent grass in Minnesota, but I used to play the 54 degree S grind. for my sand wedge and with the zoysia conditions with a lot of the softer grass a lot of the rain and other kind of elements that we have down here tried a couple new things and landed on the 54 degree 12 D sand wedge. And so that's what I'm rocking right now in my bag and super happy with that. The other cool thing about that D grind in comparison to the S grind, so that S grind was made specifically for Steve Stricker, who generally hits square face shots, not a lot of opening of the club face.
Chief Wedge Officer: Right.
Brendan Dolan: So when you do open that wedge up, it does expose more of the leading edge. And so the leading edge kind of comes up, which it's not a great look in my opinion. also, I think, can kind of affect ball flight. Whereas with sort of the moon shape, their crescent moon shape grind of that D grind. you can actually be a little bit more versatile, open the face around the greens, use it in bunkers around the greens for maybe a know, longer bunker greenside shot and just a bit more versatility. So, yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah.
Dominic: That's cool. Yeah, I know Kevin has some experience with that with that switch. He's talked about it a couple of times where you just get so many chunks down there.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. Matt and Brendan are the direct result of me also buying the fifty four degree, twelve degree bounce degrind. It so got the the same one.
Chief Wedge Officer: I like it. I was I was told a good good wedge thing by Caddy in in Scotland. He said every wedge has a three iron on the on the leading edge of it if you're if you're not careful. So exposing that bounce is you know sometimes never good. no, but yeah, funny enough, so I actually use the S grind and I love it. but I'm a like you said, very square faced kind of guy.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. Yeah.
Dominic: That's all.
Chief Wedge Officer: but one of the things I've been wanting to do is like your club, my club offers some title of stuff and and I'm trying to get out to go to Oceanside and get fit for actually fit for wedges. and go through the whole the whole thing of what grinds should I actually play? 'Cause mostly I've just played S for so long. I know it and I trust it. and I've never actually gone through the the process, but would love to. So I would I would I would have nerded out over the wedges. I would hit a couple of drivers and said, you know, give me that gimme that bag of wedges and let me go for thirty minutes.
Brendan Dolan: Well, let me know when you go. I'll go with you. The other cool thing about Oceanside is they also have MyTPI, which is their sort of health and fitness and performance institute that's out there as well. And the team out there, Dr. Greg Rose and some others, are kind of the foremost guys in terms of optimization of body and swing.
Dominic: Yeah, how long did that take?
Brendan Dolan: and I'd love to go through a fitting, yeah, through a 3D fitting with them as well.
Chief Wedge Officer: And spirit.
Dominic: So how long did that take?
Chief Wedge Officer: I like it. Well
Kevin Spisak: Nice well.
Brendan Dolan: I think I was there maybe about 90 minutes. I mean it helps that I've been in Titleist clubs for a while so I kind of knew what I liked and what I didn't like going into it. But I think some were there for a couple hours.
Dominic: Very cool.
Kevin Spisak: Well before before we wrap up and move on to the Genesis Scottish Open Preview, why don't you give us like what's the rest in your bag real quick for for irons and your other wedges?
Brendan Dolan: Yeah, so all new Titleist in my bag seem to cycle out at the same time that Titleist cycles out. So I have the new Titleist T150 4 and 5 iron. I used to have the old T200 4 and 5 iron. Mixed it up this time. I used to have the AMT white shafts. But now I'm in the new Project X Red shafts, which is mid-launch, mid-spin, 6.0 there. And then I go T100 and gap wedge through 6 iron with the same shaft. I'm a little unique in that. A lot of folks, especially tour players, in their gap wedge will have like a bladed wedge. you know, whether it's Cleveland or, you know, TaylorMade or Vokey or otherwise. But because I use that sometimes as a full swing. or even three quarter swings. Just having the forgiveness of that over a blade like a a Vokey wedge. I went with the stock stock gap wedge, is 49 degrees for for T100. And then then we get into the fun stuff. We're in Vokey SM11 wedges. Kevin's got my one of my old SM10 wedges. That's with the Project X wedge shaft, so it's a specific wedge, so lower launch, lower spin, a little bit more weight, I think, than just normal Project X or Project X iron shafts. I mentioned the 12D sand wedge, which does have the flight lines on it. And they're yellow. And for those that aren't familiar with the flight lines, they're basically three little lines sort of grooved into the hosel. You can kind of customize your color. minor yellow because I have the raw wedges. So those will rust over. So I needed something, some sort of color that would help pop out those lines. But basically those lines, what you're supposed to do is you're supposed to each line up to kind of your nose or the center of your body. And one is meant for kind of open-faced lob shots and bunker shots. One line is made for more sort of regular pitch shots, distance wedge shots. And then if you turn the last line all the way in, it's meant to basically take out a lot of the bounce and be used for like a bump and run type of shot. The other thing that I've done custom with a... with that wedge shout out to Ian Frazier. If you guys are familiar with Ian Frazier, used to be at TXG up in Toronto, now he's kind of out on his own. But there's a custom grind that you can do on Vokey wedges called semi-square leading edge. So standard Vokey wedges have a little bit of a rounding to the bottom of them, so it almost looks like an oval shape. I hate it. So what this semi-square leading edge does is it basically grinds out that little sort of roundedness at the bottom and basically makes it more square. So it looks more kind of like an iron. My lob wedge is 58 degree bent to 59 degrees for two reasons. One for gapping, but then two when you weaken the loft, it actually takes out a little bit of the offset. So again, it kind of makes it look more square. And what I have there is a K star. But what's interesting is they don't make a K star in lefties, but I reached out to Volky a couple years ago and said like, hey, I'm really interested in this, is there anything I can do to try the K-Star kind of model? And they said yes. basically what you do is you take the low bounce K, which is the 6 degree K, and you do the pre-worn leading edge. kind of grind and then also add some trailing edge relief. And so by doing those two things, it basically turns a low bounce K into a K star for lefties. So for all those lefties out there that want to try K star, there you go.
Kevin Spisak: Did you order your new one that way? Because I I think on Title S website the SM11 Wedgeworks gives you the option to get the K-Star Lefty now.
Brendan Dolan: They do, but I think it's only in a 60 or 62 degree. Since this was a 58 degree, you had to pay the extra for all the hand grinds. then, yeah, no problem. And then probably the most special and most expensive club in my bag is my putter.
Kevin Spisak: Gotcha. Yeah. Nice. Well, I appreciate you doing that so I could end up with one of them. yeah.
Brendan Dolan: I have a Ping Answer 30 Carbon PLD. Several years ago I went down to Ping headquarters and went through the whole Ping fitting. I was actually down there that week for the waste management and it also just happened to be Super Bowl weekend down in Phoenix. So went through the whole fitting there, the most notable customizations on that putter. One is part of the fitting you can customize the milling. to kind of what feels the best. Do you want something that's got a deeper mill that maybe feels a bit more pingy or a little harder? I actually went with what they call a shallow ant milling. It's just a very light milling. It just feels a little bit softer off of the face. Then the other thing that I did, most putters have sort of a perpendicular alignment. line which looks great over the ball but then when I take a look out to the cup or wherever I'm aiming to my eyes as a lefty but also being left eye dominant it kind of messes with my alignment and my brain and my eyes and stuff. So what I did was I put a parallel line that sits on top of the putter That kind of looks like the leading edge of like your irons would some some irons have like a you know a white a White groove at the bottom of the iron and so I've basically done that it's the the width of a golf ball and I basically use that similar to how I'd align my my irons up
Chief Wedge Officer: Mm-hmm.
Brendan Dolan: So even though the putter and everything is all black. I've got this one white line that sits sits on top of the putter And I think I've only seen one other putter professional putter that's used that sort of line What's his name Justin Leonard He had that line on an old Scotty Cameron putter for a while. I don't know if he still uses that
Kevin Spisak: Kent State grad.
Chief Wedge Officer: Designer of York Truly's home course.
Brendan Dolan: There's another one. And then most importantly, and thanks to Kevin, I've got the new Maxalign MCC Plus 4 grips on all of my clubs. Loving them highly recommend them and if you do any bit of digging ribbed grips Aligned grips are I think? Becoming more and more popular on tour and otherwise and it's just another thing to kind of Reduce variability and improve improve consistency and considering grip is the only thing that's holding the club I think it's an often overlooked piece of equipment that can be optimized.
Dominic: Leads to better shots and pleasure.
Kevin Spisak: clarification. I don't know where I thought Justin Leonard went to can't Kent State. He definitely did not. I was thinking of Ben Curtis. Yeah. Ben Ben Curtis, Justin Leonard. Sounds kind of the same. Yeah. Yeah, my bad. My bad.
Chief Wedge Officer: You're gonna stay.
Brendan Dolan: Texas, right?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, he's a Texas boy. That's
Dominic: So close.
Chief Wedge Officer: about to say. Yeah, he's he's like the Texas boy. Love I I really I truly thought when you were kinda giving us the the what you use for the putter, I thought you were gonna say lab and I was gonna log off. But I'm glad you did it.
Kevin Spisak: Ha ha ha.
Brendan Dolan: Cool story with that putter. The day that I was there, Bryson DeChambeau was also there. So he had just dropped Cobra as his club manufacturer. And if you guys recall, for a while there, he actually was rocking Ping I230 same length irons that were custom made for him. And so... that day, Ping was courting him in a separate part of the building. And then the final part of my experience was as I got to go into the Ping ball, where they have all of the gold-plated clubs for all of their major champions, men and women. And including some of the most famous shots ever made, most notably for us lefties, Bubba Watson's hook wedge at the Masters on, was it 13? 12 or 13? 10. 10.
Kevin Spisak: hook wedge wasn't that a that was yeah. Wait, the
Chief Wedge Officer: ten.
Kevin Spisak: what was the hook wedge not Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah. It was in the playoff with Louis. It was with it was I went to the spot. I was there. I sniffed it. I I to I pulled the leaves out. It was yeah, it it was in that playoff 'cause they go eighteen ten.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. Yeah. Can you even call it like a hook wedge is like a full on boomerang, but anyways, dip side, but
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, crazy.
Brendan Dolan: I call it a hooky woo woo.
Dominic: I love it. That's great. Well, Brendan, thank you for coming on and sharing your experience with the TPI. like I said, there was so much information there with the you know, construction of the actual drivers and what is new about these GTS. So it was very fun to listen to. I feel like it really scratched the itch for us golf nerds. I know that you can pretty much search anywhere if you wanted to go check out the TPI and get your own fitting. I know yours is specific to your club, but there's certain times, like I there's one in Minnesota, there's certain fitters that you can kinda search out for. So go ahead and check that out. But if that was all that we had for that, I think we can kinda transition into the the Scottish Open Preview. What do we think?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah. man, the Genesis Scottish Open. so interesting. This is gonna be my first time watching Lynx Golf since I've been there. so very, very excited about that to kind of know what they're gonna feel while we're there. so if you haven't known the Scottish Open used to be this really cool tournament where it would move around between all the best courses in Scotland, right? So it used to be at it was at Royal Aberdeen for a while. it just moved around. It was a carnoustie every once in a while and all these cool cool cool golf courses. but since the in the last I think maybe decade, maybe maybe eight years, it's it's gone fully a hundred percent to the renewate Renaissance Club. I have to make sure I say that right. so the Renaissance Club is a a new private course built in two thousand eight by Tom Doak. So very interesting because like I when I was over there, I played private club after private club because they open their doors to visitors. the Renaissance renaissance club is the only club that truly is private there. So it doesn't open its doors at all unless you play with a member or something of that nature. So a little bit odd for Scotland. I I asked some questions to the caddies because it's right near Meerfield Village and Gullen. And North Berwick, where I was hanging out for a lot of the time. and and a lot of the caddies have played it, that that were there. They didn't have the best things to say, but they did say it's a good golf course. So I I asked if it was a fake Lynx golf course, nobody gave me that answer. that was one of the things I'm sniffing for around there. But no, seems like a seems like a cool place. I think the big thing we gotta watch out for this week is technically live guys are playing a PGA Tour event this week. Quote unquote technically. So this tournament is co-run by the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour. So technically it's a PJ Tour event, but it's run by the D P World Tour and Live players are allowed to play in in D P World Tour events. So technically John Rahm is playing on the PG Tour this week, which will be very weird. So excited to see all the fireworks around that. I think that's gonna be very fun. But it's our first coffee golf week. So excited about that. Love golf in the morning. It's one of the best. It's one of the best two weeks of the year.
Dominic: That'll be fun. Is is Eden Poulter playing this tournament?
Chief Wedge Officer: no. I I don't I he might not even be qualified for the Nike tour at this point. Guy stinks. I I would The magic sticks.
Dominic: I was just looking at the T. Because he played for the he had played for the
Kevin Spisak: Ha ha ha.
Brendan Dolan: you
Dominic: US Senior Open this past weekend or a couple weeks ago. So I was really confused and I guess that didn't really have a live like restriction. And I wasn't sure if he's on the D P world tour, if he is still playing. I don't really know much about him anymore.
Chief Wedge Officer: He he is still on the D P World Tour. I d I don't know if he would this is a pretty like high level event. Like you have to be pretty high up to qualify for this. This isn't just like a normal D P world event. But Yeah, yeah. I don't know. His his son though is really good. If you if you follow college golf at all, Luke Poulter is is winning some tournaments. He's a he's a problem in the SEC.
Dominic: Okay, gotcha. Yeah. He's insane.
Chief Wedge Officer: But that's all I got. it it's gonna be a fun, fun tournament. And then next week we have Royal Burkdale. this is the this is where Speath won won his last last open championship. So we get to relive that that faithful day. back in twenty seventeen, back when Speith was good.
Dominic: Back when speath was good.
Kevin Spisak: You guys ready for a little trivia around the Scottish Open? I I know Matt's gonna know this, even though like I you know, when I'm looking for trivia questions, I want them to be like what I see you know, what I deem as like answerable, but like not easy. And Matt just makes them easy every time. So make this really hard.
Dominic: I'm not ready, but go for it.
Chief Wedge Officer: Kevin, I want you to be up at night thinking about how I'm gonna answer your trivia question.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah, that's what I dream about every night. It's so Genesis Scottish Open has been a part of the Rolex series since 2017. So we're gonna take a slight diversion. Matt missed our last diversion question with some geography with Cromwell, Connecticut. So we're gonna try to give it to him here this time. As always, if anyone on the podcast gets the trivia question right, all the others will chug a beer. I feel like I feel like for this one, we'll add a new thing. If none of you get it right, the three of you have to chug and I'll be safe. So Rolex series 2017, Rolex has been a a part of golf for quite a long time, sponsor of all four majors, lots of big
Dominic: That's fair.
Kevin Spisak: PGA tour players, Tiger Woods, some LPGA tour players. Who were the first three players that Rolex sponsored in the year was to do nineteen sixty seven. Who were the first three players
Chief Wedge Officer: This is such a hard question.
Dominic: I thought you were gonna say you know it. In the sixties, huh?
Kevin Spisak: I'll Yeah, y you gotta get two out of the three. I'll I'll be a little nice. You gotta get two out of the three.
Chief Wedge Officer: Okay. That that makes it easier. nineteen sixty seven.
Brendan Dolan: I'm gonna go Nicholas, Player, and Palmer.
Kevin Spisak: Okay.
Dominic: Just had a flashback of Kevin s asking me a question about the seventies and I said Ernie
Brendan Dolan: Ha ha ha ha!
Dominic: geez. I feel like Gary Player's gotta be one of those. Maybe Lee Trevino.
Chief Wedge Officer: Nicholas Claire.
Dominic: Well, how are we doing this? Did he give any of those correct?
Kevin Spisak: I don't know, I'll tell you at the end.
Dominic: jeez. So we all have to give three guesses?
Kevin Spisak: Mm-hmm.
Brendan Dolan: I'll go get my beer while we're waiting.
Dominic: Yeah, I gonna say, geez. Dumb question is Arnold Palmy? Did he say Arnold Palmy?
Chief Wedge Officer: He did.
Kevin Spisak: He did. Yeah, I mean you can say it too.
Chief Wedge Officer: He said the big three, Nicholas Player Palmer.
Dominic: okay. It cut out whenever you said Palmer, so I was confused. I'll just back Brendan. He's he's sounding confident.
Kevin Spisak: Same answer? Wow. Come on, be bold, Dom. Be bold.
Chief Wedge Officer: Wow. That is confident.
Dominic: In instead of instead of Palmy, gimme Lee Trevino.
Kevin Spisak: All right, is that your final answer or you or you want the first one?
Dominic: That's my final answer.
Chief Wedge Officer: Nineteen sixty seven was the first year I'm going Nicholas, 'cause he's in the commercials for for Rolex. I'm going trying to I'm trying to think of the commercials is the problem that I'm having.
Dominic: Rory Matt.
Chief Wedge Officer: sixty seven. Man. Such a weird year.
Dominic: Mm-hmm.
Chief Wedge Officer: I'm gonna go player and Trevino.
Kevin Spisak: All right, so you're copying Dom's guess.
Dominic: Did we just blend it all of our guesses?
Chief Wedge Officer: No, okay, no, I'm going Nicholas Palmer Trevino.
Kevin Spisak: Okay. All right. You guys got your beers ready?
Dominic: Okay. Did get any of them right?
Kevin Spisak: Well, you c you can all not drink it 'cause I'm the only one drinking. it is Brendan killed it on the first first guess. So Palmer was the first Rolex sponsored player in nineteen sixty seven and shortly after there was like a handshake deal with Jack Nicholas and Gary Player for the three of them. And they carried the brand and carried Rolex into the game of golf. So
Brendan Dolan: Let's go!
Kevin Spisak: The who knew the big three and Rolex were so tied together, so
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, there you go. I
Dominic: Our boy Brendan did. That's why I backed him and then you you talked me out of it.
Brendan Dolan: I knew as soon as he said that, I knew
Kevin Spisak: I gave you the chance to go back.
Brendan Dolan: as soon as he said that, that I was like, I'm onto something.
Kevin Spisak: I should have had Dom go first to throw you guys off.
Chief Wedge Officer: Kev I I
Dominic: America's beer. Just a sip on.
Chief Wedge Officer: Kev, I have I I have a trivia question for you for from the Genesis that I prepared, in case you didn't ask what I thought you were gonna ask.
Kevin Spisak: Okay.
Chief Wedge Officer: There's been one player in the last fifteen years that has won the Genesis Scottish Open and then won the Open Championship the week after who did it.
Kevin Spisak: I should know this.
Brendan Dolan: I have a guess.
Chief Wedge Officer: Brendan, if you got it. Give us the guess. No. Never won the British Oak.
Brendan Dolan: Justin Rose? Justin Rose?
Kevin Spisak: there's so many guys I just want to like blurt out.
Dominic: So it's a Scottish open then the then the British open?
Chief Wedge Officer: He w he went back to back, week week to week, week after week.
Kevin Spisak: Matt Fitzpatrick.
Chief Wedge Officer: Never won the British Open. the all hands team, Phil Mickelson.
Kevin Spisak: he hasn't? I'm I'm way off.
Brendan Dolan: Mmm.
Kevin Spisak: Really? Huh.
Dominic: You just wanted that question so you can throw that joke in.
Chief Wedge Officer: Totally.
Dominic: That's crazy. That's crazy.
Chief Wedge Officer: Went back to back. That's right. Yeah, he's your boy, Kevin Lefty.
Kevin Spisak: All right. Yeah. All right. Let me go get a
Dominic: that's too good.
Kevin Spisak: Mm-hmm.
Brendan Dolan: I read a cool story about Royal Berkshire. If you live within 10 miles of the course and volunteer at least two hours a week to the course in terms of course management and so forth, you can play on that course for free.
Dominic: Whoa. Two hours a week?
Chief Wedge Officer: It's it's
Dominic: That's awesome.
Brendan Dolan: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: It's dis it's disgusting how much we pay for golf here in the United States. Like the courses that are I was playing at, they're like super nice courses and I was they're like, it's a thousand dollars a year to be a member.
Kevin Spisak: What course is that?
Dominic: Yeah. Really?
Chief Wedge Officer: And I was like, What
Dominic: That's gross. That's gross. You can't even get a player card for that much.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah.
Dominic: there you go, Kevin.
Kevin Spisak: was nice foam I got. He sent me out to the garage fridge because I was out of beer in the basement.
Chief Wedge Officer: you got a lot of full on that thing. Milwaukee's finest right there.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. The Lucky's finest Miller light in the Chi Town Dog Pound Club of the Year glass. I know I tried it. It it didn't work. Yeah. It it works on soda, it doesn't work on beer. At least for me, I'm not greasy enough. Like you you dirty Italians.
Dominic: You gotta do this, Kevin. You you get your have you seen that before? It's it's disgusting. gotcha. I'm a greasy boy.
Chief Wedge Officer: Dom, I have to go to Milan for work in October.
Dominic: I'm sorry. yeah, have to? You spoiled brat
Kevin Spisak: Have to or get to.
Chief Wedge Officer: They were like I know, I know, I know.
Dominic: I'm going to Balon, hmm?
Kevin Spisak: All right, here we go. Down. Over under fourteen seconds.
Dominic: See you Kevin. Over.
Kevin Spisak: Over? Damn. Nope. No faith. No faith. No faith. Alright. I'll start when the clock hits 20 on the recording.
Dominic: Yeah, it's a lot of foam. It's a lot of foam.
Brendan Dolan: You
Dominic: A warm then it might be under.
Chief Wedge Officer: You got it, Kevin. I believe You Jordan speed!
Dominic: Hammer the over.
Brendan Dolan: you
Kevin Spisak: Ha ha.
Dominic: That was like the Shack. The Shack with the spicy chip. I'm not making a face.
Kevin Spisak: Whoa
Chief Wedge Officer: That's good stuff.
Kevin Spisak: sorry about that. Whew Yeah wrong pipe. I was trying to go too fast.
Dominic: That's incredible. Are you okay?
Kevin Spisak: Anyways.
Dominic: Well while Kevin recovers, we can go through one and done'
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah.
Dominic: that was awesome. Okay. So to recap last week for the John Deere Classic. So Matt went with Eric Cole and he kind of had a a nice little resurgence on Friday. Had the I think he tied the low round of the tournament nine under to end up no sorry, eight under to get into the cut line, which is awesome. So we all made the cut. Kevin went Jacob Bridgman, and then I went Ben Griffin.
Kevin Spisak: Hmm.
Dominic: So Eric Holman finishing thirty-ninth place, so that put puts Matt at nine seventy-six. And then Jacob Bridgeman finished twenty-sixth, puts Kevin at six thirty. And then Ben Griffin finished at twenty-one, puts me at five seventy-one. So I gained a little more ground against old Kevy Pooh over there, who's slowly creeping up. but
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. I I'd like to highlight that Matt's season average it is forty eight point eight and he has beaten that each of the last four weeks. So he he's lower in the average every week.
Brendan Dolan: you
Dominic: That's massive. Yeah, he is a couple outliers, but overall, not horrible.
Kevin Spisak: He he does not have the worst pick of the season. Shout out Patrick Reed at the US Open.
Chief Wedge Officer: My That's Mm-hmm.
Dominic: Which is which is just the worst. So because we have a guest, Brendan's here, our previous guest, Kenny, he went with Minwoo Lee during the Texas Children's Houston Open. And he's our only guest, so you can't choose Minwu Lee. But guest you get to go first. Who are you gonna choose for the Genesis Scott open? And don't be afraid to share your thought process.
Kevin Spisak: And Minw Lee got third that week, so you got tough act to follow.
Brendan Dolan: Yeah. So I think the easy pick would be Chris Godrup who actually won the Scottish Open last year and obviously is coming off a great week in the great state of Iowa. I put my mat hat on for a second and I saw that Christopher Rytan has been playing well as of late and maybe a popular pick.
Kevin Spisak: Okay.
Dominic: My mat hat.
Brendan Dolan: But I'm gonna go with the guy that actually ended up second last year. It's trending up. Draft Kings has him performing pretty well this week. I'm going with Marco Penje.
Kevin Spisak: that's Matt's boy.
Chief Wedge Officer: Ooh. Yeah, that is my boy.
Dominic: Man, you really did put your mat hat on.
Brendan Dolan: You
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, that is my boy. I've already picked him, so I can't yeah, God. That's a good pick.
Kevin Spisak: Ha ha. Wait you haven't picked him. That was your that was one of your draft picks for a major. You I don't think you've actually picked him. But Brendan took Brendan took him, so you can't.
Dominic: Let's go. That's awesome.
Chief Wedge Officer: that's right. Yeah, I did him as the draft. You're right, you're right, you're right. Hmm. Is it my is it my turn now?
Dominic: Yep, Matt, you you got ups.
Kevin Spisak: is you do have nine hundred and seventy six points so you do get to draft first every week.
Dominic: Just had to shout it out one more time.
Kevin Spisak: Ha ha ha.
Chief Wedge Officer: Thanks, Kev. you know, man
Kevin Spisak: Sorry, I that Miller light's really hitting me hard.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah. I really
Dominic: I mean it's so use your keyboard.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah, my office is gonna smell like beer for a while.
Chief Wedge Officer: I really, really thought long and hard about this. and a lot just a lot of different different people. Francesco Molinari came to the mind. Matteo Monasero. tons of just Euros that we can choose from.
Dominic: Johnny Kiefer.
Chief Wedge Officer: Nikolai von Delling Swassen. No, I am going Alex Fitzpatrick, I think younger bro, yeah, plays well this week.
Kevin Spisak: Like it.
Dominic: Okay, okay.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Dominic: I'm trying to make sure that he's in the field.
Chief Wedge Officer: I was I was
Kevin Spisak: Good. Yeah, he is. World Golf Rank number sixty two.
Chief Wedge Officer: he is in the field. He is in the field. I was I was between I was between him and Shudarshan Yellow Muraju.
Brendan Dolan: Yep.
Dominic: nice. Okay, cool. A nice one. All right, Kevin. Who who's you got this week?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah.
Kevin Spisak: yeah, I I thought Matt was gonna w he kind of teed up the John Rahm pick, but did did you already pick John Rahm before? Or was that no, that was Dom who picked John Rahm. so I Yeah. That was a good pick. not gonna go with John Rahm. I'm gonna go with his good old buddy Tyrell Hatton.
Chief Wedge Officer: No, no.
Dominic: And y'all made fun of me and he got T two, so suck it.
Brendan Dolan: You
Kevin Spisak: Think think he's gonna play well this week. That I think that might be my first live guy of the year. Not that we have had that many opportunities to pick one, but yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, he does like like Lynx golf too. Didn't you pick P? But I guess he wasn't a live guy.
Kevin Spisak: Who?
Chief Wedge Officer: Didn't you pick Patrick Reed at one point?
Dominic: only I've picked
Kevin Spisak: No, of course not. That's
Dominic: I think I've al I've the one who's picked Live Guys.
Brendan Dolan: You
Kevin Spisak: the last thing on earth I would do.
Chief Wedge Officer: Kevin, if we have Patrick Reed on this podcast, would you still
Dominic: Okay.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah, I I'd a hundred percent talk to him. And I would tell him
Chief Wedge Officer: I'm gonna put a I'm gonna br put a request in to his people.
Kevin Spisak: Do it.
Dominic: That'd be incredible.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Brendan Dolan: And we'll show clips of Kevin.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah, we gotta cut
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah.
Kevin Spisak: every week, every time. I've like spoken ill of Patrick Reed. And then I'll also pull my college friend's golf group chat of like every Patrick Reed comment over the last like twelve years. Yeah, it'd be great.
Dominic: Yeah, yeah. I would actually love to see that regardless if we have Patrick Reed on or not. You should get that going. mine is pretty straightforward. I'm going with Matt's brother and we'll have a little face off. Give me Matthew Fitzpatrick.
Chief Wedge Officer: Mm. I like
Kevin Spisak: Yes.
Dominic: We'll see which one plays better. That'll be fun.
Chief Wedge Officer: Very fun.
Dominic: I had to I had to triple check. As you know, Brendan, I have a very bad streak of choosing people who aren't playing. So this works out. Beautiful. Alright. We did it. That was very fun.
Kevin Spisak: I feel like Dom, when we get to the playoffs, you're not gonna have anyone to pick.
Dominic: That's what hey. That's the that's the dice I rolled in the beginning of the year. So we'll see how this goes.
Kevin Spisak: Matt Fitzpatrick, well the open is gonna be so big. Like with with the double points. If you have another P Reed like performance, I'm right back in it, baby.
Dominic: I mean, I have Scotty and Rory and none of y'all have so I think I'll be okay. I can ch just choose one of them.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: Now that I say that though, it's gonna it's not gonna go well. But all right. I think that's it. Thanks for listening. Brendan, thanks again for coming on. I think we learned a lot too, and that was a very fun conversation. like we said, check out TPI if you can. If they're coming to your club, give them a try. try some more titleist woods and irons and maybe even some bridgestone irons. Who knows? Could be kind of fun. But Make sure you follow us, Spotify, Apple, YouTube at Under Covers Golf. Pretty excited for the Genesis Scottish Open and then the Open directly after, because it's not the British Open anymore. But see you next week.
Chief Wedge Officer: Shout out Kingsbarn.