Talking US OPEN with Stephen Hennessey from the Golf Digest

Getting you US Open ready with Stephen Hennessey from the Golf Digest!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to ck on Sports Fox SportsRadio. We have a new NBA champion.
It's over last. The long waitis over for forty seven years.
The Denver Nuggets can finally call themselvesNBA champion, their first title en franchise
history. And I'm telling you rightnow, was it ever really in doubt.

(00:21):
I mean, we kind of hadan idea at the beginning of the
playoffs that well, the Nuggets werethe team to beat, and sure enough
they showed that last night. Theygot to sit down talk to the Joker
after the game was over and theywere talking about the parade coming up in
Denver. So I'm curious what youare feeling right now and if you're looking
forward to a parade coming up inDenver, nnis parree Nis three Thursday.

(00:43):
No, okay, the Joker isnot looking forward to the parade, but
I'll tell you right now, thecity of Denver is definitely going to be
off the hook when that parade comesthrough town. But I do like that
honesty right there. Once again,congratulations to the Denver Nuggets as they are

(01:04):
your world champions, your NBA champions. This year we're about to get Stephen
Hennessey on the line, we're gonnatalk about this week's major, the US
Open. They were able to catchup with DJ Dustin Johnson yesterday. They
were talking to about the whole LivePGA merger and what it might mean for
Live and how it may impact Live. Yes, as far as I know,

(01:25):
Leve will be we'll go into twentytwenty four. And you know they're
doing the schedule now, so asfar as I know as that's the plan.
So but yeah, but yeah,I can't answer it really any further
or not. I mean, I'vetalked to the guys, but yes,
as far as I know, it'sgoing, twenty twenty four is going to
be well full schedule, just likewe did the share DJ one of the

(01:47):
players I do like this a weekat the US Open. It wouldn't surprise
me to see him pull out oftop ten, top twenty, maybe even
win it. With that being said, a lot of golf to talk about
today. Joining me right now fromthe Golf Digest. My man, Stephen
Hennessy, My god, Stephen Hennessy, what a boy, nothing much man,
so so pumped for this week andpumped is always to be chatting with

(02:07):
you about this next major. Yes, man, the US Open. I'm
sorry, man, but as I'vebeen sitting back and kind of watching and
dissecting the course looking at things,seems like it's going to be another tough
US Open. Yeah, I meanthis is special. This is an opportunity
to see one of the world's mostexclusive venues and for your audience to see

(02:28):
a California course take center stage hereand somewhere no one gets to see ever.
You know, this is a venuethat doesn't let anyone into its doors.
And this is the first time it'shosted the US Open. It's one
of our country's great venues, atop twenty golf course on our rankings,

(02:49):
and it follows follows up last yearthe country Club, another great classic venue.
And it's gonna be so different inso many ways. And you touched
on it being so hard. Ithink it'll be difficult in ways that typical
US Open aren't. So a typicalUS Open. You get the long rough.
You know it's long, um,you know, you got to drive

(03:12):
it far and you got to bestrong to hack it out of the roff.
That's not necessarily the case here.It's over seventy four hundred yards as
a par seventy and you definitely youknow, driving it well is going to
be important, but um, youknow, more so it's it's going to
test someone's creativity and artistic ability toshape shots, um kind of mold shots

(03:34):
into these fairways that uh, youknow, bound down into certain areas.
And even if you think you're goingto hit a fairway on the on the
incorrect side of it, you're gonnabe in the rof So you know it's
gonna be more important to think yourway around this course. Yea. And
so it's so so different than yourtypical US Open with a thick rough and

(03:57):
just bomb it anywhere, gouge itout. This is truly a thinking man's
golf course and it should produce agreat test of golf. Now, I
know we're gonna talk about one anddone. I know that we're gonna pick
our Draft Kings teams. The oneperson I've been talking about for a very
long time, and the one personI've been talking about for a very long
time when he comes to this event, and I'm not one hundred percent sold

(04:19):
right now, Maxima. I knowhe played in the PAC twelve, I
know he's played here before. Iwant to say twenty thirteen, they held
the PAC twelve championship there, hesaid a course record and he even beat
John Ram. Yeah, he wonPAC twelve and twenty thirteen and shot the
course record a sixty one. It'sa competitive course record. While he was

(04:41):
at Cal at Berkeley, that greatCal team. Yeah, so's he's a
pick that is a popular one thisweek, and he's been talking about for
months and months. And I justthink the interesting thing is he's not playing
as well as he was earlier thanNo, he's not. I think it'll
be interesting to see if he trulyis that popular. But you know,

(05:05):
I think for good reason. Ithink this course really having experience on it
is an important thing, and hehas some of the best experience anyone could
have shooting the course record here.And the thing is when he shot that
course record, it was after therenovation. That's great. Yeah, the
renovation was in two thousand and ninetwenty ten, and so yes, he

(05:27):
he got to execute all those shotson the golf course as we're going to
see it. You know, thiscourse does play differently depending on conditions,
and so you know, I know, just listening to some recounts of that
that you know, there was nowin that day. The marine Layer kind
of settled on the course, andyou know that them can make it play

(05:50):
as easy as possible, so,you know, and wasn't quite as firm
and fast I think, as they'llsee you this week, but certainly impressive
sixty one. Obviously, every sixtyone, no matter where you're playing,
it is an impressive one. Andthat was one thing I was going to
bring up. You mentioned it already, the marine Layer, and we usually
are a little bit concerned about whathappens in the late afternoon, especially when

(06:14):
people get a horrible tea time inthe afternoon rounds. But actually the later
the evening goes, it seems likethe marine Layer settles in and some of
those late rounds you may actually seesome good numbers. Yeah, you know,
I think that's certainly possible. Youknow. It's it's just it's different
this week because we don't know muchabout the golf course and the you know,

(06:35):
the typical fan doesn't and so youknow how wind could affect this site
as opposed to others. I thinkit is going to be interesting. So
yeah, I mean, you know, better than me ck with the marine
Layer being the Cali guy, Idefer to you on that one. Well,
no, that's exactly what I wasthinking. This was the first time

(06:58):
in quite some time. I waslike, you know what, I'm not
necessarily afraid to pick someone with alate afternoon round on a Thursday or a
Friday, because I'm feeling that themarine layer starts to settle in. And
you've seen it where in California,especially on certain courses, you'll get some
amazing rounds in late afternoon. Yeah. I like it, So not just
the morning waste for first round leaders, say Ck on Sports Fox Sports Radio

(07:23):
talking to Stephen Hennessey from The GolfDigest. Before we get into our picks
for one and done, before weget into our picks for our DraftKings team.
Now that we've had a little bitunder a week to kind of figure
this whole thing out, how hasthe dust settled on this? Possible?
You see how I'm using the wordpossible because I don't know if it's going

(07:43):
to happen. Possible live PGA toour merger. Well, I think the
first thing that was reported originally andis causing some confusion I think among fans
when they read this initially, wasthat this really isn't a merger with Live
right. This is the Saudis andthe PIF and the PGA Tour having a

(08:05):
partnership together. And really what thatmeans is them having this big time commercial
interests in in the PGA Tour andkind of owning all of that commercial stake
in it, and you know,being the biggest equity partner, you know,
the chairman of the PIF being theessentially the chairman of the board,

(08:31):
and h probably having the final sayin sponsors, whether they like certain sponsors
on the PGA Tour, whether theycould just kind of put up the money
to you know, if they don'tlike particular company, UM, kind of
say, yeah, we don't likeyour company, here's fifty million dollars that
we could replace your money with.UM. We really still do not know

(08:56):
much at all, and no onedoes because the way this rolled out.
I mean, as we've come tolearn now that in the last week or
so is you know, the fourpeople who worked on this deal, they
came to an agreement mostly in principle. There's obviously some writing involved in it,
but set up the framework for thisand they wanted to announce this as

(09:20):
early as they could for a varietyof possible reasons, but all the details
those are still to be ironed out. So the fact that Jay Monahan wasn't
able to give his players any detailsat that player meeting last Tuesday, that's
because they don't exist. The detailsdon't exist. And you called it a
possible partnership because you know, there'sstill regulations for this to go through.

(09:46):
There's some bigger antitrust answers that needto be answered, and Jay Monahan had
a rebuttal to Congress. Congress isalready asking about this, and you know,
whether this was done just to kindof you know, put a potential

(10:07):
competitor out, and whether that's apotentially antitrust violation. You know, the
litigation that was ongoing. Obviously eitherside did not want it to get to
the discovery period and all those emailsto get out on both sides, particularly
the Saudi side, I think,and so, um, you know,

(10:28):
the dust isn't has not settled atall. I would say, we still
really don't know much. And Ithink that's the frustrating thing because everyone has
their thoughts on whether or not thePGA Tour should have done this. I
think, you know, to Ithink I'm holding my judgment whether or not

(10:50):
this is going to end up beinga good thing for golf. At this
point, you know, people haveall of their questions because we don't have
answers, and you know, puttingyour your potential future aligning it with the
PIF and the Saudi in the Saudigovernment creates a ton of issues. And

(11:11):
so unfortunately, it seemed like thiswas inevitable given the way that lives in
the PGA tour. We're we're havingsuch feuds and so how this all ends
up. I mean, there areso many question marks to be answered,
and we're not going to know themfor a pretty long time. So I

(11:33):
think that also adds to the frustration. You're right, we're not going to
have any full answers for quite sometime. But the one thing that we
do know is several players were confused, upset, didn't really understand what was
taking place. Was the PGA Tourin that bad of shape? Did they
really run through a lot of thereserve and this was like, hey,

(11:56):
we gotta do this, guys.Well, I think you know what we've
learned is that you know, theinsane dollar amounts that the PGA Tour would
have had to pay over the nexttwo to three years, dipping into those
reserves to to finance this litigation overa two to three year period. They

(12:18):
had supposedly spent about fifty million dollarsalready on these lawsuits and would have had
to continue to pay a ton ofmoney to continue down that road if they
felt like they were able to winthat fight against the PIF. And I
think they probably thought they could have. It's just at what costs that would

(12:41):
have done? And as Jay Monahanin his letter yesterday, you know,
the PGA Tour was kind of youknow, they were fending for themselves,
you know, without any financing fromgovernment. You know, whenever anyone else
has gone to bat against the PIFin any sort of litigation. Uh,

(13:05):
the PGA Tour was the organization whohad gotten the furthest in terms of um
you know, winning a potential battleagainst them, and the tour is pretty
proud of that. But again,at what cost does it do to go
on and you know, fight thisin courts for another two to three years?

(13:26):
You know, any organization having tospend three hundred million dollars over the
course of three years in in lawyers, UM that's that's going to hit the
bottom line for sure, and soI think that's that's really at the end
of the day, why the PGATour decided to go down this route.
Final question before we get into ourpicks one and done and we'll do our

(13:48):
draft Kings team. Do you thinkit was a mistake for the PGA Tour
to go the elevated events route andalso fight this so hard because the way
that I'm looking at it, thehindsight is always twenty twenty. I'm like,
let them leave, suspend them fora year. After that they can
come back and play certain events.No need for an elevated event because really

(14:13):
hasn't had much pop. And ifyou say lose a John Ram or maybe
Deckie, you're still the PGA Tour. Scheffler's not going anywhere, Rory's not
going anywhere. You have up andcoming golfers that are going to be your
stars and are excited to be there, and you won the quarter public opinion.
Do you think the knee jerk reactionis what hurt them? It's a

(14:37):
great question. I think personally theplayers really had such control over this,
and so you know, you wereone of the top five players on the
PGA Tour and you decided to beloyal to the tour. All of a
sudden, you had you know,a ton of you know upside to go
to the tour and say, youknow, what are you going to do

(15:00):
for me? I decided to notgo to Live and accept the one hundred
million dollars signing bonus from Live.You know, you have to do something
for to prove my loyalty. Andthat's where the elevated events came from.
And I would say that they've beenpretty successful. This season on the PGA
Tour has been has been great andprobably the most exciting non major season with

(15:26):
in a non Tiger Woods world thatI could remember. We've had some great
finishes that the players, um,you know who have won the events have
been great. I think the biggestmistake the PGA Tour made in all of
this is really not being willing tosit down and chat with the competitor at

(15:48):
all up front, and that causedthis angst in the game. And you
know, I think maybe it wasa little them being naive the PGA Tour.
You know, there's no way thatthey could be successful and actually compete
with us. But if they hadsat down and you know, figured out
a way for these two tours tocompete with each other and kind of compliment

(16:14):
each other, which I think iswhere we're going to end up getting to
now, you know, hundreds ofmillions of dollars in lawsuits later and you
know, getting killed in the courtof public opinion later. We're going to
get up in the same place wherethere's maybe this Live league and a PGA
Tour league and they're competing against eachother. Maybe Live doesn't even exist.

(16:37):
We don't really know. No oneknows, because you know, that's all
still to be determined. But Ithink the biggest mistake at the end of
the day was Jay Monahan and thePGA Tour just looking across the room and
seeing Greg Norman and saying we're notgoing to talk to him because he has
been so ANTIPGA Tour for decades.And I think that's ultimately why we're in

(17:00):
this really precarious spot right now.Being joined by Stephen Hennessy from The Golf
Digest CK on Sports Fox Sports Radio, all right, let's do it,
man, Let's talk about these picksone and done. Who are you're fading?
Let's get into our Draft Kings team. First of all, who do
you like for one and done?I still have Brooks, I still have
cam Smith. I talked about MaxHooma earlier. Who do you like?

(17:22):
Well? I think if anyone hasScottie Scheffler laughing, I don't have Scottie
Scheffler. Yeah, yeah, someonehad Scheffler left. That's pretty impressive.
I think I think one of mineI might have him left. Yes,
I think he ends up winning.I like Scottie Scheffler a lot. And
just so you know, he isgoing to be on our Draft Kings team.
I'm just telling you that right now. Yeah, he's expensive at eleven.

(17:45):
We can make it work, dude, we can make it work.
Yeah. I think you have tomake it work because his ball striking is
just on another planet. It can'tbe emphasized enough how much better he's playing
compared to the competition. So Scheffler, you know, I think you know
if you're telling me to pick,yeah, I think Jordan's speech is a

(18:07):
great pick and probably my favorite valueplay at about twenty five to one or
so, he's just really impressing me. Ball striking wise, He's had some
great feat of green weeks the pastcouple of months, it seems like the
wrist injuries is now figured out.And I just think La Country Club and
Augusta National have a lot of similaritiesto it. It's the thinking around the

(18:32):
golf course, missing in the correctspots the greens, you know, these
little sections of them, and havingto find the correct spot on the putting
surface. A lot of similarities.So I like Jordan's speech, you know,
I think Kapka is interesting. Keepkaif this doesn't feel like he doesn't

(18:52):
feel like a thinking man on thegolf course. That being said, he
plays great at Augusta, but Ijust don't know what to expects from him
this week, and I think we'reseeing that in the betting market, him
getting down to eleven to one.You know, he was single digits after
he won the PGA, So that'sinteresting. And I think Victor Hovland is

(19:18):
a great pick as well, ifyou have him less. You know,
we're seeing him play just complete golfand he does everything well. Maybe the
short game is not on the levelof you know, the top ten players
right now, but it's still probablya top fifty short game and that might
be all he needs. I mean, you look at the last seven majors,

(19:41):
and he's been right there every time, like he's been near the top
of the leaderboard, and you know, he's just going to continue to do
that. And I think he's agood kind of a good lock for a
top ten, top twenty this week. All right, let's do it,
man, Let's jump into our draftKings team. By the way, before
we do that, anyone that you'refading, I see that in some markets.

(20:04):
JT fifty to one. Wow.Yeah, you know, I can't
tell you not to bet Justin Thomasat fifty to one. That's kind of
crazy. I put a few buckson that last last night and I saw
fifty to one that that's just kindof crazy. So anyone that you're fading,
anyone that you're like, bro,absolutely not. That's a top man.

(20:30):
It's tough. I mean, wesaw Rory played great last week,
but I still think that, youknow, he just doesn't quite have the
little finesse shots on par with thebest players in the world, right,
I mean, you know, notevery wedge shot is hit the ways that

(20:51):
you know, even Brooks kept goesnot you don't think of a finesse player.
He just sort of lacks a littlebit of the touch and marrying his
feel to the mechanics. I thinkthe putting two is a question mark.
I don't doubt that he's like kindof right there and probably finishes top ten.

(21:12):
Again. He's he's hitting the ballso well. It's just when it
comes down to it and you knowyou're facing kind of that little shot that
you need to execute, and youknow you're in a really precarious spot and
you need to scramble to make apart at a US Open. I just
think he's someone I don't trust asmuch as you know, the other guys

(21:33):
in the top five or top tenof the betting markets. So you know,
I don't think Rory's gonna miss thecut or anything like that, but
I don't think he's gonna win.So yeah, I don't know if that's
a cop out pick to face.Oh it's not. I mean that actually
makes a lot of sense. Hedid show flashes recently. I mean he
even had a couple of good roundsin the Canadian Open, just kind of
fell apart on Sunday. He's beenplaying great, yeah, and the Sundays

(21:56):
have really been his struggle. SoI kind of see that same script happening
this week. Maybe all right,well here we go, let's go ahead
and jump into it. Man.You know, I like Scheffler, but
we gotta start at the bottom inmy opinion, So I want to throw
out a couple of names if we'regonna get Scheffler in our lineup. I
kind of like Sebastian and I kindof like Meto. Yeah, love Meto.

(22:18):
Um, that seems like a prettyuh agregious miss price there at seventy
two hundred dollars. I mean,the guy probably should have won. He
should have won the PDA last year, and so um ball striking wise,
he's gonna be there. Yeah,at seventy two hundred, I think.
I think that's a good thick rightthere. All right, so we got

(22:40):
Meto in. Who do you like? Yeah, I'm gonna throw another mid
seven thousand guy as you And he'sjust he doesn't get enough credit for how
well he's playing at the majors thelast three years. It's Patrick Reid.
Dude, Oh my gosh, we'reis on the same wave. Go wow,

(23:02):
you and I are on the samepage. I love it, but
I think about it. At thePGA he finished in the top fifteen.
Did you see him on TV one? No you didn't, and he just
kept cruising and you know what,He's surgical, he's precise. I'm like,
you guys keep talking about what's livegolfer is gonna be on the Ryder

(23:22):
Cup team? You keep missing PatrickReed. That guy can play. Yeah,
this is I think a great golfcourse for Patrick Reed because he can.
He tends to be a little wildoff the tea sometimes, but the
short game, the creativity, thescrambling, this guy is one of the
best grinders in the world. Andyou know we're still seeing him in forms,

(23:44):
so yeah, we're gonna discount onhim. I think that's a great
pick. Well, I am stayingin the seventy two hundred range and I
really like Cam Davis and I thinkthat this course set it's up well for
a lot of Australian golfers. Ithink you're gonna see Adam Scott. I
think you're gonna see Cam Smith.I think you're gonna see Cam Davis there

(24:07):
on Sunday and at seventy two hundred, all I need is the top thirty
one hundred percent. I'm with you, c k He. I mean,
it just outright wise, I thinkhe's like two hundred, two hundred and
fifty to one. The guy finishedtea four at the last major exactly,
and you know again, you knowhis weakness is being a little wild off

(24:30):
the tea, just like Patrick Reid. But the guy is super long off
to tea. A great iron player. Yeah, I mean, I'm with
you one hundred percent. I loveCam Davis here, all right, So
this is where you have to workyour magic. We have twenty eight thousand
remaining average ninety three hundred. Westill want to get Scheffler. Who do

(24:51):
you like? Yeah, I thinkwe need someone with some win equally here
because we have Scheffler who think's gonnawin, and um, you know the
other three guys are you know they'rethey're more like top twenty guys. Yeah,
we need someone who's also going tocontend to win. So, um,
I mentioned the fact that I reallylike Jordan's speece. Uh. He's

(25:12):
at ninety two. So if weget him in, you know, you
probably have about seventy four hundred dollarsleft something like that, so you have
to find some good value down there. Um. I do think that's the
way to go with one of theseum better players. So whether it's Maxima,
whether it's Collie Morrikawa, Cam Smith, you know, I like all

(25:36):
those guys, probably h Spiece andSmith the best. UM. So yeah,
I really like speech chances. Ifeel like everything's trending toward him contending.
I mean, he doesn't have awin yet this year. We talked
to Smiley Kaufman on our podcast.He's like, he's probably gonna end the
year with multiple wins, that's howwell he's playing. And so I think

(25:59):
this is a great venue for him. That's who I would campaign for ninety
two. Okay, I'm with thatpick, But now we gotta go low
before we finish our team off withthe guy that we believe is gonna win.
Where do we go? Do welook at a men woo Lee at
seven seven thousand? Where do wego? I do really like men woo
Lee. I think that's a greatchoice and probably amongst our top three options

(26:23):
here. You know, I alsolike Gary Woodland. He's playing great.
I think he could get in sometrouble with the short game stuff, so
maybe that's a little risky. Ithink a great value actually at seventy three
hundred is Beewu Kim a world class. Yes, playing a lot better in

(26:45):
these big tournaments. Seventy three hundreddollars seems way too low for him.
Oh yes, he's a great shot. He's got a great short game too.
I really think he could certainly finishin the top twenty here, So
probably where I'd go. And youknow what, that allows us to get
Scottie Scheffler with two hundred dollars remaining. I like this lineup Meto read Cam

(27:11):
Davis, Jordan's speed see Woo,and Scottie Scheffler. How legit is?
That sounds like a million dollars?He can't. Sounds like a million dollars.
Let's go all right. So withthat being said, man tell him
about the Loop. Well, yeah, everyone, check out The Loop podcast
wherever you get your podcasts. Wewere joined yesterday for today's for this week's

(27:36):
episode by Ben Carr. He finishedrunner up in the US Amateur which gets
him a spot in the field thisweek at LACC and his caddie, Willie
Wilcox, who's on the PGA Tour. So they had just played a practice
round at LACC and they gave ussome great insights to how the course is
gonna play this week, some good, some fun stories about what it was

(28:02):
like to playing the Masters this year, getting to hang you know, in
the crow's nest and stay there andduring Masters week and do all the all
the fun stuff these competitors get todo during Masters week. So plus all
of our US Open picks in ourpreviews, so check that out. It's
the Loop podcast by Golf Digest whereveryou get your podcasts. My guy,

(28:23):
Stephen Hennessy, always appreciate you.Our lineup is officially in. We are
good to go. We'll talk throughoutthe week and uh man, let's go
ahead and get that money. Let'sget it. Thanks K. There he
is Stephen Hennessey from the Golf Digestright here with CK on Sports Fox Sports
Radio. Hopefully now you were officiallyUS Open Ready,