But first!

If we learned anything from this years Masters, place matters when it comes to history. And at Erin Hills history also matters when it comes to the place. Like how in 18 days, the U.S. Women’s Open will be played on a course that seems to have been perfectly forged out of the Earth to host championship golf tournaments.

If you haven’t been to Erin Hills, it’s an amazing — almost astonishing — place. You could be Anywhere Midwest USA, and suddenly you find yourself in the presence of this rolling, punishing, beautiful land that almost perfectly determines who is hitting good golf shots.

That anyone can ever find land like this is incredible to me, that they can build golf courses out of it, even more so.

If you are even close to Erin Hills, I am imploring you to go check it out. The golf is almost incidental, although it will be amazing given who’s playing. If you need tickets to this event, you can get them right here.

And if you don’t live close by, you should absolutely try to tune in at some point, if only to see some of the most unique, beautiful golf land anywhere in the country.

OK, onto the exchange with JLM.

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Member-Guest: Joseph LaMagna

KP: I have a million questions for you, but let's start here because I know you're watching the NBA Playoffs. Give me your best young star (Brunson, Ant, Amen etc.) golf comp.

JLM: I'm taking some liberties with the term "young", mostly because there aren't many young golfers who should be reasonably compared to top young NBA stars. I'll go with a Jayson Tatum (27) - Xander Schauffele comp. 

Neither has ever been considered the best in the world, even when they reached the pinnacles of their sports. Tatum's never finished higher than fourth in MVP voting, but he did lead the Celtics to a championship last year - and to the Finals in 2022. Schauffele won two majors last year and still didn't win Player of the Year. I'm sure both have felt overlooked at times. Picking the Celtics never feels sexy. Rarely do people pick Xander Schauffele to win a major. 

But the main reason I like this comp is that they've both always been strong performers and remarkably consistent, yet continued to elevate. They're also both prime examples of consistency as an indicator of future success.

Steady drip caves a stone! 

KP: I like that. Wonder if Tatum has his own app though.

I have two. One doesn't count, but it's good enough that I need to get it out there. I'll start there. Jokic as Scheffler. Though there are current challengers (SGA and Rory), both are widely considered the best in the world at what they do and both often look borderline ridiculous doing what they do.

I stayed up too late watching Thunder-Nuggets last night and was just astonished at how goofy and sometimes outlandish Jokic looked at the top of the key. Flailing, huffing, puffing, billowing, like Draymond with 3/4 the theatrics. Scheffler, too, is not poetry. I think you watch both of those guys in isolation and you might think, "Huh … this is really it? This guy?" But then you get them in the context of championships and it starts to make more sense.

Jokic isn't a young guy, though so my actual comp is Cade-Ludvig. Just a couple of former Big 12 stars. I watched a lot of Cade at Oklahoma State, and while he was good I think a lot of fans were underwhelmed. You could see, though, what the problem was. The competition was too easy, his teammates were not basketball smart enough for him to thrive. He's three moves ahead, and guys at that level are two moves behind. Zero surprises that he's thriving in the NBA around smarter players. As the competition (and the quality of his teammate) gets better, it only makes him greater.

You could say the same for Ludvig. He's played in five majors, and at arguably the three hardest (last year's Masters, this year's Masters and last year's U.S. Open), he has finished in the top 12. It is unsurprising that the purest strikers would become better at more difficult courses, but sometimes it can be hard to see when they're playing against easier golf courses.

KP: Here's a question I've always had for you: I don't think it's that difficult of a concept in golf to say "this guy is underrated" and "this guy is overrated" because you can look at how a player's SG matches up with his wins/non-wins and it's pretty straightforward.

Example: Tom Kim's early wins were telling a story that his SG data couldn't cash. Overrated. Doesn't always work like that, but the concept itself is not super difficult. 

My question, though, is how you personally determine overrated or underrated outside of the SG-to-wins metric. What are you looking at when you say you're high on somebody like Cam Davis or not high on somebody like Jordan Spieth? And based on that, who do you think is the most underrated player in the world right now (don't say Scottie)?

JLM: Well, a lot to chew on there. Jokic-Scheffler is one of my favorite cross-sport comps. In addition to some of the things you've outlined, they're both incredibly intelligent with how they attack defenses/courses. And they both have amazing hands. 

With respect to the overrated/underrated, I'll start by saying I think people get too caught up in strokes gained. It's a fine metric, better than many conventional stats, but it's important to be wary of its shortcomings.

Side note but related: I think it'd be cool if, on the PGA Tour site, you could toggle between players' strokes gained in Signature Events versus Non-Signature Events. Field strength is really important. Henrik Norlander — currently ranked 4th in SG: Approach — is not the fourth-best iron player on Tour. 

On the topic of SG versus wins/non-wins, I increasingly dislike looking at things that way. It's a somewhat useful reference point, but strokes gained tells you how a player performed relative to the average. Winning a major championship is about playing to the best possible standard in the conditions on that golf course. So sure, a player might have gained three shots on the field in a final round of a major and still come up short, but I don't love the "Well, he just got unlucky" conclusion. No, you do need to go out and play to a top-of-the-world standard to win.

There are some rare exceptions like Phil/Stenson where a player may have caught the wrong end of a historic performance, but those are few and far between. Overall, in my perspective, understanding the shortcomings of SG is at least as valuable as understanding the stat itself. 

To more directly answer your question, I like to look at consistency and high-level performance in strong fields. Pedigree is also important. I'm not super high on Cam Davis (30) these days, but it's nice to know there's some upside in there. He's won twice on Tour and finished T4 in a major. However, you have to update your priors, and a bigger jump should've happened by now. That's why I think his best cross-sport comp is Anthony Richardson. Lots of upside, but the more data that comes in without a big leap forward, the less likely it is that it will happen. 

The most underrated player in the world right now is probably Patrick Cantlay. Week after week, he's posting strong ball-striking performances in the strongest fields in golf. His play on and around the greens has held him back from better finishes this year, but I tend to trust his short game. He doesn't smash it off the tee quite like Rory or Bryson, but Cantlay quietly regularly touches a 180-mph ball speed. I know his major championship track record is downright awful for a player of his caliber, but in my opinion he's probably the most undervalued name for the next three majors.

KP: That is fair. I think I meant more that a SG-to-wins ratio can broadly lead to underrating or overrating a player because the general public overvalues wins and undervalues consistency.

Two examples.

1. Morikawa is at 2.2 SG/round over the last 12 months with zero wins.

2. Wyndham has three wins over the last 24 months but is at 1.0 SG (less than Keegan and Sepp).

One of those guys is overrated by the general public to me and one is underrated.

Give me two or three places you pull thoughts and ideas from outside the golf world that inform the way you think about the golf world.

JLM: Fair enough. I'm honestly not sure how the general public views Wyndham Clark right now. I'd be interested in how a general golf fan - who maybe just watches the majors and the occasional high-profile Tour event - thinks Clark compares to somebody like Joaquin Niemann or Patrick Cantlay. But I think the most overrated guys are typically ones with "soft" wins. Min Woo Lee. *Ducks*

In terms of influences, I'd be remiss to not shout out Matt Levine. I read his free Money Stuff newsletter every day and even if I had no interest in finance, I'd probably still appreciate it. He's a brilliant writer and does an exceptional job distilling complicated concepts into layman's terms. The way he breaks down situations definitely informs my worldview and — often likely indirectly — how I view the golf world. 

I'm not sure if my second selection qualifies, but as someone who loves great writing, I'm inspired by Hozier, the musical artist. He doesn't influence the way I think about golf, but reading beautiful lyrics makes me want to elevate my own writing and the way I cover the sport. So I think that counts.

KP: I do see Levine in your writing. I think about this article often and how you have done a good job at taking something few people actually understand in a comprehensive way and simplifying and even critiquing it.

And that second one definitely counts. I was listening to this podcast between David Perell and Derek Thompson the other day, and Thompson was talking about the importance of writing musically.

It's a great (long) quote (alternatively, you can watch it here). 

I also find myself reading outside of golf a lot.

Seth Godin has this great quote that we are the same people we were 10 years ago but for the people we meet and the books we read.

I read a decent amount of fiction. Some business stuff, some psychology, theology etc. I read books about sports that aren't golf. I think all of it becomes the alchemy of my own writing, and the more unique I can make that combination, the more unique my writing can be (theoretically). 

Morgan Housel is my Matt Levine. He writes more infrequently, but if he wrote it, I'm reading it. He's so good at the same thing — taking complex things and distilling them into metaphors or even parables.

Both are terrific thinkers, which to me is half of writing. 

KP: OK, last one. What is one thing/person/event/whatever in golf that the golf world seems to be unanimously aligned on that you do not agree with (either for or against)? And along with that, how do you view the sometimes-mob mentality of Golf Twitter being for or against a thing? Do you think it happens more than in other industries? Less?

I know you have takes around how people receive their information and how those of us in media sometimes do a bad job of thinking through how and what we're delivering.

JLM: We've made some strides on this topic, but there's still a lot of bad information that gets thrown around with respect to golf course setup, testing accuracy, and combating distance. I'm surprised at how many people continue to advocate for narrowing fairways, growing up rough, and adding trees to combat distance. Those decisions, in a vacuum, do not mitigate distance. 

Torrey Pines has narrow fairways and thick rough, and it's one of the most bomb-and-gouge friendly setups on Tour. Muirfield Village has slightly wider fairways and very thick rough, yet it is a stern test of accuracy. You have to understand these designs at a deeper level to appreciate why and how they test specific skill sets. I can assure you that narrow fairways and thick rough is not the solution to the distance problem. 

A topic on which I probably have fewer allies would be that Riviera is an overrated PGA Tour venue. I still have it in my top four, but it's nowhere near the test it should be. Modern technology/distance has decimated that place, and the agronomy — specifically the Kikuyu grass — prevents the golf course from playing how it should.

At this point in time, I'm way more excited about golf at a firm and fast Muirfield Village than golf at Riviera. I know, heresy! 

The mob mentality is pervasive in golf and has legitimate implications (i.e. influencing Ryder Cup Captain's picks), but I don't think it's more prevalent than in other industries. It's an industry captured by equipment manufacturers, which influences talking points and many people's perceptions on subjects like the distance/rollback debate, but golf certainly isn't the only industry that's captured. 

Access — to players, golf courses, tournaments, etc. — might be a little more important in golf than in other industries, so maybe it's a little more susceptible to people being controlled or afraid to voice opinions on certain things. But overall I think golf is a pretty strong microcosm for the world and for other industries. The same issues that pop up in golf, especially around sources of funding and access, pop up everywhere else too.