Fairway Rollin' - Ep. 11: U.S. Open Recap

Episode Date: June 20, 2016

Geoff Shackelford and Joe House discuss Dustin Johnson's first major victory (6:00), the USGA's interference in gameplay (17:00), and Fox's broadcast over the weekend (42:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Download the free Seekiekees. app and enter the promo code shack today that's promo code shack and download that app seek geek is awesome let's go to the shack house house how you doing what a weekend in golf huh what a weekend in golf what a weekend in sports i am still recovering from from from many things i got a three-day member guest here in the dmv that's dc maryland virginia some people ask what's dmv that's what that's what dmv that's what dmv is three-day member guest father's day week beautiful sunny weekend here in Washington, D.C., a wonderful U.S. Open, Game 7, Cavs and Warriors last night. I don't know when I'm going to sleep. I'm hoping tonight, the next night. I don't know when,

but it's just been sensational overload of, you know, it's a great time to be alive and to be an American, Jeff Shackleford. It is, it is. I mean, it's almost too much. We were really bummed in the press center last night. game seven was going on and you know we're all trying to take in something that nobody in the golf press could have ever imagined or has seen anything like before at the U.S. Open and we've seen some weird stuff happen at the U.S. Open and we're watching the game on one screen we got an unbelievable saga going on the course and then the post game and then and then the golf channel live from shows getting tense with Brandl and frank and you're trying to listen to all of it it was it was insane and we're we'll try to kind of get into the controversy part in a bit. But I think that everybody kind of owes

it to Dustin Johnson House to admire this win. It was a long time coming, and gosh, it was in unbelievable circumstances, and he had to go through this crazy stuff. And it's kind of already, I already get this bad feeling that it's not going to be appreciated for what it was, considering what he went through last year, three putting the last hole. And then, you know, coming into this with everybody wanting. wondering about him, totally different golf course, and he goes out and just kind of overpowers it and hits a lot of clutch shots and wins the U.S. up.

Yeah, it can't possibly be overshadowed by the rules nonsense. The performance by DJ was an all-time, one for the ages, unflappable, stoic. Every single word you come up with testicular fortitude, every which way you want to describe that performance. my man could not be shaken. I mean, they threw everything at him in terms of ways for him to lose his confidence or to get off his game, and he was up to the challenge each and every time. I expressed by way of the Twitter that I was going to be rooting for him last week.

I said that he's the guy I want to root for this weekend, and so I was thrilled that he was right there, you know, broadcasts. came on early morning, but, you know, when the 320, 3.30 T times popped up, it's him in the last, second to last group. And I thought that throughout the first handful of holes, watching him and Lowry, I had some guys texting and doing some emailing with buddies, and somebody said, hey, you didn't mention Lowry, right, trying to give me the gig a little bit, give me the, you know, A little bit of a nudge. And I said, that's right, I didn't mention Lowry in any of my wager speculation, because he's not going to win.

The guy I like, and I reference DJ in a way that I probably shouldn't mention on this podcast. But I referenced DJ to make it clear that that's who I thought, just because through the first, like, seven or eight holes, Lowry was getting a lot of saves, and DJ was playing so solid. He was teedy green solid. And his putting was notwithstanding what happened on five. His putting was the thing that so impressed me in the early round. So I thought, hey, this is, DJ's really got a chance here to come back nine Sunday U.S. Open. Well, and he just overpowered the place.

Lafably, the average driving distance, the USGA posts online is 301.38. I don't know what they were looking at. I mean, he carried the drive on number 12 yesterday, 328. Fox had that amazing staff that goes with the ball, the trackman data, and you're watching it carry. We're all sitting there going, oh, no, no, no, no, it keeps going. It keeps going, and it's 328. Anyway, they had them at 301 for the week.

The field average 286. Again, I have no idea where they're getting those numbers. So they must be using the uphill holes. I didn't even find out the measuring holes. I just get it up at this point. Yeah, they just take the numbers and subtracted 40 yards. That's all. That's how you get to those numbers.

Take the real numbers and subtract 40. But he putted beautifully, he hit 50 of 72 greens, 31 of 56 fairways, which isn't stellar in the U.S. Open, and that'll open some eyes there in Far Hillsland that it was sort of a bomb-and-gouge thing. But I believe we felt pretty strongly on last week's show that if the rain came, that the golf course would require a shift in mentality. And it was really interesting, Claude Harmon, the third, his instructor was on morning drive today, discussing that, that they had looked at how on hell Cabrera played the golf course. And that just gave that was just one more little boost in confidence for them as a group kind of encouraging Dustin to attack the golf course the way he did.

And to say, hey, look, it's soft. Use your power. You're driving the ball as well as you've ever driven it. And it just was really cool to hear that there was, yeah, it may not be the strategy. Some people like. Some people are repulsed sometimes when a player kind of overpowers a course and doesn't plot along and obey the setup and kind of protect PAR and all that nonsense that people seem to think is real golf. I love when I see somebody who has talent uses that, detects a weakness in the Death Star and attacks it the way he did. And we felt, I believe, pretty strongly last week, that that was a possibility if it got soft.

And it was interesting that it happened. And it was interesting that Rory McElroy went into the week deciding not to do that. And it took him out of his game, I feel. I really think he's somebody who thrives when he's hitting the driver and overpowering a course, kind of in the same way that Dustin does. And Jason Day, I'm not so much, but I feel like there are certain players who do that. So more power to him for taking that game plan and just writing it. And like you said, everything in the world thrown at him.

Yeah, well, let's give credit where credits do. You were the one who made that great observation about, you know, the possibility of a bomb and gouge guy having some success with the rain in the forecast. I went along with it, but, you know, I'm also the dummy that bet the over on 282.5. I tried. I tried on Twitter. It's on the record. An observation on the Twitter, you know,

under is the number with this rain, and I had to go over. But the one thing I will say, PAR was protected, right? I mean, it was only one guy who got to, let's just give him five under. I don't understand what the point is. The record books will show four under.

Yes, he was five under. Yes, he was five under. But, you know, everybody else, there was, what, three other guys, four other guys at, at 1-100, and then that was in it. 1-100, yeah. One of those guys at 1-under was Jim Furik, who doesn't have a reputation of being a bomb and gouger.

And otherwise, actually, you know, blasts his way all over the golf course. I mean, I thought the golf course, especially on Sunday, showed the defenses that everybody imagined it would, you know, pose to the players. and, you know, it acquitted itself perfectly fine. Oh, it did. It did. It's just that, you know, how it is. The members at Oakmont are kind of legendary for wanting to see the bloodbath and no red numbers on the board.

And it's amazing what weird stuff it comes down to in golf. People see red. And it's the only sport in the world where when somebody's accomplishing something and doing something well, that there is a segment of the population that is almost a normal. by success. And it's because it's the one sport so many people play and then also watch. And it's such a frustrating hard game that there's that mentality of wanting to see the people struggle. And most people who love sports want to see a player do what Dustin Johnson did, overcome obstacles, overcome all the dreaded mental scar tissue and things that he was dealing with

and how many times he's contended in a major and how much talent he has. And to, to finally put it all together and thank God to do it in a way that there's no question. There are no doubts. He won the United States Open at one of the greatest tests and course on the planet, and they'll never be able to take that away from him. And I don't – I didn't feel like it had sunk in yet on him yesterday, but I know it will. Yeah, sure. And with an iconic shot, that shot into the train on 18 will be one for the ages.

the annals of the U.S. Open, right? And he backed off. Do you know was that the ProTracer? Do you know? I'm working. I'm working on that. I do believe it was a Fox camera with a ProTracer sound of some kind, something went off. He looked right at the camera. I mean, that's where the sound came from.

He backed off and then and then he sticks it. You know, it was a, you know, like I can't remember. the one and done guy who won the PGA, Sean McKeel. It was a Sean McKeel kind of shot, right? All the pressure in the world, and he hits it to five feet. Maybe even less, but, and by the way, that putt was wickedly difficult. I saw our guy, Furek, our guest from last week, hit almost a, he was a slightly different line,

but same thing above the hole. And you're absolutely right. Not only did yesterday's controversy, which we're just about to get to and talk to, but did it not only overshadow a little bit his win, but you're absolutely right. It overshadowed one of the great closing shots that we've seen in modern times in a major championship.

I think you're right. It might even be the best since Sean McKeel in terms of an iron shot on the last hole and kind of sealing the whole thing. And then you throw in that he had to back off. It's just so cool that he did that. And it was really neat. In the press center, we were on a little bit of the delay.

I'd kind of come back in, and we heard the roar before we saw the shot on the screen, and it was really, there was even a little bit of a roar in the press center, because really the USGA had kind of turned everybody on them and had everybody rooting for Dustin. It was amazing to, usually that group doesn't get too much into rooting for anybody. They just want to finish it on Sunday, and it was pretty neat to hear an ovation. Yeah, I loved as he walked off the green on 17

even as he approached 17 you know, he hit driver and ended up right side bunker but all the, you know, the DJ, DJ, DJ, chance as he approached on 17 he walked up to T-box in 18, DJ, DJ, DJ bombs one right down the middle and then, you know, he finished it off with the perfect capper, that beautiful

was it a seven iron that he hit there? You know, I don't even know. I was, I was, I will look up. You know, that he hit the four feet, let's say. And that enormous gallery there, DJ, DJ. I tweeted, I had the chills. I gave me the chills. I loved the moment.

Yeah, the late light, the whole thing. And that last hole is such an incredible scene with the clubhouse and the trees in the background. And the manual scoreboard and people just kind of looking through the fences. and it's just an amazing moment. So, all right, so we've said all that, but we do have to get to kind of the controversy that enveloped the final day. But first, just a word from our friends at Harry's,

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Thanks to Harries. All right, House, you were at a member guest. I'm kind of curious. I don't think we want to relive the whole rules fiasco detail by detail because there are a lot of places you can read about. it and a lot of people listening to the show probably watched, I'd kind of like to get into some of the big picture stuff. But I'm just kind of curious, you were at a golf tournament all week, so you kind of got a buzz of what people talk about. But then you were watching it. I'm just kind of curious what your big picture take is in watching that whole fiasco starting at the fifth hole,

followed by Dustin Johnson later being informed that they would be reviewing his putt after the round. how you felt like the whole thing kind of went down? Yeah, so I was not, the member guests was over Saturday night, so I wasn't sitting around with the big crowd of people. I was blessedly home on my couch watching the final round. But the thing that, there are many, many, many things about that the way it went down, that, you know, the whole golf world commentariat and Twitterati will cover. The thing that jumps out at me that struck me is,

with an organization whose motto right now is hashtag grow the game, who do they think they are serving by interjecting this into their premier event, to their high watermark event, the one time a year when all eyes are on them, who do they think they're serving by interjecting all of this craziness into the, the program into the the entertainment, which is really at the end of the day what this is about. They have a TV deal with Fox. Fox is paying them money, lots and lots and lots of money for the entertainment value. I'm a dude sitting on my couch Sunday, like a lot of dudes and wives sitting on the couch Sunday, and we can't make any sense out of what they're doing. We don't

really understand the rule, and nobody can really articulate it that well. that well. We don't really understand the application of the rule. We certainly don't understand the enforcement of the rule, and nobody gets the idea of how you have a referee there in the moment and they make a judgment, and then you walk away, and then somebody else can come back later, much later, an hour and a half later, seven holes later, and say, hey, we think whatever ruling was a judge and assessed back then, an hour and a half. ago, we're going to, you know, have to take another look at that. It doesn't make any sense to a sports viewing public, to people at large, the American public writ large that would be

sitting on their couch Sunday like I was doing consuming the broadcast. So that's kind of, you know, one of the million takes out there. But let me hear a little bit about what was going on in your world while you watch. Well, let me, to respond to that first, defend, or at least give you the devil advocate point of view from the USGA, and that's certainly something I don't normally like to do because I have some big questions about what they are thinking a lot of the time. But ultimately, there's a big problem with this organization in that this is their one week a year. They're in the spotlight. And their old executive director, Frank Hanigan, always warned that they had a need to be loved. And any time they wanted to be loved, that was going to get them in trouble.

and so they've gotten down a bit of a rat hole in a lot of a number of ways. One of them is this grow the game idea that they really have become a grow the game organization. And that can lead you into trouble when you get in a situation like this because they are sticklers for the rules. They have these unbelievably absurd rules of golf. The decisions are unbelievable. And they're so snooty about people who don't know the rules. and they put down players when they don't know the rules. It's your job as a player to know the rules.

Well, the decisions book is two and a half, three inches thick. I mean, are you kidding me. These are lawyers who write these rules. Even a lawyer who's argued before the Supreme Court came to the organization and became the president and said, you've got to simplify these things. These are ridiculous. And this guy's like a legal genius. And he's looking at this like, you've got to be kidding me.

And then they kind of ran him off because he made a few mistakes. But it, so they have this one week a year where they get to be in charge and they inevitably do something to screw it up. And this was the, I believe, it goes neck and neck with their core setup boondoggle at Shinnock. And since I went to bed, I'm now kind of, that was in 2004. I'm now feeling like this yesterday and 2004 at Shinnock where they're, They lost control of the course and it impacted the outcome of the tournament. I feel like these are coming down the stretch and the jockeys are hitting the whips

and it's going to be a photo finish now. Yesterday I thought it was Shinnecock, all-time worst. But when you start to think about everything that went on that you're trying to send a message right now for the good of the game and had this impacted Dustin in any way, golf was done. I mean, literally the black eye on golf for the next 10 years would have been insurmountable had he lost his tournament because of this. So he saved their rear end. But the idea that they informed other players of this,

that they informed him, that they impacted their thinking. Video reviews are not unusual, but they then took it a step further. And then they did it on something that nobody, nobody, even after you read the definition, they wheeled out, which they definitely, stuck to the letter of the law of their writings, and I get that part. But nobody, any common sense person will look at that and say, no, there was no intent there. And they have this problem house

where they don't want intent to ever be part of these rules discussions. And it has to be sometimes. And so they have a referee on site. He saw it. He was good with it. The rules say, that's the final word, and they chose to overrule part of his decisions. So, It just, it's mind-boggling to me that they wheeled this whole thing out. They did it on television. They didn't do it well. And they were, I think they're tone deaf generally on most things. And I don't think they have any idea what people were saying out there and thinking of them.

And maybe it'll hit them, but I'm not sure. And so it was in the press center, it was stunning what people were saying. because I've been out on the course and came in right as this started. And, I mean, people were getting mad. Writers were getting mad and it had nothing to do with their travel schedule. They just couldn't believe that they would interject themselves in the tournament this way. Well, that's precisely the point. We, as sports fans, sports consumers, loathe it.

We loathe isn't even strong enough when the referees interject themselves into outcomes and, you know, produced what we, the viewing public, regard as unjust results. And this particular, you know, throw-down, showdown dynamic that happened on the Fifth Green so emphasizes all of the wrong things that people think about golf. You know, all of that elitism, all of that absurd, you know, inscrutable application of rules that people that play the game, people like me and, you know, tens of thousands of folks like me who play the game and enjoy the game.

These rules don't work for any of us. They don't make any sense to any of us. And to have the outcome of the national championship that Fox is paying lots and lots of money to put on and produce, you know, with the, the possibility of a suspended outcome, and that's the other part of it that is, you know, just incalculably, how can, in what other walk of life is the outcome in doubt

because of a rules interpretation that happened an hour and a half ago? It just can't make any sense. Where is, you know, our buddy, my boy, Bill Simmons, has long been, you know, pining for a sports star, somebody that could come in in any situation and apply a quick dose of common sense. Who can do that for the USGA? They need a commissioner of common sense to join that outfit,

just to help them sort of understand. You said it perfectly tone-deaf, to let them understand what they're walking themselves into with this whole mess. And that's why, so Mike Davis is the executive director, and that's always been sort of their commissioner, and he now wears the title, executive director and CEO. And Mike rose to prominence and I've written ad nauseum about what a refreshing change he was for the organization when he essentially started taking over the setup of courses in 2007 and became the, actually 2006, and he became the executive director. And you saw yesterday he was nowhere to be seen.

Now, last year he was on every day on Fox. In this whole fiasco, we only saw him walking Dustin Johnson from. the 18th Green to the clubhouse so they could go review the video. Otherwise, Mike, I was not on Golf Channel. He was not on Fox. He was not in the press center. I made a request to the USJ to have him come to the press center. He used to come every year after the round to just kind of kick around stuff with the writers

and go through the setup, what worked, what didn't. And he disappeared yesterday. And so here was somebody who really kind of brought a solid, in-touch, perspective. Mike is a, you know, he's just not a, he wasn't a country club guy and a good player, but in touch and read a lot. And now you sense that he's kind of, I don't know, he disappeared. I feel like he's, he was that, they hired him to be that kind of guiding force that was in touch. And wow, he, he let other people, he kind of threw other people out there to deal with this yesterday. and I think that that's where he needs to do some serious examining of where they are

and who they think they are in the game and what their role is. And they are doing that, by the way, House. They're in the process of trying to simplify the rules of golf, and this may help expedite that. Yeah, it's a little late, but it, and I have a post up on golfdigest.com. If you just want to laugh, just read some of the stuff I took out of the decisions of golf, which, again, if you read it, They did follow their decisions somewhat accurately. There are a couple things that are debatable, but you read it and you just go, holy mackerel.

People sat around and wrote this and thought this. And people are asked to memorize these things. It's absurd. Each of the time, and God bless Jeff Hall, he went on both the Fox broadcast, and he went on the golf channel with an impossible task. And they had this guy Tom Pagel on also, Thomas. I'm sorry, Thomas Pagel. Thomas. And they both did their level best to take on the appropriate skepticism and righteous indignation.

But here's the thing. They kept coming back to this thing. Well, what caused the ball to move? And the answer is, you caused the ball to move. You did it. You set up this course. That's what the greens are 14.5 because of you. So you want to know what caused the ball to move?

You did. That's it. End of story. as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, and that's going to, that's, that was brought up, and that's another subject altogether. House, we need to take a break and thank our friends again, at Callaway, who now are offering a rewards program for the things we all already do, or most of us, attend some demo days, purchase newer use clubs, trade in old clubs, and so on and so on.

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apex blackhires, which showed up last week, by the way. Oh, did they get introduced? It's very convenient. And so it's nice having that added sort of comfort of knowing that you can watch through the doorbell. because the guys always ring the bell when they leave it. You can get comfortable that your package has been left there the way that UPS and FedEx says that they left. Did you, yeah, nice, but did you put the blacks in?

Are they still working with them before you, you know, I know a competition, it's a little hard to throw in the new irons? Yeah, yeah, they're going to make their debut this week. I'm going to take their virginity at the end of this week, and it's going to be wonderful for both of us. Can't wait to hear about it. All right. So let's get back.

to this fiasco at Oakmont and kind of, again, try to stick big picture. You know, a lot of people watching the U.S. Open are watching one of four golf tournaments a year they watch. And so they came away kind of feeling like you felt in the way you expressed earlier in the show that it just sort of is a tainting element. And we've heard the same thing for years with the NBA. We heard it again recently. A lot of more MBA's fixed conspiracy talk. And in golf, I even heard from some people who felt like this was almost a conspiracy by the USGA in the sense that back to the point I made about wanting to be loved, that they like interjecting themselves into the proceedings.

And I've always kind of felt like they do. It's a strange organization that they're very conservative, made up a lot of very conservative people who claim to not want to be in the spotlight. They like being in the background, doing the nuts and bolts stuff of the game. and they have some amazingly great people who do put in hard work, hard hours, doing the dirty work for the game, whether it's running something like the drive chip and putt or qualifiers, all this stuff.

And they fit that USGA motto for the good of the game and they're awesome people. But the organization's taken a turn where it's gone very corporate. They made this deal with Fox for the money and wanting to be having a partner who loved them. and I think it's a fascinating thing that there were people who are already saying, hey, they just want attention. They want to interject themselves in the proceedings. I just can't fathom doing it in this way. I guess my question to you is, as a sports fan in general,

does this taint the sport or were not enough people seeing it, understanding it, for it to do damage? Well, I think in a way it confirmed a bias that people come to golf with. You know, for folks, for fans that only watch, you know, the four majors every year, there is a sort of suspicion that the folks running the thing and the guys sort of playing it, that the entire enterprise isn't really for the rest of us. And that's why most folks approach it as sort of casual observers with casual interest, because it takes a lot of time, it's expensive to play,

and, you know, the rules seem to be inscrutable and not anything that anybody can make out of sense of, in a way that, like, you know, you watch an event, and the guys sort of duke it out, and at the end there will be a winner, and you can understand generally, generally going to be applied, and what the overall,

you know, sort of baseline framework is, it's funny that you sort of draw a parallel with the NBA who has been fighting this, this fixing allegation. It's as much as anything, just a fun conspiracy theory. It's been around for, you know, it feels like 35, 40 years. The one thing about the NBA, and I think this is the sort of similarity between the two, the NBA hasn't yet figured out how to solve for the difference, two important differences. One, the referees call regular season games differently from how they call playoff games. And then the second sort of problem that sort of compounds it is from crew to crew.

So they change the crew each and every time teams play. From crew to crew, there are different interpretations of the rules and different crews will call, and different individual referees will call fouls differently, depending on their own sort of biases. So in that regard, this idea that the USGA interjecting itself and not being satisfied to let the players just play the course and everybody in the moment making the best call and using their best judgment to get the rules correctly. Now, you know, DJ had another interesting moment there on 10.

He was elected to take a drop, right? The rules of golf permit that. He consulted with the rules official. Some people watching, I think there's a golf WRS thread that allege some illicit behavior there. But all he did was play by the rules of the game. It was easily sort of explained in the moment why he got it. It doesn't make sense for most of us regular Sunday players because we don't have TV towers in our line. site, but, you know, each of those sort of moments in terms of rules getting applied and enforced,

you want that to be a nice streamlined process where a casual observer can watch it and consume it and understand it, and then sort of move on, okay, that seemed just enough. I don't, maybe I don't agree. Maybe I don't like the way that Danny Crawford calls charges in a game seven. Maybe I wish that he wouldn't let the game be quite as physical in game seven between Golden State and Cleveland. But at least you sort of, you know, you see it, you deal with it, you move on. And that's what golf has to get right as well. So that's kind of my take on that. Yeah, okay.

Well, no, that's, and that'll be, I think, what we'll see, because there's so much to wrap your head around with this issue. And I think we'll watch this week. It'll be fun to, once the players have calmed down, hear how they react, if they continue to kind of keep coming at this and really hammering away or if it dies. I don't feel like this is going to die down because there are so many layers to this and so many things that are confusing. But to a sports fan, they're very interesting, and people who love the game, they're interesting because we probably need to use this as a moment to continue the effort to do things

like simplify the rules and try to shed some of this baggage and then obviously shed this obsession with fast greens. I mean, that ultimately, I hope we can move past because the rules of golf have been ridiculous for a while in terms of the language, but this green speed thing is out of control and it has to be something that is the ultimate take away from this. And every time I think we have an incident like this, it'll happen, but we've never had one where it was this dark. So House, it's, we've got to touch on a few things from the U.S. Open besides this. So what a perfect opportunity to use the speed round presented by Calloway and the XR driver,

where forgiveness meets fast. They are our great sponsor, and the XR was in the bag of Brendan Grace, who played quite beautifully, as we predicted. And he had the sub-zero driver, the 8.5 degree. And had a predictably great. U.S. Open. But so did Fox. I thought Fox had a, I'm not going to call it a great U.S. Open. I thought they had

a huge rebound from year one and an excellent week. I feel like they handled the controversy really well. They still had some big, big technical glitches and different stuff. You just saw Sunday, so you got to see

how well they handled the controversy. Any other views on Fox's performance and Joe Buck, who we talked about last week with Brian Curtis? I'll start with, so Joe Buck I thought was excellent. I want to start with the criticisms to get them out of the way, because I'm about to give Fox a really glowing review, but they still have some stuff to work on.

You mentioned Brandon Grace. Brandon Grace birdied 17 to get himself to one under. At a moment when DJ was still at 4 under, with the possibility of moving down to 3 under because of the rules fiasco, and we watched Brandon Grace T-off. He missed right, but it looked like it landed in an area that was trampled down by the spectators. His swing on 18 in that T-box was the last time we saw Brandon Grace for the day because, you know, the broadcast switched over to DJ and the rest.

But, you know, that was a guy on the golf course still in the mix to produce, you know, a really interesting finish possibly. and I would have liked to have seen his second shot from that trampled down lie into 18. I know that he bogeyed 18, and I understand why we didn't have to see him on the green, putting for bogey, because at that point in time, it was probably the case that he was out of the mix. But at least that second shot into 18, there was still some drama associated with that. So that's one criticism, not enough of the guy kind of in the mix. Yeah, and just so we're clear on that.

That was a trend the whole week where when you were, when you were, were out playing your member guests. They twice had guys going for the course record, the most famous course record in America, arguably, because of Johnny Miller, 63 and the circumstances. And both times, because I guess they weren't famous enough, Fox just kind of stuck with what was their, mostly their interest in the stars. And, you know, other networks, I think, would kind of lock in on somebody who has a chance at a course record or this amazing round on this difficult golf course. And they just didn't seem too interested in the lesser names. Whereas, you know, Tommy Roy's philosophy went NBC to the U.S. Open. He wanted to try to show at least one shot of all 156 players. And then, of course, when somebody

was doing something like those guys were doing, Andrew Landry was one of them. And like, we were screaming in the press center. Can we, you know, let's dive deep into this guy who might post the course record. And so that was just kind of a trend. I think it's more of a stylistic thing than it was an intentional or a screw-up. I think they'd just. just were, they're more interested in stars than some of the, than the previous years. Yeah, the other thing, Jeff, that I thought was curious was the cutting away from the open broadcast Saturday evening so they could present the Saturday evening baseball broadcast and moving the tournament over to FS1. That was a curious decision, I have to, I have to say.

Yeah, that's, you know, that, that was just, that was just bad. There's just, no other way to put it. I mean, the point of the USGA going to Fox was they didn't feel they got the love they deserve from NBC, and here's Fox going to. And in New York, they went to the Mets and the Braves. Wow. It was just deadly to have, and it was good stuff right now at that point. The action was good, and that was a bummer. So I did a post on that and some of the social media stuff. But let's get a couple positive things. Yeah, that's the criticism. It's out of the way. I thought that Fox, it felt like they went from, you know, early season novices a year ago to 20-year vets in just the course of 12 short months. I found the broadcast on the whole to be very professional. I really enjoyed listening to Zinger and Brad Faxon. I thought Buck was excellent. He was understated. I found him. him to be a good sort of manager, a good MC in terms of setting up topics and issues and

questions and moving between the guys. He's a pro, and I said on our pod last week, in connection with your interview of Brian Curtis, that notwithstanding the persona, you know, because he does have a little high horse to him. But that, you know, when he's a very comfortable voice. and a real expert manager, and that all came through on the broadcast. I also can't get enough of the incredible split-shot technology that they had. It was the home run of the week.

It was incredible. Go ahead. Everybody loved that, yeah. And all the stats that came with it. It's called Flight Track. Yeah. Yeah, Flight Track. I can't live without Flight Track now that I've had it.

I know. I know. And that's what Fox had promised to do. And this is the first thing I would say. They're very proud of their cups and the mics. Their mics in the cups, excuse me. And those are nice and everything. And they did pick up some dialogue a couple times. But they also sound a little video gameish to people at times. But the flight track is the kind of thing now. And the amount of ProTracer they use. Those are two things where they've raised the bar. And that's phenomenal. I got to say, I got to say on Buck, I think the biggest compliment I can pay is that I only groaned like three or four times all week listening to him like, Joe, why did you say that? You didn't need to do that. The rest of the time, you really didn't notice him,

and that is to me a compliment. I still got a lot of stuff on Twitter about how much people didn't like him, and he just has people who don't like him. I felt like Aisinger had some great moments. I felt he was a little bit unable to talk as much as he should have. I felt Faxson talked a little too much at times, and Curtis Strange struggled, as I kind of expected. I just don't see Curtis Strange as an on-course reporter. He's a studio guy, and I think he should have been in the studio. But they kind of brought him in on the studio on the weekend. I think they recognized that. Two-time open winners should not be out huffing and puffing, telling us that somebody's 147. I want to hear a little more big picture stuff from him, and so they'll use him better next year.

But Azinger and Faxon, here's the thing I wanted to say, I was so interesting. They clutched up on the rural situation with Dustin, and without being rude, they made it very clear how they felt. Now, Brandl and Frank on Golf Channel really got much more emotional and tough on the USDA, and that was their job. It's a post-game show, fine. But I thought A-Zinger and Faxon had just the right amount of skepticism, letting you know kind of what they think, without being, without overshadowing the proceedings. And that was just a huge.

So the irony is this is like this was the credibility moment for Fox. And yet their credibility moment came at the expense of their partner, the USGA, who went to them, one, for a whole bunch of money, but two, because I've always sensed they didn't feel like NBC loved them enough. And NBC, when there was a controversy, they covered it like news. And that pissed them off for years and they got their revenge going to Fox. well, what happens? Fox has its moment by covering this properly. And I think Fox also got a little lucky. I think they needed a reporter down there on some of the proceedings, but it worked out they

didn't end up needing that. So it's an odd irony. And I'm sure there's some tension there between the partners today. That's fine. It was a crucial test of Fox's independence and credibility. I loved the way that, to your point, that Zinger and Faxon conveyed their skepticism, their indignation, and I especially appreciated Fox putting up there almost in real time the commentary on Twitter from the game stars. I mean, we had Rory, we had Jordan, Ricky chimed in. There was a whole string of tweets that Fox went ahead and put up there for folks to see. it really added to the effectiveness of the broadcast, I thought, to have that outside perspective.

Yeah, that was big. And I'm sure in Far Hills today or tomorrow when they're meeting, they're not going to be very happy about that. But let's think about it a different way. If they had not done that and they had not covered this the way they covered it, they literally, there would be people saying, you have no business being in television, covering sports, you need to go away now.

So it was a big, big test they were faced with there. And let me tell you, they got a partner there at the USGA. They've got some great people in their television department, and they've got some people on that executive committee who are ruthless and clueless. And so I'm sure there's some tension there. But ultimately they came through. I think they still have some big issues on the tech side. This wasn't much of a speed round,

but we do have to touch on our guest, Jim Furik's performance house, two weeks ago, Jim was on. And I think it'd be, I'm actually going to go back and listen to our interview again now. Because I watched him come in yesterday, and he ended up finishing second. And he was not at the award ceremony, which I think a lot of people were upset by. He finished two and a half hours before the leaders. And he told us he thought he had no chance of, I mean, he just said, there's two guys out there. They're both not going to shoot four over on the back.

Well, of course, one of them did. But what an incredible performance coming off an injury, hasn't done a whole. whole lot this year, comes to his home state where there's a little extra pressure and finish his second at Oakmont again. This time, he said definitely not as a different kind second place than last time where it was a heartbreaker. Yeah, it was an incredible performance. He had like one bad nine-hole stretch, which was, I think, the front nine on Saturday. Yep, yep. And they weren't even big misses. You know, they were little misses, but that led to, and that's part of the charm of Oakmont.

Little misses lead to bogey, double bogey so quickly. But otherwise, you know, for a guy coming off injury in his position, somebody tweeted out, like, maybe we should reconsider this vice captain thing for Furek. He may be playing himself right into the mix. The round he had yesterday, including the bogey save on 18, which was pretty great, bogey save, considering where he was off the tee.

it was what do you end up 60 he shot 66 I was there he made a he made a he didn't something happened he tried to lay up and he laid up in the bunker and he was lucky to really make five because that bunker you could skull it into the clubhouse from there it was it was a great shot from the bunker his third shot and then he you know it's just a tough green to pup but yeah he almost had 65 and and if he'd gotten in the clubhouse at two under and if he'd gotten in at three under man was that a number to put up there and have people stare at But, especially if the birdie on 17 was huge balls, I loved it. Yeah, wasn't that sweet irony, Bernie 17? Right after the 2007 problem. Yeah, yeah, it's really cool. And he noted that. And the ovation was awesome.

I was out there, and people just went nuts at that. I think a lot of very knowledgeable fans at Oakmont, and they knew those little bits going in. Great, great week, by the way, I just got to say. Oakmont, cool place, Pittsburgh House, some of the nicest people I've ever experienced in any city. Downtown is beautiful. Just a great week.

It was really, other than that one, a little bit of weather, which nobody can do anything about. It was really a home run. Yeah, share with me. What was the best meal you had? You know, Lydia's Italian food was really good. There was a place called Meat and Potatoes. I tried to get in and could not get in.

It was just so popular. I was a little bummed at that. But Lydia's this Italian place, down in the strip was excellent. I was going to try to get to breakfast this morning at Pamela's or DeLuca's, but it just didn't happen too much to do and wanted to get ready for their show. But I can't wait to come back here. Just loved being downtown.

We had a great week here, and Oakmont was awesome. So I've got to say a quick word, and then House, I want to ask you one last question, and we'll say goodbye. But I've got to say a quick word about Odyssey, our friends from Calum. Holloway or partners with Odyssey. The Brandon Grace putted beautifully with the Odyssey versus V-Line. Jim Furek used the Odyssey versus number one, wide putter, white, black, and white. And, you know, these white-hot RX putters house, they're new this year.

They are absolutely going nuts. It was the number one putter in golf, number one putter at Oakmont. These beauties combine the classic of the white-hot, earned-shirt insert feel. And the players are just absolutely going nuts with this. and when you put on greens like Oak Munch, you need all the little advantages you can get. So check out those great putters at odysseygolf.com. It's the number one putter and golf.

So, Jeff, last week we talked quite a bit about guys that we like and different angles, and I went on the Twitter and put out a handful of plays. I ended up making maybe like a half dozen plays. Did you get in on any action? Because you had some great points of view. We talked to, they put out some props for some over-under. there was a whole one prop.

What'd you do? What'd you end up getting in on? You know, it was one of those weeks. I'm really mad because for once, everything that I kind of figured might happen sort of happened other than Jason Day, just not quite finishing it off there at the end. I mean, what a great performance.

He was my pick, and I'm thinking, oh, this guy's making the late charge. He's Zenata coming from out of the clouds, and he's going to do it, and then he stumbled at the end. So, no, we tried to get a little wager and going, in the press center, our usual kind of fun bets and different stuff to keep us going

on those days when it's about hour 15 and the popcorn just isn't cutting it as a dinner. And I didn't. I sat out. How'd you do? I did okay. I played four, five, or six different things. I was on the wrong side

of a make-the-cut bet. Thanks, Rory. Goodness gracious, Rory McElroy. That's it. I'm out on Rory now. I believed him at the Masters, and I talked myself into them right at the last minute for the open here. And, you know, I watched some of the guys as the tournament started. Everybody saw Rory's in form. Rory could be done.

Okay, let me stick Rory in one of these little wagers. Rory, change his whole game plan on me. If I know he's going to change game plan, I would have left him off to make the cut bet. How about the Dayglow? Did you see the Dayglow hat he wore? I mean, he did the right thing. He threw it to a kid. gave it to a kid.

You'll never see him in that hat again. That was such a here, kid, that was a mistake. I'm never doing that again. It was beautiful. That's what I love about Rory. You know, he's actually kind of a regular guy that way. It's like he'll probably sit there and roll his eyes. We'll never see, never going to see that missed a cut hat again.

No, no, no. I did. So I was wrong on 282 and a half as the winner's final. You were correct. went on the Twitter and told everybody, hey, there's rain in the forecast. It's going to be under. And the other one was the low round of the week was 66.5, I believe. And I believe I have to take that under, baby, and it got broken, what, four times, I believe. Or maybe five. Yeah, there was 65 out there, too. I mean, right, it got busted a number of times. I did hit a handful of

things. I hit the no-hole in one, and that was one that I went pretty big on. I just thought the way the USG, Oakmont in particular, there's really only one par three that feels even reachable, and it kind of played that way. Yes. And, you know, I didn't think the USDA was going to let anybody get anywhere near with the pin positions, and so that worked out well. I did hit Brendan Grace with a top 10 finish. That one turned out nicely.

Nice. And most delightfully, because it was the guy that I was rooting for, and I said on the Twitter I'd be rooting for him, I wanted to have a little vested interest. I hit my man-man DJ at 12-1, so glorious outcome with everything the way it turned out. Beautiful. You picked the winner. That's nice. That's a good price, too, for a guy who finished second last year. Wow, nice workhouse. Yeah, I'm going to jinx it. I know I'm going to do this terribly, but I've now had a wager on the winter in each of the two majors so far the season. I'd will it at 50 to 1, which was

delicious. But DJ at 12 to 1, not half bad. Beautiful. Well, we'll definitely be working this hard for the Open Championship coming up. We've got shows, I believe, every week coming up through the end of the open. So we'll be doing our wagering, and there's always some fun prop bets over there. I'll be over there. I can't wait to see. Although, again, they've been a little lazy with the prop bets. I mean, I love that hole in one bet. That's a fun one. And, of course, we were bummed last week's show.

We couldn't get into stuff like that, winning score and low round. That's really fun stuff to ponder. And I think the thing that was interesting about Oakmont this week, and this is the last thing I'll say is it ended up playing out kind of like you'd expect with the weather forecast. And I think it's interesting. Like I said at the start of the show, it may not go over well with USGA, but I think it's interesting that to see a player kind of take all that into consideration

and adapt. And Dustin might not have, he might not have played any other way, but we saw him just stick to the way he plays. He knew how Anhele Cabrera played the course last time, went with a game plan, it paid off. He also executed, by the way, quite beautifully. That kind of helps too.

And the people around him, people like Claude Harmon gave him great input, and, you know, Claude pretty much stayed out of the way, so he was just hitting it so good. And it's just so great to see it all come together. It's fun to see that in spite of what happened with USAJ, it all kind of made sense. You know, the week, as crazy as it was, the golf played out kind of like you'd expect with the weather, the setup, the greens, who was playing well coming in, who wasn't, who made the right strategic calls about attacking Okman.

And I hope ultimately it's satisfying for people on that front. Yeah, well, all I can say is DJ, DJ, DJ, DJ. That's my takeaway. I loved that I couldn't get enough of it. All right, well, thanks again to our great friends at Calloway and Odyssey for their support. Thanks again to Athletes Collective for sponsoring today's episode. Remember, they offer great quality for the active wear without the logos for 30 to 40% cheaper, and I think they're being a little bit modest on that.

Then the big brands by going to Athletescollective.com. It is really well-made stuff and ridiculously fair-priced. And there's a promo. Code House. Don't forget that. I slept in the shorts last night. I love the athletes' collective shorts. They're perfect for this warm weather. Okay, I don't need any more details than that. I'm just saying. They're nice shorts to sleep in. And last thing, this week's podcast was brought to us by the new HBO series. Any Given Wednesday

House. It's finally here. Bill Simmons' big show on HBO debuts Wednesday, June 22nd at 10 p.m. on HBO. He's got field segments. He's got comment. Terry, the promos, the ads have been everywhere. People are excited. And, of course, we're also brought to you by the new website, Theringer.com, presented by Miller Lite.com. There's been some, excuse me, Miller Lite. There's been some great reading.

Go now, check out the latest in pop culture, sports, and tech at the Ringer House. Big week. Last week, it's going to be a great week for Bill, and the folks at the Ringer, can't wait to see it all play out. Yeah, I've seen a couple sneak peek moments for Bill's show. It's going to be, I know I'm an unabashed at home,

It's going to be funny as fuck. Believe that out. It's going to be really good. It's going to be really good. It's going to be, it's going to exceed folks' expectations. And on that note, we have earned our explicit tag without question. Thanks for listening to Shackhouse. We will talk to you next week and Shaq House.

Bye.