Fairway Rollin' - Dustin Johnson Is the 2020 Masters Champion

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

House and Nathan put on their green jackets to discuss the historic victory at Augusta National and this year's champion. They break down the key plays Johnson made that helped him clinch this decisive victory and what other players brought to the tournament. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome to this 2020 Masters Recap Golf Podcast, unlike any other. You've done it. We're together. We made it. We had a Masters in 2020. This is Farroway Roll in the Golf Podcast on the Rigger Podcast Network. I am your starter. Joe House joined as is our custom by none other than our PGA.

correspondent on the ground. Nathan Hubbard. Nate, DJ did it, and then Amanda did it. How about it? It's a double W. Two goats in action at the same time. Put her in the Hall of Fame, I say.

Because if you break DJ, it's really better than the scoring average at Augusta being broken, or the low score to par, which DJ did among many other things today. Ballionis should get the first headline. She got him crying. Nance tried so hard that he brought out the like montage of Austin and DJ pictures and reminded him of all the family stuff and DJ was not having it.

They cut away before they did the strange sort of awkward super long pan on DJ and Butler Cabin. And I thought that was it. So then I put on football and started getting ready for the pod. But then you told me that Amanda came through with just a Hail Mary championship throw. I wasn't anticipating that we were going to get another opportunity for an interview out on the green. I thought we were just jumping over to football. So I had it on in the background here as I was scribbling down my last notes. I wanted to make sure that I didn't commit to the wrong wind here preparing for the podcast.

But she came on and Tiger put the jacket on him again and there was clapping out there on the green. And then she started in with the interview. and it was a good combination of questions. It was very similar to the way she spoke with him when he won the Travelers back in end of June, early July and talked about, you know, people may not understand how much hard work you put in and what the dedication that it takes

and how meaningful this tournament in particular for you, your family and your team. And he got kind of a quarter of an answer out and that was it. He was done so. Well, it's a fitting sort of full circle to the tournament that you just talked about because we had Amanda on right after that tournament. And I asked her, what's up with DJ? Because it seemed like maybe he doesn't care or this didn't matter to him. You know, what's really going on? And she

pushed back hard on us there and said, you know, I think he's one of the most misunderstood guys. That was probably one of the most emotional interviews I've ever done with him. I found him to be, you know, really, really grateful for the win. And this thing really meant a lot to him. And sure enough, here we go. That started this latest iteration of DJ. I don't know if it's DJ 5.0 or 6.0, but where he just went on a tear through the FedEx Cup playoffs, 30 under at TPC Boston, including a 60, which was the worst it possibly

could have been. He could have shot 57 that day, pretty much waltz to the tour. championship. You know, we sort of forgot about him at the U.S. Open. He still was T6 there. And then he just came through and won, you know, in a huge way today. And so it was nice to see Amanda get the chance to reengage with him there after that win and bring out the emotion that she told us was there all along. Yeah. So a couple things with DJ, the run that he's been on and some of the historical perspective, this win means he's instantly in the Golf Hall of Fame. You go to goes right in. There's nothing to talk about. There's no debate. He's in this, this very moment.

And you mentioned, you know, the unparalleled play. He won the fall. I do want to talk about how great, just for a quick second subtangent, look at the winners we had in major tournaments this fall. We had a rookie win the first, the PGA championship out in Harding Park, Colin Warcawa. Then we had the innovator, the mad scientist, go win the U.S. Open in an unprecedented and unanticipated way, Bryson D. Shambo, who was the story of the summer and the fall season. And he was, in fact, the story entering this master's because he was all anybody wanted to talk about as such a curious thing. But then we had a legend. We had an OG. We've had a guy who's been consistently great at professional golf for 15 years now,

go out and grab the green jacket. It was really never in doubt. It got to be a stroke. You know, he had a four-stroke lead starting today. This is Sunday. It got down to one stroke because he bogeed four and five on the front. But he immediately righted the ship with a birdie on six. and he basically ended the golf tournament.

I thought with the Bertie on 13, but the exclamation point birdie on 14. And that was it. Like, you know, Cam Smith and Sung J.M. Kudos to both of them. They both balled out. Camp Smith in particular, the first golfer in the history of the masters to shoot all four rounds in the 60s.

And we will touch up. on so many aspects of this particular masters, the scoring, some of the record-breaking elements of that. But just DJ's historical legacy, this historical performance in this historical moment, what's your thought on that? I'm thinking about Justin Thomas before the U.S. Open talking about how hard it is to get your second major and that he was finding that getting your second was even harder than getting your first. Now, DJ had a lot of trouble getting to his first. He had a lot of trouble getting to the second. But what I feel is happy for him, because this is a guy who, quite frankly, was underperforming in majors relative to what you would think. This is a guy who could very, very easily have six or seven right now, were it not for some combination of boneheadedness and bad luck, but not boneheadedness in a way that makes him an unlikable human being, right?

you really at this point in his career, how can you not root for the guy? And so this was one where so many times he came into this tournament and you felt like he had the edge and whether it was falling down the stairs or whatever, you know, it sort of slipped away from him. And what was great this week was he just was in control the whole time. He did talk about in the post round today pre-amanda crying in the one where he fought off Nance valiantly like a like a night in the in the 1300s, he talked about the fact that he was nervous all day and that he was really feeling it all the way through the round, which he hasn't really told us much about before. So you get the sense that it's so easy to talk about this guy because he's six foot four,

six, five, and he has that stride. And everyone's always like, oh, he's always cool, calm, and collected. Well, he's not. That's what he looks like. But underneath the surface, he's a human being who's felt it in clearly a bunch of these times where he's blown the 54-hole lead, where he's had a chance to win and not shifted it into gear like the PGA this year,

where he played all right. He got outplayed by Morikawa. But this one, I think, as you said at the very beginning, starts to cement the legacy of a guy who is an absolute top golfer of all time, and that's the interesting lens through which we're now going to look at DJ. Maybe this unplugs of torrent

and a flurry of addition. majors from here, but you can't, you know, if he didn't get this second one, and in particular this tournament that mattered so much to him, you can't call him one of the greatest of all time. And now I think you have to. Oh, we're there. He's a top 10 all-time great, I think. I think he's, you know, I'm not going to do the historical thing. This is my gut reaction without sitting down and hammering through the numbers, but I think he's in the, he's in like the 9-10 range.

Where would you have put him relative to Brooks before this tournament? And where do you put him relative to Brooks now? He's ahead of Brooks, notwithstanding how many majors Brooks has, because of the consistency over the period of time and the number of tour wins that DJ has. That is, it's nearly tiger-esque, right?

I mean, it will rank up there in terms of quantity of wins with all of the top 10 greats. And that does distinguish him from Brooks. Now, there are chapters left to be written. For sure. You just speculate it out loud. Maybe this is kind of the thing that unplugs the talent. And he goes off, you know, he has another, with his physical advantage.

by the combination of his length and strength. And knocking on wood, his body, as an athlete, he's routinely identified as one of the very best, if not the best athlete on tour. And that's been validated because of how healthy he's managed to stay, as long as he's not walking around on stairs with slippers on. He's managed to stay healthy through the bulk of his career. why not over the next six or seven years,

you know, that that's another 24 to 28 majors that he gets to compete in, you know, God willing, he couldn't win three more of those? Well, I think the reason we have to judge this one as a great win, it's going to be easy to fall into he shot 20 under. And I actually don't think the final score is something we should focus that much on because, let's be honest, the course played unbelievably easy on Thursday. this is the lowest average scoring major of all time. And so I wouldn't look so much at the final score as I would at who was in it.

Because we've talked on this pod so many times about this generation of golfers and how we have this upper echelon of nine or ten guys who are all going to be historically great, who are showing up every tournament competing. And after the first nine on Saturday, they were all in it. And we're going to talk about what happened to some of them. But hey, Justin Thomas, John Rom, Rory Cumman. Like, there was a whole group of these guys who could have won this tournament. And it was Dustin Johnson who played so much better than they did over these last couple of holes to grab it, as you said, by the throat.

And that's why this is one where we really have to put a hell of a lot of respect on DJ's name. Yeah, that's exactly right. He did not open the door, really, for any of those guys. He was among the low round guys. He had the low round on Thursday. He had the low round by himself yesterday on Saturday. And he tied for the low round again today. So like this was his golf tournament.

He went out there. He took it. He has been playing the best all fall long. This is him, you know, validating what, we've been watching with our own two eyes. I will say there will be a couple times in this podcast. I'm going to pat myself on the back. This will be one of them.

I went on Bill Simmons podcast two and a half weeks ago, and we did a little bit of early master's forecasting, and we went through a couple names, and at that point, Dustin Johnson was available. This was because he was still out with COVID. He was available in a handful of sports books at between 12 to 1 and 14 to 1. and I said at that price, you need to rush right out. You need to stop listening to this podcast,

go find a place to put down a bet and grab Dustin Johnson before he comes single-digit odds. Now, he came back from his bout with COVID, went to the Houston Open, was rusty a little bit at the beginning of that tournament, and then shot two rounds in the low 60s, and looked perfectly fine coming into this Masters, and his odds were down in the single-digit.

it's immediately entering the tournament. Well, look, you know, when we were on with Justin Ray, I picked him, but I certainly didn't bet on him because the odds were insane. But he really, he really, if you widen the aperture coming into the Masters, which for a lot of these guys is the last tournament they're going to play before Hawaii in January, this is the guy who's been playing the best. And what we saw from him coming out of Houston was enough of the game being there. that you could feel pretty confident he was going to come in and do it.

And DJ, unlike any other player, seems to be the kind of guy who can put his clubs in the trunk and leave the car in the driveway for two or three weeks and come back and be the same damn player. That's not to say he doesn't work his ass off. He does. But the Vegas quarantine where he was basically locked in a hotel room probably had less of an effect on him

that it did on anybody else. I mean, we saw Adam Scott, we saw Tony Fee now. you know, those guys came back and did okay, but really didn't have their fastballs heading into this tournament coming out of a week or two where they were shut down. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, this is the DJ Coronation and it's a wonderful way to cap off the 2020 major season. Three incredible major winners in 2020. Maybe 2020's looking up. I don't know. Other stuff's been going on in the country and in the world. We still have, you know, concerns with the global pandemic, increasing concerns. But maybe things are breaking in our

direction a little bit. We're going to end up 2020, possibly with some positive stuff. And hopefully this is a teeny tiny step in that direction. I want to talk about some other teeny tiny steps in some curious directions. And I want to begin with the performance of last year's winner, the defending champion on the 12th hole at Augustine National today. The double digit. The 10. Do you understand that it was a sports book offered 150 to 1 odds that Tiger would shoot 10 or worse on a golf hole in this tournament? And he never has shot a score of 10 or worse on the PGA tour.

So why would you ever make that bet? That's exactly right. there is something about that hole. I mean, even past champions, right? We've seen speith in there. Last year, that hole was basically responsible for delivering the tournament to Tiger when all of the contenders went in the water and he put a great shot just left of the hole. You know, that hole looks so damn easy. And there is just something about the magic and mystery of Augusta that has those moments. Now, there was some tin cup shit going on. And listening to Tiger talk about it after the round,

you know, he said golf is lonely sometimes and nobody can dig you out. You have to dig yourself out. And what I loved about it is two things. One is he finished the round with four birdies, right? Five in the last six holes or something. Yes. And he sat in Butler Cabin with Jim Nance and Dustin Johnson praising DJ for tying his score, right?

his record. And so let's just hope that maybe it gives Tiger a little fire to come back and reclaim it. There's no reason not. I mean, this is one of the best storylines of this tournament. When we were doing our previews last week, we were expressing, you know, there was no reason to be excited about Tiger. He hadn't finished in the top 20 in any tournament since maybe, you know, February of 2020. Yeah.

And there was absolutely. nothing about his play coming in that suggested that he had in him, you know, some, some, a leaderboard run, but by golly, the leaderboard run on Thursday and Friday was there.

And the golf world and the sporting world at large was on fire. I mean, people were excited. I know I was excited. Maybe it was just my little circles. Chris Vernon was going insane. Well, look,

that's a whole other thing. That deserves its own segment. We're going to get Verno on here. probably for next week's pod because if you don't know what we're talking if you don't know what we're talking about first of all there's something wrong with you but second of all our homie chris vernon has been doing his master's update for 10 years now and for whatever reason it went viral this year over a million views of the thursday uh broadcast and and he's been doing it in this this style and I'm not going to try and break down all the elements of it. It's not there for analysis.

It is there for your goddamn enjoyment. So go find Chris Vernon's master's update and be a million 1.1 million people that enjoyed it. It was spectacular. Well, look, just to finish off on Tiger, you could see on Saturday the old man golf issues that come you and I had texted offline after we did the last pod and said, God, you know, with this weather, they're definitely not going to get it in Thursday. And that means some of these guys aren't going to get it in Friday, which means Saturday, they're going to play a lot of golf. And that's what it looked like for some of the old guys, with one glaring exception, Bernhard

Langer, who also deserves to be, they need. a new Hall of Fame for longer. But Tiger, Tiger just looked tired at that point. And I don't think he looked as tired today. I think he just hit a bad shot on 12 where the wind was swirling. He didn't know what to do. And then, you know, hacked a couple of wedges in the water. But he showed us down the stretch. He's still got golf. And God, if we can get five more years of maybe Tiger Woods can still win this tournament, it's going to be the greatest gift he gives us. I mean, let's just do the math on it. If the homie makes par on 12, instead of being one under finishing the tournament,

he would have finished eight under, and that was good enough for tied for 13th, right? That's a top 15 finish. All he has to do is have two legs that work and two arms that work, and his brain is sitting inside of his dome, and he walks, he gets in a car and drives up Magnolia Lane and walks out there to the practice range,

and boom, he's ready. Yeah, and there's a case to be made that if the course had played more difficult this year, he would have done a lot better. I think a lot of guys hung around in this tournament because the greens were not hard. And the course was soft as it ever has been. And I don't think you can underestimate

how much of a disadvantage that was for past champions and guys who historically play well here. One of the props, again, this is the second time I'm going to pat myself on the back. Coming into the tournament was how many guys will finish under par. And the books had set that number at 17. and a half, which is to say 18 or more, if you like the over there, are going to finish under par in the 2020 Masters. That was a bet you could make Tuesday and Wednesday.

Hypothetically, it was a bet you could make. Or in reality, depending on your circumstances, 43 guys finished under par. So that is one that I did indeed cash in on. Now, one guy, and I'm glad you mentioned Bernhard Longer, because this will be one of the storylines that everybody talks about tomorrow, tonight into tomorrow. Burdhardt Longer finished, I believe, last in the field in driving distance. Yes, 250 yards. There's a gentleman in the field who finished in the very upper echelon in terms of driving distance. And that is Bryson D. Chambot.

And yet Bryson finished a stroke behind Burthard Longer this week, Nate Dogg. What do we make of the incredible bulk? Beefy Bryson himself and what the golf gods had to say to Bryson. Now, to be fair, it was really the whole golf and sporting world community talking about Bryson as much. It wasn't Bryson coming in necessarily cocky, although he did announce that his par at this venue is 67. That's the way he thinks about it.

And by that standard, he shot plus 18 for the tournament. it. He only hit 11 of 18 greens in the first two rounds. He only hit 50% of his greens in the fourth round. So he was near the bottom of the field in greens and regulation. And Bernard Longer beat him. So, you know, it depends on who you are to decide what you take away from this. Bryson in the cabin afterwards was pretty clear that he is not well and that something's going on with him physically. Yes. He was having a lot of dizzy. spells and just not feeling right in his stomach through the course of the week. And he said there were a couple shots today that he hit where he just has no idea what that was. That scares the crap out of

me, honestly, because he's been doing so many crazy things to his body that I just worry for the guy, that there's some scientific reason why bodies aren't supposed to grow in this way and strength, and that he's doing something that's not good for him. So I hope first and foremost that he gets the full slate of test and blood work that he talked about and that he figures out what what's going on there. But Augusta's different than winged foot. And the strategy, you know, I think we talked about it this week. We were fading Bryson, not like he's going to miss the cut necessarily, but we really, and he almost did. But we really felt like this was a second shot golf course and a course where you got a put. He has not put well at all on these greens. But this week more than anything,

it was that second shot. You know, yes, he had the double where he flailed it into the woods a bunch and we saw him hitting out of the woods. We saw a lot of guys hitting out of the woods. We saw Cam Smith hitting out of the woods today. Cam Smith hit only about 60% of his greens, but, you know, he led the field in putting or might have ended up second to Sung Jay. And that's how you get around Augusta. Bryson just did not give himself a chance to show the putting that he actually has improved. So I'm with you that I think it was a lot of us talking this week. Bryson's responsible for some of it because the Instagram posts that,

you know, about how far he was going to hit it and I think indulging us in the conversation of whether he was going to hit it 400 yards on 13 into the opposite fairway and play in that way, which, by the way, you know, he never actually did. Right. But he did, you know, he did, you know, he did sort of participate in a little bit of the pre-hype.

I just think, as he said afterwards, he's the underdog. Nobody ever is the overwhelming favorite against the field. And so you're not going to win everyone. I think he probably learned a lot of lessons this week. But I do think there's this underlying subtext of the guy has changed his body a lot. And let's get past that initial concern of whether, you know, there's something wrong in the protein shakes or there's something that he's doing that's starting to affect, you know, his body, physically in a way that has made him a little unhealthy. So think, thinking good thoughts for him.

And we beat him up a bit on this pod just because in particular the Instagram post stuff is absolutely ridiculous. But this is a guy who's important to the game. He's changed the game in a lot of ways. And we should say this house, I don't think, I don't think that the length and equipment conversation goes away after this week. Because if we just, if we just 30,000 feet, two years in a row, we've had the lowest score to par of all time of the field at the Masters. And it's becoming increasingly difficult to protect this golf course. There's nothing they can do with the 13th T to change the fact that guys are going to have short irons coming in. And you heard the tournament, the heads of the tournament this week sort of tip a cap towards the debate suggesting that

pretty soon they're going to be advocates for some sort of changes that are going to, you know, change equipment, change ball to start bringing distance under control because they're just out of real estate. Well, I have one note on that topic first, which is, you know, they bought and they paid a hefty price for it, a decent sized parcel of land from the Augusta Country Club in the back of number 13. So they have intentions as it relates to 13. They are going to make 13 longer. Now, your point could very well still hold, which is even if you move it back 75 yards, 120 yards, these guys are so good, the angles that they're willing to take and, you know, the experiments that they will make in practice rounds and so forth, if in fact they do move the T-back by, they have the room to do so with this parcel of land that Augustin National acquired. And I don't know if between now and April, that's enough time to grow in what they have to grow in. It might be a 20-22 thing.

But it doesn't help 18. It doesn't help three. It doesn't help the rest of the course, right? Here's my observation on that. We did not see any wind on this golf course until the back nine today. Yeah. We didn't see a breath of wind, really, until Tiger hit me. made a 10 on number 12.

That was the first moment that there was any indication at all, that the breeze, that is the real defense at Augusta National was going to play any kind of a role whatsoever. It was absolutely dead flat, whether it was wet, the greens were soft. There was nothing that the Augusta National could do to solve for Mother Nature. Mother Nature created the most, you know, the favorable conditions in the history of the tournament. 43 guys finished under par. Yeah. And I think you do have to say Augusta is not wing foot.

Bryson still hit the crap out of the ball here, but Bernard Langer was first in driving accuracy and at 63 years old beat him. Yes. It's a different course. So Bernard Langer did not disappoint us. Bryson were rooting. I'm going to knock on wood because you, you, you, you, you. You say it right. We have given him a hard time because it's fun on this pod.

But we also have given him a ton of credit for the innovation, for the creativity, for the thoughtfulness. And it's been a terrific topic over the last five months in professional golf. We want him to be healthy and feeling well. So he was for himself and folks that might have invested in him a disappointment. I have a question for you in terms of all of the young guns. you mentioned it. And we talked about it with Justin Ray, the incredible moment and Sobel as well, the incredible depth of field, the incredible quality across professional golf right now. And, you know, the young guns in particular, we've been seeing some of the rookies perform

extraordinarily well. Matthew Wolfe in the first two majors that he's ever competed in finished in the top five. He missed the cut this week. But there was a bunch of guys that we had kind of circled We say our due or about due, they should be ready. I'm not going to name any names. I just want to hear you say, who disappointed you the most this week? Who were you most disappointed by? Without a doubt, it was Rahm and JT. Okay.

It's a tie. It's a tie for you. Yeah, well, because they did on Saturday exactly what we saw them do at the Zozo, the last time we saw them play, which is they make the term. at Zoso on Sunday. They're both at, I think, 22 under, and you go, they're going to go win this tournament by and they both played the back nine in even or over part. And they just, you know, Can't really won the tournament.

They did not deliver. And Saturday was the same thing. JT makes the turn Saturday at two under and shoots plus one on the back, right? You see the swipe right start to happen again. We talked about those this week. Sometimes under pressure, he starts pushing that driver right. ironically, what really brought him down was an aggressive shot into 15,

the second shot where he yanked, sort of overcooked a draw, put it over the back and into the water, and that was it. Now, the flip side with JT is he's only played this tournament five times, and he's gone from like 39th to 22nd to 17th to 12th and now fourth.

So the guy's going to have something to say here in the years to come, but this was one where we knew it's a second shot golf course, He's a young guy, so the change in schedule and the extra holes aren't going to hurt him. He's definitely been the best ball striker as Justin Ray talked to us about this week. And that's why Justin picked him. And he just didn't grab it by the throat.

And this is something that we're starting to see more of with J.T. than we want to. And he gets frustrated. And you can see the physical manifestations of his own sort of mental struggle. his shoulders start to slump, his face sours. And to pitch it to the other guy we were talking about, nobody's face sours more than John Rom, who also lost this tournament on Saturday with a blow-up hole that ended up only being a double on the par five,

but it just kept him from clicking back into gear and following up what was a fire round on Friday where you thought, okay, here he comes, he's going to go get it. There's just something about Rom in these majors where there is a day or a stretch of nine holes that he doesn't keep it all together. So those two guys were pretty disappointing and in particular disappointing

because we have seen this now from them as a fairly regular pattern, even as recently as the last tournament they played at Sherwood. Yeah, they both had it right there. It was that Saturday afternoon. Now, I want to ask you about Rory. Do you think that Rory, do you want a glass half full or glass half empty on Rory?

He went 75-66-669 and finished T-5. I thought his post-round comments were actually the most interesting of any player. He said, you come into the Masters, there's always lots of build-up, and there's lots of pressure on me because I'm trying to do something that only a handful of golfers have ever done. So first of all, you know he's thinking about it. But then he said, I sometimes lose 10 to 15 pounds during Masters week. that. I was stunned by that. And, and by the way, just take it back to Bryson. Like, there's, these guys are under a lot of pressure and under a lot of stress. And a lot of it is self-inflicted

clearly. But that's the, if, if Rory's losing 10 to 15 pounds and Bryson's getting dizzy, you know, that that's the kind of pressure and stress that these guys put themselves under. But then Rory said he hadn't felt that way this week. And that clearly after that first round, he went out and hit six practice shots. I think he said he hit five. five, nine irons and a three wood in between the end of his first round and start of his second round on Friday. And from that point forward, he played great golf and that maybe his approach from here needs to be to take it a little bit less seriously, be a little more relaxed and just go. I didn't feel hugely disappointed in Rory only because I don't think he's been at the peak of his

game. Again, the last time we saw him at Sherwood, he shot six under on Sunday without even really making a putt. I mean, he did it sort of, you know, effortless. I don't think if he plays well on Thursday, he beats DJ, but he certainly would have been in the hunt, and the fact that it was such an easy day for a guy who, you know, when he's on, can be just absolutely darting his irons and taking advantage of conditions like that. It was a failure that Rory's got to sit on.

It just didn't seem to weigh on him the way that it really looked like this performance weighed on JT and Rom. Yeah, and maybe it's because Rory's bad performance came at the beginning of the tournament and he still had three rounds in front of him to go right the ship. I was just happy to see that glibber. It was glass half full performance for me out of Rory. I just love seeing him

in majors competitive like this. It's better for golf. To me, talent-wise, it's DJ and Rory at the top. And I want to see DJ and Rory mono-a-mano come April, right? DJ defending and Rory, hopefully firing on all cylinders. But it was great to see him with three rounds in the 70s. And it was great.

There was building excitement when he went off this morning because he strung together some birdies. I was like, wait a second. He might go out and snatch this. He might go out and put some leaderboard pressure on DJ. It was just, you know, fun to see it. He is one of the guys who's been the most vocal about how the absence of fans has hurt him.

his ability to get that last bit of adrenaline firing and that laser focus happening out on the course. And so I'm excited to see him back with fans. You know, you think about him, you think about him in the President's Cup, you think about him in the Ryder Cup, and all of the amazing moments that he's really had in front of fans. I want to see him back out there playing his best with the patrons. Yeah, I have another glass half full guy. Very happy to see Brooks Kepka out there, looked healthy for all four rounds. He also, you know, he hit a great shot on 12. They had a laugh about it after he hit the middle of the green.

And somebody, I think one of the broadcasters mused aloud, you know, was he talking about last year? But, you know, he shot 70, 69, 69, 70 for a 10 under, tie 7. in a master's. We want to see Brooks Kepka in these majors, healthy, playing well. And again, another name. Let's have DJ and Rory and Brooksie

go out there in April and fully loaded with all the weapons. Yeah. Brooks's round one was probably disappointing for him. If you give him three more strokes there, four more strokes in that round, he's much more competitive in this master's. So I like what I saw from Brooks, and it portends a great year ahead for him,

clearly back healthy in the way that we want to see him. Yeah, two guys that maybe it's unfair to say this, but we keep talking about them as potential contenders, and neither one of them really distinguished themselves this week. That's Patrick Cantlay and Zander Schaftley, kind of two younger players that are, you know, darlings of the analytics community. And they both have, you know, demonstrated, you know,

good track record, especially X in the big tournaments. Neither one of them really did anything, all that awe-inspiring. They both finished tied for 17th. And, you know, we can be patient. They're both young, still in their mid-20s. Zander's younger than Can't lay. Do you have any reaction to how they played this week?

I thought Cantlay was definitely in the mix after his second round. I mean, you thought here he comes, he'd shot a 66 and felt like he was bringing it. But again, Saturday and Sunday, it just wasn't there. I mean, again, he won Zoso. So this was a guy who had a lot of momentum coming in and you could see it. Zander's a more puzzling case for me because, as you say, the analytics community loves him. We love him. he seems to always be around the hoop in these tournaments,

but he just is having trouble getting over the hump. And, you know, he hadn't won since, since Hawaii. And he's been in the mix enough for us to step back and go, what's it going to take for him to find that final gear where we don't talk about him finishing top seven? You know, we don't talk about him the way we talk about top five Tony, right? Yeah, right, right. because I think it's time for both of those guys to win a major.

And they may be, right? They may be two of the emerging, quote, we call it victims. That's a pretty strong word. But unfortunate recipients of the consequences of being professional golfers at a time in which the top is stacked. Yes. I mean, you know, Hideki Matsuyama can't putt for his life. But the guy is finishing top 15 in all these tournaments, right? Patrick Reed, who we didn't even really talk about coming in, but boy, Patrick Reed could have won.

You got Rom, you got Kepka, you got DJ, you got JT, you got Rory, you know, and Zombie Tiger, who shows up every now and then that's a tough spot to be in when you're Cantlay and Zander, and you're just maybe a notch below those guys. You need seven, eight guys who are definitely better than you at golf to not have a good tournament to win a major. That's a tough spot to be in. Yeah, that's right. Well, we're going to see who was inspired by this mid-November Masters because we're five and a half months away from being back down to Augusta.

You know, a couple guys will have a bitter taste and maybe that will inspire them. And we'll see what the golf gods have in mind in terms of this course. You know, I have a suspicion just the way things. work that this masters in April is going to be one of the, you know, single digit underpar kind of score things, that it's going to be chillyish and firm and fast, you know, not wet at all. And it's just going to take extraordinary golf to get around. I do want to take a second to talk about how extraordinary the venue looked, how the presentation was.

I feel like we need to sing a little bit of praise for a combination of CBS and ESPN, the innovation in how the tournament was presented. Because today, a lot of the chatter was that it was kind of a quiet feeling today. Because DJ, it was just the only drama was going to come if he fell down and he didn't fall down. So there wasn't like that, that, you know, back nine drama that you sometimes get at the Masters. but what was your reaction to the overall presentation? Thank God for drones. Amazing.

It really showed us the course and how the holes fit together. If you haven't been there, you would have seen for the first time the way those holes really fit together. But also how the cabins and the buildings are on property and where it all sort of sits in relation to that par three course. I thought they just did a terrific job of showing it in a different light. It was so fun today to see those fall leaves floating in Rays Creek and just that different look of a familiar friend out there. They just did a great job showing it. I thought there were a few things about the coverage on the main broadcast that you wish they'd done differently. I mean, can we just get Amanda doing the interviews during the main broadcast?

Like, she's good and, you know, she gets the best out of people. She clearly has personal relationships. Anyway, we've talked a lot about Amanda, but let's do that. I don't know why they missed DJ's Walk Up 18. Yeah. But we got more out of the undulations and hilliness of the course. People don't understand how much that course is in a bowl. And CBS and ESPN shot it very, very well this year.

They got those camera angles that showed, you know, when a ball went through that sort of shave, worn down grass on the sides of the greens, and there were those tough chips back up. you got a better sense for some reason this year, thanks to the camera work, of just how tricky those were and how much the ball was below the putting surface. So I really thought they did a great job this year. And I hope that a lot of that continues to carry over. Again, we have to give credit to the guys who are running Augusta now because between the work that they've done in the community between, you know, the welcoming of innovation to the broadcast, you know, we should talk

about the app too, which was amazing. Yes. They've really pushed out in new ways that, you know, 20 years ago, we would have said this is the Stodgius group in golf and this is something that's holding back the game from reaching broader appeal. And in some ways, maybe, you know, perpetuating cycles of injustice, right? And now they've taken that to heart. and they're doing great work. So kudos. And on top of all that, the relatability of this year's particular event because there's no patrons, they did a couple things to make people feel included, one of which was making the fantastic food spread available online to order directly. You could get a pound of pimento, a pound of egg salad, a pound of the barbecue.

You could get the cookies. You could get the popcorn. and perhaps my most favorite element of all, I might have paid what the price was for that whole spread just for the cups alone. They sent like 20 cups, and they all say 20-20 on them. Okay, you're pulling them out and pulling them out right there.

How great was that spread, buddy? Well, I'm burping egg salad as we speak. So I thought it was great. I mean, what a fun way in this year to extend it. And by the way, I hope they don't stop doing that. But, yeah, two egg salad sandwiches before 7 a.m. was breakfast for me. So they just have been thoughtful

on how they spread it and all kinds of way. We should not let the pod go without talking about the great way in which they honored Lee Elder this week. Yeah, spectacular. Not just in naming him

an honorary starter next year, but also in putting together two scholarships and creating a new women's golf program entirely down the street at one of the local colleges there. So I think all in all, it's really great to see them

doing not just what's good for business, but I think what's good for the game of golf and the community in which they exist. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people would say, you know, it's about time. It is about time. It's way past time. That's right.

Let's see them go ahead and connect with the community that, you know, has indulged this all for all of this time. It's called Augusta National, and you're in this town. And, you know, so no time like the present. kudos 100% for, you know, recognizing the moment and recognizing the contribution available to them and going ahead and, you know, making it happen. And there's no reason the innovation in the last handful of years, the female amateur that hopefully will return in April, that's cool.

I love seeing Augusta played that way. I'm very excited for that. You mentioned in elders name, the fact that they created an entire young lady golf program, it's at a historically black college. So, you know, there is that recognition for a club that for years, you know, excluded African Americans, you know, welcome to the 21st century and it's good progress. Yeah, lots more work to do there. And it doesn't, it doesn't wash away what the past is there, but I think I appreciate the way that they're talking about that and now making a lot of overt concrete actions, not just words, to move us forward. But you did ask, you did ask about the way it looked. And so let's talk briefly about the app, because I think the work that they

did, there's actually important to golf going forward. And what they did in the aggregate was they had a camera on every single player hitting every single shot. And you could go into that app and create your own lineup of players and the, you know, the technology in the background was splicing together those shots of all those players you wanted to see and feeding it to you in real time.

And the reason that this matters, I think, is golf is unlike any other sport where there's 200 golfers. And if you're just that casual fan, you're not going to get to know more than the top 10 guys right now because those are the guys who are hanging around the leaderboards in lots of ways. But for somebody who takes one step,

further into the pool a little bit more deeply, sometimes it's hard to get really, you know, a close fan relationship with some of these golfers if they're not actually appearing on TV. And what was so cool about what they built was whoever your favorite golfer was and whoever you wanted to track, this gave you the opportunity to follow people around.

They had, the PGA had started to do that at the Players' Championship this year, but of course that got canceled. That's where, you know, they had to shut down mid-round, basically. because of the pandemic. So I was thrilled to see it. I know it doesn't come without cost, but this is how A, golf should be viewed.

B, it's how we as fans can get to know a richer and deeper set of players, which is sort of unique to any other sport, and build stronger connection to the game and quite frankly grow it. So I hope that the PGA tour itself looked at that and said, that's what we should aspire to do. It didn't come without its glitches. There were times where it got

hung and, you know, didn't work perfectly. But this is a monumental step forward in terms of what's unique about golf, how you broadcast it, how you bring all of the different shots of the course, you know, to life visually. And they deserve a lot of credit for it. Well, I, you are a tech guy. So I'm interested in your view of how scalable this might be. Because you mentioned the cost. Obviously, it's cost prohibitive to go around to the, you know, 40 venues where professional golf is, is, is competed year and in year out. But is it reasonable or feasible to pick 10 or 15 of your more sort of iconic places where you visit every single year and outfit them with, you know, the infrastructure to be able to let fans participate in the experience? in the experience of a tournament

in the way that we so enjoyed today. Yeah, all we're talking about is cameras on every hole. And yes, if somebody gets deep in the woods, maybe it's impossible to sort of automate that. But the technical delivery mechanism is cheaper than what we have today. And certainly through some combination of AI and machine learning, you can tag these clips and feed them into a customized feed. So that's already built.

and the marginal cost of doing that elsewhere is zero. So I think as fans, the more that we can talk about wanting content in this way, you know, the more I think the PGA and other sort of independent tournaments will have to be responsive and provide this kind of experience because it really was world-class. And I think from here, any major that doesn't allow for this is going to look JV by comparison. Yeah, I agree with you. Let's, as always, Augusta raises the bar, and the thing that particularly interests in me,

titillates me is, you know, it's not that far of a cry to enter in one additional bit of interaction, which is perhaps, you know, gambling on various elements of different guys and different experiences, right? That's what's next, is in addition to showing the shot, layering in a bunch of data around stats, and then odds and the opportunity to place bets in real time for people who are interested in that. It's clearly where the game is going, and the PGA has made deals with all of the major players, including our friends at Fandual.

But the PGA tour has embraced that, understanding it's a way to grow the game. There was another story in major publication this week just about how the pandemic has, in fact, grown the game in terms of things you've referenced before, but we got some hard numbers this week about increase in in just rounds played, increase in equipment sales, and certainly increases in viewership and engagement in the game. And the next step is obviously gambling, which again, golf is uniquely suited to because you have all these different guys and all these different potential outcomes.

So the opportunity set is up and to the right, and you need to keep, you need the leaders in the game to keep pushing the technology forward because it's there. Well, quick shout out. you mentioned the Fandul competition. Birdie Buddies, Fairway Rowland is brought to by our good friends at Fandul. I think the leaderboard, the final leaderboard, which will carry along with it, the beautiful ringer jacket that I modeled on the Instagram last week. Tansomely. Yeah, well, I did my best.

But kudos Harry Dunn 12. Looks like he won the Masters competition, a nice $3,000. day for Harry Dunn with a winning score of 676.6. And the next guy closest to him, a nice $1,500 day for Wolfpack 66. So congrats. Oh, Ben Adams, 22, got a thousand bucks. That's your top three finishers for this Masters tournament. And if you liked that competition, if you enjoy playing fantasy golf on Fandul,

and you should, because it's great, you can continue to enter their golf contest. I will be doing so. I do so every single week. I find two or three where I like the payouts and I try and do some single entry and I do try and do some multi entry. And we will, as we keep chugging along here, look for other opportunities to get some more fairway roll in competitions lined up.

But that is not all my par saving paths. Fandul is offering users the chance to play free this NFL season. No deposit required. Just sign up after downloading the Fandual app and Fandul will give you a free entry to a contest each week of the football season where you can win real prizes. Fan Duel, more ways to win. Of course, age and location restrictions apply. we had 7,142 people play.

Yeah. How'd you finish, House? I was inside the top half. Okay. I finished in the top half of that group. Oh, boy. Yeah. I didn't have DJ.

Rom, I did have Rom and top five Tony, who was barely top 30 Tony. And I think I had Cantlay. Anyway, enough. I got as high as 20. and then Frankie onions really, really brought me down and Munoz today didn't have the best round. But 163rd, I'll take. So that's better than the last time we ran this contest when I finished almost DFL. That means you won, what did you win? 10 bucks, 15 bucks? 15, baby. Nice. Nice. It pays for one-tenth of the egg salad I had shipped to me from Augusta.

Well, I think that's the right note to end the recap on. we're not going to do any better than that. We are going to continue here on Fairway Rowland. There's still some interesting golf to be had over the next handful of weeks. We have the match that's coming up in a couple of weeks where we're going to see Phil and Charles Barkley go up against Steph Curry and Peyton Manning. That's just going to be a hoot. And we've got a couple more of these tournaments that Nathan and I certainly find interesting.

Yeah. We're going on to Mexico. Yeah, we got the RSM this week, which is going to have its strongest field ever. A lot of the Europeans who came over to play this week are going to show up next week at the RSM. And that's a great thing because we haven't gotten to see a bunch of them. So it's going to be a loaded field this week. And a good opportunity, again, as we talk about in some of the lesser watched events, generally there's a lot of value. It's a great point.

The first thing I'm going to do when we end here is I'm going to start looking at the weather. because, you know, that is down just north of Jacksonville, St. Simon's Island there in Georgia. They play it out of Sea Island. And if it's docile weather like what we just saw in Augusta, the quality of field point that you just made means there's going to be some scoring opportunities. So let's keep an eye on that one. Nate Dogg, we've got a master's champion, a worthy champion. 2020 is coming around, my brother. By the end of the year,

we're going to be calling it one of the best ever. I'm not sure that, but at least from a golf perspective, it's been a hell of a year. We're rooting for it. Thanks so much as always, my friend. Birdie buddies, par-saving pals. We're back next week with more fairway rolling.

Until then, enjoy your egg salad.