May 20, 2024 • 13 mins
Brian Manzella, a PGA Teaching Professional, discusses Valhall's ability to put on an entertaining tournament, how he would've handled Xander's last putt, a lot of the stars showing-up, and Bryson DeChambeau being "one of one"...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I always love talking with Brian Manzelli'sa PGA teaching professional based in the New
Orleans of the great cities in America. And you, Brian, always taking
these majors with your special look atbecause you did a great preview of it
and here we are now it's allcooked, baked in the cake. I
(00:21):
want you to break it down forus. What was your first takeaway overall
from the PGA Championship in Louisville.And I took a lot of heat.
Great to be on Terry. Itook a lot of heat for this after
the third round on the Twitter nowX of course when I said it should
(00:41):
be obvious to anybody at this point, and this was before the fourth round,
so I would reiterate what I saidon there is Valhall is a really
good host for an event like this. Yeah, there's traffic issues. God
bless the family of the of thegentleman who lost his life. That's a
(01:02):
ridiculous tragedy that you never want tohappen in any event. But every event
that's been there, including the firstone in ninety six, has been an
exciting finish and usually a really goodleaderboard. The thing that you're trying to
do in a major championship is you'retrying to identify the best player that week.
(01:26):
That's what you're trying to do.And the criticism online is mostly about
it's a Nicholas course and it playedeasy and then well, obviously you and
I have both played the course abunch, you a lot more than me.
It was sold, I mean,and it's not anybody's fault that it
(01:47):
rained the week before and it rainedthe week of the tournament. But I
think it was a great event thatcrowned a worthy champion. What else can
you ask for except, you know, no loss of life exactly right,
Yeah, mister Mills's death, we'reall sad about that. The play on
the course, though, really wasgreat and it was It was riveting right
(02:09):
until the end, just like theprevious PGA championships, So it doesn't matter
what the scoring situation was. Yeah, it's soft and it's easier for him
to make him stick. It wasstill competitive right up until the end.
Well, I don't think there's anyone hundred percent. I don't think there's
any doubt that the best player inthe world who had never won a major
(02:31):
is Xander Shaffle, and he wona major, he's folded in the past.
He shot sixty five and he burdiedthe last hole with a little you
know, I mean he had.It was a bad break that he had
the little funny lie where he's gotthe ball above his feet and he's standing
in the bulk of are on eighteen. Okay, let's stop right there,
Brian, what would you tell someoneWe saw what he did, what he
(02:55):
was aiming out to the right,But what would you tell someone who was
trying to attempt that shot? Justchip something out and then work with a
third shot. Well, we ain'tgoing over that water on it, right,
right, Just start with that.We're going up the left that way.
If he if he tops it,which people don't understand while he's a
pro, he's not gonna top it. He slipped and he could have slipped
(03:19):
worse. It's saying and so,and you're playing a shot that's not a
normal shot, a pretty full shotout of a you know, ball above
your feet, balls on grass,you're in the sand. It's not a
normal shot. So the play isdefinitely to hit it up the left that
way. If he rolls its seventyfive yards down there, he's just got
eight iron or something right, andhe's still had a chance to win.
(03:42):
But that's the play for Lexander.And if I was, you know,
caddying for mister Faversham, you know, hearing the old white Valhalla jumpsuit in
the middle of the summer and losingtwenty pounds of water, I would still
tell him the same thing. Takethis four on here, and I never
have you hit any place else,mister Faversham, and just skated up that
(04:05):
left side. Then we'll play thethird shot later. That was a gutsy
though. That just was a gutsysecond shot and the third shot. You
know that I watched five hours ofgolf, which I tend not to do,
but I watched four and a halfthe day before, and I watched
(04:25):
five of the last round and everybodywho hit it left to the green all
came up short, including the lasttwo cats who got up and down right,
des Chambeau and Shartly both. Therewas something about the look of that
shot for all of those players tocome up short. And you know,
(04:46):
he came up a little bit lessshort. I think he was six foot
two inches away, and that puttBareley went in. They showed the view
I was standing there on the hillwhen Tiger made that double breaker to get
into playoff with Bob May you knowabout you know, halfway up that hill
to the cart path, And theyshowed that view after the term was over,
(05:09):
after Sharftley went into the you know, the scorer's tent, and they
had a box fan, And nowI'm thinking, surely we could afford something
better than the box fan. Buteither way, he barely made that putt
and you know, you would havehad the four hole playoff situation again.
But anybody who once great theater bothin person, the amount of people that
(05:32):
were on TV that you could seeon the eighteenth toll is unprecedented in my
fifty two years of watching golf onTV. I'm there must have been seventy
thousand people on eighteen that was Itseemed like they were ten deep way back
by the tea box. Imagine theywere watching the big jumbo trons and that's
(05:55):
why there were so many folks there. But just a great turnout and an
overall worthy winner. Yeah, andthat footprint is huge because it's four hundred
and sixty something acres. They've gotthe land for people to move around,
move to other holes and a lotof other courses don't have that luxury.
That's why it's still a great venue. And people were questioning because of the
Scheffler situation, they'll never come backand mister Mill's getting killed in traffic a
(06:17):
worker. They're saying that, sincethere's only one way in the PGA,
will never come back. That's nonsense. There's opportunities. They're way down the
road because the slots are already filled, the dance cards already filled up for
a long time. But that's ait's about business, and they do good
business in Louisville, very good business. And and maybe it's a better ride
(06:40):
of cup venue than it is becausethen nobody, nobody seems to care and
match play. Oh my god,the End of the World twenty one under.
There were four other and they showedit on TV. Four other majors.
You know people have shot twenty under. One of them was Jason Day
shot twenty under out of all placeswith in straits, which I'm sure you've
(07:00):
played. And if the wind blowsfifteen miles an hour at Whistland Streets,
you can make it. Where nobodyfinishes, they run out of ball,
right, it's you know, sothose guys, I don't think anybody realizes
how good they are until they dothis to it. Otherwise not easy golf
course. And you can tell it'snot easy because there are people that are
(07:25):
pretty dan good golfers that didn't shootany kind of good scores at all.
You know that Sam Burns, youknow, from Louisiana seventy two to seventy
three, not even close to makingthe cut. So if it's so easy,
why wasn't it easy for everybody?Because it's soft, and if you
hit it in the fairway, itstayed in the fairway, and if you
(07:45):
hit it on the green, itpretty much stays. But it's still it's
still tough as golf courses go.And that doesn't make it good or bad.
It's just one of those things wherewhere's all the bad players on this
leaderboard that I'm looking at on mycomputer screen that there's no accidental people in
there. This is all. Thisis the all star team that was up
(08:07):
there, you know, down thestretch for sure, no doubt about it.
We could go pick through a lotof shots. I want to ask
you about one of them, though, because you've played Valhal enough to know
how tough. That shot was forShoftly on number twelve, where he's got
a long shot in there, thepins all the way on the right.
You know that that bunker is ayou know, a death fall, death
(08:28):
plunge right off the right side,and that guy decides to go right at
that pin. That was gutsy consideringwhere he was in the tournament. Well,
as folks know, he made aquestionable decision there on ten trying to
hit you know, I mean Iwas dumb. I mean I would have
stole the hybrid and ran down thefairway if I was caddy from But he
(08:50):
makes bogey there, lucky to makebogie, and he stuffed it in there
on eleven and twelve. The differencebetween eleven and twelve is there's not anything
good that's going to happen down inthat bunk. Although some people got up
and down and somebody made the shot, it's it's a lot of bad.
They wasn't also leading the tournament,right, so for him to do that,
(09:11):
he completely trusted you know, hisgame at that point in time.
And uh, you know the booksays, you know, there's there's there's
all kind of you know, strategybooks that the tour players some you know
page that people for that would sayabsolutely, don't do it. Well,
you know, the great players thatI've worked with, they'll tell you.
(09:33):
You have to know, it's ait's a situation based thing. Right.
Sometimes you're gonna call the play inthe in the in the football game that
you're never gonna call any other timebecause this is the time. And that
really punctuated where he was in thein the field at the time, and
it also catapulted him the feeling greatabout his his chances in his game the
(09:56):
rest of the way, no doubtabout it. D Chambeau's image I think
has taken a nice upturn. Youfeel that, oh well, you know,
I mean, like I think theRyder Cup did that for him,
right, so he you know,the Ryder Cup that we won at Whistling
Straight. You know, he didn'thave the crazy Holgan cap on, which
looks terrible on him, right,look good on mister Hogan, look terrible
(10:18):
on this. And he's kind ofa goofy cat for you know, for
for who he is, and he'she's growing up a little bit and he's
figured out, you know, it'sbetter to have the people with you than
against you, and he plays tothe crowd, and right now you would
have a tough time saying that he'snot the most exciting player in golf.
(10:39):
He he He entertains the people's emotion, which is big. That's what made
partially what made Tiger Tiger. Andthe guy can fly a golf ball three
hundred and sixty yards and nobody elsereally that's gonna have a chance to win
a tournament like this. Ken,So he's he's in a he's a one
(11:00):
of one and I'm glad to seethem. And and that just proves that
the powers that be and golf aregoing to have to figure away more than
four times a year to get allthe best players together. And you got
to give the PGA of America creditfor doing this because it added a lot
to this event. Right. Yeah. It's like when the Stones are on
(11:20):
stage and out comes a couple ofguys from Led Zeppelin and you know,
the Police and this or that orwhatever, and they're all out there doing
an all star concert. That's whatthese championships are because everybody's on the dance
floor and that's what we need.Well, you're trying to you know,
it's the PGA of America has alwaysfancied themselves as a tournament that has the
(11:46):
best feeling golf. I don't knowabout the twenty club pros. You know,
I'm one of them, but I'mnot a club pro. But it's
just, you know, we're PGAAmerica members. Maybe we need ten spots
for that but instead of twenty.But it's one of those things where they
really, they really tried this yearto put all the craziness aside and just
(12:07):
say, hey, we're inviting allthese people, and one of those people
almost won the Chambeau. It's certainlynot a real tournament if you take you
know, their four or five sixbest players and not have them in the
event. And it was great tohave them. Man, I think the
fans agreat. I love what youwrote on Twitter. I just read it
here. Brian Manzila is the handleon Twitter or x and you can read
(12:31):
what he was writing about it.And then some people gave you a lip.
But those are golf nerds who arejust they just think everything's got to
be you know, everybody's got tobe four under par or excuse me,
plus four to make it like it'sa real challenge. Well, you know,
it's It's one of those things whenI when I've played a couple of
like ridiculously hard golf courses, oakMine is certainly right there with it.
(12:54):
It's the only if you get areally hard, hard, hard setup andly
trick it up, which you cando right. You can make Valhalla super
hard greens and grow to rough upsix inches everywhere and everybody's chopping it out.
I can beat one of these guysfor non holes. I'm not in
these guys leagues. I'm a zerohandicapped. That means I'm twelve shots around
(13:16):
from macloy. But it's one ofthose things if you make it, if
you make it too tough, youcan have a fluke winner. You're not
gonna have a fluke winner if it'sjust fair and you did not have a
fluke winner last week, got aguy who deserved it. Hey, Brian
man zeligrade, talking to you again. Thanks so much always, Terry,
(13:37):
looking forward to talking football with youlater in the year. Absolutely go Tigers,
Brian Manzella live from New Orleans.He is not talking about stex Tigers.
He is an LSU fanatic. Hedoesn't miss anything. Lsues on back
and if you're on news radio Waightforty whas
I always love talking with Brian Manzelli'sa PGA teaching professional based in the New
Orleans of the great cities in America. And you, Brian, always taking
these majors with your special look atbecause you did a great preview of it
and here we are now it's allcooked, baked in the cake. I
(00:21):
want you to break it down forus. What was your first takeaway overall
from the PGA Championship in Louisville.And I took a lot of heat.
Great to be on Terry. Itook a lot of heat for this after
the third round on the Twitter nowX of course when I said it should
(00:41):
be obvious to anybody at this point, and this was before the fourth round,
so I would reiterate what I saidon there is Valhall is a really
good host for an event like this. Yeah, there's traffic issues. God
bless the family of the of thegentleman who lost his life. That's a
(01:02):
ridiculous tragedy that you never want tohappen in any event. But every event
that's been there, including the firstone in ninety six, has been an
exciting finish and usually a really goodleaderboard. The thing that you're trying to
do in a major championship is you'retrying to identify the best player that week.
(01:26):
That's what you're trying to do.And the criticism online is mostly about
it's a Nicholas course and it playedeasy and then well, obviously you and
I have both played the course abunch, you a lot more than me.
It was sold, I mean,and it's not anybody's fault that it
(01:47):
rained the week before and it rainedthe week of the tournament. But I
think it was a great event thatcrowned a worthy champion. What else can
you ask for except, you know, no loss of life exactly right,
Yeah, mister Mills's death, we'reall sad about that. The play on
the course, though, really wasgreat and it was It was riveting right
(02:09):
until the end, just like theprevious PGA championships, So it doesn't matter
what the scoring situation was. Yeah, it's soft and it's easier for him
to make him stick. It wasstill competitive right up until the end.
Well, I don't think there's anyone hundred percent. I don't think there's
any doubt that the best player inthe world who had never won a major
(02:31):
is Xander Shaffle, and he wona major, he's folded in the past.
He shot sixty five and he burdiedthe last hole with a little you
know, I mean he had.It was a bad break that he had
the little funny lie where he's gotthe ball above his feet and he's standing
in the bulk of are on eighteen. Okay, let's stop right there,
Brian, what would you tell someoneWe saw what he did, what he
(02:55):
was aiming out to the right,But what would you tell someone who was
trying to attempt that shot? Justchip something out and then work with a
third shot. Well, we ain'tgoing over that water on it, right,
right, Just start with that.We're going up the left that way.
If he if he tops it,which people don't understand while he's a
pro, he's not gonna top it. He slipped and he could have slipped
(03:19):
worse. It's saying and so,and you're playing a shot that's not a
normal shot, a pretty full shotout of a you know, ball above
your feet, balls on grass,you're in the sand. It's not a
normal shot. So the play isdefinitely to hit it up the left that
way. If he rolls its seventyfive yards down there, he's just got
eight iron or something right, andhe's still had a chance to win.
(03:42):
But that's the play for Lexander.And if I was, you know,
caddying for mister Faversham, you know, hearing the old white Valhalla jumpsuit in
the middle of the summer and losingtwenty pounds of water, I would still
tell him the same thing. Takethis four on here, and I never
have you hit any place else,mister Faversham, and just skated up that
(04:05):
left side. Then we'll play thethird shot later. That was a gutsy
though. That just was a gutsysecond shot and the third shot. You
know that I watched five hours ofgolf, which I tend not to do,
but I watched four and a halfthe day before, and I watched
(04:25):
five of the last round and everybodywho hit it left to the green all
came up short, including the lasttwo cats who got up and down right,
des Chambeau and Shartly both. Therewas something about the look of that
shot for all of those players tocome up short. And you know,
(04:46):
he came up a little bit lessshort. I think he was six foot
two inches away, and that puttBareley went in. They showed the view
I was standing there on the hillwhen Tiger made that double breaker to get
into playoff with Bob May you knowabout you know, halfway up that hill
to the cart path, And theyshowed that view after the term was over,
(05:09):
after Sharftley went into the you know, the scorer's tent, and they
had a box fan, And nowI'm thinking, surely we could afford something
better than the box fan. Buteither way, he barely made that putt
and you know, you would havehad the four hole playoff situation again.
But anybody who once great theater bothin person, the amount of people that
(05:32):
were on TV that you could seeon the eighteenth toll is unprecedented in my
fifty two years of watching golf onTV. I'm there must have been seventy
thousand people on eighteen that was Itseemed like they were ten deep way back
by the tea box. Imagine theywere watching the big jumbo trons and that's
(05:55):
why there were so many folks there. But just a great turnout and an
overall worthy winner. Yeah, andthat footprint is huge because it's four hundred
and sixty something acres. They've gotthe land for people to move around,
move to other holes and a lotof other courses don't have that luxury.
That's why it's still a great venue. And people were questioning because of the
Scheffler situation, they'll never come backand mister Mill's getting killed in traffic a
(06:17):
worker. They're saying that, sincethere's only one way in the PGA,
will never come back. That's nonsense. There's opportunities. They're way down the
road because the slots are already filled, the dance cards already filled up for
a long time. But that's ait's about business, and they do good
business in Louisville, very good business. And and maybe it's a better ride
(06:40):
of cup venue than it is becausethen nobody, nobody seems to care and
match play. Oh my god,the End of the World twenty one under.
There were four other and they showedit on TV. Four other majors.
You know people have shot twenty under. One of them was Jason Day
shot twenty under out of all placeswith in straits, which I'm sure you've
(07:00):
played. And if the wind blowsfifteen miles an hour at Whistland Streets,
you can make it. Where nobodyfinishes, they run out of ball,
right, it's you know, sothose guys, I don't think anybody realizes
how good they are until they dothis to it. Otherwise not easy golf
course. And you can tell it'snot easy because there are people that are
(07:25):
pretty dan good golfers that didn't shootany kind of good scores at all.
You know that Sam Burns, youknow, from Louisiana seventy two to seventy
three, not even close to makingthe cut. So if it's so easy,
why wasn't it easy for everybody?Because it's soft, and if you
hit it in the fairway, itstayed in the fairway, and if you
(07:45):
hit it on the green, itpretty much stays. But it's still it's
still tough as golf courses go.And that doesn't make it good or bad.
It's just one of those things wherewhere's all the bad players on this
leaderboard that I'm looking at on mycomputer screen that there's no accidental people in
there. This is all. Thisis the all star team that was up
(08:07):
there, you know, down thestretch for sure, no doubt about it.
We could go pick through a lotof shots. I want to ask
you about one of them, though, because you've played Valhal enough to know
how tough. That shot was forShoftly on number twelve, where he's got
a long shot in there, thepins all the way on the right.
You know that that bunker is ayou know, a death fall, death
(08:28):
plunge right off the right side,and that guy decides to go right at
that pin. That was gutsy consideringwhere he was in the tournament. Well,
as folks know, he made aquestionable decision there on ten trying to
hit you know, I mean Iwas dumb. I mean I would have
stole the hybrid and ran down thefairway if I was caddy from But he
(08:50):
makes bogey there, lucky to makebogie, and he stuffed it in there
on eleven and twelve. The differencebetween eleven and twelve is there's not anything
good that's going to happen down inthat bunk. Although some people got up
and down and somebody made the shot, it's it's a lot of bad.
They wasn't also leading the tournament,right, so for him to do that,
(09:11):
he completely trusted you know, hisgame at that point in time.
And uh, you know the booksays, you know, there's there's there's
all kind of you know, strategybooks that the tour players some you know
page that people for that would sayabsolutely, don't do it. Well,
you know, the great players thatI've worked with, they'll tell you.
(09:33):
You have to know, it's ait's a situation based thing. Right.
Sometimes you're gonna call the play inthe in the in the football game that
you're never gonna call any other timebecause this is the time. And that
really punctuated where he was in thein the field at the time, and
it also catapulted him the feeling greatabout his his chances in his game the
(09:56):
rest of the way, no doubtabout it. D Chambeau's image I think
has taken a nice upturn. Youfeel that, oh well, you know,
I mean, like I think theRyder Cup did that for him,
right, so he you know,the Ryder Cup that we won at Whistling
Straight. You know, he didn'thave the crazy Holgan cap on, which
looks terrible on him, right,look good on mister Hogan, look terrible
(10:18):
on this. And he's kind ofa goofy cat for you know, for
for who he is, and he'she's growing up a little bit and he's
figured out, you know, it'sbetter to have the people with you than
against you, and he plays tothe crowd, and right now you would
have a tough time saying that he'snot the most exciting player in golf.
(10:39):
He he He entertains the people's emotion, which is big. That's what made
partially what made Tiger Tiger. Andthe guy can fly a golf ball three
hundred and sixty yards and nobody elsereally that's gonna have a chance to win
a tournament like this. Ken,So he's he's in a he's a one
(11:00):
of one and I'm glad to seethem. And and that just proves that
the powers that be and golf aregoing to have to figure away more than
four times a year to get allthe best players together. And you got
to give the PGA of America creditfor doing this because it added a lot
to this event. Right. Yeah. It's like when the Stones are on
(11:20):
stage and out comes a couple ofguys from Led Zeppelin and you know,
the Police and this or that orwhatever, and they're all out there doing
an all star concert. That's whatthese championships are because everybody's on the dance
floor and that's what we need.Well, you're trying to you know,
it's the PGA of America has alwaysfancied themselves as a tournament that has the
(11:46):
best feeling golf. I don't knowabout the twenty club pros. You know,
I'm one of them, but I'mnot a club pro. But it's
just, you know, we're PGAAmerica members. Maybe we need ten spots
for that but instead of twenty.But it's one of those things where they
really, they really tried this yearto put all the craziness aside and just
(12:07):
say, hey, we're inviting allthese people, and one of those people
almost won the Chambeau. It's certainlynot a real tournament if you take you
know, their four or five sixbest players and not have them in the
event. And it was great tohave them. Man, I think the
fans agreat. I love what youwrote on Twitter. I just read it
here. Brian Manzila is the handleon Twitter or x and you can read
(12:31):
what he was writing about it.And then some people gave you a lip.
But those are golf nerds who arejust they just think everything's got to
be you know, everybody's got tobe four under par or excuse me,
plus four to make it like it'sa real challenge. Well, you know,
it's It's one of those things whenI when I've played a couple of
like ridiculously hard golf courses, oakMine is certainly right there with it.
(12:54):
It's the only if you get areally hard, hard, hard setup andly
trick it up, which you cando right. You can make Valhalla super
hard greens and grow to rough upsix inches everywhere and everybody's chopping it out.
I can beat one of these guysfor non holes. I'm not in
these guys leagues. I'm a zerohandicapped. That means I'm twelve shots around
(13:16):
from macloy. But it's one ofthose things if you make it, if
you make it too tough, youcan have a fluke winner. You're not
gonna have a fluke winner if it'sjust fair and you did not have a
fluke winner last week, got aguy who deserved it. Hey, Brian
man zeligrade, talking to you again. Thanks so much always, Terry,
(13:37):
looking forward to talking football with youlater in the year. Absolutely go Tigers,
Brian Manzella live from New Orleans.He is not talking about stex Tigers.
He is an LSU fanatic. Hedoesn't miss anything. Lsues on back
and if you're on news radio Waightforty whas
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