Fairway Rollin' - 2017 Year-End Awards (Ep. 50)

Episode Date: October 5, 2017

The Ringer's Joe House and Geoff Shackelford come to you live from the Links at Petco Park to discuss the President's Cup (04:30), a Tiger Woods sighting (09:15), and to give out awards for the PGA Tour (15:00). Then Chris Solomon from the 'No Laying Up' podcast joins the show (31:30) before Shack and House wrap up the season with What We Don't Want to Talk About (49:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's $23 off your first custom shirt. Propercloth.com. Gift code Shackhouse. Now, my friends, let's go to the Shagos. Oh, house. Nice to open the episode with a beautiful call here, live from Petco Park. Jack, I had to bring it. That was nice.

Face to face, my brother. You've already done it once today. You did it on the 9th tee, and I think you scared the bejesus out of a few little puppies that were there. But they've recovered. They're fine. We played the links at Petco Park. We did it. We are live in a suite, live on tape.

And it's a beautiful suite here that the Padres have. Have we fallen in love again with Petco Park? It's really an amazing thing that has been created here, both on the food front. Of course, we can't eat any of the food, but just seeing what both the Padres have here as a ballpark and what Calloway's done to make it a golf course again. It's a lot of fun.

Yeah, this is an incredible venue. This is my second year here in San Diego. And obviously, the weather is incredible in San Diego at all times. The views are incredible because they have the water and, you know, everything that goes along with it. but the ballpark fits so seamlessly into this portion of town where it is. And the actual inside the ballpark experience is really. There's nothing like it in baseball.

Well, yeah, the inside the ballpark experience is really impressive in terms of two things. First, it looks like all of the food and beer and wine options are bespoke. Yeah. It doesn't look like there is a generic vendor in the whole joint. And every one of the offerings that we see in the food and beverage arena are things that I'm kind of interested in. I'm curious. I'd like to try this. I wonder if anybody actually watches any baseball when they come to a game here.

Well, that was kind of the thing we noticed is we took the routing this year, which was way, way improved over the rounding last year, because it took us in all these nooks and crannies of the park. And you just cannot believe how many there are in the stadium. But then they're all in little spots where you go, well, look at the view outside. look at this, look at that. It's hard to imagine watching a game here because the experience is so much fun. Yeah. And then the, but then when you do look out to the field, it's a very intimate experience.

So we looked out to the field on nine lovely halls today. And we had a great group there. It was quite fun. Yeah, we had to give a shout out to this experience. I know it's really just for folks in the Southern California area able to get down here the handful of days that they make tickets available. And we are on this show today going to cover all of golf. most important topics, including the one day.

We have one day exactly to cover all of the year of 2016, 2017 in review. We're definitely going to knock out some superlatives on that front check, since we have the one day here today. We're very fortunate. We're in each other's company. But let's start with your experience. You were in one of the world's great cities for food. And I won't make you go through all your meals. But you were in New York City last week for the President's Cup.

How was the live on the ground experience? I thought it was sensational. From a fans point of view, that's a tough golf course to get around. But getting to it because of where you are and the number of transportation options, it really works well as a tournament venue on that front. The architecture is lacking a little bit, but they did a nice job rerouting the course. I'm never a fan of those reroutes, but it worked really well for matchplay. and my sense was it, even though it was a blowout, it came off again as a good event because,

I mean, look at the emotion. By the way, I think one of the things people forget, Kevin Kisner and Justin Thomas were rookies, and they delivered, and they brought the passion. They brought the ham-and-eg job between Kisner and Mickelson was incredible. I mean, they've already, if Phil makes that Ryder Cup next year, they're going to be a team. They just had a perfect thing going, and Kisner was everything we thought he would be. He lost that last toll in that last match. It cost me a little bit of money on the low rookie bet.

But I thought that the passion of the players, the beauty of the scene, the aerials. I know it gets a little cliched. But when you're there, the Statue of Liberty, the city, it really is breathtaking to see. And it is a phenomenal place they have created in terms of the setting. And the President's Cup is not the Riter Cup. There is no chippiness. But I thought it was a very successful week. given how tired a lot of the players were and probably didn't want to be there and they still

delivered and performed. I thought that was really admirable of the U.S. team. And that may have been the peer pressure, you know, the team aspect may have kind of forced their hands to bring it, whereas the internationals, they looked tired, they played tired, and they didn't play like they didn't want to be there. There wasn't anything like that. They just were a little bit ragged. Yeah, so I watched more of it on TV than I expected.

And what... Why? You think it was just a look? Well, the look was was really compelling. I liked very much. Everything that you described in terms of the New York skyline, everything, the Statue of Liberty. Obviously, NBC beat that into the ground a little bit. But it really is, it just is cool on TV. Well, as we heard today, talking to our golf buddies here at Peko. They were enthralled by that scene. Yeah. The other thing that leapt out at me and kind of sucked me in a little bit. And I think a great big difference between the U.S. team and the international. is it felt very much to me like not an audition, a dry run for the Ryder Cup,

like preparation for the Ryder Cup, like the bonding that was being reported in the media that was going on behind the scenes. It was kind of evident, I thought, and I loved the combinations of players that was kind of unexpected and guys like you mentioned Kisner and Mickelson. I liked seeing who was Burger and Justin Thomas.

Yeah. Like that feels like a team that could be formidable. Yeah. Income Ryder Cup next year. Getting those guys some of that experience together. I expect both of them to make the Ryder Cup next year. So those kinds of, you know, the pressure is obviously greatly reduced in this kind of a format. It is, but you still sense out there that they don't want a lot of partner down.

And it can be a place where they could be embarrassed and it can be awkward. So there's still pressure on them. They just seemed to perform unbelievably well and were bonded, and it was fun to watch. So I don't think that the event needs a wholesale change. If you look at the history of the Rider Cup, Walker Cup, there have been these long-sided, lopsided stretches for both of those things, and they've survived. I do think it would be fun to see the internationals use that home field advantage to flip around the format a little bit.

I don't know if the tour will allow them to, if television would, but they're good in the singles and they should start off with the singles at Royal Melbourne. And that's a little bit of gamesmanship too, which brings some, because it needs some chippiness. There's something, they all get along too well. Yeah. Well, one of the things also that we talked about on the previous show that I want to, you know, run through again, it falls on such a bad place on the U.S. calendar. Yeah. We really, if we could figure out a way to have it in a December, January kind of time frame, I really think that would be a big help.

Well, it will be December in 2019, but beyond that, it's back at Coil Hollow and 20. 21. So then you cannot do that in December. That's for sure. But yeah, anyway, we, we need to, oh, and we can't pass up the chance to talk about Tiger Woods's fantastic car driving effort. He worked hard house. He was, he had the pen and paper. He was sketching out stuff for Strickers, you know, doing the pairings between the men. I don't, I don't really want to ask. Why? How did he look? He looks inflated. Okay. He looks. He looks, pumped up like he's on the, you know, on the two. Well, he said he's working out twice a day. The reason. He looks huge. He just looks huge. I didn't want to ask. Yeah, I don't want to ask because

I'm referring to his upper body. I already know. We already know he looks huge in other parts of his torso. God bless him. The I'm I have written off. I'm in the 99% zone prepared for him to never play golf again. But if if you gave me a report of him looking, you know, know, lean and mean, and he's moving around, the hips and the glues. Everything's activated. Do I let myself 1%? Do I let that 1% get excited again? Again, just talking about how he looks mobility-wise, not that appendage.

He was walking well. That looked good. I got some Trumpsters very unhappy with me on Twitter because we were standing watching the Donald Trump trophy ceremony, and he stood in the back. And it seemed like the assistant captains were staying in the back, but he really stayed in the back and they transitioned over to an area where they could post for a photo and he did not make an effort to go shake the president's hand but then the president came up to him from behind and and they did a big you know bro thing and and what are you going to do but he um he tried to

keep a low profile as much as possible during the week unfortunately his one press conference with the other assistants turned into a whole thing about his health and then he kind of dropped that little bombshell at the end which was very on tiger like to say yeah he could see himself never playing competitive golf again and that ended up getting news alerts and all that. But with good reason. Yeah. So, but no, I thought he looked really engaged in the whole thing. And I think he may be the perfect choice for Royal Melbourne.

So, okay. That's like that's a type of superlative. I think we both agree that he would be an outstanding captain of that team. Well, I do too. And he seems to be, finally maybe embracing that there's an affinity for having him be part of the game that he seems to have shut himself down on and acted like, I don't know, maybe he just doesn't want to deal with people or he doesn't want to deal with a lot of nonsense, but he, you know, he did a great job of the president's cup. And then he got on his jet and he

went out to Oregon and spoke to a college golf tournament. Now, it was Nike and it was Oregon and it was Oregon and it was Stanford and all that. But still, he hasn't been doing that. So, you know, speaking of superlatives, we have a few to run through in connection. with the 2016-2017 season. But first, let's have a quick word from some of our friends. Podcast, pals, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And let me repeat that.

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to activate the offer. You play, you win, you get paid, Jack. I finally got my own code. This is so exciting. It's not a house code. All right. Well, this is probably our last show for a while, so we should kind of run through the year. You know, you and I tried to poke around on the interweb about year-end awards for the PGA tour. But of course, nobody in media's had a chance to actually sit down and think about these things. They just announced Rookie of the Year Player of the Year this week, because, of course, we're starting again on Thursday. So we don't even, all this, this beautiful work that these players do, these tournaments do, the volunteers, the sponsors, the officials, the television networks,

it's all sort of forgotten quickly because do you think that's a negative for the sport house that we don't have this sit down moment at the end of the year to reflect on? Because, and it was a sensational year, by the way, when you really step back and think about some of the shots we got to see, Well, the goofy thing is, it was a great year. We're going to get the year in review at the end of the calendar year. That's the way it works, right? So the tour, I understand the tension that they have in terms of on the one hand. They have sponsors that want to sponsor tournaments.

They have players that want to play in tournaments. They have TV partners that probably begrudgingly are willing to show a little bit of golf on TV. And so they run the tournaments and you can't turn off the calendar if there's water coming out of the spout and by water, I'm talking about green water. I'm talking about that green money coming out of the spout shack. But look, all the rest of us, there is an important of that, you know, moment in the, in the calendar, we'd want to get put perspective on what we observed. And I guess we just have to wait to the end of the year and it'll be awkward because guys are already playing on the new season and who cares. But we're ready right now, Shaq,

to do our own superlatives. We're hot and we're good on our feet here at the shack house. Well, we're not going to cover the generic favorite player of the year awards and all that kind of stuff. We're going to really talk about ourselves. So what was your best bet of the year house? That's true. So look, I have two best bets of the year. And in fact, I have a best bet and a worse bet of the year. I'll start with my number one best bet of the year was by far Brooks Kepka. Now, I had him at 40 to 1. I gave him out. on against all odds with the cousin Sal on the Ringer podcast network

and people I think appreciated that little bit of advice. 40 to 1, he had the profile for Aaron Hills, the reputation that Aaron Hills had. It was interesting as we observed Aaron Hills that because the win never really came up, it did permit players, you know, the advantage was supposed to go to the bombers and a bomber won. But Brian Harmon was right there on the back nine

at Aaron Hills, you know, competing for the dubs. Justin Thomas, of course, shot of course shot at 63. He's a bomber as well. But Kepka was, was my best bet, and I'm proud of that high style and profile of putting him out there. My worst bet was Matt Kucher. I gave Matt Kucher out for the British Open. Now, that was a best butt and a worst bet because if you bet them both ways, the way you're supposed to in golf, which I did. And, you got a nice, in England. You got a nice R.O.I there, nice return on your investment. The reason that was the worst bet is because he had the lead on the 13th hole on Sunday in the final round and then got blitzkrieged. Well, let's be fair to Matt,

he played, and I watched him a lot that week. It was an incredible week of golf, and he had to wait for a half hour on the 13th hole. And then Jordan goes and does what he does. That's still, to me, the performance of the year that didn't end up with a victory. It was sensational what he did. And I think it took a lot out of him. I think he's pretty tired, and even though he's a grinder and plays every week. Well, I gain a lot of respect for him, both in how he did in that event and then do the rest of the year. And I thanked him at Ladbrooks when I cashed that ticket. So the best meal of the year at a major for me actually was, it's tight.

The majors weren't that great this year for food. New York City for the President's Cup was sensational. Charlotte had some really nice places. but the major season's tough for food. And I really can't single anything there. What? You didn't have? Charlotte, I would have expected you would have gotten a nice barbecue.

Oh, we did. A lot of good food, but no specific place is worth a full. Well, what about the media dining? Did you get any breakfast anywhere? We had a rough year in media dining. It was a tough season. Look, look, I have a recollection. You were sending me pictures of these omelets from the Masters.

Did you get an omelet at the master's? Oh, yeah. The master's dining was sensational. Yeah. Well, that's a major, isn't it? The master's is a major. And they open the bar up on Sunday night. Yeah. Come on, Daddy. They also had the best podcast studio of the year by a major championship. Of course, the only place that has a podcast studio, and it had a line out the door. So I think they'll be wanting to expand that going forward.

What was your best new addition to pro golf? So you and I are going to be in agreement on this, I fear. I absolutely loved the way that the TV broadcasts, and I think, I don't recall who to give credit to, but the play-through idea. Yeah, that's an NBC Golf Channel. It was. Okay. Did Fox do any of that in the U.S. Open? No.

Okay. Well, and God bless NBC and the Golf Channel, I am hoping, and I've heard my good friend, the podfather himself, Bill Simmons, stole the virtues of this and argue that it ought to be taken on by other professional sports and their television broadcasts to play through with, the split screen where on the one hand, you can monitor the action on the left side of the screen. On the right side of the screen, the advertiser runs whatever it needs to run in terms of a 30 second or 45 second or even a 60 second hit. And I'm able to, you know, we live in a multitasking society right now, Shaq. It didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the action.

And I know what? I kind of paid attention to what was happening with the vendor. Well, and I think that they are going to accumulate a lot of data. Remember, it actually, they tested it last year in an event, but this was the first year where they went hardcore with it at multiple events and in multiple commercial breaks. And they're really getting, I think, some fascinating data that it's great for the companies who have the ad.

And then it's great for us as viewers or if you're sitting in a bar, you don't take your eye off it and you see the brand that's on the right. It works for fans. It's one of those great solutions that works for fans. the product, the sport, and then for the advertiser. And so I hope that golf has earned some credibility with people for having maybe been a big part of the innovation. Fingers crossed.

Most surprising. This was submitted by Ethan, our friend Ethan at Calloway. Most surprising or perplexing decision or ruling this year. Of course, on the ruling front, we had Lexi Thompson and Charlie Hoffman and all these crazy wacky rulings. But anything jump out at you there. I have a definitive winner for most surprising perplexing decision. It's a three-way tie, by the way.

Oh, okay. Well, I'll let you get to yours. I didn't like it all the Charlie ruling, the Charlie Hoffman special treatment that he got. The Billy Bunker. Yeah, that whole fake thing. And I'm not going to run through it. The noteworthy thing there is that his playing partner was Kevin Chappell. Right.

Kevin Chappell told him, instructed Charlie to wipe that shit eating green. You observe that shit eating green. Now that was enjoying. And then fast forward to the president's cup. that one at least, you know, some people might find their behavior to have rubbed them the wrong way. I actually view it the other way. The fact that they were smiling and almost and laughing it off made them realize the way you can use the rules to a ridiculous length and extent. The professionals, not the rest of us. The professionals, yeah. And so that was sort of, it was,

I realized in hindsight, at the time it bothered me, but thinking back, it was more of a, this is sort of ridiculous, but I'm using the rules to my advantage. Well, I like to see in Chapel and Hoffman together at the President's Cup. Obviously, the Lexi situation was just terrible for the game and still bothers me that people look at that and feel that they are seeing something that is such an egregious, obvious violation of the rules. And I just, I'm sorry, it took zooming in and eight multiple replays. And that just doesn't count as being definitive.

No, my three-way tie for most surprising or perplexing decision of the year goes to Jason Day, Roy McElroy and Phil Mickelson for dumping their caddies. Now, I don't know if Phil and Bones was really a firing situation. I think that really was a mutual agreement thing. But again, here's the reason why it's perplexing. Those were all mid-season. Yeah. And to me, that is so strange when you are going through this schedule.

and you have a flow, you have a method to your madness. And then seeing Jason Day at the President's Cup last week, I mean, he had no idea where the ball is going. Colin Swatton is his teacher slash caddy or was. And this is a case where he probably could have helped straighten him out and he wasn't there. And then Rory, right in the middle of the major season, when you're somebody who's built your career now around the majors to be firing somebody in this hole. This is going to be an interesting trend house to see if this,

the day McElroye model, which is, I think, started a little bit with Tommy Fleetwood, where they have to have a mate, they have to have a lad on the bag, and he's got to, you know, be somebody who likes to go to the gym with them, and somebody who likes to tell him how wonderful he is, and then they can go have drinks together. And it's almost a vanity play. It's almost a, it's not something that is driven by common sense about who's going to help you get around the golf course in the fewest number of strokes, because Day and McElroy, they're doing all their own yardages now. Well, maybe I'm a,

bizarre. Maybe I'm a sucker. Well, you are. I am. It's true. I actually thought Rory's observation on this was particularly illuminating, which is it forced him to take more responsibility. It created a moment of accountability for him that he felt like he was missing.

Now, if I'm going to give out, let me just give out most disappointing season of the year. That's Rory McElroy. Of course, yeah. Because he, if to my way of thinking, he took that injury that was on, fortunate at the beginning of the season, but he disrespected the rest of his season through the series of things that he did. And I, I've said this a handful of times on the podcast. He is not yet 30 years old and every missed opportunity in catching with a major because we measure golf greatness by the majors. You can't waste these opportunities when you're in your 20s like this and

have the talent that he has. But I did think his explanation of trying to create some personal accountability, that he'd be grown too reliant on JP, and that, you know, it had created a comfort zone that was, that was proving to be detrimental to what he was trying to accomplish. I understood it. It made sense to me. And I didn't, you know, I don't know. He's not going to have a mate necessarily forever on his bag, but the change of pace there kind of made sense to me.

I guess, I just think that these people have a lot on their plate as pro golfers. And part of the reason you pay a caddy 10% of your earnings. is to take some of that burden off you and also help maybe raise a few questions as you're playing. And that's where it concerns me that they didn't like somebody questioning their judgment. And I think in all three cases, that may have been the case. And I don't think that's a healthy. These are all guys with long-term relationships, like all of a sudden they grew disgruntled with the, you know, the questioning. They might have.

I don't know. They might get out there and get a little bit insulated. and you never know. Okay. We'll see how it works out for him. So far, not so hot. Well, all three of them. Rory,

Roy's performance last week. It was his best weekend finish in any event he's ever played in his entire professional life. Yeah. 64, 63 is the very best. And Phil, that's pretty good. Better at the Presidents kept Jason Day did not.

All right. Your best non-PGA tour event of the year. Did you have one? It has, it had to have been. I'll give you mine. It was the U.S. Amateur. at Riviera.

Yeah. Best non-PGA tour event of the year. Sure, that's not a PGA tour event. It's not a PJA tour event. We're getting the audience, is giving us a look. But, of course, the audience is now going to send a text message reminding us of something that we've forgotten about.

Best team event house was, for me, of course, a total bias of the Walker Cup. I didn't watch much of the Solheim because it was during that best U.S. Amateur, that amazing U.S. amateur. The president's, I think, was a nice event, but it didn't. The golf course wasn't quite on the same level. Well, you did just clinch for us the most,

the best media treatment of the Walker Club cup. You just clinched that for Shackhouse. So thank you for that. I did. Most mentions of the Walker Cup by any media member. Podcast, newspaper, print, television. We just clinched it. Yeah.

So good job. All right. Best BGA tour event of the year. So this is obviously our group of events. that are not major championships. There were quite a few. For me, the farmers was a great finish with John Rom,

the Northern Trust with Dustin Johnson and Jordan Speeth. Sure. The Genesis, Dustin Johnson won it was a great finish. And then I had the Zurich. Even though it was kind of a bizarre next day having to finish a thing, down the stretch, it was a lot of fun.

You love team golf. Well, I think the tour deserves huge credit for doing it. And the players who showed who normally wouldn't have played, I mean, it was the whole package of doing what we'd hoped it would do. And we got to see Kisner emerges, even though he didn't end up winning. They lost in the playoff. We saw that he's somebody who loves that four men and look what he did in the presidents. And it just, the whole thing raises the profile of the guys who bought into it.

Yeah. And I love that. I love that the reward they got. I'm with you on all of that. I think those are all great nominees. Mine was the Barclays at Glen Oaks because of the way the DJ took it out and put it on the table. Yeah. I mean, and what the thing that I will stick with me from this season is that he hit driver on 18 and sprayed it and then had to make an unbelievable put to force the playoff. And then

he hit driver again and he hit it to 10 yards from the effing green. And he putted it. And that was it. And poor Jordan Speath had a six iron. And that's what I love about professional golf. Yeah. Yeah. No, we need more of that. And it made people mad that he was able to do that. Which was so weird. It was, that's risk reward. Yes. As you say, laying it on the table, it was beautiful. Yeah.

Anyway, our millennial of the year, do you have a, I think that's a no doubt or? It's Justin Thomas. Of course it is. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, I just realized that we throughout this discussion, we haven't mentioned that we have another mega millennial on the show today, Chris Solomon, who played here at Petco Park. And we'll be getting to him momentarily. Well, look, I mean, mega millennial, he's supposed to be no laying up.

We try to hold together today. all three of us. And he might have been closest to the pin. But how about this? We're in a baseball stadium and you have a thing in your hand you can hit a ball with. One of us hit the ball out of the park. No laying up. How's not everybody comes and plays golf at Beko Park with the intent of hitting the ball

into the seats and watching it bounce around and do damage. Some of us actually respect the beautiful golf course that Nate and Gilhance laid out this year and try to hit the targets. I'm in the baseball stadium. That's not you. And you put a ball in front of me. What am I supposed to do? All right.

Speaking of Chris Solomon, what do you think, House? You know, you've spent a little more time with Chris than I have. I've just seen him at golf tournaments. Why don't you tell us a little bit about no laying up and why we have them on the show today? Would you rather just go to the conversation? Yeah, we have plenty from Chris. We'll let him tell about no laying up in his own words. We enjoy very much, at least I do, the Twitter feed and so on and so forth.

And we know that there you have big plans for the 2017, 2018 2018 season, but we'll let Sully run through it himself. All right, joining us now is Chris Solomon of No Laying Up. We are at Petco Park. He just put us away, put us out of our misery and a little showdown on the ninth tee.

He did. He beat us. Well, we're miserable. It was fun. Yeah. Another beautiful day. One of us hit the ball out of the ballpark, which was glorious.

Intentionally, yeah. Let's not dwell on that. So, Chris, tell us a little bit for some of our old fogies. listeners, you know, what is no laying up? What's going on with you guys? What have you done with your life? I've done a lot of a big transition in the last couple months from me. It's a website that started about three and a half years ago, meet myself and three friends. We're kind of craving. We thought the golf industry was kind of craving a different take on things and kind of

needed to hear the way people talk about golf in a bar and the way people talk about golf to each other. And that's kind of always been our sentiment in trying to be as authentic as possible and thinking that, you know, a bit of a bit of golf journalism or media has gotten a bit dated. So our goal was to do to just kind of approach the game the way to serve the fan, the best way to serve the fan. I think the industry can get, it goes for any media. It can get very clickbait, can get very, it can kind of get away from is this something that some people want to tune into, want to pay attention to, want to read to. So that's kind of been our mission. And it's, It's grown at a rate we couldn't have predicted, and now it's a full-time job for me as of two months ago.

Yeah, Sally, one of the things that I enjoy in my consumption of the no laying up is the relationship that you guys have built with some of the younger players, and that has translated into some inside the ropes access, which gives a kind of a look that is out of the ordinary for kind of, you know, the traditional media way of doing inside the ropes would be sitting down and kind of. of, you know, interview exchanges. You guys have kind of had the opportunity to do some day in the life stuff. Jack and I on this podcast today are going to be talking some superlatives. So I need some insight from an inside the ropes brother with the young cats out there. Here's my first, my first question, my first superlative, best groupies.

Give me a name. Who's got the best groupies? Best, best like female groupies or male groupies? Whatever. Whatever. I would say Ricky probably pulls the most groupie following on the course. But Rory. Male and female? Oh, yeah.

Probably. Oh, yeah. Definitely. There is a certain draw to him. And I don't know, I don't exactly know what it is. There's a lot of flash that comes with his appearance. But I think, yeah, it's always, you know, it's something that his, like, playing partners have to deal with.

And I've seen it get to a couple guys. John Rahm in particular, I watched at the Memorial this year. He wasn't prepared for. the crowd that comes with a Ricky round, which is a bit more boisterous, a little more loud, saying things in between shots that just kind of warmed down a little bit. So I don't know if that answers your question. I want to interrupt for a quick second. Can we, I mean, Shaq and I, different, little to different era, a little bit older than you.

It's a little funny to me to be talking about a Ricky round because with Tiger. Tiger. Everybody who played exactly with Tiger. Right. Of course. It's all in perspective. Times X. No, I know.

I know. It's just funny that now we're talking about the Ricky Rock. But we saw it happen in Tiger's Prime, the effect that that had of people as well. And that was a very, very real thing. No doubt. Yeah, he carried that really well. Like the, with the glove in the back pocket, getting out of the car, you know, and he just had, he had such an aura of intimidation.

And he just. The Tiger? Yeah. And he's lost that. How dare you? Did you see the picture from three weeks ago? He lost it. He lost that aura.

Well, he might have regained it. I don't think he lost anything, Jack. I heard it the president's kept that that that was a, a, fond source of conversation in the team room. Speaking of the president's kept, you had a little bit of a hot take. It was a hot take when we were walking back from the glorious ninth tea here at the links of Petco brought to you by Calloway.

I was there. I thought it was a solid event. We obviously in the press room saw the telecast. We saw the playing through and some of the commercials and things. But you were troubled by some things you saw. Yeah. I just felt it just kind of. worried me about the commercialization that I see in a telecast. And I think the point I was making was

I don't think anybody tuned in and watched the President's Cup and got hooked based on what they saw because there was no rhythm to what you saw. And I'm a hardcore golf fan. And I, of course, want to see the action. And I had trouble, it had trouble keeping my attention because there's so many commercial breaks. And we're talking when three groups were on the course that entire holes were missed. Like just the beginning of rounds were missed. And I thought, you know, okay, maybe there you're going to burn your commercial breaks early in the broadcast, go non-commercial's late. And it just, it's clunky. And we've seen it a lot on, on CBS broadcast.

And I think it was kind of, I'm typically very, very tough on CBS broadcasts and not alone. I think the viewers, we hear it a lot from our, from our listeners that, you know, we can't, you can't watch it. So to see that from NBC and Golf Channel was just disappointing. And it just kind of has me, I don't know, there's so many, there's so much attention to growing the game and bringing new people into the game. And I feel like they try so hard and so. many ways to kind of get to try to reach the fan that isn't the hardcore fan yet they're not

even able to get through to those so just has me a bit concerned with with the way I see kind of television and golf yeah I mean that's the way people consume golf that matters how it's presented and I've had I was living I lived the past three years in Europe and got a chance to see sky sports and to see the way that Europeans watch golf and it is a completely different experience it's it couldn't be more polar opposite in what respect what what I mean's different. The announcers aren't always talking. They kind of let the golf speak for itself. And they, they're not, everything is, it's kind of slow transitions into the next shot. And they do some panoramic of the golf course. And it's all, the mood is much more subdued. And they focus on the golf. And they don't

feel like they have to be jamming a narrative down your throat. And there's not somebody talking over a player caddy conversation. And they just show more live golf shots. And their whole television model is very different over there and they don't have the commercial breaks at the same frequency that we do in the States. But that's not a golf thing. That's an overall media thing. But it's it's a I literally, I watched, I was at the Irish Open and I watched, you know, a lot of the telecast in the media center on TV and then tried to watch the Green Barre classic that night. I just, I couldn't do it. Yeah. I don't know. I just feel like. Well, let me ask you this, because a lot of these entities in golf are trying to appeal to a younger group. Do you, do you sense that a younger audience

smells that desperation and that that European tour telecasts, which is more comfortable in its own skin and is not trying to create an atmosphere that just isn't there. They're just who they are and they kind of go with it. Do you think that's a danger for the sport this sort of sense? We kind of get a lot of desperation. I think so. Well, I try to keep perspective on that too, because all of us in this room pay a lot more attention to this stuff than the casual fan does. So every time that Sam Saunders is in the news and you have to mentioned that's Arnold Palmer's grandson. We hear that in this room more often than the casual fan.

Yeah, I mean, that's right. Did you know that Jordan Spieth and Justin Tom? Yeah, they're friends. We've heard. Yeah. They have a relationship. Yeah. So some of these things just get abused to the point where you, you, to your point,

it drives away kind of your core fan, the fan that should matter the most, I think, in kind of an attempt to bring in this outside fan that I'm not sure exists. I don't think it's a real, a real person. but I don't know. I'm sure there's market surveys and whatnot that they do to kind of trend towards that strategic development. But I don't know. Again, I think from our perspective, it might be hard to answer that because of how

much, how ingrained we are in the details. I have another superlative question. You were able, no, no, this one's down the middle. You, down the middle is where he hits it, by the way. This kid with his golf shot. That was a nice draw on the last hole. You were able to get to, from the social media, it looked like at least eight to 10 different events. Was it more than that?

I think seven or eight events I think this year, yeah. Best event that you attended in person this year. That's always the memorial. Always a memorial. I grew up in Dublin, Ohio. Because of the milkshakes? I don't get the milkshakes.

Come on. They're not very, I know. No, no. No, no. I get them. I've had one before, but I don't have access to him. Oh, what do you have to? It's for the players, which I respect.

No, I don't go in the locker room. It's for the players. It's a per. Come on. It's a per. You could get a milkshake if you wanted. See, there's two categories of guys. There's guys that ask for the players for milkshakes and guys that don't, and I like to live in that space. Well, I would ask. I've asked. Yeah. I got a hack out like

I'm an asker. Taster. Yeah. Anyway, I'm sorry. It's good. I grew up in Dublin, Ohio, and I've always attended that event. And it's just, I don't think, I don't think I knew as a kid going to it how good it was in that there's no corporate signage. There's unbelievable amphitheater viewing for all the fans at any spot. You're never fighting for a view. And I've gone to other tournaments since then and just kind of seen the way like the corporate signage works and the viewing points are not the same and the access is not the same. And it's just always, the players love that week. It's a great tournament. It's a smaller field and it's just a perfectly pure golf course and it's a great course to walk. So that's my favorite event to attend every year. Okay. Yeah, Jack's retained a lot of control

of the event. So he does things. He has his own rules on certain things and he's allowed to do what he wants to do with the scoreboards and different things. And it's sort of a mini master's that way. It's great. Yeah. Okay. And if you can. get a milkshake house, by the way. You can go to graders or jennies and get a... I know jenny's. Jenny's where it's at. Yeah. You can get some great stuff there too. Yeah, of course. But what else do you want

to cover house while we have no laying up in the house? Yeah, he's played a ton of golf this year as well. We saw the short bit at the pro M, at the BMW, got to play with John Rom. Who else have you played with this year? I got to play... You mean just professionals? Yeah. I got to play... I don't care about hashtag, Chuck. I know you can play

with hashtag. Yeah. It's actually not too many. I got to play in the Scottish Open Pro and with Hendrick Stenson. Oh. Baller. Yeah, I got to play with Peter Uline and Zach Blair a couple weeks ago in Cleveland. But that's about it from a pro perspective. I got to play.

It's pretty cool year. Well, the Rominator is pretty good. Oh, he was great. How did you find that experience? It was great. So the BMW, the way they do it, you draw kind of for your parent. You get paired with your two amateurs and then you draw, and you literally, it's a popularity contest. You get to pick the players.

You got. Rom felt like. 17th. I couldn't believe it. We had a 7.10 a.m. T times. Yeah. That's kind of why. People were choosing by T-times.

People picked the afternoon T-T times. He was on the board. I stood up immediately and said Rom. And he was awesome. I mean, he was great. He was engaging. He had fun with it. And, you know, he's kind of helping you pick out lines and stuff.

So it was great. I mean, both experiences I had with Sensen as well, we're absolutely more fun than I even imagine a pro M-B. Sure. Yeah. That's cool. I have to get invited to one of those, one of these times. Yeah.

You're asking for millions. I'm an asker. Yeah. You're asking that you're not going to get it if you ask for it. It's kind of like the memberships. It's got to come to me? No, yeah, you got to wait for it. I'm never getting in one.

That's a circuit. We talked about this. It's a circuit. Alfonso Ribeiro is like the leader of the circuit, like getting invited to all the pro programs. I'm definitely not there yet. I don't, if Alfonso Riberos, that's his club. I don't want to be in that club.

That's fine. I'm out. That's fine. You know, players generally don't like proams. If you, I mean, it's, it's expensive. It's a tough day. Do you, would you pay top dollar to play in those? I always look and think,

wouldn't it be more fun to go to a top golf with a player and kick back that way? And a few tournaments are actually thinking about that, actually. One of the things Roy mentioned to me was he said he would like plur amps to go to nine holes. And then you go have lunch with them. You go sit in the clubhouse and have lunch. Perfect example. The novelty of it wears off quickly. And I mean, meaning that you get used to it, which is great.

Like you get more comfortable of the first maybe a couple of holes. are a bit nervous and whatnot. But you get very comfortable doing it, but 18 holes maybe isn't necessary for that whole, getting that whole experience. But at the same time, the two times I've done it, if it's stopped after nine,

I'd have been like, we got to keep going. Yeah, because it really is a lot of fun. So I don't know if I'd pay for it, but it's just a really cool, cool experience. A once in a lifetime thing.

I have another superlative for you. And we didn't discuss us ahead of time. So it'll be okay if you have to think about it for a second. Your guys, the no laying up, The real, you know, essence of no laying up to me, the way I consumed it, the way I was introduced to it, is through the Twitter feed and the outstanding observations in real time about the tournaments occurring. What would you say was your best tweet? Best tweet 2017 golf season for this year. Yeah. What got a lot of action? It's harder. The more, the more following we get, the harder it is to be edgy to kind of, you got to be so much more careful with what you say.

Sure. I mean, full admission, I've definitely softened some. But we do try to live in that area where you can entertain people but kind of say what other people aren't saying. So, man, it's hard to rate your own best tweet. No, no. What got the best reaction? Oh. What do you think? Yeah, I'm going to have to go to the drawing board on that one.

I don't remember what. There was a lot of stuff when J.T. shot 59. I think it was probably I said that after J.T. shot 63 at the U.S. Open. in front of Johnny Miller, or Johnny Miller, I guess wasn't there. I guess if he shuts, I think I said something like, he shut Johnny Miller up, he deserves diplomatic immunity or something like that. That was probably the strongest reaction or something along those lines.

I can't remember. Was it mostly applause? Yeah, mostly applause. Yeah, well, definitely sometimes you say somethings that are a bit, edgy and you get a lot of replies and people get very offended very, very, very easily. Yeah, the golf community especially, very fragile. Very sensitive. Yeah, I'm really glad you brought this up because,

I've been sort of thinking about my blog and where I've been. And of late, I realize I've been a lot less edgy and fewer sarcastic headlines. And I wonder how much of that is the feedback you get from Twitter that can really wear you down. Or is it the game and the people and how sensitive they are? Because once you do one of those, the emails you have to deal with or the phone call or the lecture that you have to sit down with the age. and it's a deterrent, isn't it? Your mind gets trained in it. Before you say it, I'm like, well, I know what this dumb person is going to say about it.

And I know they're going to misconstrue it in this way. You can predict how they're going to misconstrue something. So, oh, it definitely deterred. And that's what, that's what, you know, sometimes getting out and getting away from Twitter and actually talking to people about the things that they enjoy reading and hearing about helps because you can let that negative minority take over your, you know, hesitation to go into things. But like you said, some things are just not worth it. Like, it's not worth getting like, I don't know.

I say a lot of things on the podcast that I get, I get phone calls almost weekly about things I say on there that are rather tame for the most part. It's not, it's not anything that's, you know, too disruptive. But like a golf world, it's very sensitive. Yeah. I'm glad I don't get those phone calls. I have one more thing for you.

You guys, you described at the outset, how it's turning into a full-time job. The new season, the new golf season starts tomorrow. So let's talk about what no laying up has in store for the 2017-2018 golf season. We have a lot. So we, like I said, everything up to two months ago has always been a part-time thing. So now I'm dedicated to this full-time. We're hoping to bring at least two of our guys in full-time starting next year and starting the 2018 year as well. And we've hired a semi-consultant.

We've hired a consultant for in a semi-full-time role to help us with video production, help us with production of our podcast, help us with kind of content ideas and relationship building and whatnot. So we are, the phrase we're using is an old Randy Moss phrase that we're taking the top off the defense. And we're really kind of going for it next year. So a lot more video stuff. That's kind of where we're going to expand. And we're going to try to continue to grow the podcast.

But kind of stay focused to what we've done on that regard. But we're also going to be hopefully producing a live show in the future through Periscope or through Twitter. So we're really going to go for it and have now that we have some time to actually dedicate to these things rather than doing him in the middle of the night in Europe, which I was doing for three years. I'm looking forward to this kind of 2.0 phase of actually turning this into a legitimate media company. For sure. Well, I told you that I'm an asker. Can I invite myself as these things come along?

I might get a little heads up. What can I invite myself to? We just talked about this. You ask, you don't get it. You can't ask for it. This is not how you do. These millennials and their rules. Just be cool.

I don't understand it. That's really kind of a time honored tradition house, to be honest with you. It's really not a millennial related one. I'm not cool. Turn them down and then they're going to want you. Oh, exactly. Tell them that no, you could speak to this. This is why I never got any girlfriends. How many golf clubs are that exact way if you ask for a membership, you're out?

Exactly. That's a thing. I don't belong anywhere. Yeah, no. No, me neither. Now, we know why. All right, Chris, well, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for the coming year.

We look forward to seeing what you guys do. Appreciate you having me and we finally made it happen. Thanks. Absolutely. All right. We thank Chris Solomon again for joining us here. at Petco Park. The links at Petco Park by Calloway. It's been really a lot of fun, and he really put on a nice exhibition there in our little face off. He stuck it. He did stick it. It was a draw, too. That was impressive. All right, before we wrap up a few things, House and things we don't want to talk about, just a reminder that when you're the number one in putter in golf, every week is a big week. Odyssey has notched more worldwide tour wins this year than any other putter brand. It is by far the most widely used putter brand across the globe.

and we all know because you've been hearing us talk about. The latest Odyssey is the O Works Red or the O Works Black and or, of course, beautiful putters with inspiring head shapes. You were raving about, what was that? The number seven. Seven. It was a lovely red seven. And of course, they're the striking colors merging with the micro hinge insert to help you put top spin on the ball for a better, more accurate role. They are now in your local golf shop from Odyssey, the number one putter in golf.

Hey, House, this just came in. They just posted it on the video board out there. You're now the all-time leader in home runs during the links of Petco by Callaway. They went back and looked at the tape of your glorious shot off the first T last year. The first T was at home plate when you hit a, was that a five iron you just brazenly pulled out and. Brazen? Yeah, it was brazen. We're at a baseball stadium.

Because there's a 110-yard hole. Sheck, I'm humbled. I'm honored. And I'm a little hungry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, when you have a salad for lunch, that'll do it. All right. So, House, we're wrapping up the year now.

It's been a sensational year in pro golf especially, but we also saw some great stuff in amateur golf. Is there anything you want to talk about, anything you don't want to talk about this year, maybe talk about the baseball playoffs that are coming up and how our teams will hopefully mean. We don't want to talk about that, too. Well, Shaq, I'm not going to talk about it

because I don't want to jinx the possibility of our two teams being together in the National League Championship series. If it happens, I'm going to be. I'm going to figure out a way to fly myself to Los Angeles, California, and enjoy a delicious Dodger dog. Bill Simmons is still mad at me for saying I was going to have my first Dodger dog with Shackleford, but I'm hoping that this is the occasion. The lifelong Boston fan suddenly has embraced everything Dodgers because he had a good

experience at the game recently sitting in the rich people's seats. Good for him. All right. We don't really want to talk about the great job that Jim Cunningham did editing the show this year, right? Well, I will like to say, I am going to talk about it. Beautiful job. Big thanks.

Jim Cunningham all season long sitting through the mess that we make on this golf podcast and pulling it together and making it sound like two semi-professionals, or at least one professional, one non-professional. Meet in the middle. It's a semi-professional. Shout out to Jim Cunningham. Shout out to Joe Fuentes for the helpful support on that front as well. And then also...

We don't want to talk about Jeff Newbarth and all the producing he's done, right? I mean, I don't know how we would have a script otherwise without Jeff Newbarth because you and I aren't writing up any scripts. Big love to Jeff Newbarth. Also, of course, let's give a little nod. Tip of the hat to the podfather himself, Bill Simmons, maybe. But more importantly, Harry Ardena. For all the love and sponsorship from the Callaway community, we couldn't do it without him. Yeah, absolutely.

Now, the thing I would like to talk about is we don't know when we'll be back if we'll be having any little pop-ups here later in the year. But we will try to keep you apprised of things on social media. But we'd love to hear feedback from you all out there listening. We thank you so much for your support. It's a lot of fun, as always, a house at the President's Cup to hear from people. Yeah, that's nice. I'm glad you got some shoutouts. I naturally hear that. I hear a shack house and I stop and then I go and grill them about basically doing marketing research and do you like interviews? Do you not? It was a little embarrassing. I got a little bit. But I think we love hearing the feedback podcasting is such an interesting form of media and nobody has any answers yet

on what works but we know it is working because we listen to them and we have people telling us they're listening and we thank you all for doing that. Yeah. Thank you for listening. And I think really that about covers it all. We thank Chris Solomon for coming on the show today and we thank Calloway for hosting us here at beautiful Petco Park. And is there anything else on the Ringer House, the Ringer podcast network that you would like to say? I mean, I'm the hardest working man on the Ringer podcast network. I mean, I'm... Yeah, you are.

House of Carbs. Oh, so House of Carbs is going to keep going. Yeah, I have House of Carbs all the way through the podcast season where the NBA is about to be in front of us. We're hot and heavy on the NFL. So I invite myself on every podcast that's available. I'll be on against all odds the next time I can figure out with the basketball season. Anyway, thanks everybody for listening to.

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