Introduction to PGA TOUR Countdown

Speaker 1 0:00

This is PGA TOUR COUNTDOWN . Well , welcome everyone . Frank Bassett , joining you for this edition of PGA TOUR COUNTDOWN . We are in florida . It's the florida swing , finally , good gracious , and the weather was fantastic . Day one is in the books at the cognizant and what we have is a jake knapp shooting a 59 oh my gosh . Jordan speith birding the three holes through the snake pit Unbelievable . And Billy Horschel chasing gators around the golf course today . Let's just get to it . I want you to hear the three interviews and then we'll close this thing out and let you get on to watching the rest of the tournament . So first up , billy Horschel .

Speaker 2 1:10

Billy talk to me about the gator encounter .

Speaker 3 1:11

Yeah , we were on number six green and I just put it out went to the left side of the green . There , right about to walk to seven , I saw the gator coming across . The cop who's walking with us walked over there and tried to shoot him , but he didn't you know , don't have anything to touch him and he was trying to get as close as he could and so , um , it was , either someone's gonna have to go up to number eight and grab a rake or , you know , I was 30 yards away , 25 yards away , and I just grabbed the club and went over there and pushed him away . Listen , he , he was going nowhere , good , and uh . So I just went over there to help the cop . As Cam said before , I went over there , he goes . What are you going to do ? Try to use a taser on him , but I think I had to get a little close on that one to try and make it effective .

Speaker 2 1:56

That's a move of a man who's lived in Florida a long time .

Speaker 3 1:58

Yeah , I mean , I'm not afraid of gators . Listen , as I tell most people I said , they're more afraid of you . Majority of the time they're only going to come after you . You know , during mating season they're a little aggressive and then if you're around their nest when they've got some eggs but majority of the time , listen , they're fine . I mean , I grew up with my dad . You know grabbing their tail when they're on the side of the bank , you know , and you know shooing them back in the water . I've never touched a tail with my hand , but I've done it with a club , so it's not that big of a deal .

Speaker 4 2:28

What club do you use to shoo a gator ?

Speaker 3 2:30

I had a 60 , and I didn't think about it . But the good thing I did grab a 60 is because I got two extra ones in the locker so that one did become unavailable . I had two more in the locker , you'd be gator bait , right now unavailable .

Speaker 4 2:44

I had two more in the locker , be Gator bait right now . Yeah , exactly , you saw what Jake did . You were out there for the Talk about those conditions . It's probably as best as you played here a lot .

Speaker 3 2:52

Yeah , I mean , listen , there was no win so it helped tremendously . Listen , you gotta tip your hat to him . He shot 12 on the par 59 on PGA National , which no one ever thought . But I know we had a discussion earlier this week and I've probably , you know , changed my tune a little bit .

Speaker 3 3:09

I think the overseed has , you know , rough's not long enough . Um , it's not penal enough when you miss the fairway . Um , I really wish we would just play this as a straight bermuda . Um , you know , from t to green , everything can be straight bermuda . I know it doesn't look pretty on TV and I know that's one of the reasons why it's overseeded .

Speaker 3 3:28

But it is unfortunate because for me , growing up in Florida , the one advantage I have is being born and raised on Bermuda grass and understanding the intricacies of playing on Bermuda grass and chipping off it and judging the lie out of it . I don't have that advantage , as maybe someone playing out in california on poena greens , feeling comfortable on poena greens . So it is a little disappointing that , you know . I say the condition of the course is is very scorable , but at the same time you still got to go out there , you still got to hit golf shots , you still got to make putts . But this will be right if scoring sort of stays the way it is going into the afternoon . I'm going to suspect it is because there's not much wind projected this afternoon . This will be the lowest scoring average in the history of this tournament by , I'm going to say , a shot and a half .

Speaker 4 4:17

That's about what it is , yeah .

Speaker 3 4:18

And , like I said , it's just a little disappointing because it's such a great test of golf . And , like I said , it's just a little disappointing because it's such a great test of golf and , like I said , the conditions no wind . We've had rain this week . It makes it softer . But I think if you add the Bermuda factor in , if you had Bermuda rough and Bermuda fairways and if you missed green , you had to chip it off . Bermuda instead of overseeded rye . It just makes it a little bit tougher .

Speaker 3 4:40

But listen , there's three days left . Hopefully the wind picks up . Hopefully we see a little bit of pj national , because it is fun playing this golf course when it's tough . I think a lot of us do enjoy it . I think you know , steph and I talked about that and cam cam young we're all three talked about how enjoyable it is to play a really tough golf course and not have to feel like you gotta go shoot five , six , seven under par , normally two , three unders , a really good round here , um , but like I said , we got three more days and we see what happens .

Speaker 2 5:04

Billy , just wondering . You said just walking over maybe most feet of putts you made all season . Just where ? How's the journey been with the putter this season where you're at with all of it ?

Speaker 3 5:11

Yeah , it's been a struggle . You know , mechanically the setup hasn't . There's been maybe one or two weeks where it's felt pretty good and then at the same time I've hit a lot of good putts at burned edges , Like this morning . I mean , I hit a good putt at 11 and 14 and 15 that I thought I made , and I mean a dimple , more of a break , and all three of them were in the hole . And so it's been that way a little bit and it's been nice to make the last two on 8 and 9 .

Speaker 3 5:41

But the consistency in the putting stroke and the way the ball is coming off just hasn't been there this year , which is unusual . I don't usually struggle that much with my putting and I can fix it quickly , and Todd Anderson and I have worked really hard on it . We worked for several hours yesterday on it and it feels better . But I just got to get comfortable and start getting more confidence and the ball is going to come off the way I want , on a consistent basis , instead of when I make a stroke it doesn't come off with the speed I want , whether it's too soft or too hard or it's a little bit of a pull or a little bit of a push . So we're trending in the right direction , and so I'm just an impatient guy at times , Yep thank you .

Speaker 2 6:20

All right , jordan , I'm sure if I told you your score before the round , you would have felt maybe you're in the lead . Just what did you see out of the golf course and how you played today .

Speaker 6 6:29

I thought , you know , after playing the first three holes , you know , and what I had , I was even par , but they were kind of more bullpens . You know , I thought that from a course setup there weren't many of the hardest pins on the golf course . A lot of them were in gettable locations , and then we didn't have any wind . So it was a beautiful morning and the hardest part was trying to figure out where it was coming from , cuz it flipped all over the place , but at five miles an hour that's not gonna do a whole lot to it . So it's about trying to find the fairway and then you should have a lot of looks from that eight to 18 range . And then , you know , bermuda throughout the day is just always going to be a better surface to roll those in on . So obviously guys were doing that .

Speaker 6 7:13

But I , like you mentioned , I would have certainly signed for six . I still would every round and I by the end of the tournament . I mean , I was thinking it was going to be like 14 or 15 this week and now you got to readjust and think it's going to be more like 20 . If I can ask , you changed balls recently .

Speaker 2 7:29

I just did today . What was the thought process ?

Speaker 6 7:32

Well , I cracked my driver and I've been trying to get into a driver since Pebble . So Phoenix , I was in a driver and then San Diego was in a driver here and adjusted settings to try to get this launch and spin right . And you know what ended up happening was the newer ball , the 25x , you know the . The window it goes into is a little closer to the one I was playing and , if anything , it spins a little Bit less , is a little lower , but it has the correct spin rates on my four or five , six irons and then from there it's just gonna be better With the driver . A lot of it was matching the driver and making sure it held my 4 , 5 , 6 irons and then from there it's just going to be better with the driver .

Speaker 1 8:10

A lot of it was matching the driver and making sure it held up in the long irons , so you're in the new 25X now . Yeah , jordan , how many holes did you get to play going into today ?

Speaker 6 8:20

and did you have any sense ? The course was going to change like what everyone is used to seeing . Yeah , I think just arriving on property I didn't realize that it was overseeded and the fairways being overseeded changes it a lot , because it'll make the fairway softer , which makes them wider , and then around the greens it's significantly easier than the dormant Bermuda . Um . So I mean you're looking at easily a stroke , a stroke around on just the change in the grass types in the fairway , and then I hit a couple in the rough on Tuesday and I could advance a 3-wood up by the green on 10 . So right away , just compared to what I had seen , I thought it would be playing easier than it typically does .

Speaker 6 8:57

But not like this . No , not necessarily like this , but again , the pins were in very gettable locations today . If you give the four locations on the green and you ask which one's the easiest , I would say you know , probably half of them were on the easiest location today and instead of just a quarter of them . So the mixture was a little different and so it's going to be harder just off of whole locations , let alone with some wind picking up as the week goes on and everything firming up a little bit . Thank you .

Speaker 2 9:32

All right , jake 59 special round . At what point did you kind of realize you were ?

Speaker 8 9:36

close , I don't really know . I mean , I knew obviously I had it going really early but at the same time that can happen and then it can kind of fizzle out pretty quick . So I thought I did a good job of just trying to focus on shot by shot and not letting what happened or what could happen affect anything . And then , once I made the long putt on 15 , it was like , oh okay , like now , this is , you know , kind of here , but you know , at the same time didn't let it affect game plan or anything like that Tried to hit an aggressive shot into 16 , 17 , and 18 . And you know , just tried to . I knew I was hitting it well , so I tried to just kind of birdie everything today .

Speaker 2 10:14

Did you know what you needed on 18 ?

Speaker 8 10:16

Yeah for sure . Yeah , I knew par was 71 . I saw the leaderboard that I was at 10 when I walked up to 15 green and then made that putt and knew where I stood . So it would have been nice to make the one in 18 , but happy with it overall .

Speaker 4 10:34

Jake , what's it like playing 18 , knowing that you could be part of history ?

Speaker 8 10:40

You know , I didn't really think about it . To be honest with you , I think if you start thinking about it too much , it's just going to add pressure to something that's very unnecessary at the same time . I mean , if it was Sunday and the tournament was coming down the line , maybe it would be different , but at the same time it's Thursday morning and I'm doing my best to just put myself in position going into the weekend . So I tried to just focus on the shot at hand and trust what I was doing all day .

Speaker 4 11:04

Jake , could you see anything like this coming ? I know you've played a lot and you played last week in Mexico . I heard you said that you played well . Your best finish is Genesis . Did you feel anything coming in ?

Speaker 8 11:16

Yeah , I think I've been trending pretty well , honestly , over the last , you know , just since the start of the season . I mean it's not like I've played really well and then really bad . I think it's just slowly gotten better since the start of the year . You know played okay at Genesis last week . You know played okay at Genesis last week . You know had a tough day on Friday and then came back on the weekend and struck the ball great . I think I was first in approach on Sunday . So I mean I was pretty aware coming into this week that my game's trending in the right way . You know it's just at the same time it's just golf , you know . I mean it's one of those things where you can be hitting it really well and not scoring . You can be hitting it bad and scoring . So I mean just doing my best right now to get the scores down a little bit , but overall I feel like I've been playing a lot better .

Speaker 4 11:56

And also , with that being said , when you feel that way and you start five under after five , does that just enhance the feeling ?

Speaker 8 12:03

Yeah , a little bit . I mean I played well here last year as well . So I mean I like this golf course , I'm comfortable on it . When the wind was down I knew that it was going to be gettable , and when this place gets windy it can get really challenging . So it's one of those where you know you have to play pretty aggressive when it's not windy . So I just did my best to do that and you know , the first hole I hit right over top of the flag and I hit a bad shot on two . And then after that I hit good shots everywhere other than seven . But I mean you know , two and seven or six were really my only kind of poor swings of the day , but other than that everything was kind of going where I wanted it to .

Speaker 5 12:38

I wanted to ask you about that as well . You shot 66 here twice last year .

Speaker 8 12:46

What is it about PGA National ? That just seems to work for you . I just think it's a course that doesn't have there's no real goofiness to it or anything like that . It's very just , kind of right in front of you . It's very execution based . You just have to hit the shots that the hole kind of calls for . So you know , it's not a course where you can overpower it either . So , um , you know , I don't don't hit a lot of drivers out here . It's more of a positional golf course for me . And just try to make sure that from nine or from pitching wedge to six iron , I'm hitting the ball well and should take care of the rest .

Speaker 5 13:13

And how do you , I guess how do you manage the emotions of the next 24 hours where you play tomorrow ? You , you shot 59 .

Speaker 8 13:19

Yeah .

Speaker 5 13:21

You were thinking 58 . I know , and then you just shot the round of your life , but it could have been better . How do you marry all of these things into just showing up and playing good golf again tomorrow ?

Speaker 8 13:31

I think that's just the nature of what we do , whether I shot 89 or 59 , I'm going to come back out and do my job tomorrow . I feel like over the last couple of weeks I started to get into a better headspace of just kind of trusting the stuff I've been working on and that it's going to keep getting better . And , um , you know , come out tomorrow and just try to keep doing it and the putt .

Speaker 5 13:49

I want to ask you specifically about the putt on 15 .

Speaker 8 13:52

It there was a lot , of , a lot of break to it is that kind of when you knew you were going at that point , but you know you were really going when , because that was in the whole way it looked like yeah , I mean I feel like I honestly had it going like well before then , like I didn't really make many putts today , if I'm being honest , like I just hit it really close and it was . You know , I made a lot of kind of 8 to 12-footers but nothing of great length , and to shoot a score like that usually you do . So , yeah , I mean on 15 , I got a really good read off Tom . He was putting from , you know , eight feet left to me on similar length , so I got to watch his go in dead center . So it gave me somewhat of an idea of the pace and all that . And Halfway I knew it was on a pretty good line and you know it didn't have a ton of movement . But I mean , yeah , it just kind of just cozy right in there .

Speaker 5 14:41

What do you do tonight ?

Speaker 8 14:42

Just kind of the same old . Do uh work out this afternoon , go get some rest , and it was an early morning this morning so maybe take a little nap this afternoon jake .

Speaker 2 14:50

Uh , if I'm not mistaken , new putter in the bag recently . What kind of went into that change for you ?

Speaker 8 14:56

um , just felt like I needed to feel something a little different . Whether it's for a , you know , in my head sometimes it's for like a couple days or a couple weeks or whatever it might be . But you know it was more like strategic , based on how I feel like my misses have been lately with the putter . I don't think I've been putting terribly just something feel-wise that . I just felt like I needed to feel something different .

Speaker 2 15:17

Did you test a bunch of different things or was it kind of one thing and you found it quick ?

Speaker 8 15:20

Not a ton . To be honest , I've always kind of fluctuated , or I've always stayed with the same head shape for the most part and then I just changed kind of between that plumber's neck and then a double bend , so a little bit of toe hang versus face balance . But yeah , just something that kind of felt right for me and worked on it the last couple days and worked pretty well today .

Speaker 2 15:37

Is this first tournament .

Speaker 8 15:38

You've used it or do you use it ? Yeah , yeah , first tournament .

Speaker 7 15:42

So good , first round , jake . Last question for me . You mentioned to Damon that there was a little disappointment with the approach shot at 16 . It looked like that on the television . I want to know how you felt at 17 , knowing that if you make that putt you know you come to the last hole .

Speaker 8 16:01

You got a little bit of breathing room . Yeah , I mean , to be honest , I wasn't thinking about it . I mean I was just trying to make bird's . Like I'll still think tonight about how it should have been 58 or 57 or 56 . So , you know , 59 is great but , like you , always could technically do better , but it could always be worse . So I mean , I wasn't too worried about breathing room because I mean , if I , you know , if I got to 18 and you know I was already at 1,200 par par , I was going to play the hole the exact same way . So I , you know , I , yeah , I felt like I wanted to make it , just because I wanted to make it , to be honest um , last thing .

Speaker 7 16:33

I just need you if you could just run through , run through the holes . Just what you hit , don't worry about yada , just what club you hit on each hole , on each hole .

Speaker 8 16:41

That was yeah um from one to 18 yep um the transcript . Number one hit four iron , then hit pitching wedge , made the putt . Number two hit three wood , blocked the nine iron and then chipped in from the fairway in the front um . Next hole hit . Or number three hit driver hit five iron to kind of the front third of the green and then two putted . Next hole hit three wood , then a pitching wedge and then made like a 10-footer the par three hit six iron , pretty close , probably like three feet three and a half feet . Next hole hit driver down the middle hit a bad 7-iron out to the right was able to get up and down .

Speaker 8 17:30

Number 7 , hit a 4-iron to like pin high right 17 , 25 , somewhere in there feet-wise and then flipped out that putt . And then number 8 , hit 3-wood , hit 9-iron . Don't remember if I birdied 8 . I don't think I did , can't remember to be honest . Yeah , I have to look at that . You didn't birdie , I did not birdie it , so I missed that . And then , number nine Hit three wood . I Don't even remember what club I hit . I hit pitching wedge . I think I hit pitching wedge to like three feet . Number 10 , hit driver , then hit five wood two putted . Number 11 , hit three wood , then gap wedge made the putt Number 12 , hit driver , then pitching wedge missed it . Next hole hit 3-wood , 56-degree , made it . We'll be on 14 now . 14 hit driver , 9-iron pretty close . Made it . Next hole hit 8-iron to left side of the green made a long one , 16 hit , three wood , pitching wedge and then just missed that one . 17 hit , eight iron , just missed . And then 18 driver , six iron and two putt perfect . Thank you appreciate it .

Speaker 1 18:59

Thank you , guys . So there you have it . You've heard from billy horschel , jordan spieth and Jake Knapp . Let's wish them the best . It's going to be a great tournament . It's going to be a great weekend down in South Florida , the Palm Beaches area , and then we move on to you-know-where and we'll have those interviews too , from Bay Hill and then we'll jump up to the Players' Championship and then we'll head over to Tampaa of the tampa area and dennisbrook . It's going to be a fun swing . Get the popcorn strap on your seat belt and let's look at , look out for some great golf in florida for the florida swing . I'm frank bassett , thanking each and every one of you for listening and it's been a long day , can you you tell ? Anyway , thanks for listening and please check out our sponsors , Invited Clubs , invitedcom and PXG For the whole team . I am out .

Speaker 5 19:55

Thank you .