“Balls in the Air with Charlie Rymer” Podcast Episode 18: Charlie Talking Major Championships
Charlie’s riding solo again this week! He sat down with us for about 20 minutes to dish on Jon Rahm’s victory at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, as well as Nelly Korda’s victory at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. Enjoy the episode!
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Charlie Rymer (00:09):
Hi and welcome in to yet another edition of the Charlie Rymer Balls in the Air Podcast. I’m your most of the time friendly host, Charlie Rymer, thrilled to be coming to you from beautiful Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We’re having a heck of a summer here, got a lot of folks down enjoying everything that we have to offer, the beach, all our restaurants and nightlife, and you know me. Our golf courses right now are in absolutely beautiful shape. We needed a little bit of rain as we came into June. The month of May was pretty dry, but we’re all caught up on the rain and the golf courses are absolutely wonderful. I’ve been on a little vacation and, yeah. Where do you go on vacation when you live in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina? It was a special vacation. My wife and I were celebrating our 30th anniversary and so we got with a couple of great friends of ours.
Charlie Rymer (01:05):
In fact, my buddy, he was in my wedding. I was in his wedding and that was 30 years ago in June. So we did a couples anniversary trip and hey, the way I figure it, when you’ve been married for 30 years, you need to go celebrate and that’s exactly what we did. We spent some time out in Sonoma, Napa, there in Northern California. Never been to that part of the world. My wife enjoys, every now and then, a glass of wine. I’m not a huge wine fan, but it was very interesting to do some tastings and learn a lot about wine. I have a much stronger appreciation of wine than I did before and I did learn that I’m not a fan of the Chardonnay. I do like every now and then, especially in the summer when it’s cold and the weather is hot, maybe a little sip of Sauvignon blanc.
Charlie Rymer (01:55):
I hope I said that right. It has a nice taste to it. I learned that, well, the red wines in particular the Cabs, they’re pretty darn expensive. So we did buy a little bit and had some shipped back, but not too many of those expensive Cabs, but it was a great trip and as I mentioned, when you have been married 30 years in this world, you need to go celebrate. That’s exactly what we did, but I did have a chance to keep my eye on what’s going on in the world of golf. I had a chance to watch some of that U.S. Open there in San Diego at Torrey Pines and Jon Rahm. What a story. The last time we heard from Jon prior to winning the U.S. Open was at the Memorial. I had the six stroke lead there, right in front of Jack Nicklaus on Saturday afternoon and was pulled off the back of that green and told that he was being forced to withdraw because of positive COVID testing.
Charlie Rymer (02:51):
He was obviously very devastated there. And it was a little bit of an unusual situation to get told that you’re being thrown out of the tournament because of that test right there in front of the whole world. I think maybe if they had a chance to do it all over again they might’ve tried to do that off camera, but there was some question as to whether Jon was even going to be able to, because of quarantine protocols, be able to tee it up in the U.S. Open, but certainly he was able to play and I just didn’t really expect a whole lot from Jon, even though it’s a golf course that he had had quite a bit of success on in the past. Just dealing with that emotion, the quick turnaround, being quarantined for the 10 days, but he was able to get everything back together and close with that 4-under par round there on Sunday. They included the dramatic birdies on 17 and 18.
Charlie Rymer (03:47):
Man, those two putts that he made on 17 and 18. Wow, those aren’t ones you would expect to make, but Jon Rahm is not the kind of player that really succumbs to normal expectations. Now he’s back to number one in the world. Number one in the world for the second time and first major championship. He’s just one of those guys that I remember the first time I saw him play. He was actually still in school at Arizona State playing in the Phoenix Open, just very comfortable, very confident. He had a run there in college where he basically went in the entire season and finished every event inside the top 10. I mean just a phenomenal player. I had a chance actually, right after he first turned professional, he was on TaylorMade staff at the time and so was I. We were doing a little bit of an outing type thing for some customers down in the West Palm Beach area and actually emceed the event.
Charlie Rymer (04:49):
He was there with Dustin Johnson and as I mentioned, he had just turned professional. That was a little bit of an intimidating situation for most humans, but Jon was very comfortable in it and I remember walking away after spending a few hours with him that day, thinking, I’ve never seen a player this young that has this much confidence with maybe the exception of Tiger Woods. I’m going to have to keep an eye on him. After watching his career develop, what he had done to this point, certainly no surprise that he is now a major champion and a U.S. Open Champion. That golf swing of his, there’s just not much that’s going to go wrong. You couple that with the confidence that he has, the belief that he has in himself, and really no surprise that he’s accomplished what he has thus far in the game.
Charlie Rymer (05:37):
I expect more from him. It’s not going to be his last major championship. The question now is, how long is he going to stay number one in the world? A lot of folks shooting at ‘ya and we’ll see how long he’s able to stay there. Shouldn’t be any more negative COVID test. I think he’s now fully vaccinated. So Jon Rahm is a U.S. Open champion. The other thing I do want to mention about that U.S. Open is Rees Jones. He’s done a lot of work on Torrey Pines. Sometimes Rees catches some criticism, and it’s a little hard for me to talk about Rees in too much depth with too much criticism, because he is a dear friend. I love him to death and over the years have been able to establish a good relationship with him. We talk quite frequently as a matter of fact, and very seldom do we talk much about work.
Charlie Rymer (06:32):
He’s just a quality person, but if you look big picture at his career, very few years go by where Rees hasn’t been heavily involved in major championship golf. If you look at his redesign work and he’s got an impressive list of original designs as well and was actually just texting Rees last night, congratulating him on the event. The USGA needed a non-controversial U.S. Open and that’s exactly what it got. The golf course performed the way it was supposed to, winning score was at six under. I think everybody’s happy with that. Nothing crazy happened, but the course did provide some drama with a big finish there for Jon Rahm. The best player in the world won, the best player of the week won. I don’t know that you can ask a golf course to do any more than that.
Charlie Rymer (07:25):
I want to take a look too, over at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, just concluded on Sunday at the Atlanta Athletic Club. Of course, I know a lot about, having played at Georgia Tech, that was one of the courses that we got to play a lot of golf on. I certainly never played as well as Nelly Korda played there over the weekend. Nelly Korda, just the third American after the win at that the Women’s PGA Championship, to rise to number one in the world. At age 22, what an impressive feat. Stacy Lewis and Cristie Kerr, the other two Americans to rise to a number one in the world and Nelly Korda putting together an amazing career. As I mentioned, just at 22 years old, she’s played in 92 events on the LPGA now and this was her sixth win, of course her first major championship.
Charlie Rymer (08:22):
She’s very athletic, has tremendous distance. If you dig into her stats, she’s really good at both ends of the game and I think that’s really important in both the women’s and men’s game. You just have to drive the ball well and you have to drive it long and you have to put it where you can find it. She’s 10th in distance. If you look at her putting stats, she is sixth and 12th in putting. That’s a great formula for success. In fact, if you look a little bit deeper into her stats, the number one stat that’s the most important to me, number one and money. That’s a stat that we all dig into. What’s a player doing well and what’s the most important. That money list, because the bigger the tournaments, the more money they hand out and the better you play in the bigger tournaments, the more money you make. That’s the number one indicator for me. Also, number one in scoring, which goes hand in hand with the money.
Charlie Rymer (09:21):
So amazing player at age 22, we’ll see how long she stays atop the world of ladies professional golf. It’s hard to stay on the top of that list and in fact, if you look at it over the years, it’s basically been number one by committee and players tend not to have a real long run at number one, but who knows. At age 22, maybe Nelly Korda will stay there quite a bit longer. The other thing that’s really interesting is the ladies Olympic team for Team USA is now fully complete. There’ll be four ladies representing the USA in the Olympics coming up in Tokyo in August. Along with Nelly Korda, her sister Jessica will be joining her. That’s pretty interesting there to have sisters on the same Olympic team. The other two players representing the United States will be Danielle Kang and Lexi Thompson.
Charlie Rymer (10:23):
I always look forward to the Olympics. I was very fortunate to be able to go down to Rio and cover the Olympics down there. It was a first time that a golf event (was) in the Olympics, going back to 1904, and it was historic and a real honor and a privilege to be there. I was calling the golf live for Westwood One on radio, was in a great tower right behind 18 green. I could see everything. The golf course was a Gil Hanse original design, and it was really neat to see that. One of the things that I’m disappointed in, in the golf in the Olympics for both the men and the women, is the fact that there’s no team component. I really think you’re playing for your country, there ought to be some type of team component, but there really isn’t. It’s just 72-hole stroke-play golf tournament and three prizes; the gold, the silver, and the bronze.
Charlie Rymer (11:21):
That’s unfortunate that we don’t have a more creative format for the Olympics, but at the same time, I feel fortunate for our game that we do have a presence there. I’m hoping that if the Olympics continue to have golf, that maybe that format is tweaked a little bit so we end up with a team format, but either way, it’ll be interesting. I look forward to watching the Olympics next month, they’re actually in August, both the men and the women, and see how that develops. Very emotional, no doubt about that, the Olympics. So whoever wins, sitting there and holding one of those metals with your country’s anthem playing is a rare opportunity for golf. For all athletes, but in particular for golfers. We’ll just see how that goes, but once again, Team USA for the women: Jessica Korda and Nelly Korda, Danielle Kang and Lexi Thompson.
Charlie Rymer (12:20):
A little bit on the golf that we saw finished Sunday in Hartford. The Travelers was always one of my favorite events as a PGA pro to play. The crowds were always great and it was really nice to see big crowds out for the golf tournament there. It’s almost like there was two golf tournaments. There was a 72-hole golf tournament and then the 8-hole playoff. Really unusual to see an 8-hole playoff and that playoff was between Kramer Hickok and Harris English. I think at the beginning of the week, Kramer Hickok who was outside the top 125 and FedEx Cup points, you’ve got to finish inside of the top 125 to retain your card, he would’ve been happy to take a second-place finish. I think about four holes in the playoff if you’d ask him that he wouldn’t have been so happy, but ended up being a certainly positive week for him, even though he didn’t get that first win on tour.
Charlie Rymer (13:20):
Harris English, who in my opinion is one of the more talented players on the PGA Tour, if you sort of look in his background, he was born in Valdosta, Georgia. Grew up there in Valdosta, attended the Baylor School in Chattanooga. Chattanooga is a place I spend a lot of time. I’m originally from that area. In fact, Harris and I are both members at a really neat club there in Chattanooga, The Honors Course, which is absolutely spectacular. See him out there from time to time practicing along with Keith Mitchell, who’s another member there. Keith’s actually had a pretty good summer, as well. Harris is one of only three players while an amateur to win on what is now the Korn Ferry Tour. He did that when he was playing some great golf for the University of Georgia. Just a really talented player. He’s got four wins now. This is his second win in 2021; 37 top 10s in his career. And he’s just been cash producing machine.
Charlie Rymer (14:22):
How does he do it? You dig into his stats a little bit and very similar to Nelly Korda. Drives the ball really well. One of the stats on the PGA TOUR that I think is overlooked is Total Driving. That’s a stat that combines both distance and accuracy and Harris is ninth in Total Driving. That means he’s putting it in the fairway a lot and a long ways down the fairway. That really sort of sets everything else up for him. Then on the other end, the putting stats. 23rd in strokes gained putting and the LPGA doesn’t keep strokes gained stats. The PGA TOUR has a system called ShotLink, where they measure every shot that every player hits essentially for the entire season down to the inch. So that allows some more detailed stats for the men than what we see for the women.
Charlie Rymer (15:18):
That Strokes Gained putting stat, it’s a comparative stat that’s not very relatable to the average golfer, but what it does is it compares percentage of putts made from every distance, every player to every other player on tour. I think it’s one of the most reliable stats on the PGA TOUR, especially among the Strokes Gained stats. Being ranked in the top 25 there means that he is one heck of a putter. So Harris with the four wins now. The two wins in 2021, back on track. He had a little bit of a downtime there, a little bit of a drought. Went seven years without winning until he won at the Tournament of Champions earlier this year out in Hawaii. I think now he is back on track and it’s going to be interesting to see what the next four or five years look like for him.
Charlie Rymer (16:11):
He’s moved up to 19th in the world. I expect him to keep moving on up because you win twice on the PGA TOUR in a season, you’ve got some more golf left, a lot of things that can be accomplished. Another major with a open coming up, the FedEx Cup Playoffs. He’s going to be a player that heads into the final part of this season with a ton of momentum. Finally, a little bit of chat about this week, the Rocket Mortgage at Detroit Golf Club. What a golf course that is. It’s a Donald Ross gem. It doesn’t play as a particularly difficult golf course, Bryson won last year at 23-under par and the story last year with Bryson was, remember, coming out of pandemic he showed up bulked up. Almost looked like a different person, swinging hard, trying to drive greens, really got a lot of attention from everybody.
Charlie Rymer (17:10):
And he ended up averaging just a little under 330 yards off the tee last week, at 329.8 and of course, he went on to win the U.S. Open at Winged Foot sort of swinging the same way. It was the first win for “big Bryson” and definitely got a lot of attention. I think if you look at the field this week, Bryson’s not playing his best golf, had a sloppy finish at Torrey Pines, but he comes in as a tournament favorite. Definitely there will be a lot of eyeballs on him because he’s one of those guys now that what he’s put his body through in bulking up and changing everything, the way he talks about things, the controversy with Brooks Koepka, you absolutely can’t take your eyes off of Bryson DeChambeau. I think he enjoys that, which is great. He tackles this game in a different way than anybody else.
Charlie Rymer (18:07):
I had a chance when he was just first coming out, right about the time he was turning pro, spent a little bit of time with him and anybody that figures things out on their own, basically invents a new way to play, invents some new clubs in their garage, you’ve got to have a lot of respect for. He certainly has as much belief in the way he plays the game as anybody I’ve ever seen. That gets me back as I wrap things up here, talking about how confident Jon Rahm was at a young age and how he’s performed. Having spent a little bit of time with some of the other greats in the game, like a Jack Nicklaus, who I was blessed to spend some time with, Tiger Woods here and there, a little bit of time with Arnold Palmer, these great champions in our game, the one thing they have in common is they absolutely 100 percent believe in themselves and the method that they use and how they go about playing the game.
Charlie Rymer (19:03):
A lot of times, the way they do it, they don’t really have much in common with each other, but what they do have in common is they believe in themselves 100 percent. There’s a good tip for you this week. There’s a lot of information out there on how to play this game. If you want to play your best, do a little bit of digging and figure out the type of clubs that you need to play that suit your game. The type of style that you need to have that suits your personality. Figure out a game plan, stick to it. Don’t change day to day to day to day. If you do that, then you have some doubt creeping there and you’re not going to play great golf. Well, that wraps it up for the Charlie Rymer Balls in the Air Podcast. Appreciate you joining us here today, as always. Please like us, wherever you enjoy your podcast.
Charlie Rymer (19:52):
If you’re interested in coming down and seeing us at Myrtle Beach, as I mentioned at the top of the show, the golf courses are in absolutely wonderful condition right now, but please don’t just show up at the last minute. You’ve got to do a little bit of planning, just like with your golf game. You’ve got to have a little bit of a game plan and you got to stick to it. So go over to playgolfmyrtlebeach.com. They’ll fix you up with some tee times, some accommodations, all that sort of stuff. We’d love to have you, but we are pretty busy down here. We’ve got some room for you, but you’ve got to do a little bit of planning. All right, folks. Thank you very much. We’ll be right here next week with more of the Charlie Rymer Balls in the Air Podcast!
