FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, August 8th, 2018

NOTABLE QUOTES: GOLF CENTRAL LIVE FROM THE PGA CHAMPIONSHIP (TUESDAY)

Bellerive Country Club, St. Louis, Mo.
Tuesday, August 7

Below is a collection of notes and quotes from Tuesday night’s Golf Central Live From the PGA Championship. Coverage of Golf Central Live From the PGA Championship continues Wednesday from Bellerive Country Club throughout the day on Golf Channel and in primetime.

*Media also can access notable quotes via @GolfChannelPR on Twitter or by visiting www.nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com*

VIDEO: Players weigh in on proposal to limit green book data
VIDEO: Duval: Spieth is ‘pressing too much’ to win
VIDEO: Nobilo: Rory always leaves you wanting more
VIDEO: Should green reading books be banned?

Vantage Point with Mike Tirico
VIDEO: St. Louis sports greats Ozzie Smith & Joe Buck discuss golf’s influence in St. Louis
VIDEO: PGA of America’s Suzy Whaley aims to help golf reach new heights
VIDEO: Whaley: weighing the impact of the PGA Championship’s move from August to May

On the impact of Tuesday’s weather at the PGA Championship
David Duval – “The PGA of America deserves better than what’s been going on this week. You can only do so much when you’ve had such severe heat like they’ve had here. The golf course can only be so firm. And then you add into it an inch of rain today. I think we’re in for an extremely soft golf course. Kind of like throwing darts. You’re going to see spiders on the greens, and it’s not quite what everybody wanted.”
Frank Nobilo – “If you played a practice round or any holes today, you learned nothing. And even from our vantage point, we learned nothing about it either. You hope that this isn’t what we’re going to see for four days. The golf course is better than that. This field, this championship deserves better than that. So fingers crossed that this is the last of the bad weather.”

On Jordan Spieth’s chances at winning the career Grand Slam this week
Duval – “I think he’s pressing too much… As much as anything he needs to cut himself a little bit of slack, and give himself a break. And just go back to having more fun doing what he’s so great at doing… I think he’s still in that mode of holding himself to that 2015 standard. And I think that’s a problem. That was his career year… It doesn’t mean he’s not going to win multiple more majors. But 2015 is highly unlikely to happen again.”
Brandel Chamblee – “It’s really just one club. He almost won Houston finishing almost dead last in putting. He lost the Masters by two shots to Patrick Reed, and he had 13 more putts than Patrick Reed had. He lost The Open by four shots to Francesco Molinari, and he had four more putts than Francesco Molinari… There is a huge difference between how many putts he used to make, and how many putts he’s made this year… On a positive note, I will say that for the first time all year he’s had three successive events in-a-row positive in strokes-gained putting.”

On Rory McIlroy
Nobilo – “You notice in his wedges now there’s more of a block finish with those short irons. You see a person in transition, yet he always leaves you wanting more. And consequently you think he’s played worse than he has. There’s plenty more in the tank.”
Chamblee – “I like him here for [many] different reasons. Right-to-left holes, obviously that’s his favorite ball flight. Soft conditions will sort of mitigate his miss… And he carries the ball longer than anybody else. I like him because the greens are going to be slow… I like him because of the Zoysia fairways. They are a pickers paradise. And he’s a picker, he’s a sweeper… The only question mark for him is tenacity… Rory McIlroy is 133rd in the bounce back statistic.”
Duval – “You do sit there certainly over the course of the last three or four years… There’s certainly more there, and we’re just not seeing it.”

On Tiger Woods
Duval – “I think all of us were surprised at how good he came back. I think as much as anything he’s simply tired. The year has caught up to him. Father time does that to everybody.”
Chamblee – “He’s twice cursed. He’s 42-years-old and is competing in a sport that’s getting younger and younger. But he’s also competing against an era of golfers that are far deeper and more talented than the era that he won his major championships in.” 

On the R&A/USGA’s proposed regulations regarding green reading books taking effect in 2019
Nobilo – “My biggest concern, it’s a generational decision. The 40s or 50s, those guys would complain that yardage books were terrible. They gave too much information… And I’m not for them either, yet amateur golf you can have a range finder that’s going to get it to a yard and that’s okay… My fear is if we make decisions just based on generation… I just feel that this generation has been punished for a lot of things, when they’ve inherited all of it. And it’s like we’re going to hold this generation accountable for technology, the golf ball, these books, that supposedly has happened on somebody else’s watch.”
Chamblee – “It is not clear that these books are actually helping players… It’s one thing to read your yardage book and then look at all of the effects. Look at the sky and look at the hole, and then go about trying to play your shots. It’s another thing to go from looking at your putting book and then going to hit your putt. In other words, it’s told you what to do out of a book. And then all that’s left to do is hit the stroke.”
Duval – “I’m not a fan of them. I never have been. I believe it takes away the art, the feel of using your eyes, using your feet… I agree entirely with taking the book away. I think it goes down the hole of too much science. I think it takes away a skillset you develop as a young player… Why should somebody else be given that information that they haven’t learned?”

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