Fairway Rollin' - 2023 Ryder Cup Recap: Team Europe Cruises to Win Over U.S. Team

Episode Date: October 1, 2023

2023 Ryder Cup Recap: Team Europe Cruises to Win Over U.S. Team House and Hubbard offer their takeaways from this year’s Ryder Cup, including Team Europe’s convincing win over the U.S. Team, what went right and what went wrong for both, and the hat controversy with Patrick Cantlay (01:56). Then, they try to make sense of the exchange between Rory McIlroy and caddie Joe LaCava, discuss their issues with NBC’s coverage of the event, and explain who they think the future players at this event will be (33:12). Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Producers: Eduardo Ocampo and Tucker Tashjian  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, this is Jason Gough from the full go podcast. Me and the crew, we like to entertain you. And we're going to do more of that this football season because the bears should be more intriguing. There should be more fascination. Justin Fields. Is this the make or break year? Is DJ Moore the piece that's going to put them over the top?

You can catch us on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, or when we have an emergency podcast when we have breaking news. Make sure you follow the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Hello, friends, and welcome to this. Golf program, unlike any other. Yes, my friends, this is your Rider Cup recap on Fairway Run! A golf program on the Fandul TV network and the Ringer Podcast Network. I am your starter, Joe House.

I am joined, as is always the case by my incomparable accomplice, Nathan Hubbard, Nate Dogg, we have a winner of the 2023 Ryder Cup. United States has not won on European soil since 1993. The United States did not win in 2023. How are you feeling, buddy? Hats off to you, House. Pardon the pun, but hats off to you, you saw this coming. We'll talk a lot today about whether we all should be.

be seeing this coming and whether there are some factors that are heavily influencing the outcome of these events depending on which continent it's played. But let's call it like we saw it. Europe played well, kicked the ass of the Americans. I am pleased that Max Homo was the top score for the U.S. But other than that, I was wrong. I thought we were going to destroy them. I really thought that we were going to grab this thing by the throat. And instead, every single European player grabbed us by the throat. Bobby Mac, for crying out loud, was undefeated. When Bobby Mac is undefeated, the Euros have a pretty good chance to win.

I think it tells you something about the European approach. But let's start this off. Let's cast it in terms of, we're positive vibes kind of guy. So let's say what went right for the Euros? Then we'll go through what went wrong with the U.S. So give me your first reaction, the thing that first comes to mind in terms of what went right for the European side. Everybody contributed. They all played relatively well. I mean, your big three are the ones who carry you on a go forward basis through these things. It's not so much about the bottom of the roster. And Victor, Rom, and Rory showed out. The shots gain metrics at these events are a little bit difficult to calculate, but they were the three leaders.

in shots gained. They collectively won 10 and a half points. And we thought perhaps that there would be a little bit of shakiness in one of those guys. They were just unflappable. Unflappable is such a great word. From my seat and part of why I wondered about the fortunes of the U.S. team, I think it's just too long between the tour champion. championship and this competition for the guys on our side who by and large, rested, took off,

did other things in their lives, had babies, had bachelor parties. It's just too long of a period between the end of that tour championship and this competition. And Jordan Speeat at today's press conference sat up there and said, you know, the question came to him, when would be optimal? And he said, you know, a week or two after the Tour Championship. Because for the U.S. side, it is apparent that everybody kind of turned their attention to an end of season kind of living and lifestyle at the same time as trying to prepare for this competition.

By contra distinction, all of what we observed from the European side was competing in DP World Tour events, most prominently the BMW Championship, where all 12 of the Euro team players played. They played in groups together. They all made the cut. So they were all like competition sharp as few as a couple weeks ago. And on top of that, the report suggests that they,

quite a few of them were back and forthing to the Marco Simone venue, and really familiarizing and themselves and acclimating. and they were comfortable. There was no question about jet lag, really for any of them. Maybe SAP a little bit, you know, but across the board, I just think that the psychological toll of,

I have accomplished something with the Tour Championship. I've been on my run through the Tour Championship, and now I'm going to turn it off, and then I'm going to restart the engine. And again, lots of guys had lots of stuff going on. Patrick Cantlay and Zander Shafley, didn't join the U.S. side in their preparation week a couple weeks ago because they were at Patrick Cantley's bachelor party and Jordan Speath didn't join because he had a baby. But the other nine

guys were there. But, you know, was it enough to really sharpen the tools? You know what I mean? Yeah, I think this is going to be the most overplayed line of criticism of this U.S. team. because Can'tlay led the team in strokes gained and was so badass Saturday night in birdying those last three holes that he actually gave us that faint glimmer of hope that always comes through rider cup time that lets the opposing side

who's going to have their ass handed to them believe that it might just be possible the next day. The Speeth one is for sure. He had a baby two weeks ago. It's their second child, going from a man to man or zone, you know, two-on-one defense to a man-to-man defense as a family is really hard. And there's no doubt that his preparation was impacted.

And Jordan Speath was outside of Wyndham Clark, I think, the worst player at this tournament from a statistic standpoint and also in terms of the way that he actually delivered in competition. So I just feel like that's going to get overplayed a little bit. When I step back to 30,000 feet and look at what happened here, Scotty Sheffler didn't win a match. He's the number one player in the world. He didn't win a match. And when you've got the big three on their side,

and you've got our supposed best player in the world, carrying over the same issues that we saw leading up to the Tour Championship, which is he's struggling to make short putts. Today, he dramatically outplayed Romp head to head. He outplayed him by every measure, but got the tie, only have the match, because he missed two short putts on the front and because he blew a chip passed on 18.

He just, he deserved that point, and it's these little things on and around the green that are getting in the way of Sheffler really being the greatest player on the planet. Instead, he's number one, but I think as we sit back today, I think all of us would say,

it's Victor, it's Rahm, and it's Rory, who are better golfers right now. I just think for the U.S. team, Scotty had to be their absolute horse. I loved putting him out first this morning against Rom after the absolute drubbing that he took yesterday, nine and seven with Brooks against Ludwig and against Victor. I like that they sent him out to try to restart the ghost of whistling straits

where he went head-to-head before he was Scotty Sheffler and beat Rom head-to-head. He almost did. He should have done it. But I think that's where this fell apart for the U.S. team. 16 and a half to 11.5 house, I can piece together. If you look at Friday afternoon and a match or two today, you can piece together a U.S. victory. It wasn't that far out of hand, even though you felt at times like the U.S. was getting its ass beat because the best player in the world got his ass beat.

Yeah. And, you know, to the point around the, you know, vulnerability that Scotty brought from the Tour championship along with him, I had the same regard for Colin Moracawa. They both putted poorly at Eastlake, and they both arrived. You know, those two guys combined record was one, five, and two. Yeah, one, five, and two. Scotty lost almost two strokes on the green. Colin lost three and a third. I mean, they just putt horribly this week.

So that's kind of a problem. But, you know, writ larger, there has, now been a demonstrated, unambiguous advantage that the European side enjoys in the foursome format. And it was an outstanding call by Captain Luke Donald to kick off the entire Ryder Cup with a foursum's match. And they went out there and they swept our ass. and I am texting you midday Friday, and maybe it was end of day Friday saying, buddy, we've got an hour show to Phil. What are we going to be talking about?

Yeah. I mean, we thought on Saturday there was a chance it was going to be over when it first looked. I want to ask you about that, though, because there was some Twitter outrage. And we're going to talk about the impact that the Twitter, golf Twitter, had on this entire tournament in a number of ways. but there was a lot of Twitter outrage on Friday about the pairings for the U.S. And while I get it,

I guess I want to hear from you if you think Zach actually made mistakes in the way that he paired people together on Friday. Was it a mistake to pair Homa with Harmon? I mean, in a lot of these matches, you know, the performance was just weak. It wasn't so much that the guys themselves were mispaired or that their games didn't necessarily vibe.

it was that Colin missed a bunch of putts and couldn't hit the ball to the green. And Harmon was awful with the putter. And Scotty was mad. So when the guys don't perform, it feels like in this event, we almost overinflate the importance of the captain's choices versus the culture that they create. Did you see mistakes in the way that ZJ paired these guys? Not me personally because we're just not privy to what's going on, what the factors are, going into that decision making. Like, it wasn't until they started playing that we got this news about there being some

kind of illness running through the room. So did he have some pairing? But Ricky was out there. Ricky apparently was so sick he couldn't play on Saturday, but he was out there Friday morning. Right. So, but were there other guys? Were there pairings that Captain Zach imagined that he wasn't able to accomplish?

I mean, the bigger things to me was like, we only got three. matches out of Brooks Kepka. Yeah. What's going on there? Brooks Kepka only played in three effing matches, and then we didn't have Jordan and JT first out Friday morning. Why? Yeah, I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. I think they'd seen Jordan coming in, and they saw that he was hitting the ball poorly. And look, okay. Brooks didn't do much better. He played well today, but, you know, across, across the board, Brooks was, you know, middle of the pack for the U.S., and certainly lost

strokes overall in terms of his performance across the weekend. So I would have liked to have seen Kepka early. I agree with you. I have a sense. You want that dog. That's the thing. Like he finished one one and one. But I think so much of that is because the alpha dog athlete was told we don't need you right out of the gate. So you're telling your alpha dog that, you know, we need you to come off the bench. That's not, Brooks Kepka don't come off the bench. And we'll talk about the singles lineup. But you know, you put Kalamorakawa and Sam Burns out in the first four matches and Brooks Kepka isn't there until match seven. If you're doing math to like calculate, well, we want Brooks to be in this position because if we're really mounting a comeback, then this is where, you know, that's a potential fulcrum match.

Bro, we got to go four and oh out of the box. Like don't, there's no math that makes sense if you're walking out there. I don't know how. I do. I don't know. No, because I think that, We knew that we were going to, you got to have some sacrificial lambs. I think those singles matches paired up about as well as they possibly could have for the U.S. Do you want, I mean, did you really think somebody was going to take down Victor? I didn't. So let's put Colin against him.

Forget it. No, I'd like to see Brooks Kepka against Victor. I'd like to see that. They were together at the PGA championship, right? Like Brooks knows where Victor was. He was in his rearview mirror. they were in the final couple groupings at the PGA championship. I'd like to see that.

I was more worried about Ober catching one, and he was a little bit shaky at the end of the day. He was a part of that nine and seven ass whooping, but when you look at his shots gained, he didn't play great at this Ryder Cup. I was a little bit worried about him getting somebody weaker in our lineup. Those were the matches. If we were going to come back,

we had to win nine of these things, right? eight and a half. So we just, there was a lot of wood to chop. The guys out on the golf course are playing and hearing the reaction of the crowd and watching matches four up, you know, hovelin, three up Rory. And their scoreboards are everywhere. And it's like, okay, we're at 10 and a half. Now we're at 12.5. Are we going to get across the goal line? Does that emboldened and empower guys? There was a lot of red at the bottom. bottom. Let me tell you, if I could... Congratulations! At the bottom, literally.

But we had, there was a moment where Europe was nervous, buddy. Like, Victor was going to win. That we weren't going to win all 12 matches. So, if you assume Victor is just playing lights out and you need to throw somebody at him, I would have loved to have thrown Ricky based on the way that Ricky clearly just was not

in form and was sick and, like, get him out of the way. But it looked for a moment. like Wyndham Clark was going to have to exercise the demons of earlier in the event where he had kind of choked 18 both days and that he was going to have to come down 18 and potentially win this match. It just Bobby Mack outplayed him and Wyndham just did not have it today. I didn't mind the pairings at all. Okay.

I thought, you know, not going four dogs out of the box was a mistake for my way of thinking. You don't have a chance if you lose two matches of the first four. And, you know, I don't know how you would do the math. We were really treated to an amazing match with Rahm and Sheffler. That's exactly a wonderful first match. That was a truth. Yes. Yes.

I come back on the foursomes point, though. I mean, we could have put Brooks out on Friday. I agree. He lost nine and seven playing with Scotty Sheffler in four ball in foursms on Saturday morning. So, again, I just think some of our dogs didn't play great. And their dogs did. It's not more complicated than that, is it? Well, and we're going to talk about that in the context of home field advantage here in a second

because I want to revisit that. We talked about it in the preview. But my point with Brooks, like that Brooks Scotty thing clearly didn't work. But again, I don't know whether that was a planned twosome. Was that a coupling that was a creature of circumstance? or was that something where the long-range planning had the idea of Sheffler and Kepka together in that Foress format? I don't know.

And we'd rock and I get a chance to ask it at the press conference. Well, no, no, but you can imagine where ZJ was coming into Saturday. They'd gotten their butts handed to them. They got swept. They were down pretty significantly. At that point, I think he did say, I got to go with the people I think are my dogs and put him out there. So let me put the number one player in the world with Brooks Kepka.

Let me see if the J.T. Speed thing can actually work, right? Let me get, let me get Max out there with the reigning British Open champion. And we'll put Zander and Patrick together and let's hope they can go get something done. I mean, that felt like bringing out the big guns. And we lost three one. Well, how about this? I think my argument would be let's bring out the big guns on Friday. because the math now is irrefutable that if you lose the first, you know, set of the competition,

if you lose the first match of the competition, the odds are that the team on the winning side of that is going to win the ultimate competition. I do want to talk to you about home field advantage. We watched quite a bit of this and, you know, we were speculating and I played the course and all this kind of nonsense. What did you think in terms of the fit of the course for the two sides? I thought it was actually fair. We talked a bit about how they massively cut back the rough from when you saw it. And I thought it was fair. Me too.

The broadcast sort of endlessly referenced how the Europeans were thinking about the certain distances, 180, 220 range. They felt like they had an advantage. They felt like that they were straighter drivers of the golf ball. And I think all that is true, and it really came to light on 16 and 18. Quietly, a lot of this course felt like it was set up for a draw, which is really hard for somebody like Wyndham Clark on 18. To get that ball back to the back left part of a green on a long shot,

you saw him fan it twice, hard right. You saw Max fan it right. So some of the guys who didn't sort of naturally have that shot were struggling in various parts of the course. But in terms of its overall setup, I thought it was super fair. I think the course showed out extraordinarily well when packed with 50,000 fans. And generally speaking, it kind of let the golfers play for themselves and let the best guys come forward. It didn't feel tricked out such that the Euros had some sort of bizarre advantage to me. Did it to you?

I totally agree. I thought it played out as a wonderful match play venue. I would not recommend to anybody going over to Rome. If you want to go play and experience it just to see what it was like from what you watched on TV, don't keep score. Figure out some kind of competition with your pals. We are not keeping score because this golf course will kick you in the ass. The lines are obscure.

There's a lot of blind shots, all that kind of thing. But an awesome match play venue, and it totally delivered the thing that we heard was part of the concept, which is natural amphitheaters in various places and places where fans could gather. It looked awesome. It was packed. The Euro crowd came out. Didn't it look great? It looked wonderful. We got great reports from the ground about the fans.

You know, they were on the edge, especially after the can't lay hat incident. They were on the edge. But at the end of the day, when you, the. worst thing that happens is an old guy sprints across the green and jumps into the lake on 16. If that's the biggest fan event, keep our fingers double crossed

that that's the worst thing we talk about when this thing comes to Beth Page in two years. Well, there was some indication in news reports and maybe even the feel we got from our pal on the grounds there, that maybe the crowd was kind of close and maybe there was, you know, the potential for some interference.

But let's talk about the, I guess we're going to call it Capgate. And Patrick can't lay. We have to. The entire, you know, storyline that took over Saturday and really ruled the entire proceedings on Saturday, I think. Am I wrong about that? No, it's the only thing that ended up making. this tournament interesting, and it ended up being complete nonsense. We had two bits of dis or

misinformation that spread like wildfire across golf Twitter, percolated through the event and through the fan base, and actually impacted this tournament. And the first was what is, I think, at this point, a very clearly inaccurate report that there were divisions in the U.S. locker room, really Cantlay and Zander off to the side, that Cantley was making a giant stand, against the notion that the players aren't paid and that not wearing a hat was in protest. And while there is an understandable conversation that will continue to happen

about whether the players should get paid for an event like this, I think there's some great arguments as to why they shouldn't house. But that's a debate that clearly was not dividing the locker room. But out of nowhere, Cantley sees everybody with their hats off.

He had no idea that this had spread and to be fair, most of the U.S. golf fans were killing Patrick Cantley online until he stepped up to the 16th hole, Burdied 16, 17, 18, and then it became a rallying cry for the team. I mean, if Cantlay does not make that putt on 18, I think he probably would have continued to get vilified through the entire rest of the day, making that 43-footer on 18 with the rest of the team taking their hats off so clearly not divided was that rallying cry. great. They had juice coming in. Rory's trying to fight in the parking lot. Shane Lowry's stuffing them in the trunk to get them out of there. It's all a bunch of, these are nerd-ass golfers who would get their ass kicked in any other normal circumstance.

Wrestling for crying out loud. Yeah, it's, it's golf course beef. It's pro golfer beef, which, you know, has a certain feel to it. No doubt. I can tell you, I can share with you, there was indeed this villain sentiment throughout both, you know, the Twitter's fear and also the conversations I was having. I was lucky enough to get out our text threads. I was on the golf course on Saturday. The conversations on the range and the grill and the chairs. There was a lot of F. Cantlay, right? I mean, people just took it as fact and ran with it.

And Patrick responded in the only way that he could, which was he played straight. Stone cold, baby. Coming down the stretch there, gave the U.S. a little bit of hope and walked off the green and said, I'm not wearing the hat because it doesn't fit. That's all it's about. So much to do about nothing. I do think that it doesn't fit is a little nonsensical. And, you know, he said the same thing about whistling straits. We couldn't get a hat that fit between whistling straits and now. But to be fair, there are rider cups where you can go back and see that Rory wasn't wearing a hat as well. And, you know,

like, who knows if there is some underlying. Canley's got a giant head. I don't know. He's got like kind of chia pet hair. It's possible that messages were being sent, but, you know, it doesn't really matter. It didn't translate into anything that impacted Patrick

Kentley's own play. Patrick Cantley now undefeated in singles, 4 and O combined President's Cup and Ryder Cup. And by the way, saved that foursum match on Saturday. Yes. Which turned out to be the functional equivalent of a singles kind of competition, right?

Absolutely. In a lot of ways, Kentley became the new Patrick Reed. Instead of Patrick Reed, it's Patrick Cantley, in that he seems to do a good job in that situation of rolling with the punches, of understanding the environment, of embracing the animosity, and using it as fuel for focus. And he spoke a lot about letting it fuel his focus. I think there are some guys,

including some rookies on this team who maybe weren't able to absorb it in that way. Can't lay it just worked for. And it just adds to the confounding nature of this guy's career, doesn't it? He is just stone cold in these situations, but he's never really been in the hunt at a major golf tournament.

It just is not going to ever fully add up to me. I wonder if he takes this and it propels him in the same way that it propelled Scotty last go round into performing better in these majors in the in the year to come. I like that. So one of the things we'll make a note of as we think about our 2024 season preview is to look at Patrick Cantley will Patrick Cantley win a major in 2024. Those will be some odds that we keep an eye on. Maybe our palsis bandule could write up a little prop for us. Yeah. Yeah. And how's the other thing as we looked at 2024, just to touch on a point that we spoke about earlier, which was the rest. I think, again, I think that's going to be a little bit of an overplayed part of the storyline here, because I think these

guys, I think the live players, by the way, Brooks Kepka showed us at the PGA championship that rest is not necessarily a bad thing, although he had played competitively more frequently coming in than these guys did. But I'm fascinated to see whether they really, after arguing for years that they need an off season, whether they really take the rest of the fall off and just show up at Capilua. Are we not going to see Scotty or Justin Thomas? Well, we was going to see Thomas because he's going to play the fall. But Spieth, who looked awful? Like, are we going to not see any of these guys until Capulua? Or are they going to selectively play a few of these events in the fall because maybe they just learned, you better

be careful what you wish for. Long breaks from competitive golf results in less than stellar play. We'll see. We're definitely going to see Kepka because there's still some more live stuff. We will see Kepka. Of the remaining 11 guys,

if we set the over under, like there are 11 guys who could play in the fall, how many will play? I'll set the line at 5.5. We see more than 5.5 of these remaining 11 play a single time. Now, we're already one to the over with J.T. because we know J.T. is going to play.

He's got to play. But to your point, you know, I can't get there with another five guys, right? I can't name another five guys. I think we might see some of them in Vegas. All right. Well, they're because of the the natural sponsorship and brand kind of enhancement that comes from that. Right. That's That makes sense. So I feel like we'll probably see more Akawa there. Could see Max. Yeah. Okay.

Well, right. Max is definitely some low-hanging fruit there. And honestly, let's go ahead and give out our flowers to Max. And let's give you a nice pat on the back for looking across the board, thinking about, you know, the implied probabilities of different things. And we talked about some odds associated with the homie, Max. Toma as potential top scorer for the U.S. side. And he delivered. I mean, he delivered across the board.

He is now seven, one and one combined between last year's Presidents Cup and this year's Ryder Cup. He is that dude for these kind of competitions, Nate, Dogg. He is. And yet, he didn't play that great today, to be totally honest. Like he lost strokes. He hung in there through his toughness. He missed putts badly on 16 and 17 that really could have put that thing away.

It was a tremendous caddy player interaction on 18 to make the absolutely right decision to take that penalty shot and the unplayable and just get up and down. Now, that last put that he made was stone. So taking nothing away from Max, he was undoubtedly our MVP. he's got to be a stalwart of this team for years to come. But, you know, he missed a put against Rose on Friday afternoon when that Friday afternoon flip is really what felt like it determined at all, right? Three putts from Hovlin, from Rom, from Rose that all just closed the door on 18. And Max was playing with Wyndham when Rose made that put.

Max had a look that he missed. And then on 16 today against Fitzpatrick, Fitzgo's in the water, I have no idea how Max ended up in the water. He still missed a put on 16 that could have sort of put it away again on 17. So look, that just speaks to how difficult the Ryder Cup is. That takes nothing away from Max, who is kind of the new Captain America, speaking of Patrick Reed. You know, Max was terrific and he just seems built for this. And the thing that I loved about this one is in the biggest moments, the major champions, championships, We've seen Max overprepare, according to him.

And we've seen him psychologically not be able to really manage himself through that. He did okay at the Open Championship, if you recall. He played pretty darn well. He got in the top 10 there. And I think it started to crack the door for him. It's a journey. It wasn't going to come overnight. But I do wonder if this is going to give him that confidence.

When he hugged his caddy, when he hug Joe on 18, he said, could you see my leg shaking? I think that was more pressure than he's ever been under. It was more pressure than that put that he made at the President's Cup last year. And now we see if he can take this mentally because he prepped in the right way. He delivered in a big moment, giant stage, something that really matters. That's legacy building, right? Ryder Cup is legacy building. Not sure President's Cup is legacy building, at least not yet,

not until we get a few more Australians and Asian players really kick an ass in there and it becomes more competitive. But let's see if Max can take this into the majors now. It's the same question that we just posed with Patrick Cantley. Will there be a propulsive effect? Will we? And again, let's put it in the notes for the 2024 preview show, Max Homa to win a major.

It would surprise absolutely nobody if either of Patrick Cantley or Max Homa went out and won a major. They've been around the upper echelon, the tippy top of professional golf. for a long enough period now that those names are not surprised names. They're not coming out of nowhere, right? No. And they were the two best players in this competition. They were the ones with the biggest stones. And they're the ones who now have the most to gain in their individual careers in this year ahead. Let's see if they can use it.

Yeah. Well, let's take a break. And when we come back, we have to go through a little bit of the dust up between Rory McElroy and Patrick Cantlay's caddy. and try and just divine what was going on there. And then we also want to talk a little bit about the broadcast and then what's to come in the future. But let's take a quick break. All right, Nate Dogg, we're back. Let's get into this Rory McElroy, Joe Lachava dustup,

that may or may not be resolved as we sit here Sunday afternoon in the afterglow of the cup. In the first place, it seems like something, must have happened earlier in the round. And I haven't yet seen the news report that confidently confirms what happened earlier in the round to put Joe Lakava, who by all indications and by reputation and by performance over these last 30 years of professional golf is a relatively unflappable dude, not a dude looking to stick his nose into anything, not a dude that that, you know, anybody regards as a hothead or maybe even, you know, no offense to Stevie Williams,

but somebody that might, you know, get into it a little bit with the crowd or, or others. What do we think happened there, really? I'm waiting to hear he got the muzzle. There's a gag order that came down from ZJ. So he didn't speak after the round. Yeah. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if seeing the entire 50,000 euro crowd taking their hat off and just razzing the hell out of Patrick Cantlay got to him after 18 holes. I mean, we know that Cantlay felt it.

He channeled it in the right way. It's possible that, you know, Joe, who's caddied for Freddie couples in Tiger Woods before, two of the most beloved figures in the history of golf, wasn't used to that much ire raining down from a crowd. But when you look at the video, and there were some that captured the whole thing, there's no excuse for it. It was out there too long. It was just an unfortunate decision to make in the heat of battle and to make something about yourself. Caddies are a bit like referees. They should only be seen when the play is over, right? Joe Max's caddy today was on his knees sort of bowing down to Max after he made that putt on 18.

that's all we should get from a caddy. Nothing else. Then you get off. You're not holding your hat out and blocking Rory. We heard Rory was as mad as he possibly has ever been coming off a golf course. And it sure looked like that in the parking lot.

What was weird was the second bit of misinformation that percolated through golf Twitter was that Rory and Joe had connected and had a conversation and cleared the air this morning. Very clear that did not happen at all. And what a weird thing for Rory to have spent time on. And in fact, it's now clear that the European team used the whole thing

as again fuel for focus. It did sound like as the players were doing their hockey-esque handshake at the end, Stricker was the last guy through. He hugged Rory and Rory said to him, you could overhear it on the telecast, I texted Joe and we're good.

Okay. All right. There's still a story to be written about whether something happened before that that would have driven Joe to make that choice in the moment. Or whether he was just,

fired up over a 43-foot bomb from Cantlay that kept the U.S. in the Ryder Cup. Literally kept him in the Ryder Cup. The one thing I will say, overwhelmingly 9.9 times out of 10, you're absolutely right. The entire golf world looking at this, who's played with the caddy before experienced caddies, know that the caddy is not supposed to be part of the competition in any way, shape, or form. What Joe did definitely way, way, way, way. over the line. The only thing that I will say is that this is a different animal in the sense that the caddy and the player, it's a, it's like a team. They are teams more so than in any other kind of competitive golf circumstance. Again, I ain't making no excuses for that, that bad behavior.

And he shouldn't have been even talking to Rory. There shouldn't have been any words to Rory. I mean, it was way, way, way off the charts. But I need to know what led to it. Because we can't sit and do, you know, the real forensics without having like eyes on the dynamic. And for sure, it was fueled by what was happening across the entire crowd. But there had, I, with with with all that he's accomplished and his instincts to protect his guy, all make perfect sense. But that's a whole different thing than him having words with Rory as Rory's lining up a put on 18. You can't be talking to that, man.

You know, one thing that comes out of this for me was the remarkable switching of places between Rory and Romm over the course of this Riter Cup. Rom came off as such a statesman. And sort of the, in a lot of ways, like the heart and leader of the Riter Cup as an institution, right? his reverence, it's Rory loves it, but it makes Rory wildly emotional. Rory was emotional after the round. He choked up talking about what it means to him again. He was trying to fight a guy in the parking lot, right? Rom, to me, came off as really the chief CEO communicator of what's great about the Ryder Cup, connecting the past with the future. And as, you know, as he gave his talk on or his interview on 18 after he halved that match with Scotty, I think the golf god

started to move it quickly towards Europe. That to me was really when everything broke. You could see a situation in which the U.S. would get there, but it felt like Scotty had to win that first point. And when Rom halved it, immediately they cut away. He actually stopped in the middle of his very gracious interview because Tommy Fleetwood chipped in and hadn't drained a birdie. And guess what? those were two matches that if those guys won, it was over. And at that point in time, it was over. But I do think, look, was it blown out of proportion? I don't think so. I think Rory was genuinely pissed. And I'm thankful for it. I think the behavior was awful, but I think we would have been

bored silly. I might have actually slept through my alarm if that hadn't happened last night. I got up just to watch this and absorb it all. It actually gave a little bit of drama into what, again, was kind of an unceremonious ass kicking. Yeah, I mean, for an event that was over by midday Friday. We got some good storylines out of this. Thanks to all for the hashtag content. But to your point on ROM as the

statesman, I really like that observation because I think that he's built for it. He is channeling, you know, it's maybe a cliche now to talk about SEVI and the linkage and the role that the Spanish, but if you go

SEV to Sergio to Rom and Sergio, the all-time greatest Rider Cup player in history. And now John Rahm taking that mantle and the point of pride that the Spanish clearly feel in the level of seriousness that they attribute to this entire thing. And what that means in terms of creating a culture of winning potentially for this Euro side. It's a great observation.

And Rory maybe who's record in the Rider Cup. it's kind of a little all over the place. I mean, his four and one this week certainly pushes him in a good direction to an overall winning record. But, you know, in terms of the culture, the team culture, it doesn't hurt. That combination is pretty formidable. So let's quickly kind of dispense with something that is going to be overwhelmingly negative. and then I want to get back and do some forecasting about what's to come in the future. So we have to talk about the broadcast because the broadcast was part and parcel of, you know,

the ongoing conversation and frustration amongst viewers in the United States, you know, most specifically. And, you know, it was something that we're, once again, we are changing channels, religiously to find the broadcast. You can do streaming, you can do USA Network, you can do NBC, where is it? And then the commercial load remains just the most frustrating thing.

And finding that balance, it continues to elude NBC, Nate, Doug. I felt like, look, this has been litigated ad nauseum in the golf social media sphere, but it is worth just making the point that in match play, more than any other format, you've got to tell the story of what's happening. And there was so much whiplash of missing key shots going back and forth between matches without giving context for what was coming. the scoreboard in the bottom right that gave you no idea who is on the court what are we talking about what matches what number it all felt you know cutaways to the derrick jeter commercial where i wish he would just run over the damn coyote like one time let's just see him plow into that wolf or whatever it is like we saw it so many times but cutaways right as a guy is teeing off just weird choices about uh that that felt like house what it is is, which is they got a lot of money.

They tried to do this in as low cost away as possible. And that meant lots of commercials. It meant not as much on the ground. It wasn't just the cutaways. The audio was a mess. On those four some days, we didn't get the, just the raucous sound of the crowd on a couple of those big shots, Victor's Putts, Roms, it was late or they were cutting away in the wrong.

I just, I don't know. It's like the cliche. what are we doing here is what I kept yelling at the screen. It made me angry. But I think everybody felt that. I was just surprised that they didn't pivot over the weekend to make some changes in response to what was very clearly, I think, a set of valid concerns from the people who would woken up in the middle of night to watch this thing. Well, there has been this sentiment all season long that NBC, in comparison to CBS, is behind. and they seem unwilling to commit the resources to catch up properly.

And so if NBC is going to continue to have these gigantic events like the U.S. Open and like the Ryder Cup, part of their programming, then we will come poised to criticize if they don't show up with resources that deliver to us a broadcast. experience that is at least equal with its rival. And maybe they don't care. I mean, maybe this is, you know, they like, they don't give a shit what you think or I think. They're putting on the production and they get the money that they get and that's it. What do they care? Yeah. We think that it stinks.

Yeah. I thought Smiley and Wood on the ground were great. A bright spot. I thought they were terrific and I would have liked to have more of them. Me too. On, I felt like on 40% of the shots. We didn't know where the ball was. We didn't know where it ended up.

And, you know, drives that land in the middle of the fairway where the cameras were catching. Now, again, that's not NBC. They're catching a global feed. But, boy, it just felt discombobulated. And like it was a stitched together production, not something that should have been of the professional quality befitting the event. I did appreciate they ended up spending a lot of time on 16 and 18, of course, because that's where the matches were coming down to. and that's where all of the most exciting things had. 16 was just a magnet.

Awesome. Ended up being great. But I just think in the aggregate, they've got to take a step back here and think about how they want to cover this sport because it's become a fun thing for all of the golf media to yell at the broadcast. Only one operation made a serious set of changes.

And by the way, we have complimented them immensely. But they are light years ahead now. and the tours, as they think about their commercial future and their audience future and all of the things that we heard this week very quietly about the tour potentially abandoning the Saudi deal because DOJ is pushing them hard and reaching out to Endeavor and other U.S.-based private equity for funding. I mean, there's a lot at stake in how this sport gets covered. And what we saw for what is arguably the most fun event in golf was unacceptable. Well, and kind of against the odds, it turned out, at least in my experience, that the viewing window for this event caught the attention of the greater American sports fan because it caught the mornings here in the East Coast and maybe the early morning for the West Coast. But it was a viewing window where you weren't up against other sports. So going against football wasn't really a challenge because the football games,

the college football didn't start until 12 noon. And by then quite a bit of the golf had been accomplished on Saturday. And then the pro today, I mean, all the singles were all wrapped up by 1 o'clock. And so you had your exclusive viewing window to put your best foot forward with the best golfers on the planet. And it ought to be a tremendous sales job. But part of that sales job is really seeing the golf and feeling the tension and being able to deliver that tension in a way that the viewers can grab the drama of the competition. So they didn't do that.

An opportunity missed, but I guess you and I would say were not that surprised by it. No, I think that's exactly right. I have to ask you a question, House. coming into this, we talked about how Ricky Fowler has to be on this team because it's a made-for-TV event. Ricky was a non-factor. We didn't see anything of him at all. And I guess it's because he was sick. Maybe. Do you think that the interest level or the outcome of this event would have changed had Bryson, DJ, maybe Patrick Reed, been a part of this? A thousand percent, yes. I do think. think so absolutely positively if you want you know if the point is is eyeballs then you kind of need to

have the guys that are on a worldwide stage recognized recognizable and recognized as you know being in the in the upper echelon the preeminent class of competitive golfers i'm not re-litigating why it is the DJ and Bryson on the team. And you're answering the first part of the question, which is, would more eyeballs have watched? We should have the debate about whether Zach made the right picks and whether Fienow or, you know,

any of the other guys who stayed at home, Keegan Bradley would have changed the course of this. I want to ask you that in a second. But I will say, Aisinger was not my favorite this weekend, but he did sign off with the most interesting point, which was, should Tiger and Sergio be the two captains at Bethpage? And will the state of golf get to a place where those Europeans and the other players are welcomed back so that it really does reclaim the soul of what the event's supposed to be? So that would be cool. And I'd be fine with that. It would for sure burnish the credibility and the, you know, the legacy of this competition.

I mean, what do you make of the fact? Quick sidebar that Tiger didn't post. We didn't hear anything about Tiger Woods having anything to do with this team. I mean, there wasn't even a news report about Tiger said in a video in support, at least that I saw. You make anything of that? Here's the key point. And this sort of sums up what I think a lot of the discussion ought to be about. the home team is won eight of the last nine and ten of the last 13. It is really hard to win an away match.

It turns out that when 50,000 people are screaming at you, and this is a sport that is 95% mental, that it has an impact and effect. And so I think Tiger knew what was coming, like you did, that it's really, really hard to win a Ryder Cup at an away match and that going over with two of our, you know, earned picks being Harmon and Clark, who were going to be rookies, was not the best and no Tiger. And, you know, that there was a real risk, potentially, that this team was not going to be great. So I'm not, I'm not surprised that Tiger stayed quiet. There's a lot going on behind the scenes when it comes to the live PGA tour stuff that Tiger now on a board probably has been deeply involved in. And I think Tiger never likes to associate himself with

losing so I'm not surprised. I do think he's the obvious pick for Beth Page Black. If he can make the time to do it, it's going to be a great thing for golf. If he chooses to do it, and I don't mind the idea of Sergio as the Euro captain either, because of the through line of the legacy there. I want to ask you, if you look at the two sides, because we're now sort of going forward. Let's talk about, you know, a couple years from now at Bethpage. Of the 12 players on each side, how many do you expect to see on each team? Do you go through the rosters? How many of the Euro guys do you expect to see as repeat customers showing up in New York? And how about the U.S. side? Yeah, I think the Euros did a fantastic job of integrating Hogard and integrating

Ludwig Ober, we're supposed to call him now, into the team. because of the quality of play of their big three, they could integrate those two guys in a safe way. I mean, again, O'Ber did not play particularly well this week, but he and Victor pounded the crap out of Scotty and Brooks, right? And Hoggarde, not great, but playing with Rom really was helpful. So I think those guys are going to be around. I think when you look at the European roster,

it's pretty clear who would rotate off. You wouldn't expect Bobby Mac necessarily to make it, back, you probably would not expect Rose to make it again, although he talked about feeling like he had one more in him. You might not expect SEP Straka to come back, but the rest of the team feels like they're going to be there for a while. And I think that is why they made the decision to connect the old with the young and to bring the two guys in and to integrate them into the process in a way that was safe. On the U.S. side house, man, all bets are off at this point. I mean, one of the takeaways from this, the sanctity of the Speath Thomas partnership is over.

Jordan Speath sucks at the Ryder Cup. He doesn't suck at golf, but he has sucked at the Ryder Cup. I think on a go-forward basis now, there's going to be some communication about whether they, too, should bring in some of the younger guys. I mean, look, remember, it was supposed to be, Wolf was supposed to be a part of this. Morikawa and was supposed to be going head-to-head with Hovlin. It just feels like of the best college players right now and the best young guys, not exactly clear. Is it Sam Bennett?

Who knows? But I would expect a lot of turnover in this roster because I'm not sure we saw what we needed to see out of some guys who earned the spots. And I know we didn't see what we needed to see out of some of the guys who were captain's picks. I think the U.S. doesn't need to blow it all up because, again, the stats are it's just hard to win on the road. It really is. and it may be the Achilles' heel of this event is that it's not really a fair fight. But I do think that on a go-forward basis,

the center of gravity shifts from JT and Speath to Homa and Brooks and, sure, Scotty, but I think that old team that was the stalwart thing, they just didn't get done this week. And so I think we'll rethink how we make those picks in the future. The buddy system, if it existed, is certainly going to be gone. Well, we're going to get a great referendum on this question on the U.S. side because the President's Cup is now a calendar year away. So we do have the benefit on the U.S. side of like, let's see, you know, we can capture on a yearly basis, you know, the influx of new blood if it's warranted and test some of these combinations.

For sure, we're going to see Cam Young. I don't think that we're going to see many more of these competitions, these team competitions, that don't have. Cam Young involved in some former fashion. And Kelly and Shafley will be around for the foreseeable. They're going to be here. As long as they're not on the Lyftor, yes. Well, right. But I think that which is a real possibility.

But I do think, I mean, from here, we know that some of these picks were for show. That's why I asked you about Fowler. And Spieth was a captain's pick. J.T. was a captain's pick. I'm glad J.T. was here because he gave fire. And I'm glad he was. here. But, you know, going forward, I think all of the earned spots are up for grabs. It's like, it's like an open quarterback competition at the start of training camp. You're going to have to earn your job to get to Bethpage. Seems like a fair enough kind of way of doing it.

Speaking of earning, we'll keep earning our keep here at Fairway Rowland. Hope everybody enjoyed that Rider Cup. We are off for. a week, but we will be back at various times through the fall. Nathan's referenced it a couple times. There are some rumbling, some murmurings around progress or the lack thereof occurring in terms of a combination between the PGA tour and the Saudi Piff, the Live League. So lots of drama and intrigue still to come on that front and drama and intrigue on the golf course in these fall events, which now are.

absolutely directly impacting how 2024 will play out for the careers of some pretty prominent golfers, including Justin Thomas. All of that to look forward to. Our thanks to our production team at the rigor, our thanks to Eduardo Ocampo, our incomparable producer. I hope everybody enjoyed it. We're back in a couple weeks. If you're able to throw a peg in the ground, it is fall golf. Leaf rules almost in effect. Please, let's hit them straight out there.