Latest / The Sean O'Connell Show / Paul Pugmire reacts to the British Open, Ryan Fox winning his first major, DeChambeau's controversial penalty + more

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Paul Pugmire reacts to the British Open, Ryan Fox winning his first major, DeChambeau's controversial penalty + more · The Sean O'Connell Show

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  Speaker 1: You tuned to the Sean O'Connell Show for the Murdoch
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  Speaker 1: Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred at ninety two one af.
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  Speaker 2: AM, Welcome back to the show Connell Show.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome man. Paul pug Meyer, President of First t Utah,
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  Speaker 1: host of Utah Golf Radio right here on ESPN seven
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  Speaker 1: hundred and ninety two one FM on Saturday mornings, friend
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  Speaker 1: of the program and golf expert. Hi, Paul pug Meyer, Welcome.
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  Speaker 1: How are you, Sewan?
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  Speaker 3: I'm good man. Hey, I want I want to be
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  Speaker 3: friend of the program. I like that. Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, Bona Fide died in the world, going many years back.
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  Speaker 1: Friend of the program here and a guy I rely
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  Speaker 1: on very heavily when it comes to golf, as you know,
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  Speaker 1: not exactly my sport. I'm so I'm in Texas this
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  Speaker 1: weekend callin fights. You got were Cup final and still
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  Speaker 1: the Open, the British Open, the Open Championship is making
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  Speaker 1: a lot of noise even on the front page of things.
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  Speaker 1: You got a little controversy with Bryce into Shambo. You
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  Speaker 1: got a wild final round. Ultimately Ryan Fox winning this thing.
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  Speaker 1: I want to get to that here in a second.
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  Speaker 1: But can we talk about the two stroke penalty and
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  Speaker 1: the tantrum from Bryson to Shambo. I was very eager
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  Speaker 1: to get your thoughts as soon as I saw it
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  Speaker 1: happening a couple of days ago.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Wow, what a series of events that unfolded. First
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  Speaker 3: of all, let's let's be really clear straight up, in
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  Speaker 3: terms of a of a referee judgment, in terms of
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  Speaker 3: a of a rules official making a decision. This one
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  Speaker 3: was simple, This one, this one was so easy. It
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  Speaker 3: was an infraction. It was a penalty. I like Bryson
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  Speaker 3: day Shamba, and it would have taken me about four
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  Speaker 3: seconds to give him a penalty because he stepped in
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  Speaker 3: back of the ball and pushed down the grass and
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  Speaker 3: improved the conditions of his shot. We've all known since
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  Speaker 3: we were kids, you can't do that, and he knows that.
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  Speaker 3: Who knows what was possessing his mind. I don't think
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  Speaker 3: he's a guy who's trying to cheat and get away
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  Speaker 3: with things that I would have given him a penalty
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  Speaker 3: in a flash. He was absolutely improving the conditions of his.
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  Speaker 1: Shot, and he obviously well, it seemed like he disagreed,
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  Speaker 1: and he was arguing aggressively, and he threatened to you know,
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  Speaker 1: a vague threat to maybe not continue play over it
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  Speaker 1: and things like that. And I think that's where maybe
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  Speaker 1: some of the other players were like, all right, come
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  Speaker 1: on man, and you know some guys abstained from making comments.
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  Speaker 1: Some guys did make comment about it. So you just
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  Speaker 1: said you do like Bryce and to Shambeau, it feels
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  Speaker 1: like he's not real popular on tour after this incident.
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  Speaker 3: This incident is going to take him a little bit
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  Speaker 3: to recover from because it starts to affect the personal
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  Speaker 3: lives of the other competitors. The way this works is
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  Speaker 3: obviously you don't know what the pairings are, so you
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  Speaker 3: don't know your TE time until after everybody has completed play. Well,
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  Speaker 3: they didn't have Bryson des Chambeau's his score. Therefore where
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  Speaker 3: he would be on the T sheet for this for
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  Speaker 3: the next day until later than normal because you know,
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  Speaker 3: he was contesting this penalty. So was he finishing T
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  Speaker 3: two or was he finishing T five? And therefore who
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  Speaker 3: would he play with? What would his T time be?
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  Speaker 3: What that meant was that nobody could that the R
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  Speaker 3: and A could not send out the T times in
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  Speaker 3: a text system that they have that all the players
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  Speaker 3: rely on, and they're used to getting their texts telling
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  Speaker 3: them when they play the next day and who they're
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  Speaker 3: paired with in a certain time window, and it's just
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  Speaker 3: it's it just happens like clockwork, week in, week out,
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  Speaker 3: and this time it didn't because Bryson was throwing sand
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  Speaker 3: in the gears. And so these guys, some of them
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  Speaker 3: went ahead and went to bed not knowing what their
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  Speaker 3: tea times were the next day. So you start screwing
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  Speaker 3: with people's plans and with people running their lives. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: there's gonna be some bad feelings.
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  Speaker 1: How difficult is it from a gameplay perspective after you
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  Speaker 1: have not only a two stroke penalty, but then an
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  Speaker 1: argument over it, and then you know, maybe like a
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  Speaker 1: little tantrum if you want to call it that, and
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  Speaker 1: a controversial kind of exit. How hard is it to
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  Speaker 1: just get back to playing good golf after something like that.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure it's different for every player, but
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  Speaker 1: the two stroke penalties already costly enough. It feels like
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  Speaker 1: no one's done any favors by the aftermath.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no winners out of this, that's for sure.
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  Speaker 3: You ask a really good question, and I think you've
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  Speaker 3: already answered it. It's a little different for each player,
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  Speaker 3: how well they can bounce back from this, how well
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  Speaker 3: they can compartmentalize the issues from the shot in front
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  Speaker 3: of him and go about hitting the shot in front
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  Speaker 3: of him. The top players all are very, very good
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  Speaker 3: at that, and Deve Sambo is a top player and
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  Speaker 3: he's good at it, and so I don't think that
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  Speaker 3: it affected him much in that way. Plus, he has
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  Speaker 3: been playing very well lately, and he ended up not
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  Speaker 3: having a good Sunday. Okay, there's a great many players
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  Speaker 3: who didn't have a good Sunday, but he still was
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  Speaker 3: playing really well. He chased that sixty eight. He touched
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  Speaker 3: it sixty six times on Friday. The score ended up
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  Speaker 3: being sixty eight with the penalty, but he went out
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  Speaker 3: the next day on Saturday and shot sixty nine. He
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  Speaker 3: still was in the mix. He's a good player and
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  Speaker 3: he has been playing well again. Slipped with the seventy
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  Speaker 3: two on Sunday, but I don't think it affected him
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  Speaker 3: much at all. He and the two shots. If he
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  Speaker 3: would have stayed at the top of his game where
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  Speaker 3: he was for the first couple of days, he would
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  Speaker 3: have overcome that. He could have overcome that he's just
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  Speaker 3: that quality of a player.
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  Speaker 1: Now, of course, hindsight is twenty twenty. But you're a
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  Speaker 1: man of honesty and integrity, so I know you'll answer
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  Speaker 1: this question thus, Ryan Fox, Cam Young Sam Burns, Scottie Scheffler,
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  Speaker 1: Tommy Fleet. Were they obviously all played very well on
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  Speaker 1: what was like by all accounts, a pretty burnt out
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  Speaker 1: and difficult fast course. Would I give you that list
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  Speaker 1: of names? Were those the guys that you thought, hey,
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  Speaker 1: this might actually, this might actually work for them?
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  Speaker 3: And Young Yes Burns, I would not have been surprised.
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  Speaker 3: I've got a good friend who was all in on
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  Speaker 3: Sam Burns from a couple of weeks ago. Ryan Fox, No,
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  Speaker 3: he was not on my radar. Now, the fact that
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  Speaker 3: he ends up being there ultimately was not a terrible surprise.
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  Speaker 3: For one thing, the tour is so deep, Holy cow,
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  Speaker 3: there are so many good players who are any week
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  Speaker 3: can have a good week. Can they lace together four
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  Speaker 3: rounds and they can win? And if it happens to
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  Speaker 3: happen on a major championship week, that look at that.
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  Speaker 3: You've got a piece of history. You know, Andy North
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  Speaker 3: that only won three tournaments in his PGA career, two
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  Speaker 3: of them were US Opens. Orbill Moody only won two
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  Speaker 3: or three. One of them was a US Open, So
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  Speaker 3: you can do that kind of thing. But no, going
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  Speaker 3: into this, was I looking at Ryan Fox? I was not.
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  Speaker 3: I was. I did have Cameron Young on my radar.
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  Speaker 3: I absolutely had Scottie Scheffler on my radar. I was
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  Speaker 3: cheering for Tommy Flee. Would that he grew up five
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  Speaker 3: minutes away from this golf course. This is his hometown,
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  Speaker 3: his childhood town. So some of the other names up
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  Speaker 3: there high on the leader board. Yeah, I was looking
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  Speaker 3: at him, as was everybody else. But anybody who says
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  Speaker 3: that they had money on Ryan Fox coming in, they
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  Speaker 3: either put money on everybody in the field or they're
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  Speaker 3: pulling your leg.
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  Speaker 1: How shocked were players by the conditions of the course
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  Speaker 1: and the fact that, you know, it's not supposed to
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  Speaker 1: be hot like that in England really ever, but you
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  Speaker 1: know this time of year. I guess if it's going
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  Speaker 1: to be hot, it would be this time of year.
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  Speaker 1: I was hanging out with some English folks over the
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  Speaker 1: weekend and they were like, man, you don't realize we
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  Speaker 1: don't have air conditioner in our homes. This is a
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  Speaker 1: bad deal for a lot of us.
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  Speaker 3: That's exactly right. You know, that's a really interesting and
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  Speaker 3: good question. These British opens get baked down and the
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  Speaker 3: courses get fiery. It seems like kind of on a
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  Speaker 3: ten year cycle. It happened. And there are some very
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  Speaker 3: famous British opens in history where they were playing in
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  Speaker 3: course conditions very much like we saw this weekend, the
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  Speaker 3: incredible shootdown at Troon in nineteen seventy seven between between
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  Speaker 3: Tom Watson and Jack Nicholas. Every time the ball hit
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  Speaker 3: the fairway, it kicked up dust. It was so fast
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  Speaker 3: and so dry and worn that year. And so it happens.
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  Speaker 3: But it is the exception, there's no doubt about it.
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  Speaker 3: But going into this one, everybody knew what to expect,
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  Speaker 3: you know, the weather patterns had been what they were,
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  Speaker 3: and everybody knew that Birkdale was baked out and it
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  Speaker 3: was going to be running really fast, and it did,
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  Speaker 3: which made for some compelling golf.
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  Speaker 1: So where do you turn your eyes now after this tournament?
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  Speaker 1: Where like, are you focused on a particular player? Is
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  Speaker 1: there another tournament You're like, all right, this one's going
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  Speaker 1: to really challenge the field. Where does Paul Pugmyer's attention
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  Speaker 1: shift to after the British Open.
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  Speaker 3: Well, of course, I've always got my eye on the
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  Speaker 3: Utah players on Utah Golf Radio. We call them upots,
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  Speaker 3: which is a Utah player on tour. So you know
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  Speaker 3: we're talking Patrick Fishburn and Zach Blair. Zax been on
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  Speaker 3: a bit of a heater lately. He has two top
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  Speaker 3: tens in a row going into this week. He wasn't
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  Speaker 3: in the field at the Open Championship, but Zach's been
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  Speaker 3: playing real well. But really your attention turns to the
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: FedEx playoffs? Have they The playoffs get going here and
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: about a month and so we're going to be watching
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  Speaker 3: who's the top thirty, who makes the field, and we're
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  Speaker 3: going to be watching the bubble boys who are trying
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  Speaker 3: to get into the top seventy to get their cards
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  Speaker 3: for next year.
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  Speaker 1: Paul, I always appreciate your time and your perspective when
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: you give us a little breakdown on this golf stuff.
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  Speaker 1: So thank you, and I'll remind everyone to tune into
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Utah Golf Radio on Saturday mornings right here on ESPN
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  Speaker 1: seven hundred and ninety two one FM.
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  Speaker 3: Appreciate it, man, thanks a lot.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: That's Paul Pugmeyer, our insider here and yes, you can
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: listen to him on this very airwave on this station
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: on Saturday mornings, talking golf. He will have a much
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: more in depth dive into the British Open and everything
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  Speaker 1: that's coming