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Episode 53 - Where the Hell is Victor Dubuisson?
27 Plays10 months ago
A golf heavy podcast this week, the boys discuss AC's return to the fairways and catch up on all the golf from around the world. Enjoy!
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Transcript
Icy's Return to Golfing Challenges
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Off The Tips podcast. We're back. Another weekly pod. Icy's in from London. Icy, another great week for Kiwi Golf. And rumor has it there was a Kiwi
00:00:29
Speaker
Stolen the links in London back on the tools. Welcome back, mate Hey cow. Hey listeners. Yes back on the golf course. I hadn't since July I'd played one round and I didn't have my own club So it was it was a real comeback story So I went down to Dulwich Golf Club, which is about 50 minutes away from our place in southwest London It's Harry Colt design. So it's a decent track. It was extremely boggy. I think what had happened is I
00:00:59
Speaker
Um, it's been really like cold lately and I think it must have frozen over last week. And then, so I was just losing golf balls and fairways rough, just plugging them. I've made the mistake of buying a brand new sleeve of Pro-V's and they were gone by the end of the round. And most of them were just lost by getting plugged, which absolutely sucks when you're unemployed.
Losing Gear and Golfing Solo
00:01:23
Speaker
Oh, that is tough.
00:01:25
Speaker
But mate, did you enjoy getting back out there? I understand you were strong in the fairways by yourself. Quite therapeutic. Yeah, it is. I've had 18 holes in myself. Enjoyed it. It was interesting. I tend to observe more when you're by yourself. And one of the things I noticed was just the male ego on the golf course never ceases to amaze me. I was waiting on the first tee. There was about four groups in front of me.
00:01:55
Speaker
And it's about, oh, 210 yards. It was into like a two-club breeze. And I just saw so many middle-aged to older men hit irons. And they had no reason to be hitting irons. They were ending up about 50, 40 meters short, a lot of them. I think the closest I saw was probably 20, 30 meters in front of the green.
00:02:18
Speaker
It was, um, that was interesting. So in terms of my game, it wasn't too bad. I was hitting them off the map early, uh, top my first one off the T, but I ended up shooting about 85. So it wasn't, it wasn't too bad.
Social Joys and Therapy of Golf
00:02:34
Speaker
The only thing that also tainted it was I lost my nine iron. So I'll be ringing out the shop because that's, that's an annoying club to lose. That is an annoying club to lose. Did you have it at the start of the round?
00:02:47
Speaker
So I thought maybe I left it in Ireland but I'm pretty sure I did actually use it to hack out of some hag. So I'm hoping it's there because you can't, I don't really know how, I've never done it but I don't think you can replace irons like that very easily especially when it's like a 2018 edition set or something like that. You just have to maybe get lucky on a Facebook marketplace operation maybe.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, and then you kind of feel bad, because if they're on a Facebook marketplace, it's probably exactly what's happened to your club. Someone's just picked it up and flogged it off, which is some pretty good behaviour. It probably is your club, mate. Yeah, exactly. One thing I always do notice when I play 18 holes, and this sounds really soppy, is just how much about golfers
00:03:37
Speaker
There's everything that goes with it. Playing with your mates, you might be catching up with a mate. You might have been on a night out with them the night before and you can just dissect your night the way around your golf course.
00:03:49
Speaker
and then have a beer afterwards and talk about some shots that were played and give each other some shit. You might have witnessed your mate play one of his best rounds. It's definitely more fun with a good group of mates. I got pretty bored after about 12 holes. I was ready to kind of pack it in. Yeah, you're 100% right.
00:04:12
Speaker
Playing by yourself is okay, but you do get to that point where you're like, geez, I wish there was someone to
Angel Cabrera's Comeback
00:04:18
Speaker
talk to. And mate, that's what golf's all about, really, especially like at a recreational level, what you see all the hardcore Harry's floating around. But come on, lads, like that, play the game for what it's about. You know, and I think you have the nail on the head with
00:04:34
Speaker
how you described it, but mate, you weren't the only person making a comeback to the golf world this week. I understand that our man, Angel Cabrera, was in the mix for a while in a small South American tournament. I've just done some research before. Can't have won, because there is absolutely no research on it, or no news on it. So look, do with that what you will, listeners, but just,
00:05:01
Speaker
Just be aware that the big fella's back. Ankle bracelet and all. He's definitely contending this year, Augusta. Oh, I can't wait. I'll be looking into some made cut markets, I think.
LIV Golf Transfers and Rumors
00:05:15
Speaker
You might be able to get some decent money for it. Yeah, that guy. That guy is sick for a trip round to Augusta. Yeah.
00:05:26
Speaker
What else is going on? The live room, is it interesting? Any thoughts on that? Well, yeah, Herbert and Hatton are the two names that have been very, very, well, it's almost confirmed. Well, I know Lucas Herbert is at least, and Tyrell Hatton
00:05:44
Speaker
came up today. Apparently, he's going to WD from the Pebble Beach and will be in La Maracoba on Friday. Considering it is, well, pretty late Tuesday night Australian time, you'd think that those announcements must be
00:06:04
Speaker
happening by the time we wake up over this side of the world or if not tomorrow geez like you're cutting it fine and you'd like to think that that's surely down there starting to build team morale but mate i my thoughts on it like hadn't surprises me it does herb it doesn't but yeah it's again it's two guys that what are they
00:06:30
Speaker
Are they drawing any more eyes to live? Or Hatton, like, I guess, like, just with his, you know, flaring nature, but look, for the money they'll pay for them, are the PGA 2 are going to miss those guys? I'd say probably not. Hatton is a bit of a loss in terms of socials and there's always something he's done or something entertaining he's said. Yeah, it's interesting. You've got to throw an AK as well, mate. I don't know where he's going to end up.
00:07:00
Speaker
The big doubt. I don't know if people are just getting way too excited about that. I'm just being negative. But he is 38 and hasn't teed up for a very long time and anything competitive. So I don't really know what people are going to expect there. But he was a very good player in his time. Yeah, for those younger listeners that might not know who AKA is, Anthony Kim used to roll around in this.
00:07:29
Speaker
outlandish bouts on the PGA Tour. I had a lot of swag. I had a little bit of moonwool about him to be honest, but probably maybe a bit more flarey. And you know, I think he won about six times on the PGA Tour. Didn't really contend at any majors or anything. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see like, hasn't played professional golf in what, 12 years?
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, a bit like when we're talking about Camilla Vojagas is, I just remember playing with him on, you know, Tiger Woods games quite a bit. AK was always front and center of one of those. Yeah, he was. And look, there was room as you come back to the PGA Tour, but you'd like, if you were him, you're going all over, yeah. There's absolutely no fucking chance he makes a cut on the PGA Tour.
LPGA Highlights and Hall of Fame Talk
00:08:16
Speaker
If you got an offer from loving your home, you'd take that a hundred percent because he's going to have to, he'd have some like prior winner exemptions into a few of the events, but he'd have to go back through the corn fury. I imagine. So yeah, he'd get sponsors, his exemptions out of theirs, but yeah, like he just, he just wouldn't contend to be perfectly honest. But look, I'm out. I'm out. I've been proven wrong on this podcast before. If he goes out and.
00:08:46
Speaker
and just shoots the lights out. Hey, so be it, but this punter doesn't see it happening. And I guess for a little bit more context, what happened was he had a back injury and got a pretty big insurance payout, so he couldn't return to professional golf for 10 years. And so that's kind of how this is all borne out. So he's obviously healthy again. Sounds like he's been healthy for a long time. He still plays golf, but I don't know how sort of,
00:09:16
Speaker
Like seriously, he's been taking it. Yeah. There's always speculation at this point anyway. It is. And look, I'm not going to lie. I'll, if he's back, I'll be tuning in to see how he goes for sure. So it wouldn't be the worst play by the live hierarchy who've got a history of making not fantastic decisions, but mate, let's, let's break down the, the week of golf and we'll start on the LPGA tour where
00:09:43
Speaker
Lydia had a really close call on Sunday. Nellie Korda looked dead and buried mate. Coming down 17 and went eagle birdie after Lydia had eagled 17 to force a playoff. Korda that is had a pretty tough day on Sunday and just fought hard those last three holes and then took Lydia the extra holes and I was watching mate and I thought neither of them really wanted to win that playoff but
00:10:13
Speaker
Courta ended up getting the job done in our hometown at the Dragoon Championship. But we won't exactly break down the whole event because we've got a couple to talk about. But man, we said it last week and we'll say it again. Great signs for Lydia. Yeah, 100 percent. That three-part was tough. If she'd made that part, at least you can put some pressure on Courta. So that was hard to see. It's good to see her back. Yeah.
00:10:42
Speaker
If she'd won their automatic entry into the World Golf Hall of Fame and would have been the youngest player ever, yeah. If you're a bookie, you'd say that's probably happening sooner rather than later with the way she's playing, to be honest.
00:10:57
Speaker
Yeah, can't argue with any of that. I think it's so easy. We've said on this pub before, it's so easy to kind of forget how young all these achievements came for her. And she's had such a long career already, but she's still so young.
PGA Venue Critique and Memorable Wins
00:11:11
Speaker
She's achieved so much in the game and that Hall of Fame's going to happen anytime soon. Yeah. And I've just got, I've got a bit of a break now until kind of late Feb. So whether that's a good thing for her, she can recharge her batteries or
00:11:26
Speaker
if she wanted to keep carrying this momentum forward and keep playing. I don't know, but she came off a bit of a break into the event last week. She won and has been playing well. So maybe a little breather would be good for her. But mate, did you catch much of the golf at Torrey Pines on the PGA tour? One of the, maybe an unpopular opinion, but one of the poorer venues they go to on the PGA tour.
00:11:54
Speaker
and major championships. It's a disgrace stuff like that. I did watch a fair bit. The one thing, I agree with parts of what you say. The aerial footage is always quite nice to look at, but in terms of the actual golf, it's hard watching. Particularly just all the long rough around the greens, it just becomes every shot looks the same. It's kind of a bit of a hacking gouge sort of situation.
00:12:22
Speaker
It's, and even just, it's not, what do they call it? The sea layer or whatever it's called. And there's always just this sort of dull, cloudy feel to it. I know it sounds stupid, but it's just, it just doesn't do much for me at all.
Nikolai Højgaard's Rising Star
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah. The weather always seems, you know, when you go to the, when you go to the beach and they say, oh, it's sharky here. It always seems, seems like that in Torrey Pines. Like maybe when you go for a swim in the late arvo and it's a bit cloudy and
00:12:51
Speaker
and still and cold that's you know that's just that's just the gauge I get on Tory Pines and man the only good thing to ever happen there was Tiger and OA apart from that I just I fucking hate watching golf in that place but to be fair Matthew Pavon the Frenchman comes through the DP World he got one of those cards through the DP World Tour Order of Merritt and
00:13:20
Speaker
Man, there was a lot of conjecture around those guys getting those cards about maybe only a couple of them being good enough and he wasn't mentioned in any of those articles and he's gone out and pretty much in his first try claimed an emotional victory at the farmers insurance. What did you see of the mighty Frenchman's game, A.C.?
00:13:42
Speaker
Well he held himself together bloody well on 18. So what happened is he had two shot lead going to 17. He three putted and I was like oh no, here's the mount coming. Then on 18 he was kind of up against the lip of the bunker and chopped one down, laid up short on the par five. But he was still in the rough and had about 150 yards. Says Caddy wants him to chip it out. But Huygarb was on the green with a putt for eagle.
00:14:10
Speaker
He's gone for the shot. It's come out exactly how he thought it would. Pin high.
00:14:16
Speaker
within 20 feet. And then Huygars part just burnt the edge and Pavon managed to make that very clutch part to win the event. Yeah, I hadn't seen anything of him really. I didn't actually know who he was, even though he had a top 10 race 2 by last year, which is pretty embarrassing. He did that mainly through his win at Spanish Open.
00:14:40
Speaker
And just a classic journeyman story really. He's played on the Alps tour. I don't even know that was a tour.
00:14:51
Speaker
Oh yeah, you're a nothing. That's real sick how he is. He's been through the chipping yips. He was chipping cross-handed like Matty Fitz at points during the week. So good on him. And the first Frenchman to win since 1907, which is pretty insane. It was a strange week because there's a few big guns there, but the leaderboard was just full of internationals. There wasn't many American flags.
00:15:20
Speaker
it was it was strange it was just an odd sort of a dull week. Yeah a good week for Nikolai Huygård kind of his first real big feature on the PGA tour man that guy's just going from strength to strength since getting given that right cup debut hasn't he?
00:15:41
Speaker
For sure. He's a lot better than I thought he was. I'm happy to admit that. I thought he was a very talented player, but I think his ceiling is a lot higher than what I probably thought it was. Is that how you feel about him, or have you always thought this guy could be a freak? Yeah, I wouldn't have put him in the freak category. That's for sure. I always thought his brother was better than him, but that's proved to be incorrect.
00:16:11
Speaker
Man, yeah, kind of in the same boat. He is just continually, continually surprising me. Like, man, I thought the way he played at that Ryder Cup and pre and now post just, man, yeah. He's only still so young, 23, I think, man. There's only, the sky's the limit for him and his brother, to be fair.
French Golfing Highlights and Retirement News
00:16:33
Speaker
Hey, one thing I was going to put to you, Kyle, is when I was watching the, when there was a lot of the talk about the first Frenchman to win in over 100 years, I was, made me think of whether how Victor Dubison has gone. And he was, he went very close at the match play that time, hitting all those shots out of the cactus. That's kind of my lasting memory of him, but I found out that he's actually retired at 33, which is something you wouldn't have expected.
00:17:03
Speaker
That's a name that I didn't think was gonna get brought up in this week's post. I made it on my bingo card before I pressed the record button, but yeah, who won that match play that he... I think it was Jason Day. Yeah. That is a proper blast from the past. It surprises me that there's no Frenchman's... No, actually it doesn't. It doesn't surprise me a Frenchman, is it one? The only...
00:17:33
Speaker
Well, that's why the only golfer I could really think on was Victor. And Victor Perez, obviously, who plays in the dev, he could, he could probably be the other one that wins one of those events. But yeah, well, man, I appreciate you bringing that back up. And when I tuck myself into bed to know how to go back and watch that, that WGC match play. Oh, good to hear, brother.
00:17:58
Speaker
Another guy I want to shout out Willie Z, T13 this week, which is great signs. The putter looked really good. He gained over. Yeah, I thought it did. He gained plus 0.6 on the greens this week. I was, I liked what I saw. Good, mate. I'm happy he's starting to find something. It was never going to happen straight away, was it? So a question without notice, but do you know if he's in the field at the,
00:18:28
Speaker
AT&T people, you will be, of course, you will. Honours were ranking, weren't you? I think so, yeah. So, nah, it'll be interesting to see how he goes there in a, well, a gun, a gun field, but, mate, any more comms on the PGA Tour this week, or can we hop across back to the UAE for the DP World Tour? Hop across, mate, there's nothing to add there. Thorborne also,
00:18:56
Speaker
gets his eighth European tour win at the Ras Al Khama Championship. Apologies if I've pronounced that wrong, but I try my hardest guys. Man, he's had a great career on the European tour. He, as I said before, has won eight times.
00:19:16
Speaker
And he's burnt some edges and some big events. He obviously had his off course issues maybe a few years ago, but he's come back and he's just, I think he's won about three times since he's been back. And he hasn't been back for super long, maybe two years. A.C., what are your memories on Thornbourn?
00:19:36
Speaker
Not like a whole heap. I always think of him as quite volatile, but when he's on, he can go low. I remember one year in particular, he was right in the thick of it of Augusta. I'm going to say it was the year Scotty won, but that could be wrong. Was Scotty 2013? Yeah. 12. No, he was 2013.
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah, it was. So it was the year Scotty won his Masters. Also a Ryder Cup player. He wouldn't rule him out of being at Bethpage if he had a couple of... if he had a good year. I don't think he'd be far away. But we always do this where you just throw out names whenever a European wins something.
Kazuma Kobori's Triumphs
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. And you know, going back to that 2013 Masters,
00:20:27
Speaker
It's pretty funny that Adam Scott just had a couple of convicts breathing down his neck. Allegedly, allegedly. So, Nikolai Hoigard, second place on the PGA Tour and his brother Rasmus, second on the DP World Tour. A good week for the boys, yeah, he admittedly didn't get as close as his brother, losing by six, but
00:20:56
Speaker
what a what a gene line that is that would have been an absolute story if they both won i don't know i don't think there's a lot of ads on this event other than sam jones's first start for 2024 he was in the mix for a while had a tough
00:21:12
Speaker
Really tough weekend, went one over on the Saturday, five over on the Sunday, but I think even just getting yourself in the mix is a real good sort of, gives you that self-belief that your best golf is up with, up to it. So that was awesome to see. And then Dan Hilly had a very solid week, T23 for him. Yeah. So, no, it was great to see. And I like the kind of Sam Jones jib, like I,
00:21:40
Speaker
watched a little bit of him when he got some coverage over the over the weekend. Man, I enjoyed what I'm seeing and I can't wait to see a little bit more. They were the only Kiwis in action this week, I see. Kazumba Kabori has gone back to back. He's won the WebEx Player Series Victoria last week and won the WebEx Player Series Murray River this week. Wow, what a
00:22:06
Speaker
what a couple of weeks he's only been pro for a matter of months and you know he had that big scare at the Vic PGA where he relinquished that lead we talked about it last week but man to just be to take your next two chances when you're in contention is pretty impressive and and like we're just gonna sound like we're echoing from from last week with this so we don't have to
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think the only thing I really want to say is just I'm really excited about where he could go. Without putting any pressure on, you see people when they're touted young, they don't deserve that pressure, but it's exciting to see where he could get to. Yeah, and I had to make a pretty big putt to win it in regulation.
Personal Golf Plans and Future Content
00:23:00
Speaker
like about eight foot down the hill and it never looked like missing, so it was a great week for him. I actually interviewed him during the week for a piece I'm writing. I won't give away everything because it's getting put in the magazine, but he said that he was having some pretty dark thoughts after he relinquished that lead at the big PGA when he was standing over the golf ball.
00:23:27
Speaker
And the fact that he could still step up and get the job done was pretty big for his confidence last week. So it seems like he has just built on that. And man, could he do three in a row? He certainly could this week at the Vic Open. So time will tell. For sure. That's good insight. I'm looking forward to that coming out. Well, that's pretty much it for the week of golf. I say I'm going to probably get out for
00:23:56
Speaker
at for a little path three hit on Friday and hopefully, oh Adam, I'm going for a fitting on Monday. So hopefully come out with some new sticks and that encourages me to get back out on the tools a little bit more, but no play off holes this week. The boys have put the pod together a little bit short notice, but we promise we've got some, some changeups coming, maybe both some wrong ends in the, in the playoffs there.
00:24:24
Speaker
to come but we appreciate you guys tuning in. Short one this week and we'll catch you all next week. AC, enjoy your miserable London day I'm presuming and I'll catch you next time.