July 15, 2024 • 44 mins
Allan Fee joins Ashley Ryan to discuss Keegan Bradley being named Ryder Cup Champion, Rory's quest for another Major title, Scottie's success and they look at some keys to playing Royal Troon and make their fantasy picks in this episode of the 19th Hole Podcast.
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(00:00):
Welcome to the nineteenth Whole Podcast,sponsored by Tito's Handmade Vodka. What's better
than sinking a hole in one?Sinking a hole in one with your favorite
Tito's cocktail in hand. A dayon the back nine calls for a beverage
serve up some Tito's for a postround, mid round, pre round cocktail
or two. Must be twenty oneto enjoy. Distilled and bottled in Austin,
Texas, forty percent alcohol by volume, namely eighty proof, crafted to
(00:22):
be savored responsibly. Cheers, Alan, cheers. How come I never get
the titos when I'm here? Iknow it's because we don't plan well enough
for me to drive to Bellingham todeliver the titos I got you. Well,
i'll work on that. I'll drinkvicariously through you. I'll work on
that, and then maybe get youone of these cool mugs. Oh wow,
that's fancy. And it gets reallycold when you put ice in it.
(00:44):
Wow. Well that's what it's supposedto do. That's what that ice
does. I hear, Yeah,but like colder than a normal mug.
Oh you know what? And actually, when I drive to Bellingham to deliver
this mug and your Tito's. I'llalso give you your birthday present from twenty
eighteen. Oh, fantastic, It'llbe great. It'll work out really really
well. I'm sure my gift hasaged beautifully for six years. It's awesome.
(01:04):
Yeah, definitely. Okay, Sowe are here this week to talk
about the Open, the Open Championship, the British Open, whatever you want
to call it. It has threenames. Basically, I usually just call
it the Open. It's easy,it flows, it fits. What do
you call it? Yeah? Icall it the Open now too. Everyone's
all stumble and drop in the BritishOpen. But you know sometimes it's in
(01:26):
Skyland. Yes, right, that'strue. Yeah, and then you're kind
of lying if you're saying the BritishOpen. Yeah. And again it's kind
of cooler to say the Open.Right, what other open is there?
It makes it sound like you arereally in the know. Yeah, that's
what I think it does, especiallyif you have an accent. Yeah.
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If you're like, oh, theOpen, the Open, sure tell it?
Tell you. This year it isat Royal true and Golf Club.
They are the host. It isthe one and fifty second Open, by
the way, and I do wantto get into some course info. But
before we open talk, we hadthere was a news story that came out.
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I believe it was last week,but all my weeks are combining together.
Keegan Bradley has been named the captainfor the US team for the Ryder
Cup. Now, did you watchFull Swing Season two? I did?
Yes? Okay, so heartbreaking whenhe was left off the team. I
thought he deserved to be on theteam. It did seem like it was
a sorry, you're not in thefriend group, so you're not on the
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team decision. Yeah, it hadthat vibe to it. And of course
he brought up during his press conferenceafter he got named the captain, he
brought up Netflix and he said,you know, hey, that was kind
of a bad moment for me,and that's the impression that everybody was left
with. But he was clearly bummedout. I mean, all those golfers,
right, I mean, they absolutelywant to play in that and so
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is this a pity party thing?There's too much at stake to do that,
right, You can't. I meanyou've got to do this to win.
Every time everybody's played a win withthis, So I don't. I'm
not going to say it was apity party thing. But I think somehow,
somehow it ties into something to dowith live golf. I think because
the whole Phil Nicholson connection, becausePhil and Keegan are great friends, right,
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Okay. I remember being at thetournament at Firestone at Firestone South,
and I followed them around for apractice round, and they clearly are buddies
and they're in their own little worldtogether. But somehow, someway, it
seems like these guys are connected,and it might even rather than being a
pity thing, it might be apeople know people kind of thing as well.
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Well. And I was wondering almostif it was a because he's not
in the click of the group offriends that are like the kind of most
popular golfers right now, maybe iteliminates the possibility of making any choices based
on your click group of friends,right, You're really just they maybe they
think he really will just pick thepeople who deserve it the most and should
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be there. It was interesting whenthey did on the Golf channel, just
asking random players, and a lotof eyebrows were raised, but the consensus
was very much an eyebrows raised.Yeah, okay, you know what just
makes sense. I think this mightbe one of these things where you and
I have judged him based on hismannerisms. He's clearly a quirky guy when
we watch him on the golf course, and even in that interview where you
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know you expect him to be adynamic speaker and so forth, he's more
of a thinker and like he's that'snot the stage that he's on. But
there must be something about him thatwe don't see or we don't know in
the real golf community. You know, it's there's got to be something more
to this, the same way likePhil Mickelson we see him, you know,
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you know, let's let's talk aboutPhil pre live because I'm mad at
him. But just just you know, Phil was always do do friendly guy
sign in all the autographs. Thatwas his persona. But you know,
in real life, obviously he's agambler, he's bad comedy, he's a
total smart ass, the whole thing. And there's just there's just more to
the guy. And I want tobelieve there's more to Keegan that they would
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entrust. I mean, you haveto have relationships, you have to cultivate
those relationships. You have to knowhow these guys tick. Right, that's
all we ever hear about that position. You know, in the pairings,
you got to pair the right guysthat are buddies and they got to know
each other, and so he wemust not know something about Keegan Bradley.
Yeah, and I would agree.I think that there's I do think Full
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Swing was kind of give us aglimpse of him a little bit more than
I think we've ever seen. Iactually really like him, I think it
does. I think you brought upPhil Micholson a little bit, and I
do think I do think we willsee live golfers on the Ryder Cup team,
assuming that they're playing their way inLike if the Ryder Cup team were
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to be made right now and Bryceand de Shambeau wasn't on it, then
that would be a travesty. Yeah, right, And see that's what I'm
saying, there's got to be someconnect And that's that's the thing I'm linking
back to Phil Micholson that they obviouslyare very very close and it seems like
they come from the wealthy Tree clubfamilies like literally and money and he's Boston
and you know it just it justit just seems like that might be the
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bridge to make sure that they canbring those guys in and so there wouldn't
be live golfers and PGA golfers.And maybe he's a unifying force that way.
Yeah. Well, I mean Iwould love to see it, I
think, especially after the embarrassment oflast was it just last year? Yeah,
last year's Ryder Cup, Like wegot our asses handed to us.
So I hope that they've clearly gotto change whatever they're doing or however they're
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putting the team together, because Idon't think we've had the best representation of
US golfers and I hope that changesbecause I want us to win again.
And it was embarrassing to watch lastyear. You know, it's interesting.
I still I kept hearing rumblings,but I never really heard the pure reason
why Tiger Woods would not be thatguy the captain. Yeah, why would
he not be because he would bea great unifying person. Did I there
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was a scheduling thing or something,or there was something about it that didn't
make sense. Yeah, I don'tknow. I didn't hear anything about it,
But you're right, he would begreat. Yeah, I mean,
I mean he seems poised for that, and you know, right now,
the way he's playing golf. Imean, I just saw it was Colin
Montgomery this week who was saying,why does Tiger keep playing? You know,
maybe he should retire, Which,again, leave it up to Monty
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to say dumb things like that,even if you think it, Why say
that about the most popular golfer ever. But what a transition that would be
for Tiger to kind of step awayfrom finishing tide for second seventy second and
you know, go be the guy'sthe Ryder Cup. He's competitive as hell,
Golfers all look up to him,they admire him, and yet he's
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still a peer of theirs. Imean, it's just I think on paper
it's great, but I kept hearingrumblings and I never circled back to learn
more about that. I know nowthat I have you on here, I
should feel like I should google this. Why is Tiger not It's going to
be like something about Tiger King,not the rider, Tiger captain. Let's
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see what does this say? Yeah, Tiger Woods has revealed he turned down
the chance to become the USA's RyderCup captain for next year's competition due to
the time, commitments and responsibilities tothe PGA Tour, but he's open to
the role in the future, sothere you go. Interesting. So maybe
he still feels he can genuinely win, right, I mean, you know,
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I and whatever. I know thathe's got the business with who did
Who's he building something with, likegolf courses? You golf courses? And
then he and justin Timberlake a badtime for JT to j d UI and
it's like, hey, let's opena bar. It just makes sense,
and let's let's go where they makereally powerful Scotch perfect. What could possibly
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go wrong? Right? Yeah,yeah, yeah, that is bad timing.
So yeah, it's probably other thingslike and then I think he is
required by the PGA Tour basically todo something is like an ambassador or something.
Right now. I also could havetotally made that up, because I
did have a dream the other daythat I called my mom at one thirty
in the morning and had a fullconversation with her. And I woke up
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on Sunday and thought, did Iactually call my mother at one thirty in
the morning. Why would I dothat? I didn't, but I thought
I did. I was convinced thatwe had a one thirty in the morning
conversation, and it was just likeshe was sitting up on the porch smoking
a cigarette and drinking a martini,because why wouldn't you at one thirty?
It just makes sense, It suredoes. All right, Well, it'll
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be interesting to see who Keegan putson the team. Obviously over this next
year. He's got a lot ofdecisions to make. And I think that's
half the fun though, is seeinghow who steps up and really starts playing,
you know, who starts impressing us, because I think, as I
said, you look at it rightnow, if bryceon de Shambeau wasn't on
that team, it would be wrongbecause his I mean, we've only we
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only seen four tournaments a year rightnow, but he's playing lights out,
that's for sure. So him shouldbe on the whole thing with Bryson and
what's his nuts? That whole thingreally made me. That just frustrated me.
I didn't like either one of themin that fight. And I've really
learned to appreciate Bryson the golfer,and it seems like he's, you know,
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I don't want to say he's maturedinto the role, but you know,
he's become you know, a fullon legit PGA player. It seemed
a little quirky, like he's goingto be the flash in the pan guy,
you know, and be the itguy for just a second and go
away. But I like him alot. I really rude for him now.
I think that the Brooks and Brysonrivalry honestly reminded me of like the
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kind of socially awkward kid at schoolwho makes jokes that maybe people don't understand
or go over their head. Andthen Brooks was the guy in high school
that didn't get the joke and thoughtyou were making fun of him, and
so then he didn't like your senseof humor, so he mocked you to
make himself feel you know what Imean. It was literally both of them
being immature, and I think they'veboth matured because they both kind of looked
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terrible in the whole argument. Andnow I actually like them both. Which
is you asked me that two yearsago, and I would have laughed,
Well, you know, you broughtup Full Swing, which, by the
way, gosh, I hate havingto wait for that short of come back.
I just want that to be inreal time each week. Yeah,
Can we just have a live FullSwing why not, right, Yeah,
but he and his wife, youknow, with the swimsuits and the whole
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thing and all that. I thoughtthat was a little much. Not to
say she didn't look good in aswimsuit, but it was just like,
really, this is where they're goingwith this? Well it was odd because
that's what made me really sympathize withbrooks Kepka, honestly, because you could
tell he was struggling and she wasnot at all in tune with that.
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She's like, what should I wear? And he's like, I don't give
a rip, right, you knowwhat I mean? Like he did not
care. He was just like inhis own head, and I don't know,
I just felt bad. Hope Iwas married to her. I'm to
be worried about golf. I mean, yeah, let's talk about what you're
wearing and not wearing, babe,like golf some other time. Yeah,
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what's golf? Right? Right?Oh? Gosh? All right? Well,
speaking of golf, as as Isaid, is the final major this
week the Open or the Open Championship. We'll go with one of those British
Open. Sounds like that's kind ofwhat people who aren't big into golf call
it. That's how I look atit. We're gonna start with some course
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info. So they are at RoyalTroon, it is the one hundred and
fifty second Open, and just somenotes on I'm just gonna read you some
of these notes on some of thesesignificant holes that they've got. Whole one
they name it seal. It's apar four, three hundred and sixty six
yard hole bunkers on the left sideof the fairway. That says, bunkers
on the left side of the fairwaygobble up wayward aggressive t shots, while
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poorly positioned shots down the left orright will lead to a tough approach shot
that sounds fun. So basically nota lot of room for error right off
the bat there. If you goto whole six on that one turn Bury
part five, this one is sixhundred and twenty three yards, whoa,
yeah, they lengthened it by twentytwo yards just for this so it will
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be the longest hole in the Championship'shistory. Then it says it's a beastly
hole. Whenever it's played into thewind. It usually plays straight down wind
and actually offers a great birdie chance, which I find entertaining. You make
it the longest hole in the entirechampionship's history, and then it's like,
chances are that you'll get a birdieon it. I'm trying to remember at
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Firestone South hole sixteen down the hill, that's like six hundred yards and we
played it, you know, weplayed it for fun from the tips and
it was like, I don't rememberwhat I shot, you know. I
was like when we get there infive, it was like, and there's
trees, the whole thing. Andthen we watched John Daily tea off there
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and it was stupid how far hehit that ball. I mean, it
was just gone. It was amoon shot. He may have even got
on it fell like you got onjust just short in two. But yeah,
six hundred yard holds. That's nojoke, especially there when you're playing
that style of golf, right,yeah, Well, and that's the thing
is, right, if the weather'sgoing to be calm, which I actually
haven't seen how it's supposed to be. If the weather, if the wind
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is calm, it's not gonna bebad. The problem is you're gonna always
have wind because you're on the coastin Scotland. Even like on a calm
wind day, there's still wind,and they are literally right there. I
mean with the beach you can seeon parts of the of the course,
so whole eight. They call itpostage stamp, and that is because Willie
Park Junior described it as a pitchingsurface scaled down to the size of a
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postage stamp. It's a part three. It's only one hundred and twenty three
yards, but apparently there's headwind usuallyright there, and then because of the
extremely small size of the actual green, and then there's deep bunkers around it
to protect it, so that oneseems like a real sob Yeah, getting
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out of those sandtracks, but Ican't even imagine. A big part of
me wants to plan that golf tripout there and play all these historical coats
of courses link style. But putone of those traps man, and that's
yeah, I'll be in there allday. Yeah, I will literally have
to build a sand castle just toget to get myself out. We add
of a bunker here at Milk Creekthat they've redone now, but it used
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to have a pretty steep face onelike on on. I guess it was
really long, so half of ithad a steep face, the other half
didn't. I got stuck in thereone time, and then after that I
was like, if I ever endup in this again, I'm just hitting
it out to the shallow end ofit and then out because I just couldn't
get the ball up high enough.I was so angry by the end of
it. Oh so I would notdo well in those at all. Whole
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nine they call it the monk.It's a power for four hundred and forty
yards. They described this one asthe green is tricky with runoff areas of
both sides. Players who managed toavoid the perfectly placed pair of bunkers to
the left of the fairway from theirtee shot will usually have a blind second
shot into the green. And thenagain you can in the wind there,
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so that adds. I mean there'sgonna be some precision involved in a lot,
and you know, just accessing someof these. The whole whole eleven
is the railway the best. Thisis my favorite description. The process to
make par at the eleventh is simple. You will need to hit two of
your best shots of the day,okay, and usually it plays straight into
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the teeth of the wind. Apar here will feel like a birdie.
It is the toughest hole when theOpen comes to Royal True in one of
the hardest holes in all of majorchampionship golf. So whole eleven the railway
is going to be one to watchout for. Par four four hundred and
ninety eight yards. Yeah, Iknow, the wind makes this extra fun.
Let's see, there's another hole thirteenis a par four four hundred and
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seventy three yards. Finding the greenno easy feet again another tall or another
small and raised green, so youdon't have a lot of room for error
there. Hole sixteen is the mostabundantly bunkered green on the course. And
then on hold eighteen just because youknow you don't want to let anyone off
easy. On eighteen, they've gotout of bounds lurking right behind the putting
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surface, so if you miss thegreen go too far, you're basically screwed
until your ball's on the green.Wow. Yeah, So you want to
go try to play some par golfthere or what? Oh that'd be great,
that'd be super Yeah, it shouldbe fun. It's interesting too,
though, because you look at likethe US Open versus the Open and the
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US Open, they always try tomake it so difficult, so your scores
are closer to par, right,whereas it always seems to me like the
courses for the Open Championship are moredifficult, but the scores tend to be
lower, right. Yeah. SoI don't know. I don't know how
they do it, especially because theseare courses that most of these guys aren't
playing regularly. Yeah, I mean, what do they do? They go
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warm up at the Scottish Open andthen show up to the Open and hopefully
that's enough. Yeah. Well so, interestingly enough, I look s up
earlier how people who win the ScottishOpen, how champions of the Scottish Open
fair at the Open twenty thirteen,you might remember Phil won the Scottish Open
and then also won the Open Championship. So he's one of the few.
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And wasn't it was that his firstOpen championship I believe? So that was
at Mirfield. I want to say, that was at that point. You're
going back, You're going back whatten eleven years ago? Now? Yeah?
I know, God, isn't thatweird that that's that long ago?
Yeah, he started reeling off oncehe got it the first major out of
the way, then he started reelingthem off. But that may have been
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his first. I could be wrong, but yeah, I remember that really
well. And then did Rory doit as well? I know he came
close or he won this, Sothat's what I was looking at, and
I couldn't find he because he wonit last year and then finished sixth at
the Open. But he hasn't wonan Open championship since win two thousand and
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thirty, you know eleven. Idon't know when. I don't even remember
when. It always freaks me outthat he hasn't won a major in like
how long it's been like almost Ithink twelve years. Let's see Rory mcelroyay,
I swear hasn't it ten years?Maybe? I think? Yeah,
I get fire up to googler.I am such good podcasting, I'm sure
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okay Masters and no, okay,PGA Championship twenty fourteen and the Open in
twenty fourteen, the last year hewon, so ten years ago. That
is just crazy. And it's notlike he sucks at golf. No,
no, maybe at marriage, butapparently that's even working out. Yeah,
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you know, you know what I'vebeen wondering about that did he time this
out again? I like my mother'sfrom Belfast Northern Ireland. And and so
you know, Rory's got to placeour daughter. I got a great picture
of Rory and our It's super cool. But so I love him. He's
great. But boy, how hehow he stepped away after all that.
I get that there's all kinds ofthings being said and all this. I
don't know if he's diddling. What'sher nuts from? Amanda Balis? Yeah,
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I mean it's crazy when sports becomesteams. I'm like, I don't
want to know anything about this,but what happens. Yeah, but let
me read everything about it. Yes, but you guys, let's just let
them live their lives. Oh mygod, they did what? Yes?
Is she wearing? I heard shehad a divorce. She's not using her
last name anymore. She hasn't hada ring on it. And did you
(20:33):
see the way they hugged? Yes? Oh, he has a twig on
his eyes When he answers her questionwith a big smile, he smiles more
than she does. She's the biggestsmiler on TV. She is super Yeah,
but but I got the feeling that, you know, he really wants
to come back and win this thing. I don't know if he's working on
his marriage, or his golf gameor how much he's playing over there right
(20:53):
now. But I bet you he'she's dialed in and wants to win that
thing. I hope, so Iwant him to win, I mean especially
so one of the things I wantedto talk about is like the aspect of
mental health and athletes. We hearabout it so much more now, which
I think is awesome because you nevercould talk about emotions or struggles or anything
as a not even a professional athlete. It wasn't really considered something you talk
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about in life. And now peopleare so much more open with their struggles
and the you know, just everydaythings that kind of can weigh you down.
And then there's added pressure and addedthings that aren't something that like,
you know, you and I haveto deal with every day. And I
think what Rory was having to dealwith with all of everything that happened with
the PGA Tour last year and allof the pressure that got put on him,
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and then him feeling like he gotused as a scapegoat. I mean
that took all away from golf andthen it was like, Okay, now
I get to focus on golf againbecause I'm done with all of this bs.
But then you know, all thepressure is still on him because everybody's
looking at him like, well,now he doesn't have this other stuff,
so now is he going to doit? Because he hasn't won in ten
years, and so you know,you wonder how much it really gets to
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them. And that was one ofthe things I liked in Full Swing that
they Wyndham Clark talked about was hismental coach that goes with him everywhere and
how important that is because especially golfis such a mental game and if you're
having struggles, even on the courseor outside of the course, it's going
to affect your game. Oh thatquestion. And I remember when I first
(22:26):
got to Cleveland, Ohio. Imean, Tiger was in the prime of
winning all the things he wanted.Firestone at six seven, eight times,
you remember how many. But Imean he tore up that golf course and
I got to on the last day. You know, in a highlight rule
on a highlight reel he makes thepot and better than most and all this,
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but the one where there's lights flashingand they finished in the dark.
That was at Firestone. He wassick during that, Butch was still his
coach and I think it was AmericanExpress hosted on the Monday after in the
morning with Butch there with him aclinic, and so that we just sat
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and watched him do it, andhe was amazing, but he was sick
and he was very much oh I'mnot feeling that good. It was like
he was really acting it up.But you know, he was just pumping
what he called his stock driver.Butch did most of the talking and he
had him doing all kinds of crazythings. And then he left there he
was sick, and that night heflew back to California where he took on
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Sergio under the lights. Remember thatit was like a Monday night foot Monday
night golf thing under the lights.And I just remember thinking, Kad,
with all the things that these guysare responsible for, and you think that,
you know, obviously they make crazymoney, and the business ventures and
the commercials, the endorsements. Bythe way, he's got kids, and
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just the whole thing. And oh, by the way, consistently win it
golf. You would think to bea good golfer you have to just go
live in a barn somewhere and justhit balls all day and not talk to
anybody. You know, how doyou focus? How can you be that
rock solid and that consistently good.I wondered that about Phil Nicholson too well,
and look at the careers they've had. Yeah, you think about like
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I feel like when we watched JoelDamon and Gino, like Gino kept stressing,
you know, I make my moneyoff your wins. I don't get
paid if you don't get paid,and it almost seemed like Joel dismissed that,
but I think it was Joel couldn'tdidn't want to discuss the pressure that
that you know, like that,Yeah, I realized my livelihood is your
(24:42):
livelihood, and I want to dothis for you. But when you actually
say it out loud, it's like, that's a lot of pressure that I
have to do well so that youdo well. Yeah, I don't know.
I don't. I don't. Itwould be parts of it you look
at it and you're like, man, this would be a really cool life.
Parts of it would be really difficult. Yeah, it's got to be
(25:03):
a grind. And if you're notplaying well, which again I mean look
at Rory. Here's a great golferand he's not playing well at the standard
that he wants to be playing atthink of the work he's got to put
in. Now, these guys,these guys are like super athletes. They
don't just go to the range andputt for all day long. You know,
they got to get workouts in.They got the trainers and those are
like hardcore, full on professional athleteworkouts they're doing. Yeah, and that's
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got to be a grind on theseguys. It really, it really does.
It really does. Okay, Solooking at the field this sea this
week, I mean, it's nota surprise. Obviously, Scotti Shuffler is
our favorite again. He's won sixtimes on the tour already this season.
And if you think back just acouple months ago, we were talking about
the idea that he could win theGrand Slam this year. He wins the
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Masters, he goes to the PGAChampionship, and that's all that everybody's talking
about. Then he gets arrested.Everything goes to hell in a hand basket,
and then you come back to theUS Open. He's the favorite again
and you're thinking, gosh, canyou imagine if he hadn't had that arrest
at the PGA Championship. Is thatthe only thing that's going to stop him
(26:12):
from winning the Grand Slam this year. Well, doesn't turn out at the
US Open pretty disap I mean,he had a pretty disappointing weekend there.
He did make the cut barely,right, Yeah, yeah, that's right.
And I think it was like hisfirst consecutive rounds over par that he's
played all year. So he's goingfor a seventh win, he's going for
(26:33):
a second major of the year.The only other person that has more than
seven wins or more in one calendaryears Tiger. But I don't know.
I mean, it's hard to betagainst someone like Scotty because it's Scotty.
But then I look at it andI'm like, I just don't know that
this is the style that's going tobe set him up for success. But
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then you go on PGA Tour andyou look at his stats and he literally
leads every single category. I mean, he's gaining strokes all over the place.
So it's like, is it justthat he's not exciting enough? So
I'm looking for somebody else that mightbe more exciting. Well, i mean,
once you start racking up numbers andhe's playing for something more and we're
(27:18):
all watching, we're going, oh, my gosh, is this Tiger esque?
And you know, I mean sevenwins is seven wins, right,
I know, it just doesn't havethat same fire that Tiger's within had because
yeah, I was just I gotI threw a YouTube up the other day
on the TV and just started lookingat golf highlights and it's so funny how
you end up watching like, oh, okay, Tiger highlights, Tiger highlights
(27:42):
one, two, three, youknow, I'll just watch all four of
these right now, right and itjust I mean spectacular, just shot after
shot after shot, and you know, if you sit there and go,
what shot that Tiger was great?A shot? I mean obviously that one
at the Masters where finally rolled inone more turn of the golf ball,
(28:03):
that was great. But I meanthere's so many spectacular shots that we forgot
about. And you know, ScottyScheffler is just kind of you know what
Scotty Scheffler is. Scottie Scheffler isthe San Antonio Spurs. When the San
Antonio Spurs were winning, they weregood. They executed, Hey get the
ball inside, Hey look oh yeah, lay in good and that's what they
(28:23):
did. The most exciting thing thathappened is when what's his name was,
Tony Parker was dating Eva Longoria.I thought you're gonna say when Manny Genobili
was flopping all over the place,right, I mean, that was the
that was the fun part. Butyou know, they just they won by
just playing normal basketball and just butit wasn't exciting. Yeah, yeah,
and that's you know, but stillthe winner. I think it's exciting,
(28:45):
just obviously just numerically speaking. Imean, and he's a nice guy,
right and he ye, somebody oweshim something after what happened to him in
Kentucky. Well, and it isweird too. I was he's what twenty
eight? I think he just carrieshimself like he's older. Yeah, and
then it just seems, yeah,it just seems almost like he's this mature
guy that just came on to thecourse and was like, I'm going to
(29:07):
play some consistent golf in front ofyou all today. Yeah. And then
he was like, Okay, bye, thank you, I'm gonna take this
trophy. I'll come back for anotherone. Just you know, I'll see
y'all in a couple of weeks,and I'm going to come back and play
some more consistent golf and I'm reallynot going to wow you with anything,
but boy, I am consistent.Yeah, well, you know, we
we're all about style over substance rights. We want we want storylines and sports.
(29:30):
You know, why do you thinkwrestling is so successful because the storylines.
Yeah, and you know they theytry to generate as many storylines as
they can. It's not about thesport, it's the story. And you
know, he does have, youknow, a nice story. He's a
good guy. He's had the kidand he got arrested, which was you
know, it was It's awesome thathe has a mug shot. It's you
(29:55):
would never expect it. That wasnot nobody's being go card. But you
know, just you know, I'llroot for him to win. It's just
I don't know the state of golfright now. I want to believe that
it's transitioning right now. Obviously withall the lift stuff and everything. I
want to believe that golf's never beenbetter because there's so many great golfers.
(30:15):
But you know, we come froma time not that long ago where we
always wanted to see Tiger and Philand all of a sudden, this random
Bubba guy comes in. This isinteresting, you know, but still Tiger,
Phil, you know, the bignames, you know, because we
grew up that way, there wasalways there was you know, Nicholas and
Palmer, you know, and Sevywould get worked in there, Cheechi,
Rodriguez would do some things. Youknow, then super mechs. We had
(30:38):
characters. And now it's just like, like you mentioned that, for lack
of a better word, the click, the guy like JT and all his
buddies all hang out. That's cool, and it's fine. They're not the
old you know, they're not thecharacters that we want. Tiger obviously was
a character, you know, Imean he was he stood for something,
(31:00):
and Phil too, for that matter. But now it's just like, who
are the guys? You know,there's a bunch of guys we like and
they're nice, and you know,I just think of all the golfers on
tour, is spe I love Speafyou know, he's just he's a good
guy. Yeah, he is agood guy. You know, At no
point do you go, yeah,I love the way he you know,
(31:22):
yeah, I will say Jordan Speed, I would love to see him do
well again. I think his oddsthis week are eighty to one or something
like that. Yeah, but hewas actually pretty exciting when he came onto
the scene and wanted the Masters andthen had the blow up at the Masters.
And he's because he's more creative inhis golf shots. So I think
somebody like him would be more excitingto watch again win. Whereas Scotty doesn't
(31:47):
need to be creative with his golfshots because he's not doing anything to need
the creativity. He's just he's likeI would liken it to like when I
go play women's golf here and I'llplay with, you know, a sixty
five year old woman, and she'snot gonna hit it really hard, but
she's gonna hit it straight down thefairway every single time, every single club.
(32:07):
She knows exactly what she's doing.She knows exactly where that ball's going.
Now, I'm not saying Scotty can'thit it hard or anything like that.
I'm just saying it's I know whatthis club's gonna do. I know
what this club's going to do.That is kind of how he plays his
game of golf, whereas other peopletake more risks, I think, and
so when they have to use thatcreativity, it makes it a little bit
more exciting. Like you look.Remember you brought up Bubba Watson. We'll
(32:29):
remember the was it the second Mastershe won, and he has to go
from the pine straw, under thetrees and out and it was the phenomenal
shot. Looking at the graphic onthe path of that golf ball still is
mind blowing. It is. Andso it's like you just you're not going
to get that with Scotty. Yeah, you're gonna get Oh he missed a
little bit right, Oh, allright, perfect shot and he's back in
(32:52):
position now. Yeah, yeah,I fill the thrill. And you know,
the one of the coolest things Isaw I followed Phil again. Phil's
fallen out of my my my appreciationright now just because of everything. I
just think, yeah, it's dumbthings. But I was falling him in
bones around the golf course. Youwhen I was in Cleveland, so I
went to the firestone, the bridgestone, firestone thing every time. And
(33:16):
I remember he was off to theright and I'd played the golf course.
So it's super cool seeing the world'sbest because that tournament draws everybody, and
to know that course myself and tosee that, oh he's down in the
corry, he's gonna be he's kindto pop up, so so follow him
right down. You're standing next tohim, you're listening, And I remember
him there was a little opening inthe trees and I saw him looking up
(33:36):
there, and it's like, youknow, we're all going like, yeah,
how are you going to do that? I can see some blue sky.
But and he put it through ahole in the trees and popped it
up and put it in front ofthe green. It was one of the
coolest things I've ever seen. It'slike, how did you even see that?
And I mean it was like,how do these guys not shoot twos
and threes on every every hole?Well, and it's like, yeah,
(33:58):
if I go play, I'm like, oh, there's a tree fifty yards
ahead of me. Okay, myonly thing, don't hit the tree.
Yeah, don't you hit the tree. Don't hit the tree. Yeah.
It's the same with water, rightthere could be water on a hole across
the way. It's like, wellthere's water over there. Yeah, yeah,
I'm not gonna slice it. Andthen the thing shoots over like an
F eighteen right into the water.Yeah. So true, it's so true.
(34:19):
And then but it's like, yeah, don't hit the tree. Don't
hit the tree, so you knowyou're gonna hit the tree. Whereas if
you're like, Okay, the pinis fifty yards in front of me,
I've got a wide open shot.Just hit the pin. You're not gonna
hit the pin. Yeah, golf, real beasts, Golf is far.
That's why we just sit around totalk about it. Yeah, exactly,
and then pretend we can play.How do you think, what do you
(34:43):
How do you feel about d Schambeauthis time? He's T six at the
Masters I believe was at T six. Yeah, T six at the Masters,
runner up at the PGA Championship,and then wins the US Open,
carries the trophy everywhere with him forlike the next week, walked it up
and down the streets in Nashville orMemphis wherever he was. I mean,
just having a last He's clearly allowinghis personality to come out, which is
awesome, But golf wise, he'slike, it's interesting because you get like
(35:08):
one live golfer. It seems likeevery year that's going to dominate at the
Master's. Last year was Brooks,So this year is Bryson. Do you
expect that same thing from him thisweek? You know, I'd like to
say yes. I think it's oneof those moments where I just think some
of the good golfers, like itwouldn't surprise me all of a sudden it
didn't make the cut. I justthink think about how the Open goes.
(35:30):
You know, half the leaderboard onthe first day and a half two days
you're like, now, who isthat guy? Who's this guy? And
who's that guy? You know,it's not necessarily a who's who every time.
I just I get the feeling somebody'sgoing to emerge from this pack of
up and comers that we've heard theirnames, but you know they don't get
(35:51):
the spotlight. They're not you know, if you named fifteen golfers, they
wouldn't be on that list. Someonelike that's going to win it this year.
Yeah, well that's what happened lastyear with Brian Harmon. I think
he was one hundred and seventy fiveto one odds to start the week last
year and walks away with it.Yeah, it's given me somebody. I
just I just think that's that's kindof the state of Link's golf right now,
(36:12):
and just with this this field thatwe have, like on the PGA
tour. I'd love to sit thereand think Spith is in the conversation.
The number one guy that I wantto see get a win right now is
Jordan Spith. I do too,That's the number one him and Rory.
I want him both well. Rory. Yeah, Rory's you know, he's
still had his piece of action here. I mean he's been you know,
yeah, I mean yeah, Iwant him to do well and everything.
(36:34):
But you know, I just Spithis a is a good player, and
I just i'd like to see himget rewarded for it. You know,
Rory's getting plenty of attention and accoladesand all that, and you know,
i'd like to see him get thatmajor out of the way too. But
I just, yeah, my guttells me that Rory is, like I
said earlier, you know, he'sat home taking care of his mentals or
(36:55):
whatever. He's doing his chicken.I think he's deiled in and dead set
on winning the Open, and he'sbeen doing He's probably been playing practice round
after practice round there. He's I'msure he's on it. Oh yeah,
I'm sure somebody with twenty two toone odds, Tommy Fleetwood's name has come
up a couple of times in myresearch. He's had three top tens and
(37:17):
two in the top five in hislast four years at the Open. So
basically it says he's five for fiveand making the cut of the Open,
and his two point five to fivestrokes gained according to Data Golf, is
the best number of anyone who hasplayed in at least three of the last
five This year or so, he'snow number one in or number eleven in
(37:37):
the World Golf rankings. And thenthis year he's had eight top twenty five
finishes, three in the top ten. I have zero doubt about his ability
to finish in the top ten.It's that he just keeps coming close and
then isn't winning it. And that'swhere I'm like, I want to I
would like to see him do well. I think he has all of the
skills to do well. I mean, he's doing well if he's driving,
(37:59):
he's gaining strokes around the green.He's thirty third in total strokes gained.
But it's just not translating to wins. It's translating to come closes. Yeah,
and he's that guy. He's he'sone of those names. It's always
in the conversation. Yeah, youknow, so it's hard to pick him
to win. It's yeah, I'msure he's gonna be Tommy Fileewood, He's
(38:21):
going to be there. I don'tknow. I like him a lot,
I do. Yeah, I rootfor him. But you know, some
of these guys, you know,they just don't have that. I mean
again, it's it's all the mentalstuff we talk about. There's some guys
that just they either have it oryou don't. You could be a good
golfer, but I mean to closeout a professional golf tournament, I mean,
the field is tough, right,I mean, no matter, no
(38:45):
matter if it's when where you getall the big names or not. Uh,
it's tough to win golf tournaments andthe like say. Some people who
know how to close that. That'swhy some of those guys, I mean
when we talked about it, likeTiger, I mean, he won because
he was he was obviously mentally strongerthan anybody, of course, and you
know, maybe the tom of Cleveland'sjust don't have that, you know,
(39:07):
you know, you know speed.I want to believe he has it.
You know, he certainly had thatrun, but I'd like to see him
get that back me too. Ihave a tiger yeah and speak. He
just seems like, as I said, a good guy. But I also
just love his creativity and it wouldbe nice to see somebody have to come
out and be more creative with someof their shots to get a win.
I want an exciting tournament. Onthat note, do you have a pick
(39:30):
for who your favorite would be?And then do you have a dark horse?
Wow? Well, gosh, Isee it now. My dark horse,
I would say speed because eighty toone so that counts. Yeah.
Yeah, So but man, Ijust I just think it's going to be
uh, you know, I justI think it's going to be someone who
(39:58):
doesn't necessarily currently momentum. Yeah,you know. Here we're sitting there,
like Brooks, you know, he'sdue to do some stuff. I'm trying
to think of one of those golfers. It's good that just has fallen off
here a little bit. Yeah,Tony with a really good year to start,
but he kind of fell offs.We've heard Sam Burns hasn't had that
great of a year this year.Ryan Fox had a couple solid tournaments a
(40:22):
month or two ago. Those guysall have pretty high odds right now.
Yeah, boy, if you saidI had to drop a thousand dollars,
then who's going to win the OpenChampionship. It's hard, right, I
think this is the hardest one tohave to pick. Yeah, especially right
now. I mean, I doesTony Fino have the goods to do it?
(40:45):
Interestingly enough, I was gonna say, I was just looking at it.
So Tony's forty to one, andI have a little something about him
that I had here. Let mefind it. I might be leaving now
or something like that, or so. He is third in strokes approaching the
green. He has five straight toptwenties, three straight top tens, including
(41:06):
runs at the US Open and theTravelers Travelers Championship. It's credited to his
improvement around the green, which Ijust explained before last year's early exitd at
hoy Lake Final. Started his Opencareer with stick six straight top thirty finishes,
including a third place result at awet and windy Royal Port Rush in
twenty nineteen. All right, I'mgoing to go with fenw to win,
(41:28):
okay, and I am going toboys. Since we started talking Fleetwood,
it's amazing how it kind of getsin your brain all of a sudden you're
like, well, wait a minute. Yeah, see, you know,
I'm gonna go Speed as my darkhorse. I'm gonna I'm gonna manifest this.
Okay, I like that Fenaw andSpace Speed. I think both of
(41:49):
those could technically be darker horses here. Yeah, because I just don't know
who the real clear cut. Andagain I would say Rory because you know,
I think he's probably putting in thework and everything, but I'd rather
pick somebody just a little outside ifI say Rory, Rory wins Okay,
I mean you know, but I'ma Wins speak dark how about you?
(42:14):
Yeah? I like those. Ithink I am also having a hard time
just going away from Rory. Idon't think this is Scotty's tournament. I
really don't. Ludvig Auberg Oberg,I don't ever know how to pronounce it
is silently, just not even silently. He's making a lot of headlines,
but he's having a good year.He'd be somebody that would be pretty hard
to ignore. But I think myheart just really wants Rory to do well
(42:37):
and finally kind of get that offhis back because it has been ten years.
So I'm gonna go Rory and thenmy dark horse, I'm gonna go
auk Sha Batia at ninety to one. All right, just learned how to
say his name. I got itright, So I'm happy. Well,
you got a little momentum there.You got some momentum there. Yeah,
(42:58):
he's been playing pretty well. Soand you called that your dark horse.
Huh yeah, ninety to one odds. He's got lower odds, higher odds
than Jordan Speed at eighty to one. Oh yeah, I like that pick
a lot. I'm jealous of thatpick. I wish I came up with
that. Yeah, all right,that's good. You can what's okay?
See this is a podcast and sowe're doing this together, so they're team
(43:20):
picks, the team picks. That'sright. Yeah. But again that was
a hunder vercent you on that.That was unassisted. Okay, I'll take
that. That's fair for people.I know that. One of the big
things when you're watching something like theOpen, especially the time zones and all
the difference, is where can youwatch it? So I did pull up
that info just for anyone listening.I'll seven of you. Peacock will be
(43:42):
streaming it and then it's on fouram starting on USA Network and that's pretty
much every day except well that's ThursdayFriday, then Saturday five am on USA
Network. Then it moves over toNBC at seven, and that's the same
there on Sunday, So NBC PeacockUSA. One great thing about living where
we live and to wake up togolf just in progress, pour a cup
(44:06):
of coffee and you're going. Andas a morning guy, you know,
to me, that's almost sleeping in. And this is perfect. That is
if only that was every weekend.There's nothing better than getting to work and
getting to watch golf either. Andlast year wasn't. The first day I
think was delayed and it was like, wait, what, No, Welf's
supposed to be on right now?Well, I appreciate you helping me out
(44:31):
with this this week, and Ithink all four of our picks are going
to do really well. One ofthem is going to win. How about
that? Obviously, I mean,come on, obviously serious cheers, cheers
to you and all the titos andall the titos
Welcome to the nineteenth Whole Podcast,sponsored by Tito's Handmade Vodka. What's better
than sinking a hole in one?Sinking a hole in one with your favorite
Tito's cocktail in hand. A dayon the back nine calls for a beverage
serve up some Tito's for a postround, mid round, pre round cocktail
or two. Must be twenty oneto enjoy. Distilled and bottled in Austin,
Texas, forty percent alcohol by volume, namely eighty proof, crafted to
(00:22):
be savored responsibly. Cheers, Alan, cheers. How come I never get
the titos when I'm here? Iknow it's because we don't plan well enough
for me to drive to Bellingham todeliver the titos I got you. Well,
i'll work on that. I'll drinkvicariously through you. I'll work on
that, and then maybe get youone of these cool mugs. Oh wow,
that's fancy. And it gets reallycold when you put ice in it.
(00:44):
Wow. Well that's what it's supposedto do. That's what that ice
does. I hear, Yeah,but like colder than a normal mug.
Oh you know what? And actually, when I drive to Bellingham to deliver
this mug and your Tito's. I'llalso give you your birthday present from twenty
eighteen. Oh, fantastic, It'llbe great. It'll work out really really
well. I'm sure my gift hasaged beautifully for six years. It's awesome.
(01:04):
Yeah, definitely. Okay, Sowe are here this week to talk
about the Open, the Open Championship, the British Open, whatever you want
to call it. It has threenames. Basically, I usually just call
it the Open. It's easy,it flows, it fits. What do
you call it? Yeah? Icall it the Open now too. Everyone's
all stumble and drop in the BritishOpen. But you know sometimes it's in
(01:26):
Skyland. Yes, right, that'strue. Yeah, and then you're kind
of lying if you're saying the BritishOpen. Yeah. And again it's kind
of cooler to say the Open.Right, what other open is there?
It makes it sound like you arereally in the know. Yeah, that's
what I think it does, especiallyif you have an accent. Yeah.
(01:46):
If you're like, oh, theOpen, the Open, sure tell it?
Tell you. This year it isat Royal true and Golf Club.
They are the host. It isthe one and fifty second Open, by
the way, and I do wantto get into some course info. But
before we open talk, we hadthere was a news story that came out.
(02:07):
I believe it was last week,but all my weeks are combining together.
Keegan Bradley has been named the captainfor the US team for the Ryder
Cup. Now, did you watchFull Swing Season two? I did?
Yes? Okay, so heartbreaking whenhe was left off the team. I
thought he deserved to be on theteam. It did seem like it was
a sorry, you're not in thefriend group, so you're not on the
(02:30):
team decision. Yeah, it hadthat vibe to it. And of course
he brought up during his press conferenceafter he got named the captain, he
brought up Netflix and he said,you know, hey, that was kind
of a bad moment for me,and that's the impression that everybody was left
with. But he was clearly bummedout. I mean, all those golfers,
right, I mean, they absolutelywant to play in that and so
(02:52):
is this a pity party thing?There's too much at stake to do that,
right, You can't. I meanyou've got to do this to win.
Every time everybody's played a win withthis, So I don't. I'm
not going to say it was apity party thing. But I think somehow,
somehow it ties into something to dowith live golf. I think because
the whole Phil Nicholson connection, becausePhil and Keegan are great friends, right,
(03:15):
Okay. I remember being at thetournament at Firestone at Firestone South,
and I followed them around for apractice round, and they clearly are buddies
and they're in their own little worldtogether. But somehow, someway, it
seems like these guys are connected,and it might even rather than being a
pity thing, it might be apeople know people kind of thing as well.
(03:38):
Well. And I was wondering almostif it was a because he's not
in the click of the group offriends that are like the kind of most
popular golfers right now, maybe iteliminates the possibility of making any choices based
on your click group of friends,right, You're really just they maybe they
think he really will just pick thepeople who deserve it the most and should
(04:00):
be there. It was interesting whenthey did on the Golf channel, just
asking random players, and a lotof eyebrows were raised, but the consensus
was very much an eyebrows raised.Yeah, okay, you know what just
makes sense. I think this mightbe one of these things where you and
I have judged him based on hismannerisms. He's clearly a quirky guy when
we watch him on the golf course, and even in that interview where you
(04:21):
know you expect him to be adynamic speaker and so forth, he's more
of a thinker and like he's that'snot the stage that he's on. But
there must be something about him thatwe don't see or we don't know in
the real golf community. You know, it's there's got to be something more
to this, the same way likePhil Mickelson we see him, you know,
(04:41):
you know, let's let's talk aboutPhil pre live because I'm mad at
him. But just just you know, Phil was always do do friendly guy
sign in all the autographs. Thatwas his persona. But you know,
in real life, obviously he's agambler, he's bad comedy, he's a
total smart ass, the whole thing. And there's just there's just more to
the guy. And I want tobelieve there's more to Keegan that they would
(05:03):
entrust. I mean, you haveto have relationships, you have to cultivate
those relationships. You have to knowhow these guys tick. Right, that's
all we ever hear about that position. You know, in the pairings,
you got to pair the right guysthat are buddies and they got to know
each other, and so he wemust not know something about Keegan Bradley.
Yeah, and I would agree.I think that there's I do think Full
(05:25):
Swing was kind of give us aglimpse of him a little bit more than
I think we've ever seen. Iactually really like him, I think it
does. I think you brought upPhil Micholson a little bit, and I
do think I do think we willsee live golfers on the Ryder Cup team,
assuming that they're playing their way inLike if the Ryder Cup team were
(05:46):
to be made right now and Bryceand de Shambeau wasn't on it, then
that would be a travesty. Yeah, right, And see that's what I'm
saying, there's got to be someconnect And that's that's the thing I'm linking
back to Phil Micholson that they obviouslyare very very close and it seems like
they come from the wealthy Tree clubfamilies like literally and money and he's Boston
and you know it just it justit just seems like that might be the
(06:08):
bridge to make sure that they canbring those guys in and so there wouldn't
be live golfers and PGA golfers.And maybe he's a unifying force that way.
Yeah. Well, I mean Iwould love to see it, I
think, especially after the embarrassment oflast was it just last year? Yeah,
last year's Ryder Cup, Like wegot our asses handed to us.
So I hope that they've clearly gotto change whatever they're doing or however they're
(06:31):
putting the team together, because Idon't think we've had the best representation of
US golfers and I hope that changesbecause I want us to win again.
And it was embarrassing to watch lastyear. You know, it's interesting.
I still I kept hearing rumblings,but I never really heard the pure reason
why Tiger Woods would not be thatguy the captain. Yeah, why would
he not be because he would bea great unifying person. Did I there
(06:55):
was a scheduling thing or something,or there was something about it that didn't
make sense. Yeah, I don'tknow. I didn't hear anything about it,
But you're right, he would begreat. Yeah, I mean,
I mean he seems poised for that, and you know, right now,
the way he's playing golf. Imean, I just saw it was Colin
Montgomery this week who was saying,why does Tiger keep playing? You know,
maybe he should retire, Which,again, leave it up to Monty
(07:16):
to say dumb things like that,even if you think it, Why say
that about the most popular golfer ever. But what a transition that would be
for Tiger to kind of step awayfrom finishing tide for second seventy second and
you know, go be the guy'sthe Ryder Cup. He's competitive as hell,
Golfers all look up to him,they admire him, and yet he's
(07:40):
still a peer of theirs. Imean, it's just I think on paper
it's great, but I kept hearingrumblings and I never circled back to learn
more about that. I know nowthat I have you on here, I
should feel like I should google this. Why is Tiger not It's going to
be like something about Tiger King,not the rider, Tiger captain. Let's
(08:00):
see what does this say? Yeah, Tiger Woods has revealed he turned down
the chance to become the USA's RyderCup captain for next year's competition due to
the time, commitments and responsibilities tothe PGA Tour, but he's open to
the role in the future, sothere you go. Interesting. So maybe
he still feels he can genuinely win, right, I mean, you know,
(08:24):
I and whatever. I know thathe's got the business with who did
Who's he building something with, likegolf courses? You golf courses? And
then he and justin Timberlake a badtime for JT to j d UI and
it's like, hey, let's opena bar. It just makes sense,
and let's let's go where they makereally powerful Scotch perfect. What could possibly
(08:48):
go wrong? Right? Yeah,yeah, yeah, that is bad timing.
So yeah, it's probably other thingslike and then I think he is
required by the PGA Tour basically todo something is like an ambassador or something.
Right now. I also could havetotally made that up, because I
did have a dream the other daythat I called my mom at one thirty
in the morning and had a fullconversation with her. And I woke up
(09:09):
on Sunday and thought, did Iactually call my mother at one thirty in
the morning. Why would I dothat? I didn't, but I thought
I did. I was convinced thatwe had a one thirty in the morning
conversation, and it was just likeshe was sitting up on the porch smoking
a cigarette and drinking a martini,because why wouldn't you at one thirty?
It just makes sense, It suredoes. All right, Well, it'll
(09:31):
be interesting to see who Keegan putson the team. Obviously over this next
year. He's got a lot ofdecisions to make. And I think that's
half the fun though, is seeinghow who steps up and really starts playing,
you know, who starts impressing us, because I think, as I
said, you look at it rightnow, if bryceon de Shambeau wasn't on
that team, it would be wrongbecause his I mean, we've only we
(09:54):
only seen four tournaments a year rightnow, but he's playing lights out,
that's for sure. So him shouldbe on the whole thing with Bryson and
what's his nuts? That whole thingreally made me. That just frustrated me.
I didn't like either one of themin that fight. And I've really
learned to appreciate Bryson the golfer,and it seems like he's, you know,
(10:15):
I don't want to say he's maturedinto the role, but you know,
he's become you know, a fullon legit PGA player. It seemed
a little quirky, like he's goingto be the flash in the pan guy,
you know, and be the itguy for just a second and go
away. But I like him alot. I really rude for him now.
I think that the Brooks and Brysonrivalry honestly reminded me of like the
(10:39):
kind of socially awkward kid at schoolwho makes jokes that maybe people don't understand
or go over their head. Andthen Brooks was the guy in high school
that didn't get the joke and thoughtyou were making fun of him, and
so then he didn't like your senseof humor, so he mocked you to
make himself feel you know what Imean. It was literally both of them
being immature, and I think they'veboth matured because they both kind of looked
(11:00):
terrible in the whole argument. Andnow I actually like them both. Which
is you asked me that two yearsago, and I would have laughed,
Well, you know, you broughtup Full Swing, which, by the
way, gosh, I hate havingto wait for that short of come back.
I just want that to be inreal time each week. Yeah,
Can we just have a live FullSwing why not, right, Yeah,
but he and his wife, youknow, with the swimsuits and the whole
(11:22):
thing and all that. I thoughtthat was a little much. Not to
say she didn't look good in aswimsuit, but it was just like,
really, this is where they're goingwith this? Well it was odd because
that's what made me really sympathize withbrooks Kepka, honestly, because you could
tell he was struggling and she wasnot at all in tune with that.
(11:46):
She's like, what should I wear? And he's like, I don't give
a rip, right, you knowwhat I mean? Like he did not
care. He was just like inhis own head, and I don't know,
I just felt bad. Hope Iwas married to her. I'm to
be worried about golf. I mean, yeah, let's talk about what you're
wearing and not wearing, babe,like golf some other time. Yeah,
(12:07):
what's golf? Right? Right?Oh? Gosh? All right? Well,
speaking of golf, as as Isaid, is the final major this
week the Open or the Open Championship. We'll go with one of those British
Open. Sounds like that's kind ofwhat people who aren't big into golf call
it. That's how I look atit. We're gonna start with some course
(12:28):
info. So they are at RoyalTroon, it is the one hundred and
fifty second Open, and just somenotes on I'm just gonna read you some
of these notes on some of thesesignificant holes that they've got. Whole one
they name it seal. It's apar four, three hundred and sixty six
yard hole bunkers on the left sideof the fairway. That says, bunkers
on the left side of the fairwaygobble up wayward aggressive t shots, while
(12:48):
poorly positioned shots down the left orright will lead to a tough approach shot
that sounds fun. So basically nota lot of room for error right off
the bat there. If you goto whole six on that one turn Bury
part five, this one is sixhundred and twenty three yards, whoa,
yeah, they lengthened it by twentytwo yards just for this so it will
(13:09):
be the longest hole in the Championship'shistory. Then it says it's a beastly
hole. Whenever it's played into thewind. It usually plays straight down wind
and actually offers a great birdie chance, which I find entertaining. You make
it the longest hole in the entirechampionship's history, and then it's like,
chances are that you'll get a birdieon it. I'm trying to remember at
(13:30):
Firestone South hole sixteen down the hill, that's like six hundred yards and we
played it, you know, weplayed it for fun from the tips and
it was like, I don't rememberwhat I shot, you know. I
was like when we get there infive, it was like, and there's
trees, the whole thing. Andthen we watched John Daily tea off there
(13:52):
and it was stupid how far hehit that ball. I mean, it
was just gone. It was amoon shot. He may have even got
on it fell like you got onjust just short in two. But yeah,
six hundred yard holds. That's nojoke, especially there when you're playing
that style of golf, right,yeah, Well, and that's the thing
is, right, if the weather'sgoing to be calm, which I actually
haven't seen how it's supposed to be. If the weather, if the wind
(14:15):
is calm, it's not gonna bebad. The problem is you're gonna always
have wind because you're on the coastin Scotland. Even like on a calm
wind day, there's still wind,and they are literally right there. I
mean with the beach you can seeon parts of the of the course,
so whole eight. They call itpostage stamp, and that is because Willie
Park Junior described it as a pitchingsurface scaled down to the size of a
(14:35):
postage stamp. It's a part three. It's only one hundred and twenty three
yards, but apparently there's headwind usuallyright there, and then because of the
extremely small size of the actual green, and then there's deep bunkers around it
to protect it, so that oneseems like a real sob Yeah, getting
(14:56):
out of those sandtracks, but Ican't even imagine. A big part of
me wants to plan that golf tripout there and play all these historical coats
of courses link style. But putone of those traps man, and that's
yeah, I'll be in there allday. Yeah, I will literally have
to build a sand castle just toget to get myself out. We add
of a bunker here at Milk Creekthat they've redone now, but it used
(15:16):
to have a pretty steep face onelike on on. I guess it was
really long, so half of ithad a steep face, the other half
didn't. I got stuck in thereone time, and then after that I
was like, if I ever endup in this again, I'm just hitting
it out to the shallow end ofit and then out because I just couldn't
get the ball up high enough.I was so angry by the end of
it. Oh so I would notdo well in those at all. Whole
(15:39):
nine they call it the monk.It's a power for four hundred and forty
yards. They described this one asthe green is tricky with runoff areas of
both sides. Players who managed toavoid the perfectly placed pair of bunkers to
the left of the fairway from theirtee shot will usually have a blind second
shot into the green. And thenagain you can in the wind there,
(16:00):
so that adds. I mean there'sgonna be some precision involved in a lot,
and you know, just accessing someof these. The whole whole eleven
is the railway the best. Thisis my favorite description. The process to
make par at the eleventh is simple. You will need to hit two of
your best shots of the day,okay, and usually it plays straight into
(16:22):
the teeth of the wind. Apar here will feel like a birdie.
It is the toughest hole when theOpen comes to Royal True in one of
the hardest holes in all of majorchampionship golf. So whole eleven the railway
is going to be one to watchout for. Par four four hundred and
ninety eight yards. Yeah, Iknow, the wind makes this extra fun.
Let's see, there's another hole thirteenis a par four four hundred and
(16:45):
seventy three yards. Finding the greenno easy feet again another tall or another
small and raised green, so youdon't have a lot of room for error
there. Hole sixteen is the mostabundantly bunkered green on the course. And
then on hold eighteen just because youknow you don't want to let anyone off
easy. On eighteen, they've gotout of bounds lurking right behind the putting
(17:06):
surface, so if you miss thegreen go too far, you're basically screwed
until your ball's on the green.Wow. Yeah, So you want to
go try to play some par golfthere or what? Oh that'd be great,
that'd be super Yeah, it shouldbe fun. It's interesting too,
though, because you look at likethe US Open versus the Open and the
(17:29):
US Open, they always try tomake it so difficult, so your scores
are closer to par, right,whereas it always seems to me like the
courses for the Open Championship are moredifficult, but the scores tend to be
lower, right. Yeah. SoI don't know. I don't know how
they do it, especially because theseare courses that most of these guys aren't
playing regularly. Yeah, I mean, what do they do? They go
(17:52):
warm up at the Scottish Open andthen show up to the Open and hopefully
that's enough. Yeah. Well so, interestingly enough, I look s up
earlier how people who win the ScottishOpen, how champions of the Scottish Open
fair at the Open twenty thirteen,you might remember Phil won the Scottish Open
and then also won the Open Championship. So he's one of the few.
(18:14):
And wasn't it was that his firstOpen championship I believe? So that was
at Mirfield. I want to say, that was at that point. You're
going back, You're going back whatten eleven years ago? Now? Yeah?
I know, God, isn't thatweird that that's that long ago?
Yeah, he started reeling off oncehe got it the first major out of
the way, then he started reelingthem off. But that may have been
(18:37):
his first. I could be wrong, but yeah, I remember that really
well. And then did Rory doit as well? I know he came
close or he won this, Sothat's what I was looking at, and
I couldn't find he because he wonit last year and then finished sixth at
the Open. But he hasn't wonan Open championship since win two thousand and
(19:03):
thirty, you know eleven. Idon't know when. I don't even remember
when. It always freaks me outthat he hasn't won a major in like
how long it's been like almost Ithink twelve years. Let's see Rory mcelroyay,
I swear hasn't it ten years?Maybe? I think? Yeah,
I get fire up to googler.I am such good podcasting, I'm sure
(19:27):
okay Masters and no, okay,PGA Championship twenty fourteen and the Open in
twenty fourteen, the last year hewon, so ten years ago. That
is just crazy. And it's notlike he sucks at golf. No,
no, maybe at marriage, butapparently that's even working out. Yeah,
(19:48):
you know, you know what I'vebeen wondering about that did he time this
out again? I like my mother'sfrom Belfast Northern Ireland. And and so
you know, Rory's got to placeour daughter. I got a great picture
of Rory and our It's super cool. But so I love him. He's
great. But boy, how hehow he stepped away after all that.
I get that there's all kinds ofthings being said and all this. I
don't know if he's diddling. What'sher nuts from? Amanda Balis? Yeah,
(20:12):
I mean it's crazy when sports becomesteams. I'm like, I don't
want to know anything about this,but what happens. Yeah, but let
me read everything about it. Yes, but you guys, let's just let
them live their lives. Oh mygod, they did what? Yes?
Is she wearing? I heard shehad a divorce. She's not using her
last name anymore. She hasn't hada ring on it. And did you
(20:33):
see the way they hugged? Yes? Oh, he has a twig on
his eyes When he answers her questionwith a big smile, he smiles more
than she does. She's the biggestsmiler on TV. She is super Yeah,
but but I got the feeling that, you know, he really wants
to come back and win this thing. I don't know if he's working on
his marriage, or his golf gameor how much he's playing over there right
(20:53):
now. But I bet you he'she's dialed in and wants to win that
thing. I hope, so Iwant him to win, I mean especially
so one of the things I wantedto talk about is like the aspect of
mental health and athletes. We hearabout it so much more now, which
I think is awesome because you nevercould talk about emotions or struggles or anything
as a not even a professional athlete. It wasn't really considered something you talk
(21:18):
about in life. And now peopleare so much more open with their struggles
and the you know, just everydaythings that kind of can weigh you down.
And then there's added pressure and addedthings that aren't something that like,
you know, you and I haveto deal with every day. And I
think what Rory was having to dealwith with all of everything that happened with
the PGA Tour last year and allof the pressure that got put on him,
(21:41):
and then him feeling like he gotused as a scapegoat. I mean
that took all away from golf andthen it was like, Okay, now
I get to focus on golf againbecause I'm done with all of this bs.
But then you know, all thepressure is still on him because everybody's
looking at him like, well,now he doesn't have this other stuff,
so now is he going to doit? Because he hasn't won in ten
years, and so you know,you wonder how much it really gets to
(22:03):
them. And that was one ofthe things I liked in Full Swing that
they Wyndham Clark talked about was hismental coach that goes with him everywhere and
how important that is because especially golfis such a mental game and if you're
having struggles, even on the courseor outside of the course, it's going
to affect your game. Oh thatquestion. And I remember when I first
(22:26):
got to Cleveland, Ohio. Imean, Tiger was in the prime of
winning all the things he wanted.Firestone at six seven, eight times,
you remember how many. But Imean he tore up that golf course and
I got to on the last day. You know, in a highlight rule
on a highlight reel he makes thepot and better than most and all this,
(22:48):
but the one where there's lights flashingand they finished in the dark.
That was at Firestone. He wassick during that, Butch was still his
coach and I think it was AmericanExpress hosted on the Monday after in the
morning with Butch there with him aclinic, and so that we just sat
(23:11):
and watched him do it, andhe was amazing, but he was sick
and he was very much oh I'mnot feeling that good. It was like
he was really acting it up.But you know, he was just pumping
what he called his stock driver.Butch did most of the talking and he
had him doing all kinds of crazythings. And then he left there he
was sick, and that night heflew back to California where he took on
(23:33):
Sergio under the lights. Remember thatit was like a Monday night foot Monday
night golf thing under the lights.And I just remember thinking, Kad,
with all the things that these guysare responsible for, and you think that,
you know, obviously they make crazymoney, and the business ventures and
the commercials, the endorsements. Bythe way, he's got kids, and
(23:55):
just the whole thing. And oh, by the way, consistently win it
golf. You would think to bea good golfer you have to just go
live in a barn somewhere and justhit balls all day and not talk to
anybody. You know, how doyou focus? How can you be that
rock solid and that consistently good.I wondered that about Phil Nicholson too well,
and look at the careers they've had. Yeah, you think about like
(24:18):
I feel like when we watched JoelDamon and Gino, like Gino kept stressing,
you know, I make my moneyoff your wins. I don't get
paid if you don't get paid,and it almost seemed like Joel dismissed that,
but I think it was Joel couldn'tdidn't want to discuss the pressure that
that you know, like that,Yeah, I realized my livelihood is your
(24:42):
livelihood, and I want to dothis for you. But when you actually
say it out loud, it's like, that's a lot of pressure that I
have to do well so that youdo well. Yeah, I don't know.
I don't. I don't. Itwould be parts of it you look
at it and you're like, man, this would be a really cool life.
Parts of it would be really difficult. Yeah, it's got to be
(25:03):
a grind. And if you're notplaying well, which again I mean look
at Rory. Here's a great golferand he's not playing well at the standard
that he wants to be playing atthink of the work he's got to put
in. Now, these guys,these guys are like super athletes. They
don't just go to the range andputt for all day long. You know,
they got to get workouts in.They got the trainers and those are
like hardcore, full on professional athleteworkouts they're doing. Yeah, and that's
(25:30):
got to be a grind on theseguys. It really, it really does.
It really does. Okay, Solooking at the field this sea this
week, I mean, it's nota surprise. Obviously, Scotti Shuffler is
our favorite again. He's won sixtimes on the tour already this season.
And if you think back just acouple months ago, we were talking about
the idea that he could win theGrand Slam this year. He wins the
(25:51):
Masters, he goes to the PGAChampionship, and that's all that everybody's talking
about. Then he gets arrested.Everything goes to hell in a hand basket,
and then you come back to theUS Open. He's the favorite again
and you're thinking, gosh, canyou imagine if he hadn't had that arrest
at the PGA Championship. Is thatthe only thing that's going to stop him
(26:12):
from winning the Grand Slam this year. Well, doesn't turn out at the
US Open pretty disap I mean,he had a pretty disappointing weekend there.
He did make the cut barely,right, Yeah, yeah, that's right.
And I think it was like hisfirst consecutive rounds over par that he's
played all year. So he's goingfor a seventh win, he's going for
(26:33):
a second major of the year.The only other person that has more than
seven wins or more in one calendaryears Tiger. But I don't know.
I mean, it's hard to betagainst someone like Scotty because it's Scotty.
But then I look at it andI'm like, I just don't know that
this is the style that's going tobe set him up for success. But
(26:57):
then you go on PGA Tour andyou look at his stats and he literally
leads every single category. I mean, he's gaining strokes all over the place.
So it's like, is it justthat he's not exciting enough? So
I'm looking for somebody else that mightbe more exciting. Well, i mean,
once you start racking up numbers andhe's playing for something more and we're
(27:18):
all watching, we're going, oh, my gosh, is this Tiger esque?
And you know, I mean sevenwins is seven wins, right,
I know, it just doesn't havethat same fire that Tiger's within had because
yeah, I was just I gotI threw a YouTube up the other day
on the TV and just started lookingat golf highlights and it's so funny how
you end up watching like, oh, okay, Tiger highlights, Tiger highlights
(27:42):
one, two, three, youknow, I'll just watch all four of
these right now, right and itjust I mean spectacular, just shot after
shot after shot, and you know, if you sit there and go,
what shot that Tiger was great?A shot? I mean obviously that one
at the Masters where finally rolled inone more turn of the golf ball,
(28:03):
that was great. But I meanthere's so many spectacular shots that we forgot
about. And you know, ScottyScheffler is just kind of you know what
Scotty Scheffler is. Scottie Scheffler isthe San Antonio Spurs. When the San
Antonio Spurs were winning, they weregood. They executed, Hey get the
ball inside, Hey look oh yeah, lay in good and that's what they
(28:23):
did. The most exciting thing thathappened is when what's his name was,
Tony Parker was dating Eva Longoria.I thought you're gonna say when Manny Genobili
was flopping all over the place,right, I mean, that was the
that was the fun part. Butyou know, they just they won by
just playing normal basketball and just butit wasn't exciting. Yeah, yeah,
and that's you know, but stillthe winner. I think it's exciting,
(28:45):
just obviously just numerically speaking. Imean, and he's a nice guy,
right and he ye, somebody oweshim something after what happened to him in
Kentucky. Well, and it isweird too. I was he's what twenty
eight? I think he just carrieshimself like he's older. Yeah, and
then it just seems, yeah,it just seems almost like he's this mature
guy that just came on to thecourse and was like, I'm going to
(29:07):
play some consistent golf in front ofyou all today. Yeah. And then
he was like, Okay, bye, thank you, I'm gonna take this
trophy. I'll come back for anotherone. Just you know, I'll see
y'all in a couple of weeks,and I'm going to come back and play
some more consistent golf and I'm reallynot going to wow you with anything,
but boy, I am consistent.Yeah, well, you know, we
we're all about style over substance rights. We want we want storylines and sports.
(29:30):
You know, why do you thinkwrestling is so successful because the storylines.
Yeah, and you know they theytry to generate as many storylines as
they can. It's not about thesport, it's the story. And you
know, he does have, youknow, a nice story. He's a
good guy. He's had the kidand he got arrested, which was you
know, it was It's awesome thathe has a mug shot. It's you
(29:55):
would never expect it. That wasnot nobody's being go card. But you
know, just you know, I'llroot for him to win. It's just
I don't know the state of golfright now. I want to believe that
it's transitioning right now. Obviously withall the lift stuff and everything. I
want to believe that golf's never beenbetter because there's so many great golfers.
(30:15):
But you know, we come froma time not that long ago where we
always wanted to see Tiger and Philand all of a sudden, this random
Bubba guy comes in. This isinteresting, you know, but still Tiger,
Phil, you know, the bignames, you know, because we
grew up that way, there wasalways there was you know, Nicholas and
Palmer, you know, and Sevywould get worked in there, Cheechi,
Rodriguez would do some things. Youknow, then super mechs. We had
(30:38):
characters. And now it's just like, like you mentioned that, for lack
of a better word, the click, the guy like JT and all his
buddies all hang out. That's cool, and it's fine. They're not the
old you know, they're not thecharacters that we want. Tiger obviously was
a character, you know, Imean he was he stood for something,
(31:00):
and Phil too, for that matter. But now it's just like, who
are the guys? You know,there's a bunch of guys we like and
they're nice, and you know,I just think of all the golfers on
tour, is spe I love Speafyou know, he's just he's a good
guy. Yeah, he is agood guy. You know, At no
point do you go, yeah,I love the way he you know,
(31:22):
yeah, I will say Jordan Speed, I would love to see him do
well again. I think his oddsthis week are eighty to one or something
like that. Yeah, but hewas actually pretty exciting when he came onto
the scene and wanted the Masters andthen had the blow up at the Masters.
And he's because he's more creative inhis golf shots. So I think
somebody like him would be more excitingto watch again win. Whereas Scotty doesn't
(31:47):
need to be creative with his golfshots because he's not doing anything to need
the creativity. He's just he's likeI would liken it to like when I
go play women's golf here and I'llplay with, you know, a sixty
five year old woman, and she'snot gonna hit it really hard, but
she's gonna hit it straight down thefairway every single time, every single club.
(32:07):
She knows exactly what she's doing.She knows exactly where that ball's going.
Now, I'm not saying Scotty can'thit it hard or anything like that.
I'm just saying it's I know whatthis club's gonna do. I know
what this club's going to do.That is kind of how he plays his
game of golf, whereas other peopletake more risks, I think, and
so when they have to use thatcreativity, it makes it a little bit
more exciting. Like you look.Remember you brought up Bubba Watson. We'll
(32:29):
remember the was it the second Mastershe won, and he has to go
from the pine straw, under thetrees and out and it was the phenomenal
shot. Looking at the graphic onthe path of that golf ball still is
mind blowing. It is. Andso it's like you just you're not going
to get that with Scotty. Yeah, you're gonna get Oh he missed a
little bit right, Oh, allright, perfect shot and he's back in
(32:52):
position now. Yeah, yeah,I fill the thrill. And you know,
the one of the coolest things Isaw I followed Phil again. Phil's
fallen out of my my my appreciationright now just because of everything. I
just think, yeah, it's dumbthings. But I was falling him in
bones around the golf course. Youwhen I was in Cleveland, so I
went to the firestone, the bridgestone, firestone thing every time. And
(33:16):
I remember he was off to theright and I'd played the golf course.
So it's super cool seeing the world'sbest because that tournament draws everybody, and
to know that course myself and tosee that, oh he's down in the
corry, he's gonna be he's kindto pop up, so so follow him
right down. You're standing next tohim, you're listening, And I remember
him there was a little opening inthe trees and I saw him looking up
(33:36):
there, and it's like, youknow, we're all going like, yeah,
how are you going to do that? I can see some blue sky.
But and he put it through ahole in the trees and popped it
up and put it in front ofthe green. It was one of the
coolest things I've ever seen. It'slike, how did you even see that?
And I mean it was like,how do these guys not shoot twos
and threes on every every hole?Well, and it's like, yeah,
(33:58):
if I go play, I'm like, oh, there's a tree fifty yards
ahead of me. Okay, myonly thing, don't hit the tree.
Yeah, don't you hit the tree. Don't hit the tree. Yeah.
It's the same with water, rightthere could be water on a hole across
the way. It's like, wellthere's water over there. Yeah, yeah,
I'm not gonna slice it. Andthen the thing shoots over like an
F eighteen right into the water.Yeah. So true, it's so true.
(34:19):
And then but it's like, yeah, don't hit the tree. Don't
hit the tree, so you knowyou're gonna hit the tree. Whereas if
you're like, Okay, the pinis fifty yards in front of me,
I've got a wide open shot.Just hit the pin. You're not gonna
hit the pin. Yeah, golf, real beasts, Golf is far.
That's why we just sit around totalk about it. Yeah, exactly,
and then pretend we can play.How do you think, what do you
(34:43):
How do you feel about d Schambeauthis time? He's T six at the
Masters I believe was at T six. Yeah, T six at the Masters,
runner up at the PGA Championship,and then wins the US Open,
carries the trophy everywhere with him forlike the next week, walked it up
and down the streets in Nashville orMemphis wherever he was. I mean,
just having a last He's clearly allowinghis personality to come out, which is
awesome, But golf wise, he'slike, it's interesting because you get like
(35:08):
one live golfer. It seems likeevery year that's going to dominate at the
Master's. Last year was Brooks,So this year is Bryson. Do you
expect that same thing from him thisweek? You know, I'd like to
say yes. I think it's oneof those moments where I just think some
of the good golfers, like itwouldn't surprise me all of a sudden it
didn't make the cut. I justthink think about how the Open goes.
(35:30):
You know, half the leaderboard onthe first day and a half two days
you're like, now, who isthat guy? Who's this guy? And
who's that guy? You know,it's not necessarily a who's who every time.
I just I get the feeling somebody'sgoing to emerge from this pack of
up and comers that we've heard theirnames, but you know they don't get
(35:51):
the spotlight. They're not you know, if you named fifteen golfers, they
wouldn't be on that list. Someonelike that's going to win it this year.
Yeah, well that's what happened lastyear with Brian Harmon. I think
he was one hundred and seventy fiveto one odds to start the week last
year and walks away with it.Yeah, it's given me somebody. I
just I just think that's that's kindof the state of Link's golf right now,
(36:12):
and just with this this field thatwe have, like on the PGA
tour. I'd love to sit thereand think Spith is in the conversation.
The number one guy that I wantto see get a win right now is
Jordan Spith. I do too,That's the number one him and Rory.
I want him both well. Rory. Yeah, Rory's you know, he's
still had his piece of action here. I mean he's been you know,
yeah, I mean yeah, Iwant him to do well and everything.
(36:34):
But you know, I just Spithis a is a good player, and
I just i'd like to see himget rewarded for it. You know,
Rory's getting plenty of attention and accoladesand all that, and you know,
i'd like to see him get thatmajor out of the way too. But
I just, yeah, my guttells me that Rory is, like I
said earlier, you know, he'sat home taking care of his mentals or
(36:55):
whatever. He's doing his chicken.I think he's deiled in and dead set
on winning the Open, and he'sbeen doing He's probably been playing practice round
after practice round there. He's I'msure he's on it. Oh yeah,
I'm sure somebody with twenty two toone odds, Tommy Fleetwood's name has come
up a couple of times in myresearch. He's had three top tens and
(37:17):
two in the top five in hislast four years at the Open. So
basically it says he's five for fiveand making the cut of the Open,
and his two point five to fivestrokes gained according to Data Golf, is
the best number of anyone who hasplayed in at least three of the last
five This year or so, he'snow number one in or number eleven in
(37:37):
the World Golf rankings. And thenthis year he's had eight top twenty five
finishes, three in the top ten. I have zero doubt about his ability
to finish in the top ten.It's that he just keeps coming close and
then isn't winning it. And that'swhere I'm like, I want to I
would like to see him do well. I think he has all of the
skills to do well. I mean, he's doing well if he's driving,
(37:59):
he's gaining strokes around the green.He's thirty third in total strokes gained.
But it's just not translating to wins. It's translating to come closes. Yeah,
and he's that guy. He's he'sone of those names. It's always
in the conversation. Yeah, youknow, so it's hard to pick him
to win. It's yeah, I'msure he's gonna be Tommy Fileewood, He's
(38:21):
going to be there. I don'tknow. I like him a lot,
I do. Yeah, I rootfor him. But you know, some
of these guys, you know,they just don't have that. I mean
again, it's it's all the mentalstuff we talk about. There's some guys
that just they either have it oryou don't. You could be a good
golfer, but I mean to closeout a professional golf tournament, I mean,
the field is tough, right,I mean, no matter, no
(38:45):
matter if it's when where you getall the big names or not. Uh,
it's tough to win golf tournaments andthe like say. Some people who
know how to close that. That'swhy some of those guys, I mean
when we talked about it, likeTiger, I mean, he won because
he was he was obviously mentally strongerthan anybody, of course, and you
know, maybe the tom of Cleveland'sjust don't have that, you know,
(39:07):
you know, you know speed.I want to believe he has it.
You know, he certainly had thatrun, but I'd like to see him
get that back me too. Ihave a tiger yeah and speak. He
just seems like, as I said, a good guy. But I also
just love his creativity and it wouldbe nice to see somebody have to come
out and be more creative with someof their shots to get a win.
I want an exciting tournament. Onthat note, do you have a pick
(39:30):
for who your favorite would be?And then do you have a dark horse?
Wow? Well, gosh, Isee it now. My dark horse,
I would say speed because eighty toone so that counts. Yeah.
Yeah, So but man, Ijust I just think it's going to be
uh, you know, I justI think it's going to be someone who
(39:58):
doesn't necessarily currently momentum. Yeah,you know. Here we're sitting there,
like Brooks, you know, he'sdue to do some stuff. I'm trying
to think of one of those golfers. It's good that just has fallen off
here a little bit. Yeah,Tony with a really good year to start,
but he kind of fell offs.We've heard Sam Burns hasn't had that
great of a year this year.Ryan Fox had a couple solid tournaments a
(40:22):
month or two ago. Those guysall have pretty high odds right now.
Yeah, boy, if you saidI had to drop a thousand dollars,
then who's going to win the OpenChampionship. It's hard, right, I
think this is the hardest one tohave to pick. Yeah, especially right
now. I mean, I doesTony Fino have the goods to do it?
(40:45):
Interestingly enough, I was gonna say, I was just looking at it.
So Tony's forty to one, andI have a little something about him
that I had here. Let mefind it. I might be leaving now
or something like that, or so. He is third in strokes approaching the
green. He has five straight toptwenties, three straight top tens, including
(41:06):
runs at the US Open and theTravelers Travelers Championship. It's credited to his
improvement around the green, which Ijust explained before last year's early exitd at
hoy Lake Final. Started his Opencareer with stick six straight top thirty finishes,
including a third place result at awet and windy Royal Port Rush in
twenty nineteen. All right, I'mgoing to go with fenw to win,
(41:28):
okay, and I am going toboys. Since we started talking Fleetwood,
it's amazing how it kind of getsin your brain all of a sudden you're
like, well, wait a minute. Yeah, see, you know,
I'm gonna go Speed as my darkhorse. I'm gonna I'm gonna manifest this.
Okay, I like that Fenaw andSpace Speed. I think both of
(41:49):
those could technically be darker horses here. Yeah, because I just don't know
who the real clear cut. Andagain I would say Rory because you know,
I think he's probably putting in thework and everything, but I'd rather
pick somebody just a little outside ifI say Rory, Rory wins Okay,
I mean you know, but I'ma Wins speak dark how about you?
(42:14):
Yeah? I like those. Ithink I am also having a hard time
just going away from Rory. Idon't think this is Scotty's tournament. I
really don't. Ludvig Auberg Oberg,I don't ever know how to pronounce it
is silently, just not even silently. He's making a lot of headlines,
but he's having a good year.He'd be somebody that would be pretty hard
to ignore. But I think myheart just really wants Rory to do well
(42:37):
and finally kind of get that offhis back because it has been ten years.
So I'm gonna go Rory and thenmy dark horse, I'm gonna go
auk Sha Batia at ninety to one. All right, just learned how to
say his name. I got itright, So I'm happy. Well,
you got a little momentum there.You got some momentum there. Yeah,
(42:58):
he's been playing pretty well. Soand you called that your dark horse.
Huh yeah, ninety to one odds. He's got lower odds, higher odds
than Jordan Speed at eighty to one. Oh yeah, I like that pick
a lot. I'm jealous of thatpick. I wish I came up with
that. Yeah, all right,that's good. You can what's okay?
See this is a podcast and sowe're doing this together, so they're team
(43:20):
picks, the team picks. That'sright. Yeah. But again that was
a hunder vercent you on that.That was unassisted. Okay, I'll take
that. That's fair for people.I know that. One of the big
things when you're watching something like theOpen, especially the time zones and all
the difference, is where can youwatch it? So I did pull up
that info just for anyone listening.I'll seven of you. Peacock will be
(43:42):
streaming it and then it's on fouram starting on USA Network and that's pretty
much every day except well that's ThursdayFriday, then Saturday five am on USA
Network. Then it moves over toNBC at seven, and that's the same
there on Sunday, So NBC PeacockUSA. One great thing about living where
we live and to wake up togolf just in progress, pour a cup
(44:06):
of coffee and you're going. Andas a morning guy, you know,
to me, that's almost sleeping in. And this is perfect. That is
if only that was every weekend.There's nothing better than getting to work and
getting to watch golf either. Andlast year wasn't. The first day I
think was delayed and it was like, wait, what, No, Welf's
supposed to be on right now?Well, I appreciate you helping me out
(44:31):
with this this week, and Ithink all four of our picks are going
to do really well. One ofthem is going to win. How about
that? Obviously, I mean,come on, obviously serious cheers, cheers
to you and all the titos andall the titos
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