Craig Perks Q&A: New Zealand Golf Scene, Soft PGA Tour Courses, and More

Before we get into international golf, you were on the call during the Baycurrent Classic. How do you view Michael Brennan right now in relation to other young players?

I am as high on Michael Brennan as any player 24 years old or younger.

I go back to the BMW Championship. Michael played in the final round with J.J. Spaun, and they were our featured group on PGA Tour Live. Michael was 40, 50, 60 yards past J.J.’s tee shot on every hole, but he would stop and watch J.J. on every hole, observing the U.S. Open champion to see if he could learn something.

I think the ceiling is as high for Michael Brennan as Jackson Koivun and all of these other young studs. He's as good a driver of the golf ball as Rory McIlroy. The short game, the wedge game is evolving. His technique is good. It's not like he has poor action or there's something yippy going on. He just needs more reps to build confidence.

And he has humility. There are a lot of entitled, spoiled people out there that just expect to go out and perform well. This kid’s got a great family around him. I watched Sunday at the Baycurrent when Jacob Bridgeman was announced on the first tee, and Michael applauded for him. You don't see that often.

Plus, he’s won at every level. Tiger used to talk about how important that is. Michael won eight times in college, three times on the PGA Tour Americas, and now three times on Tour in just over 30 starts.

I'm all in on Michael Brennan being an absolute superstar.

What should people know about the New Zealand golf scene? Where does golf fit into the priority order for young athletes who want to pursue a sport?

I left in 1985 to come to America to play golf and I’ll be the first to say that I haven't been back as much as I should. Rugby is king in New Zealand, especially with the All Blacks. Cricket is also rather popular.

Michael Campbell winning the U.S. Open helped boost golf. So did Ryan Fox winning the Open Championship this summer with his legendary last name. His father Grant is one of the greatest All Blacks of all time.

New Zealand has some of the greatest topography in the world. Back 15 to 20 years ago, we'd just go out and mow something and that would be the fairway. Then we'd mow another area a little lower and that was the green. Sheep roamed the grounds of many of the golf courses. It was truly just the lay of the land.

In the early 2000s, we got Kauri Cliffs and then Tom Doak did Cape Kidnappers and now we’ve seen more evolution with Jack’s Point and Tara Iti and Te Arai.

The whole country is bought into building these five-star resorts because we have the natural beauty. Some great architects have gone down and built some wonderful golf courses. Doak and Coore & Crenshaw built those courses basically right up against the Pacific Ocean at Te Arai. You'll see the South course this week at the Asia-Pacific Am. Once we got some great architects over here, the level of golf courses has improved significantly. The land and soil are just magnificent for golf.

But going back all the way to Bob Charles, nine Kiwis have won on the PGA Tour. We’re talking about a country the size of Colorado by land. When I left in 1985, the population was three million. Now, it's five million people. It’s not a huge swath of people.

So I think what we’ve accomplished — Lydia Ko, success throughout the junior and professional ranks — I think we should be held in high regard for being such a small country and having the success that we’ve had throughout the world.

What are your top three golf courses in New Zealand?

I would put Paraparaumu Beach up there – a great links-style golf course.

Then, I’ll go with what I used to know as Heretaunga but is now called Royal Wellington Golf Club — a beautiful, old, tree-lined track.

I haven't had the fortune of playing Tara Iti or Te Arai but those courses look absolutely spectacular. Jack's Point is also a beautiful setting down in Queenstown.

There are so many golf courses that were built in the 50s and 60s and 70s that are magnificent tracks because they're surrounded by the most incredible scenery. The routings are incredible. You could walk a number of those courses and say, “That's one of the best courses I've ever played.” There are many of those that are not as well known as some of the ones that get more publicity, but there are many spectacular golf courses.

Fill in the blank: if LIV Golf shutters, that would be ___ for international golf.

I think it would be good just for golf itself to get rid of it, to be honest with you. To me, it seemed like it was a bit of a vendetta of (Greg) Norman's and he got some money behind him and did what he did.

I was disappointed when it broke away because this wonderful game is about competition and I’m not sure it was ever sincere competition. I want the best players competing together at great venues, so I was sad when it happened and I’m glad it’s sort of tumbling and crumbling.

How would you like to see international golf evolve and what is a realistic way to achieve those goals?

Logistically, it might be difficult, but I want to see all these Opens — the Australian Open, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Scotland, maybe New Zealand — become really important.

I worked the Canadian Open this year and there is real significance to an event like that.

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The Australian Open used to be one of the 10 best events in the world. It should be that way again. We have the four majors. We have the Players. We have some of the flagship events over on the DP World Tour.

I think it’s important that these national opens become important again.

What are the key ways you see the game being played differently right now compared to the prime of your career?

A lot of the skill has devolved because of the agronomic conditioning of the golf courses. We've lost the art of pitching and chipping and the bump-and-run. When you’re able to miss greens and putt from a lot of places, it lets guys play away from their weaknesses.

Hybrids, lofted metals, you can play away from your inability to hit long irons. And then, large-headed drivers, mishits are going 325 yards in the fairway. I completely agree with the idea that the ball doesn’t go too far, it goes too straight. We’ve lost shotmaking. If the ball would spin a little bit more, we might get some of that back.

Are golf courses on Tour too manicured?

I’ll reference one place I know intimately: TPC Sawgrass. Look at some of those pictures back in the late 80s and 90s, how rugged and unkempt the course was. That is when the course played its best. The ball ran out of the fairway and you were scared to death of flyers out of the 2.5-inch Bermuda rough.

My first go around was 2002, the year that I won. It was played in March back then too, but the presentation wasn’t nearly as heavily overseeded as today. The golf course would change throughout the tournament. The greens would become frictionless and brown.

It was like playing on the moon, some of the guys would say, because it was so firm and fiery. You lost control of the ball pretty quickly. Then, they modified it and softened it all. They want it to look like Augusta National. It’s too lush.

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Golf courses are too soft.

I think we play too much into the hands of the players. They want it to be pristine. And, of course, it needs to look good on television, so they make it all lush and green. I'm so against that. To me, a brown golf course is beautiful.

When it's firm and fast and the ground is fiery, that's when the skill set is enlarged and you get creativity around the greens and even coming out of the rough. That’s what I want to see.

It’s just boring golf when it’s played in the air and it’s soft and receptive. It’s too one-dimensional.

It’ll be 25 years next March since you won the Players Championship. How do you reflect on that?

I feel really blessed. It's afforded me the blessing of having my wife and my two kids travel with me from Hawaii to the Open Championship. The win gave me a five-year exemption, which prolonged my playing career, and such a dramatic finish helped me get a broadcasting career.

I struggled with the win because I didn't feel like I belonged when you look at the list of champions. My name is the beacon of, “Holy cow, what the hell? Why is he there?”

I just don't belong. So I fought with that. I tried to be someone I wasn't. I tried to live up to being a Players champion. I became very frustrated. At the end of my five-year exemption, I didn't even want to play anymore.

I'm thankful that I was able to accomplish what I accomplished. Winning in stunning fashion, even though my game basically disintegrated before my eyes afterwards, afforded me the opportunity to have another career outside of playing.

That’s what I'm really grateful for. Whether it was remarkable, outstanding, mesmerizingly mythical, or how the hell did he do that? All of those things combined, I’m just grateful I had the opportunity to do it.