The company designed nine special products, all in WM colorways.
Arizona lifestyle and golf brand Devereux has created a WM Phoenix Open-inspired capsule with their “Play More, Complain Less” mantra. The WM Phoenix Open is one of the best-attended golf tournaments in the world.
According to TPC Scottsdale, the event averages more than 700,000 attendees each year and as a local brand, DVRX felt compelled to do something commemorating the legendary event. DVRX has designed nine special products, all in WM colorways.
DVRX Plug Life golf towel — $34. (Devereux)
The Plug Life Golf towel is a waffle-knit towel inspired by desert golf. With green and yellow WM colors, this bold 1970s cactus design is a way to represent the desert sun and good times.
DVRX Skull Caddy Hat — $35. (Devereux)
DVRX has designed multiple rope-styled hats in this capsule. The Skull Caddy Hat is a yellow cap with a simple skull design to represent the desert heat. The hat has five panels and a snap closure to fit all head sizes. Made from 100% polyester, the perforated sides allow for maximum breathability in hot climates.
Check out DVRX’S website for more designs, clothing and accessories.
We occasionally recommend interesting products, services, and gaming opportunities. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. Golfweek operates independently, though, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.
It was a strange week in the history of the Phoenix Open, but a successful one nonetheless.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Scott Jenkins smiled as he admired his friend, Dr. Michael Golding, who was posing for photos under a scoreboard bearing his name.
Jenkins’ time as Waste Management Phoenix Open chairman had officially come to an end Sunday evening at TPC Scottsdale with the awarding of the championship trophy to Brooks Koepka, and it was time to revel a little in the accomplishment of making it to the end of a tournament unlike any other in its 86-year history.
Golding’s tenure begins as chairman for the 2022 event, which everyone involved hopes will be much closer to the way things were before the coronavirus pandemic changed so much.
“It’s been nine months of incredibly hard work to get here. A lot of roller coaster ups and downs, you know. Obviously COVID, we’re all trying to deal with it the best we can, and especially those Arizona spikes (in cases),” Jenkins said. “Just kind of staying committed to the plan. And then it got to Open week and then it was just about execution. I was never really worried about executing our plan because our group and our staff is the best. It was just getting off the tarmac, getting in the air and once we took off, we were going to be OK.”
Jenkins, assistant chairman Golding and the Thunderbirds got through a Phoenix Open that saw limited attendance, a less-rambunctious atmosphere at the notorious 16th hole and everywhere else, and the constant enforcement of wearing masks. Not to mention the absence of some activities typically available to the masses that attend annually.
Despite the undoubtedly different feel to the 2021 Phoenix Open, it was still the most-attended PGA Tour event in almost a year, with several thousand fans allowed on the course daily.
“There’s always silver linings in everything,” Jenkins said. “This just made us better at running this tournament. We had to look at different ways of being creative and just look at our expenses. It’s easy to deal with your partners when times are good.
“We really relied upon our partners, our vendors, as well as the (PGA) Tour and the city of Scottsdale.”
For Jenkins, seeing fans pay attention to washing hands, wearing masks and watching their distance was what stood out. If there was any doubt, he said, it was whether fans and officials would abide by protocols, and if enforcing those would be problematic.
It wasn’t an issue, Jenkins said. And all week, the players expressed their gratitude at having fans there to cheer them on.
“My best results come with fans, so I’m excited to have them back,” said tournament champion Brooks Koepka.
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“They (players) recognize it’s not a sustainable model to continue to not have fans forever,” Jenkins said. “Thankfully, we were in a position, due to the success of our past tournaments, that we were pretty healthy and we were willing to take the risk and build even when things weren’t great.
“Ultimately if it didn’t make sense and we didn’t have fans, we were still going to have a structure on the 16th hole and do something cool there.”
Jenkins hopes things line up for Golding in terms of suites and hospitality.
Golding said he looks forward to bringing back the energy from 2020, but in a safe way.
“I think we’re going to bounce back,” Golding said. “It’s an honorable position to be the tournament chairman and I’m going to work as hard as I can to put on the best event possible next year.”
Golding credited the fans for wearing masks and thanked the community for continued support.
“Knowing that this year would be different, it’s daunting to try and get it back to normal, but I’m ready,” Golding said. “I’ve got 54 guys behind me that are ready to do that as well. You saw what we (Thunderbirds) did this week.
The PGA Tour confirmed the death of Justin Thomas’s grandfather, Paul Thomas, as Justin chased at the Phoenix Open on Sunday.
Justin Thomas is among a strong cast of pursuers at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, but will make his Sunday chase with a bit of heartache after the death of his grandfather on Saturday.
The PGA Tour confirmed Paul Thomas’s death on Twitter on Sunday afternoon.
It’s been well documented that golf runs in the Thomas family. Justin’s father Mike is a PGA professional and Mike’s father Paul worked in the same industry. Paul, who was born in Ashland, Kentucky, but moved to Cincinnati as a child, was a lifelong club professional and spent a long chunk of his career as the head professional at Zanesville Country Club in Ohio.
Like his grandson, Paul entered the golf world early. He left school and declared himself a golf professional at the age of 17 and bounced around several clubs. He competed in the 1960 and ‘61 PGA Championships but did not have luck playing on the PGA Tour. Later in his life, he made the cut in three U.S. Senior Opens.
Justin Thomas is playing with a heavy heart today @WMPhoenixOpen.
His grandfather passed away Saturday evening.
Paul Thomas influenced Justin’s love and passion for the game.
According to a story about Paul on PGATour.com, he and wife Phyllis followed their grandson’s career closely from their home in Columbus, Ohio. Both were on-hand at Firestone Country Club in 2018 when Justin won the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. Paul had competed on that course at the 1960 PGA Championship.
Justin has had a strong start to the 2020-21 season on the golf course – logging top-5 finishes at the Zozo Championship, Masters and Sentry Tournament of Champions – but has largely made headlines for an anti-gay slur he used after a missed putt at the Tournament of Champions. He has spoken several times of his desire to learn from the experience as he moves forward.
Xander Schauffele overcame a sluggish start and played 5 under during a four-hole stretch to catapult into the lead at the Phoenix Open.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Xander Schauffele has been preaching patience as the key for him to return to the winner’s circle for the first time in over two years. He’s developed a simple mantra to follow: “Control what we can control,” he said.
He and caddie Austin Kaiser did just that on Friday at TPC Scottsdale.
After seeing names leapfrog him on the leaderboard as he made just one birdie in his first 11 holes, Schauffele shifted into overdrive, playing the next four holes in 5 under, and coming home in 30.
“That’s sort of what the team and I talk about, just getting back to the old mentality where I am more patient, I don’t push as much, kind of let the round come to me,” he said. “If you’re playing well, if I try and force things sometimes it works out, but sometimes it doesn’t. So, try and kind of stay in our lane and keep doing what we’re doing.”
Schauffele stayed in his lane to the tune of a 7-under 64 and a 36-hole aggregate of 12-under 130 and a one-stroke lead over Steve Stricker and Keegan Bradley at the Waste Management Phoenix Open.
Schauffele has been the picture of consistency on the PGA Tour, finishing no worse than T-17 in his last six events, including a share of second last week at the Farmers Insurance Open. This marks the 26th time since the start of the 2017-18 season that he has been in the top-10 through 36 holes, most of any player during that span. The 27-year-old San Diego native has climbed to a career-best of No. 4 in the world and has claimed four career victories, but hasn’t lifted a trophy since the 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions, and went so far as to say on Thursday that he’s choked on occasion.
“I feel like I had a sense of urgency when I really didn’t need to,” Schauffele explained of some of his close calls that didn’t go his way. “I would look back at the week and I was like, ‘Man, why did I kind of jump the gun there? All I had to do was play decent and I would’ve been right there.’”
On Friday, the stretch beginning at No. 12 was nothing short of sensational: a 26-foot birdie putt at 12, a two-putt birdie at 13, sticking his approach from 180 yards to five feet at 14, and sinking a 21-foot eagle putt at 15. The latter just snuck in at the end.
“I thought it was going to miss just left,” he said. “Kind of had soft speed on it and kind of held, which is a bonus.”
Schauffele capped off his day by planting a short iron from 139 yards to five feet and sinking the birdie putt to sleep on the 36-hole lead.
Earlier in the day, Stricker, the U.S. Ryder Cup captain, carded a 5-under 66, meaning Tom Brady isn’t the only grizzled veteran seeking another title this Sunday. Stricker, who hasn’t recorded a top-10 finish since the 2017 John Deere Classic and last won on the Tour in 2012, turns 54 later this month. He’s bidding to shatter Sam Snead’s 56-year-old record as the oldest winner on Tour at age 52, 10 months, eight days when he won the Greater Greensboro Open in 1965. He would also become the first golfer age 50 and older to win on Tour since 51-year-old Davis Love III at the 2015 Wyndham Championship.
Steve Stricker plays his third shot from a bunker on the second hole during round two of the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. (Photo: Rob Schumacher-Arizona Republic)
“I know it’s a long shot,” Stricker said. “I’ve got to play my very best, just like anybody else does out here. But you know, I’ve been there. I’ve won a few times out on this Tour and I know what it takes, although it’s been a while. It would be fun to see how I handle it if I do get that opportunity.”
Bradley came out of the gate with birdies on his first four holes en route to shooting 6-under 65 and tying Stricker for second.
“All it was was having some putts go in. With me, that’s kind of all I need to do,” he said. “I made one really long one last night, and sometimes those get you going.”
Scottie Scheffler (65), K.H. Lee (66) and Sam Burns (67) are tied for fourth at 10-under 132, and Scottsdale resident Nate Lashley (69) is in seventh at 133. The logjam at 8-under 134 includes former major champions Jordan Spieth (67) and Brooks Koepka (66). Spieth, who is mired in a slump that dates to his last win at the 2017 British Open, hit 10 fairways and 16 greens, while Koepka, who is winless since the 2019 PGA Championship, snapped a streak of three straight missed cuts. When asked if it feels as if it has been a long time since he’s tasted victory, Koepka said, “I would say so. In my mind last year didn’t even happen. I do know it’s been a long time so I’m itching to get a W.”
So is Schauffele, but he knows that his work is only half done.
“The fact that I haven’t won, I’m not satisfied,” he said.
The field was trimmed to 66 golfers at 3-under 139 or better. Cut casualties included former Phoenix Open champions Rickie Fowler and Gary Woodland, former major champion Jason Day, and Daniel Burger and Harris English, who both rank in the top 20 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Lucas Glover, who shot the low round of the day, a 63, Webb Simpson (65) and Justin Thomas (65) all rallied to play the weekend.
Jordan Spieth shot consecutive rounds in the 60s for the first time since August and showed signs he’s rediscovering his game.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Don’t look now but Jordan Spieth put together two consecutive rounds at TPC Scottsdale in the 60s for the first time since the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in August.
Spieth, who has been mired in a slump in which he has missed four cuts in seven previous starts this season and plummeted to World No. 92, opened with a pair of 4-under 67s at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, giving himself a much-needed boost of confidence heading into the weekend.
“Probably higher than it’s been in a long time,” he said of his confidence level. “Still certainly not at 100, not feeling like I have my ‘A’ game, but I feel like it’s trending that direction.”
Spieth, 27, who trails Steve Stricker and Keegan Bradley by three strokes, called it a “tale of two rounds.” He hit just two of 14 fairways and 11 of 18 greens as he continued to spray his tee ball, primarily left. But his putter bailed him out. In contrast, on Friday, he found 10 fairways and 16 greens and his putter cooled off.
“It felt like a 6- or 7-under day,” he said of his second-round score, “and this is one of the first times I’ve almost been disappointed shooting 4-under in a round in long time, and that’s a good sign. Versus yesterday it was one of those, like, all right, I shot 4 (under), but I got away with murder.”
Spieth hit 10/14 fairways today and 16/18 greens today.
This is just the 20th round of his career — and first since 2019 — where he hit at least 10 fairways and 16 greens.
So which player does Spieth most resemble? It’s hard to say, but Golf Channel analyst Arron Oberholser said Spieth is making progress to rediscover the magic that led to three major championships between 2015 and 2017, but no victories since the 2017 British Open.
“I saw a one-way miss last week,” Oberholser said of Spieth, who missed the cut at Torrey Pines. “It was a big one-way miss and he didn’t hit a lot of fairways, but it was a one-way miss.”
After Friday’s round Oberholser texted: “He has to pick a shot and dial in a cone for that shot dispersion.”
This week, at least anyway, Spieth is going with a draw off the tee, and it worked on Friday.
“I almost knew kind of through transition that they were going to be good drives,” he said. “I felt like when I really stood in that draw and really exploded off my right side, cleared out, some really good things happened.”
He added: “I know exactly what I did to produce those. I know the difference in the bad ones yesterday to the good ones today. It’s just about repping it in, continuing to trust it and just being OK with the fact that it’s going to take time for it to be fully integrated with the stuff I’ve been working on.”
Spieth stiffed a short iron and made birdie at No. 10, his first hole of the day, and strung together three birdies in a row beginning at No. 13, including a 30-footer at 14. He gave a stroke back at No. 16, but toured his first nine in 33. Spieth surged into contention with a 33-foot eagle putt at the par-5 third.
But then Spieth’s round stalled as he made five pars in a row and ended his day with a sloppy bogey from 125 yards and the middle of the fairway at his final hole. Spieth’s strong start didn’t go unnoticed by U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker.
“I’m looking for him to just get right up in contention, and I don’t think it’s going to take much for him to get back in there and win again,” he said. “He’s done it so much in such a short period of time, even though it’s been a few years, he knows how to do it. He showed us he knows how to do it when he was winning all those events and majors. I think when he gets in there it’s going to be like riding a bike again and he’s going to feel comfortable and do well with it.”
While Stricker never won a major championship, he went through his own lean years and knows from experience what it’s like to be lost at times. He won the Tour’s Comeback Player of the Year, not once, but twice.
“I think as soon as he figures out a few things here and there, he’s going to be right back where he was. And that’s the hard part, right; he had such great years, career years, in just a short period of time, that all of us when we do that we have those expectations that we need to do that every year, and that’s just not possible out here,” Stricker said. “There’s so many good players and the talent pool runs deep. It’s just not fair for everybody like us or him to believe that he can put those numbers up year after year.”
Before Spieth’s fan club gets too excited about his latest resurgence, he will have to prove he can do it over the weekend. He ranks 20th in scoring average since the beginning of the 2017-18 season in Rounds 1 and 2, but 148th in Rounds 3 and 4. Speith isn’t going to sweat the small stuff; he’s sticking to his process.
“It’s just about trusting what I’m doing here. If I shoot 6-under tomorrow, awesome. If I shoot even but I trusted it and it felt really good and I just didn’t get the right breaks or lipped out or something, really, that’s fine,” he said. “I know that once I am hitting the positions I want to hit in the swing, I’ve got the tempo I want, I’ve got the right swing feels, I know that I’ll end up progressing forward, shooting a lot of low rounds and winning golf tournaments because I’ve done it.
“It’s nice to have been there and been able to be the best in the world. You know you can do it. And so for me, it’s about, again, more the feels than it is the results right now, and obviously if I get in the thick of things on this weekend, then I’ll tap into that competitiveness that I love to have, and hopefully it’ll be a very confident competitiveness drawing back on good memories.”
Steve Stricker shot a second-round 66 at TPC Scottsdale as he attempts to become the oldest winner in PGA Tour history.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – O Captain! My Captain!
Players such as Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth and Brooks Koepka, who have ambitions of playing on Team USA later this year, should be taking to their chairs like in the movie “Dead Poets Society,” and chanting their allegiance.
U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker is taking the words of Robin Williams’s famous character in that flick to heart and seizing the day at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. For much of the day, Stricker seized the lead, shooting 5-under 66 on a chilly morning to climb to 11-under 131 at TPC Scottsdale and share the top spot with Keegan Bradley.
“This is why we’re here, to play at this stage, at this level,” said Stricker.
The last @RyderCupUSA captain to win on the PGA Tour the same year he captained the team was Arnold Palmer in 1963. Palmer won 7 times that season on Tour.
He was also the last playing captain for either side at the Ryder Cup.
Steve Stricker (-11) leads the U.S. team this year.
Tom Brady isn’t the only grizzled veteran seeking another title this Sunday. Stricker, who last won on the PGA Tour in 2012 and turns 54 later this month, is attempting to shatter Sam Snead’s 56-year-old record as the oldest winner on Tour at age 52, 10 months, eight days when he won in Greensboro in 1965. Stricker opened with 6-under 65 on Thursday and heard from several pros that evening, including Brandt Snedeker.
“Snedeker is in my kitchen saying you need to smile, you’re leading the tournament, why aren’t you smiling?” Stricker said. “It was only one round. So, I knew today was an important day to come out and try to back that one up that I did yesterday.”
Stricker had reason to smile on Friday morning. He birdied all three of the par-5s at TPC Scottsdale and drained a 14-foot birdie putt at No. 11, his longest putt of the day. Stricker was bogey-free for the day until he knocked his approach into the front greenside bunker and failed to get up and down. It’s the first time he opened a tournament with consecutive rounds of 66 or better since 2011. Color Billy Horschel, who shot 68, impressed with Stricker’s 36-hole performance.
“I was like, man, he turned back the clock this week a little bit,” Horschel said. “He’s still got a lot of game. He still competes really well. It’s not shocking to see.”
Stricker is mixing in more starts on the PGA Tour this season to scout potential U.S. Ryder Cup participants, along with his play on PGA Tour Champions, where he is the host of the American Family Championship in his native Wisconsin, and made the cut last week at the Farmers Insurance Open, one of the longest layouts on Tour. He’s beating all of his potential players as well as his opposing captain Padraig Harrington and Euro stalwarts John Rahm and Rory McIlroy.
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“He’s realizing that he’s not the shortest guy out here and when he was playing at his best he wasn’t the longest guy out here either,” said wife Nicki, who is on the bag this week for her husband. “He’s just good at doing what he does well and not worrying about anything else and anyone else.”
Stricker credited a change in his putter setup for his hot hand with the shortstick. Always one of the best putters in the game, Stricker considered benching his Odyssey White Hot gamer, which has been in the bag for all but a dozen rounds, he figured, in the last 20+ years. He’s had it re-shafted and replaced the insert a few years ago to keep it in his bag, but went so far as to ask equipment reps for some different models of late to test.
“I will roll them on the green and they will feel pretty good but ultimately I put that old one back in there,” he said.
That old putter and that old guy are doing just fine through 36 holes. But Saturday’s have been a struggle for Stricker of late – he shot 77 last week at Torrey Pines – and so tomorrow it will be important for him to get off to a quick start if he’s going to make a run at his 13th Tour title and becoming the first golfer age 50 and older to win since 51-year-old Davis Love III at the 2015 Wyndham Championship.
“I know it’s a long shot,” he said. “I’ve got to play my very best, just like anybody else does out here. But you know, I’ve been there. I’ve won a few times out on this Tour and I know what it takes, although it’s been a while. It would be fun to see how I handle it if I do get that opportunity.”
Steve Stricker, 53, shot 65 at TPC Scottsdale and beat several of the players he may end up picking for the U.S. Ryder Cup team.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – The Waste Management Phoenix Open includes five of the top 10 players in the world, but in the first round they were all beaten by the 460th -ranked player, a PGA Tour Champions regular who thought his days of whipping up on these young whippersnappers were over.
That old timer would be none other than U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker, who shot six-under 65, the lowest score of the afternoon wave at TPC Scottsdale, and proved he’s not just here to scout potential players for his 12-man side later this year.
“I made some putts,” he said. “Felt like the old Steve Stricker. I am old, but I don’t feel 53 or 4. I feel like I still have a little bit of game left in me.”
Stricker, who turns 54 later this month and won the last of his 12 PGA Tour titles in 2012, sits in fifth place after the opening round, two strokes behind Matthew NeSmith and Mark Hubbard.
Stricker thought he’d be put out to pasture this year and be a full-time Champions tour pro, but the Ryder Cup postponement due to the global pandemic changed his plans. He’s still playing against the young bucks—this is his third Tour event in a row—so that he can keep an eye on his potential players. That included a practice round with Patrick Cantlay at the American Express and conversations with Patrick Reed at the Farmers Insurance Open and Justin Thomas this week.
Stricker’s wife Nicki was on the bag and their kids followed along making it a family affair. It didn’t hurt that Stricker was also grouped with fellow 50-something and pal Jerry Kelly and European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington.
“Walking off the first tee I said, ‘Paddy, we got two Badgers against you today. He was like, ‘Well, I need to get used to that I guess.’ So, he knows what’s coming when he comes there in September,” Stricker said of Whistling Straits, site of the biennial matches.
As he walked off the 18th green, he took a long glance at the scoreboard and couldn’t help but notice that his name was above the likes of Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth, Webb Simpson, and Thomas, who all have Ryder Cup experience, and Euro stars Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy.
“I love to watch who is playing well and look for potential players on the Ryder Cup team, friends, how they’re playing. Just get the lay of it. I study it a lot it seems like nowadays just trying to get a feel for what’s going on and how guys are playing,” he said. “It was good to see my name up there on the top, and the challenge will be to come out tomorrow and try to keep that ball rolling.”
His trusty putter, an Odyssey White Hot putter he’s used for more than 20 years, decided to behave and he made seven birdies against just one bogey to shoot the lowest score by a 50+ year-old golfer in the Phoenix Open since Tom Lehman in 2011.
Hubbard, who was followed by his pregnant wife, straightened out his putter, too. On his way to a forgettable round of 76 and a missed cut at the American Express two weeks ago, Hubbard used an unconventional putting technique, extending his right arm and wrapping his pinky finger around the lower portion of his shaft for support on a 5-foot putt. Hubbard said the maneuver was coined “the snail” during his days at San Jose State. When asked what his teammates thought of his technique, he said, “They all know I’m an idiot, so they just expect it from me.”
Hubbard said it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that the snail would make an encore performance this week.
“We were joking on 16 that if I had hit it to a tap-in’s length that I would have had to have done it,” he said. “It drew a little more at the end, so I had five feet and it was kind of outside that range. But who knows, we might break it out this week.”
Hubbard finished with a flurry of birdies, five in his last six holes, to shoot his lowest round of his career after making a slight swing adjustment.
“I think earlier in the day I was kind of whipping it a little inside, so I kind of straightened my takeaway a little bit, and that kind of got things in motion, and I putted pretty good all day,” he said.
Matthew NeSmith plays his second shot at the second hole during the first round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. (Photo: Rob Schumacher-Arizona Republic/USA Today Network)
NeSmith went out early and carded six birdies and an eagle when he holed a bunker shot at No. 13. He hit 16 greens in regulation and took just 27 putts. NeSmith is winless on Tour and doesn’t need to be reminded that a victory would earn him an invite to the Masters.
He grew up less than 20 minutes from famed Augusta National Golf Club, just across the border in South Carolina and his father was a part-time caddie there. He has fond memories of attending the tournament as a kid.
“I’d try to get my dad to let me skip school on Thursday and Friday to watch it when we were going,” he said.
Nate Lashley, who attended University of Arizona and makes his home in Scottsdale, is one stroke back along with Same Burns after shooting 64s. Spieth ranked second in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting en route to signing for 4-under 67. That was a stroke better than Koepka, the 2015 Phoenix Open champion, who posted 3-under 68, his lowest opening-round score since last year’s PGA Championship. Koepka, who is trying to end a streak of three straight missed cuts, made 149 feet of putts, his most in a single round since 2018.
Rahm, an Arizona State alum, tied Koepka with 68, while McIlroy overcame a slow start and Thomas took a costly triple-bogey 7 at No. 17 as both opened with 1-under 70. Simpson, the defending champion, struggled to 2-over 73 as did Fowler, the 2019 champion, who is in danger of missing the cut after shooting 74.
Asked what Stricker would say to Team USA vets such as Xander Schauffele, who shot 66, Fowler, Spieth, Koepka, Thomas and Simpson, who are all looking up at The Captain’s name on the leaderboard, he said, “Well, it’s only one round. But it shows that I’m still out here trying to compete with them, trying to play, trying to beat them.”
