Mud balls to be a factor at Valhalla in Round 3 | Live From the PGA Championship | Golf Channel

Johnson Wagner analyzes how mud affects a golf ball after weather rained down at Valhalla Golf Club during Round 2 of the PGA Championship and how golfers will have to navigate the “guessing game” in Round 3. #GolfChannel #PGAChampionship #ValhallaGolfClub
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Mud balls to be a factor at Valhalla in Round 3 | Live From the PGA Championship | Golf Channel
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tiger uh shoots 77 today for what that’s worth said I need to play more golf but in any event as it relates to Mud balls Johnson Wagner is live at the 18th hole here at Valhalla and Johnson just kind of help us understand what mud does to a golf ball and how difficult it is to execute the kind of shot you’d like to play yeah guys thank you Rich I know yall were looking forward to me chipping again tonight but it’s too dark and I wasn’t comfortable doing it as you can might imagine all right so today there was a lot of rain this morning overnight and this golf course drains incredibly well but but a lot of times even when it’s as it’s draining mud gets on the golf ball there were a number of examples I’d like to show you Brooks Kea on number 10 today hitting his second shot with fairway wood in hand trying to probably hold a little cut mud on the right side of the ball this thing is dead left goes out of bounds he end up making a double bogey he would go on to bounce back with birdy’s on the next two but let me my my whole goal tonight would be to demonstrate to the viewer at home and brandle I couldn’t disagree with you more I respect you but I disagree with you I’ve got a little mud on a ball down here I’m in the 18th Fairway Tony Fen now hit a pretty sick shot from this location earlier uh to a tight pin I’ve got the mud on top of the ball and when you when you think about mud it’s a game of opposites yes it’s a guessing game but this is the best theory out there so I’ve got the mud on top of the ball what that does is it makes the ball fly low when it’s on the right side like this it makes the ball go left sorry brandle I’m right when it if you flip it over and it’s on the left side of the ball it makes it go to the right and the best place for mud to be for a player is right here to where the club’s going to come in and you’re going to have impact with that ball and knock the mud off of it completely the worst place is when the mud is underneath and you player can’t see it and that’s when I think it it gets going everywhere and can knuckle ball so tomorrow weather’s looking better but when the sun comes out and the course is still wet ball lands in the Fairway and the mud has a chance to dry faster a lot of times when we play with mud balls we like it to be wet because usually the mud would fly off the golf ball immediately the soil here is very rich and pure and they done they’ve done a great job with drainage on this golf course but mud balls are going to be a factor tomorrow I had our great researcher Kevin Casey look up some data for me and and I wanted to know if the PGA Championship had ever played lift clean in place and he came up with 2016 Balter PGA won by Jimmy Walker believe it was Sunday that week they had had so much water on the golf course they had no other choice the ball I have knowing Carrie hag the way I do they’re going to be playing this ball down tomorrow and you’re going to see a lot of players s looking at their ball trying to figure out where the mud is and like we saw today we’re going to see more of that tomorrow hopefully the weather’s good enough that we won’t W have that issue on Sunday because of these zeeon Fairways draining so well Johnson yeah I just want to uh uncore the unknowns of mud balls I I hear your your definitive theories but how do you describe then players having trouble with mud balls it’s if it’s as simple as you just described it there’s mud on the right why wouldn’t Brooks kepka aim 40 yards right of the 10th green take that into account and hit it I’ve seen it far too often where you don’t exactly know what it’s going to do uh it’s not that definitive or easy it’s a guessing game it it 100% is a guessing game and I think he didn’t I I think a lot of times players make the mistake of trying to override that ball on the the mud on the right side of the ball by trying to cut it and so he didn’t look like he was set up way to the right I think he should have or brandle the better choice I would never have hit a three- with at a par five if I was worried about mud on my golf ball I would have laid that ball up into the Fairway a little bit lower and I would have tried to skip it down the Fairway to knock the mud off so I could hit a good wedge shot for the second and I’ll say one more thing about mud Xander chafl has a very flat trajectory flatter than most of the long hitters out here and I think his ball comes in at a better angle into the fairways and doesn’t pick up that much mud so I think there’s there no surprise to me he was able to uh ball strike the his irons just like he did on day one he was really efficient coming into the greens and it’s because of his trajectory with his driver off the te yeah I I’ll just throw my Tupin uh worthin as well to to Really complicate matters even further see as we don’t seem to have a common ground here um my my view on mud balls was was always to play conservative which is kind of aligned what you were saying there um Johnson you know when there’s mud on the ball I would generally try to play a real conservative play with my next shot and make sure I miss it in the right place or aim for aim for a place where I could get up and down uh if I was going over water I would take a full Club more um and if it went over the back of the green it went over the back of the green and and kind of you know there’s so many things in the players favors this week you know the the go the fairways are soft so as a result uh the balls are you know a lot of Fairways are being hit the greens are soft we know the the the upside of that H it’s easy to chip onto there’s not a lot of slope on them so we have record scoring over the first two days and in fact the scoring today was better than it was yesterday even with mud balls today um so you know my my view would be aligned with what the PJ of America will do which is major championship and you got to play the ball down there’s so many things in favor of good scoring this is a variable and and uh it’s part and partial of a game as Nicholas used to say golf’s not a game I’d agree 100% with that you know I I think uh playing a mud ball you know look there’s you know a bit of uh vagaries involved in it you get one you don’t get one you try to play it low uh generally not in favor of it I don’t know Johnson how do you feel you think you you should uh have lift clean in place when balls are apt to collect mud or do you think uh you should just have to deal with it for for a normal PGA Tour event I agree with the PGA Tour rule staff but we are at a major championship and it does it adds an extra element it it it it benefits someone who who’s a thinker it benefits somebody who has a positive attitude about it because everybody’s going to get some of these breaks um I’m more align with Paulie tonight yeah I I I agree with that just to finish on that uh it’s easy it’s easy to get wound up about it you see more on your ball immediately your your attitude goes bad and then you don’t make the commitment you need for a shot and as a result you hit a bad shot Johnson thank you hopefully we’ll get a chance to see you hit some shots tomorrow U preferably not a Chip Shot or a pit shot off that uh zoa grass Johnson Wagner on mud balls here at Val Halla