PGA Tour is underway, but Jerry’s here with the LIV perspective

Open Championship winding down round one, one of the best parts.

There's a lot of best parts about the Open, but one of the best is that because it happens, what, five hours ahead of us, we get it like right in our wheelhouse here. Is it distracting to me? Yeah, it's distracting to me. And I've got Rory McIlroy lining up a birdie putt in front of me as I'm trying to do a show. It gets distracting. He made that birdie putt.

He is now back to even. The other thing about the Open Championship that I think in many ways we overlook in terms of its importance is just what weather does. And nowhere is the weather more volatile and impactful than seaside links in the UK.

Nowhere. And I don't know what the difference is in terms of the score. It does appear that the better scores were the early wave today, although there are some good scores out there in the afternoon. Jerry Foltz would know all about that. Long-time golf analyst, now with Liv Goff, you can check him out on The CW, and he joins us on The Adam Gold Show. What is going on, Jerry? Adam, not a whole heck of a lot. Just glued to my TV for the many, many hours of coverage that are provided of this what looks to be an unseasonably nice day in England.

Yes, it is. It was a little bit hairy, I think, early, but that cleared up and it's bright sunshine, and I know the conditions have really toughened up in the afternoon. You didn't start with this at four o'clock in the morning, did you? You know what?

Last time we talked, I was going through our messages and I happened to be in Hawaii when we talked, and you thought it was too early for me to do an interview, and I reminded you then, old people get up early. So yes, I've had this on for quite a while. Wow!

Look at you! That is awesome! That is tremendous. So, real quick, your thoughts? Not on the amateur because, I mean, we see people out of nowhere post, especially when you go out very early, post great scores before, but a guy like Tommy Fleetwood, who has never won a major and who has had a great, great year, really a great couple of years, this seems like it's perfect for him.

Yeah, it does. It's just so much left to go, and you were referencing the weather and how volatile that can be. Today, there hasn't really been a huge difference between early and late.

Remember, they only go off of one tee, so there's no real wave to it, if you will, but it does make a huge difference at the Open Championship, British Open as most Americans call it. It can make a drastic monumental difference, where only half the field has a chance to win. That hasn't been the case yet. Forecasts, who knows? Literally, they say the easiest job in the world is to be a weatherman because you don't have to be right.

In the UK, it's just a useless job. It doesn't matter. It's not even close to right ever, so you have to tune in to see. But Tommy Fleetwood just happens to be one of those guys who doesn't have an enemy on Earth.

So, you know, there's been so much happening throughout the game of golf, with the Live and TGA Tour and the establishment and all that in the last year. He's one of those guys that, on both sides of the equation, doesn't have an enemy. So, an easy guy for somebody like me to root for. Couldn't you say the same thing about Brooks Koepka? That's the way I look at it. The thing is, I've never been an enormous Brooks Koepka fan, but he seems to have stayed above all of the vitriol. Yeah, no question about it. You see that, by the way, the other players treat him at the majors.

That's the only time he sees them. There is no hatred or dislike for the decision he made to go to Live. I think everybody understood his decision, and he never really was, you know, he was pretty upfront about why he did it, and he's very upfront about now saying, I'm happy with what I did and I'm happy with where I am.

You know, a lot could change in the next year or two. We don't have any idea how that's going to shake out, but Brooks is a great guy. The one thing, you said something interesting, you weren't really a Brooks fan before. Yeah, I wasn't. I kind of, I covered him at the Ryder Cup in Hazeltine. I don't know how many years ago that was.

It wasn't a lot. And he seemed, you know, he seemed very focused, very driven, very quiet. Having been around him, and because of the structure of the way Live golf is, 48 guys who basically tee off at the same time, dine at the same time.

I see them a lot. He is so much more personable, funny, and generous than I would have ever been able to read through his public persona, and I think he has crafted that public persona just to kind of be unpredictable or what have you, but he is such a good soul. Well, you know, it's funny. It's not even a dislike, but my non-fandom of Koepka has, and we're talking with Jerry Foltz of Live Golf, has generally been crafted by some of the public comments, not about Bryson DeChambeau, because that to me was, that was more of a media creation. They might not like each other and that's fine, but to me, the blow up of that was entirely driven, and unfortunately by your old employers. I thought Golf Channel completely blew that out of proportion, but Koepka is like saying things about Dustin Johnson. Well, he hasn't really, they're truisms, but we don't see that. We don't see golfers basically slam each other publicly. He's had, you know, negative things to say about Rory McIlroy. This is well before the split between the two tours, but I think the last couple of years have done an enormous job in maybe even unintentionally rehabilitating his image.

Yeah, I think so too. Something he did that nobody saw, I think we did put a camera on it and showed it during one of our shows, but that he didn't do it for those reasons, was I think we were in Australia during Mother's Day, and all of the, we have a pretty large group of professionals behind the scenes who work the stage and manage and run the events that travel with the tour full-time with golf. All of the mothers on staff, he had them gathered in the morning for a little breakfast luncheon thing, and he brought out of his own doing, he went and bought them and brought them flowers and basically thanked everyone, about 20 of them or so, every one of them individually for being there and working so hard to the in-game product that is Liv Golf and missing their children on that special day.

That kind of thing, you know, that people don't see that. Now the public image, the trash talking, especially the DJ, somebody who used to be really, really close friends with, I think he thrived so much on the bulletin board material, you know, having that proverbial chip on his shoulder that sometimes he might inadvertently or subconsciously try creating it so that it's there, and I think we've seen a little bit of that through time. Jerry Foltz from Liv Golf is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show and appreciate your time. We haven't really talked a ton about this. Rory got off to a, I think Rory got off to a good start, then went to a rough patch in the middle of his round and has gotten it back to even.

I know you've been focused on what guys are doing on the tour that you cover on a regular basis. Rory certainly played well last week in Scotland. What have you seen from Rory?

It's kind of been the same old story out of Rory today. He hits the ball like, I mean, literally like you only dream of hitting the ball almost always. He hits it like that. Rarely does it get so out of whack that he has any kind of cyclical nature to his game like most players do. Hot streaks and cold streaks.

He doesn't have those. It all depends on the putter. His putter was pretty cold for most of the day. It's starting to heat up a little bit, but he hasn't had really any long putts. He's made one really good lengthy putt that I've seen. It's all about that putter to him. He's, you know, for Rory to win, he doesn't have to be a great putter. He just has to putt good.

Same with Scotty Sheffler. If he just putts good, nobody else can touch him. But, you know, we obviously have seen the Sunday problems he's had for the last few years trying to get back into the winner's circle.

And those two shots he pulled off 17 and 18 at the Scottish Open were at the Renaissance Club, were just, I mean, just unthinkable golf shots. So he comes in as the odds on favorite. And I'd be shocked if he doesn't have a chance. He's not in one of the last two or three pairings on Sunday. Let me ask you about a guy who has played very well on Live this year and Cameron Smith. A bunch of guys who played, I mean, Brooks Koepka has played very well.

And Brooks Koepka is almost an automatic contender in every major he plays. So, I mean, all the nonsense about the lack of competition obviously does not matter to Brooks and it does not matter to Cam Smith and a lot of these guys. DJ hasn't played all that well today. But what are your thoughts on Cam Smith and his chances this week?

He's the defending champ. You know, I'm not in that buy or sell mode on Cam quite yet. Won over today, certainly not out of it. The way he's played this year, he's done it all just with smoke and mirrors a lot of the time. Now, that's not to say his game's not like that to a large extent all the time, but he hasn't had his stuff teed a green. And it didn't, I didn't see a whole lot of difference out of Cam today shooting one over par. A lot of missed fairways and a lot of missed greens. Now, if you and I, if the next best short game golfer on Earth had to play from where he has this year, they wouldn't have amassed anything near his record.

He's a magician around the greens and he putts like God on the greens. If he happens to find that one little elixir, you know, that one panacea on the practice team, then look out because there's nothing going to hold him back. He's not afraid of the moment. He's not afraid to win. And he really, really, really wants to drink out of that clear jug for another year.

Yeah, he was emotional when he had to give it back. He is. He is. He is a wizard with the flat stick and around the greens as well.

Back to Koepka real quick before I have to say goodbye to Jerry Foltz from live golf on the CW. He's going to be on the Ryder Cup team. He won the PGA basically. It's almost impossible that he won't be in the top six when it's all over. And it's also virtually impossible that he won't be selected. I think Dustin Johnson will also be on that team.

And for me, that's the way this should have gone. That the best players, regardless of what tour they play on, the DP World Tour, doing what they have to do, what they have already decided they were going to do, whether they have to do it or not. But Koepka and DJ are going to be on Team USA. And those are two of the most popular players in the locker room anyway.

You're absolutely right. None of the guys hold a grudge against them for making the decisions they did. Obviously, DJ was a very instrumental part of what has been the early success of live because he was there and signed up early, signed up first to be one of them.

And then the dominoes started to fall when he and Phil both started. But no, nobody dislikes DJ. Nobody certainly doesn't respect his game. And I would be surprised if Zach didn't pick him.

There are no guarantees there yet. I think he'd have to win this week in order to be in that Brooks category of making it on points that Brooks has already done. And I think Patrick Reed has to get a serious look out of Zach Johnson as well, just because of how much he thrives on that head-to-head, vitriolic kind of competition against the Europeans. I don't think Taylor Gooch, although probably deserved if he were playing the PGA Tour and won three events. I don't think that he could miss being on the team.

Not the case. And he hasn't performed well in the majors, but he's that kind of guy in the years to come who will continue to get better. He always has to get his feet under him and start to believe in himself. And the majors, and being a contender in the majors, is still something that's kind of new to him, much like we see for Max Soma, who's having a great round today. Yeah, until he just missed a very short putt. As I let you go, I'm not sure if Patrick Reed didn't rescind his PGA Tour membership, so that would eliminate him. No, no, not PGA Tour, PGA of America. PGA of America, okay.

That's different, okay. Yeah, but back to Reed, I think Reed would have to win like nine times to make the team, because they didn't select him last time for reasons that went beyond his play. So I just think that they don't want him in the locker room for whatever reason. I go back to the one thing, the poignant moment between Brad Faxon and Brandel Chamblee, I think was after the U.S. Open, or maybe after the PGA, but when Faxon basically said, they did these guys, the Ryder Cup's not about tour, it's about country, and if you want the absolute best 12 players you can put out there to increase your chances of winning, you have to give Patrick Reed a look. Maybe there are guys on the team who don't want them around in the locker room, and maybe that does hurt your chances. I don't see that. The guy's genuinely one of the nicest guys I've dealt with in my entire broadcasting career, but I don't see the side of them in those team rooms and locker rooms that they do.

But yeah, if you want the best team for your country, I think you have to give them a serious consideration. Jerry Foltz, at Jerry Foltz Golf on Twitter, even though he doesn't tweet. Appreciate your time. We'll talk again, and enjoy the rest of your season. You don't have that much left, a couple of months left. I think it all ends in October. We'll talk to you soon. All right, thanks. You got it. Jerry Foltz.