Fairway Rollin' - Ep. 19: PGA Playoffs and Ryder Cup With Ted Bishop

Episode Date: August 30, 2016

Geoff Shackelford and Joe House discuss the FedEx Cup playoffs and who's in and who's out for Ryder Cup captain's picks. Then, Ted Bishop (25:00) former PGA of America president and author of ‘Unfriended,’ joins ‘ShackHouse’ to discuss Davis Love and the 2016 Ryder Cup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shack House is brought to you, friends, by Calloway's new Steelhead XR irons. These irons take design cues from the old school beautiful steelhead X-14s, one of the most popular irons of all time. I love that shape. And of course, added to that legendary shape is Calloway's new 360 face-cut cup technology. the combination of speed, forgiveness, distance, and control you've come to expect from Calloway's R&D department. Calaway, the number one irons in golf. Today on Shackhouse, the BGA Tour playoffs are underway. The Ryder Cup fun is getting going and getting juicy and political. And we have a great special guest in Ted Bishop, former PGA of America president, who is going

to discuss with us all things, Ryder Cup, a lot of juicy stuff in his new book, Unfriended. Welcome to the Shack House. We are back after a week off and in the midst of playoff fever house. Are you able to cope with the pressure and the thrills of PGA Tour playoff golf? What? Yeah, it's a little bit of a downer after the Olympics, isn't it? Well, it's, you know, the Olympics ended up being such an unexpected and unanticipated, both on the men's side and the women's side, both the performances and the,

the narratives exceeded all expectations. So there's natural letdown. And fortunately, we had a PGA event in there that was the Wyndham event to kind of catch our collective breath. This week was a pretty terrific tournament at a pretty terrific venue. What did you think about Bethpage and Patrick Reed's performance there? Yeah, it was kind of an ugly ending, but, you know, four days at Bethpage Black will do that to anybody. I was just so happy House for Bethpage to finally have a tournament where it could show off the venue and sunshine and firm ground. And I think the greens were okay. They looked a little pekin on Sunday.

But yeah, every tournament that's been there has been marred by either rain or bad course setups or more bad course setups and more rain. And it's always been sort of a dreary kind of feeling afterwards. And so, you know, the fans got a little silly there at the end, but I just saw at the golf course, even though I can't stand to look at some of those bunkers. But it just looks so good. It kind of had that Pine Valley thing going with the eighth hole, the Part 3 over the water. And it just looked super. And the guys were, yeah, they were hitting good shots. And it just was one of those things.

Nobody at the end kind of other than Patrick Reese sort of holding on. But, you know, that's not the end of the world sometimes. We get spoiled, I think, by these tournaments that end with such thrills. Sometimes it's just like the car that doesn't crash into the wall that the wins. And it's not my favorite kind of golf to watch, but a golf course like that set up the way it was, that's probably what should happen. Yeah, that's right.

Every once in a while, it's okay if the golf course wins, right? It doesn't have to be the players going out in the open championship and shooting 23 under or at, you know, Jimmy Walker at Baldurst. are all, you know, shooting in the mid-teens. Yeah. It's okay for the course to win one. Yeah, and it's different when it wins one like that, whereas there's a setup issue where the rough is silly

and it just becomes a chop-out fest. And the rough was tough there, but it didn't define the tournament. The golf course sort of defined the tournament and just being a great exam. And I was really happy for them. And so my only concern is, when they do host the PGA and the Ryder Cup that maybe we have a, you know, seventh inning cut off on the alcohol sales,

because it was getting a little bit shaky there. And I think that was funny. That was one of the things people mentioned about the Olympic golf, how happy they were to not have a crowd yelling weird stuff on back swings and mashed potato or whatever. Yeah, it was noticeable that that was absent at the Olympics. I don't know how you manage a New York crowd. Yeah.

at Beth Page. I guess you could try and limit alcohol sales, but I don't know. Part of that is the charm. Everyone, you know, it's once every handful of years that Beth Page hosts an event, and it's a course for the people and the people come out. So I'm okay with it in limited doses. Yeah, they just have to watch it at the Ryder Cup because you don't want somebody doing something that impacts the outcome. I don't mind the pro-USA stuff and a little bit of heckling of somebody. who, you know, Ian Poulter kind of dishing it out and the crowd dishing it back, but you just don't want it to get to where it. Yeah, you want it to be the players like Justin Leonard sprinting up the green after making a put

that didn't even win the match against the Walthabble. That's okay. Oh, now, oh, boy, you're really, you've been listening to way too many of the Europeans. You know, they still, they still talk about that. God, let it go. All right. So now, speaking of golf courses that are defining an event, well, this week we're recording this on Tuesday of Deutsche Bank Week, and this is, I believe, the last Deutsche Bank Championship under

that name. It's become kind of a Labor Day tradition of starting on Friday and ending on Monday, and the golf course of TPC Boston has produced great finishes before and after Gilhance's redo. It's an Arnold Palmer original design, and it's one of those, if you looked at on Paperhouse, you wouldn't have expected this tournament to succeed because the course is kind of remote. It's not really connected to Boston. It was an Arnold Palmer course that wasn't very good. It had no New England feeling whatsoever. And that's kind of what Gill tried to inject while also working within a lot of confines of members' needs and golf course needs. And so it's become this event where it just seems to always produce these great finishes. And maybe it does favor the long hitters a little

bit more than other golf courses. But I'm glad. I feel like the tour has saved it. We'll get more details this week, but I feel like they've saved the event, and it's going to continue in this slot going forward. And is that a fair assessment of kind of how you view this? Yeah, I have come to really enjoy this event. I love how it falls on the calendar. It's a perfect time in New England. I'm actually in New England right now on my summer break, finally. The weather up here is spectacular. It's barely going to touch 80 degrees on any of these days this week. And I especially like this event as a kind of end of summer tournament where it falls on the calendar that Friday to Monday has developed kind of an end of summer feel to it. You know, it's a, it's a,

it's a benchmark moment in the golf calendar and also just sort of on the on the calendar here in the US and it precedes the arrival of football. So it gets its own kind of moment. It's a nice, lazy way to spend Labor Day. It's nice to have golf on on Labor Day. And the course itself has been producing these great finishes. We have a conversation with Ted Bishop today. And he talks a little bit about Chris Kirk and Billy Horshiel in 2014. And that Billy Horschell laying the sod on 18 is one of the all-time interesting moments in this tournament. It produces interesting finishes. It does. And I credit both the Arnold Palmer Group and Gil for doing that and just kind of the routing. And Gil's just brought the New England element. He's now going to fix the 12th and 13th

holes after the tournament this year, which were two of the last greens that were sort of remnants of the old course. And they're two potentially really great holes. So I can't wait to see what he does with that. But let's be honest house, nobody cares about the playoff ramifications going into this. And in a Ryder Cup year, that makes the playoffs just look. You know, this year could have gone a couple of ways.

The Olympics could have been a dud, and we would have been sort of welcoming these playoffs. But really, when you get away from not just the Olympic golf, but the competition in so many other Olympic sports, and other than gymnastics, and a few of these where you have judges, diving,

it's just pure athletic competition. and then you come back to this, the playoffs, the plugs for everything known to man, the algorithms and all these ramifications that are just not that interesting. Mercifully, we have the Ryder Cup to look to in the politics of that because it's far more interesting, I feel, to kind of anticipate what's going into these matches and the egos and the politics and the bickering. And I really thought this year was going to be a fairly bland one. going in but it looks like davis love and darren clark are going to come through in in ways i hadn't

expected in making this uh a traditional rider cup where it the hoopla the the the weird behavior is is part of the spectacle so darren clark made his picks this morning we're recording tuesday august the 30th he went with keimer westwood and peters i don't think either one of us really could take issue with uh westwood or peters peters has been unbelievable The curious one I think we both agree on is Kimer. And to me personally, I just can't fathom how you can leave Russell Knox off a team based on the year that he's had. And in his place put Kimer on who's had a couple of nice moments. He had a pretty good PGA performance.

He was okay in the Olympics. But clearly that's a selection onto the Rite. the Euro Rider Cup team based on his experience. And it's really interesting choosing experience over a guy who's just been clicking in top 10 after top five. And then he had the win three weeks ago at the Travelers. How can you leave Russell Knox off? Well, this is where the politics are really fun in the whole Rider Cup thing.

They just treat it so differently in Europe. You know, Martin Kimer is a hero for life for sinking a winning put to seal the fate of Americans at Medina. He has always been a very positive Rider Cup presence to them, and he has sort of now shifted his allegiance back to the European tour. And I don't think you can underestimate how much that plays a role in these decisions. It's why Paul Casey has essentially just stayed out of the whole thing and decided not to be part of it this year because he likes living in the United States. He likes playing the PGA tour. And he knew if it came down to him and somebody else that he would not get picked because he's not loyal to the European tour. And Russell Knox, to his credit,

did a great job this year playing this sort of balanced schedule between the two tours. You can't really knock him. He's played an international schedule. He's moved up in the rankings to 20th. And I don't think, though, that it helped him that he does split time, whereas Peters is loyal to the European tour and then I'm not quibbling in any way with Peters as a pick. He is a sensational player and is somebody who has a

potential to really develop and House he hits the ball a mile. I mean he was hitting it past Bubba in Rio a few times when they played together and Hazeltine's going to be really really long. What but House? The

fun of this though is the fact that Luke Donald was a And I believe this was apparently going to be Darren Clark's third pick, his all-experience, a threesome of captain's picks, until Peters went and won the Maiden Denmark on Sunday in pretty dramatic fashion. And the idea that Luke Donald, who was way down the list, points-wise, was going to make it off of a second at the Wyndham. And he does have a great Rider Cup record. But this golf course is so long. and I just can't fathom that he was actually a pick to the point where somebody started popping into various William Hill outlets in Northeast England and plopping down 20 pounds here and 100 pounds here and there. And that he was, I don't know, I think it was at about six to one as a captain's pick.

And then William Hill, somebody got suspicious. I'm assuming they looked at the security cameras and went, wait, I've seen that person before. and he bet on Luke Donald two towns over. This was just, I mean, this is the kind of stuff I love about the Ryder Cup, that this went on and it just raises a lot of questions about somebody knew something. Somebody knew something. It was an incredible story. I love that William Hill shut it down.

How impressive, you know, how sophisticated that they were tracking, because they were the The nominations, according to the news reports, were small. It wasn't somebody came in and flooded the market. Nobody splashed the pot on Luke Donald. Well, you do have to wonder who's betting on captain's picks anyway. So I guess any kind of activity on that. Oh, easy now, easy now. Gets their attention.

Well, there's some odds available out there on the U.S. side. I might be making. Look, if somebody gets hot in these next couple weeks, you might see a little allocation of capital out of house. Yeah, on who? I don't know yet. I don't know. You're just going to watch. What if somebody like Daniel Berger or my man, Gary Woodland, one of those guys gets super hot, rips off a couple wins?

I think the one that Davis has the infatuation with is Justin Thomas. He gave that away a little bit that he's ignored. And we get into this in our chat with Ted Bishop, that he telegraphed things a little bit there by saying that he is ignoring basically the task force that the PGA put together. to lay out all these new guidelines and is really giving Justin Thomas a lot more weight than the points are giving him, which is just another. This is another unbelievable thing.

So I don't know how many people followed this. It wasn't interesting, but they create this task force to lay out all these ways that you need to play your way onto the Ryder Cup team. And now Davis Love, who was part of the task force, admitted on Monday, he's just pretty much throwing out a big part of that because he just doesn't really like the way

the points are breaking down for Justin Thomas. I don't understand the Justin Thomas infatuation at all. Oh, really? Okay. He's fine. He's been good. But I wouldn't, I would have, I can name five guys I'd rather have a head of Justin Thomas right now. And I, you know, I'll name him.

I mean, I'd rather have Gary Woodland, who's been, you know, right near the top, a whole, a whole series of events, including good performances in the majors this year. I like what Daniel Berger's done. He got hurt, which is the only thing that kind of took away some of the momentum from the W that he produced down at the St. Jude. Bill Haas has been pretty damn good lately and has a nice record in the international play. And I can name a couple others. I'm not going to.

But I'm not sure. Where is this Justin Thomas Love coming from? If I had to guess, I'd say it was just that the young guys, and Paul Casey touched on this in the whole debate over rookies and all that stuff, that there's a sense, and I agree with it, that the younger players, the millennial generation here, is a little better equipped for the Ryder Cup. They've kind of grown up seeing what a spectacle it is. They know it's going to be insane. They're excited about it. And there's definitely a feeling that some of these younger. players are just not going to really act like rookies when they get there. And I think Davis feels like

he's one of those people who's going to kind of eat up the whole thing the way Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed did. But I think there's also just as much danger that he wants it so bad, he loves it so much, that he may just try a little bit too hard. And we've also seen that happen at the Ryder Cup. Well, he should just play better. If he wants to be on the Ryder Cup, then I mean, look at this. Since June. he uh he was a since his his t three at the players he missed the cut at the memorial he had he tied for 32nd at the u.s open he tied for 12th at congressional at the quick and loans t 33 at the bridge stone t 353 yeah that's a killer by the way that there's only there were only like what 55 players this year right he tied for 53rd in the open championship he tied for 66 at the pGA championship he tied for 66 at the

the PGA championship. I mean, the most impressive thing he's done here in the last month, he tied for third at the Travelers and tied for 10th at Barclays this most recent event. But, you know, that's not a resume that makes me get up out of my seat and say, yeah, that's one of my 12. But how's he's on Snapchat? He's cool, man. He's snapping.

He's got a playoff mustache. He's got a mascara-applied mustache. I mean, the homie can't cool. Let's be honest. Look, by the way, I've been slightly killing Justin Thomas. Huge fan of Justin Thomas. Yeah, no, I know, I know. But, you know, for the purposes of trying to ride or wrong to redirect the ship that has been steered and veered so far off course that we're talking about the Rider Cup, we need 12 horses.

And I don't think he's quite a horse yet. And J.B. Holmes is one of those players, I think, that excites a captain to throw out. out there in bestball. Because when he is playing well, and he can attack a course and he can hit as far as he does. And a place like Hazeltine, that will help. I think that's just a, it's an attractive element. Well, that's my guy. I hope he sticks and Furik remains where he's already stationed, which is assistant captain riding in the golf cart. Starts using a deodorant stick, J.B. That's his, I think that's where he needs to fit in the team room a little better. He's not a fan of, yeah. that. I don't care. He hits the ball for 100 yards. That is his nickname, JBO. Stink it up, J.B.

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And one other point, I have already just done my first Trunk Club gift certificate for somebody, and this is not something they mentioned as they'd like us to mention. But I think it's a great gift if you've got somebody you know who isn't big on shopping or just is kind of you're looking for a little different kind of gift trunk club.com cool, cool gift to give somebody. Give him a little credit, let them have some fun and it's not a lot of work. All right, so Ted Bishop, I've known now for a few years, just seen him at golf tournaments and he's a very interesting guy, I think got a very unfortunate and unfair rap for a stupid little comment, and I didn't mean to use little, but he got into a Twitter spat

and a Facebook spat with Ian Poulter. And it was one of those goofball things that snowballed and got picked up in news things all over the world. And I think it was really unfortunate. He had about 28 days to go in his presidency. I thought he brought amazing energy to the PGA of America, an organization that needed it and still needs it. I feel like they've kind of kind of flatlined a little bit post- Ted. And so he's written a new book, Unfriended, and the title of the book probably would be, I could see where some people would not pick it up

because they see that title and they think, well, this is just going to be Ted ranting and raving about getting kind of a bad deal. It's unfriended, power brokers, political correctness, and hypocrisy and golf. But we have him on today because one of the best parts of the book, besides being this great little study of how to handle a media situation, being a total behind-the-scenes look at these big egos and golf and how it all works.

I think the best part of the book, though, are all of Ted's memories as an officer and then as president of the PGA of America behind the scenes at the Ryder Cup and involved with captain selections and all that. So he's a very interesting guy, and I think you'll enjoy the conversation as much as we did in having it with him. So here's our chat with Ted Bishop. Joining us now is Ted Bishop, the former president of the PGA of America, 38th president of the PGA of America and general manager of the Legends Golf Club, Ted, welcome to the show. Congratulations on your new book, Unfriended. We talked about it a little bit before we started this interview. House and I did, and I've just finished the book, and it's a sensational read,

and so we appreciate you coming on to talk about it. Well, Jeff and Joe, I appreciate the opportunity to be with you guys and talk and enjoy your podcast and everything you do for golf. Well, thank you. You know, we really, we were going to save you for a little closer to the Ryder Cup, Ted, to be honest. But things have been shaping up in a fascinating way already with this Rider Cup. I did not expect to have some of the dramas that we're already starting to see and the politicking and all the good stuff. And so when I was reading your book and then juxtaposing that against Davis Love and Darren Clark and what's going on, I think it's appropriate for you to kind of be able to speak to what goes into the Rider Cup. And so if you could just kind of set up for us what the president and the officers of the PGA of America do in relation to the Rider Cup and picking captains and all that good stuff, you do a very nice job in the book.

But for our listeners, just kind of give us an overview of that role. Well, I think that's an interesting question, Jeff, because I don't think the way that I did it and my predacy done in the future. But, you know, in the past, the PGA of America had always been, captain needed to be in their mid to late 40s. They needed to be someone that had been a major champion and someone that had played on multiple Ryder Cup teams. And, you know, if you go way back in time, you know, some of the early Ryder Cup captains, probably even into the 50s. 50s and maybe even early 60s were always former PGA champions. So that was kind of the unofficial criteria. And I know when I became an officer of the PGA of America in 2008,

I remember Julius Mason, I kind of asked him that same question. You just asked me. And, you know, tongue-in-cheek, Julius is our director of media relations. You know, he had said, well, we have a napkin here. It's a PGA of America that one of our high-profile players has written the chronological order of the Ryder Cup captains on. And that's kind of the model that we, you know, stick with. And I think that that was probably, there was more truth, to be honest with you.

And in 2014, I think the next guy that was on that list, you know, for my standpoint, I guess the president, particularly the 2014 Ryder Cup, and, you know, knowing that we were going to play in Scotland and that Tom Watson had had as a player in Scotland, winning five major championships there. The fact that he was the last winning Ryder Cup captain we had on foreign soil, you know, the choice seemed to be almost a no-brainer in 2014 to go with Tom.

Now, I think going forward with the advent of this task force, I don't know that PGA officers quite truthfully are really going to have any say-so. I think that the task force is going to pretty much tell the PGA of America who those captains need to be. And I think, you know, to a degree, that's kind of unfortunate because I don't think that the PGA of America over the years really made any bad choices as captains.

I mean, I know there's been rider cups where we lost soundly, but I remember having a conversation with Tiger Woods when we were looking at former captains to put on that task force, and he talked about Tom Lehman. And he said, you know, I know we got drilled when we were at the K-club in Ireland, but he said, honestly, Tom might have been the best Ryder Cup captain I ever played. for. So, you know, that's kind of my take on it right now. All right. So now, you were involved with Davis Love's selection in 2012 when you were an officer. And I think one of the things that just jumped out to me in the book, you really loved working with Davis, and it was a great experience,

and he seemed to have done a great job. And like you said, there really haven't been that many, it's hard to say there have been bad captains because you can't control what goes. on on the golf course. However, he did take some blame for some whole locations there. And you discuss in the book about his decision to pick Jim Furek over Hunter Mayhan. But the thing that struck me in the news recently this week with Davis speaking, and this is what I'm kind of curious to hear your thoughts on, you've mentioned the task force that was put together after the Losing Rider Cup in 2014. And one of the findings of that task force was they decided to know longer award points to fall PGA tour events. And then Davis made some odd comments to me in that

he said, one, he's looking very hard at analytics going into this next Rider Cup here at Hazeltine. Then he also in the same press conference said he basically doesn't like the analytics of the new point system that this task force has sort of saddled him with. And I'm just curious how you read that, that he's already kind of throwing the task force aside. but then also getting so deep into these numbers. Is this a reaction to the way he worked last time? You know, I think I quoted a story in the book, and I talked about Steve Stricker had relayed this story to me, Jeff,

about the meeting that took place on the Saturday night at Medina before the singles matches. And Steve talked about all the guys that were in the room. He and Tiger and Phil and Furek and all the assistant captains they were talking about the lineup and the order for the following day. And, you know, Steve said it was just a base tied together. Too many opinions, too many things going on in the room. And I think if there's, I love Davis love.

I mean, a tremendous amount of respect for him. He was, in my opinion, a great captain, as you said. But I think if there's one thing that he is susceptible to, it's overthinking the situation. And I've watched all those same interviews here in the last week or two, myself. And, you know, one of the things that I felt really responsible for in 2014 was bringing the fall series into the Ryder Cup points. And I know that was a big deal at the time to Tim Finchham. And ironically, it was also a big deal to Davis Love because Tim and I made that announcement

at the Mcgladry in the fall of 2013. And so certainly Davis's own tournament would have benefited from that. And, you know, I heard some of the same comments, Davis made about Justin Thomas and talking about his FedEx Cup points at the time he was ranked 10th and he was 25th and writer cup points. And Justin would be a classic player along with Kevin Kisner of guys who really did not benefit from this change in schedule. And I said from the get-go, I felt like that Phil Mickelson was really responsible for the way this thing was revamped. I thought that giving half points for the WGC events in the off year, you know, certainly benefited him. He was a player that didn't play in the fall series. And so the deck was kind of stacked in his favor.

But I was just as shocked as you were to really 360 degrees off of what the task force had recommended. I kind of laughed at that comment. I thought, well, then why do we even have a task force? Yeah. Now, one of the things for me that was really interesting in reading kind of what's going on now and then reading your book is you get into the obvious issues with sort of a generational divide that occurred at the 2014 Rider Cup with Tom Watson and his crew, Ray Floyd, Annie North, and then sort of the new mentality. And I'm just fascinated by the comment that Davis Love made this week that Patrick Reed was one of the people who, kind of inspired him to really take these analytics more seriously, and it was a way for him to go to a player and convince them that they needed to play with somebody. And you have a great story in the book that you can probably tell better than I'll do it in the retelling. But where Webb Simpson asked Ray Floyd, who was your favorite person to play with?

And Floyd's answer, I think, is very telling in that he comes from a generation where you should just be honored to be playing in the Ryder Cup, and you go where the captain tells you to go, and now you have Davis Love looking to analytics to convince somebody to play with somebody else, which I read as he needs numbers to convince somebody to play with certain players who people don't like to play with. But this generational divide, is that really what it's kind of coming down to,

is convincing players that they want to play with somebody? And is that a bad sign for the U.S.? sign in general for the Ryder Cup. And I remember, I was with Nick Faldo, obviously, at the Greenbrier Cup. And this was at the height of when Watson was getting a lot of criticism. And, you know, at dinner one night, Faldo said, you know, I can't tell you how many times I would be at lunch on Friday or Saturday. And he said, I would have no idea who my partner was going to be that afternoon. He said, we could be playing an alternate shot.

we could have never played a practice round together. He said, certainly the golf is not an issue. And he said, you never talked about a story that you mentioned about Raymond Floyd. I can remember it like it was yesterday. We were on the 11th green in a practice round at Glen Eagles, and they were showing a bunch of rider cup highlights on the JumboTron. And Raymond was up there, and Webb Simpson walked up to Raymond, and he said, Raymond, he said, in all the rider cups that you played in,

he said, you know, if you had to pick one guy, who would you want to be your partner? and, you know, Raymond looked at him with those beady eyes that he's got where you can just stare right through you. Yeah, I wouldn't want that look. He folded, you know, he folded his arms and he looked at Webb and he said, Webb, this is the Ryder Cup. He said, you play with whoever they tell you to play with. And so, yeah, I think you're kind of onto something. And it's curious to me, you know, I mean, my experience with that,

one thing was kind of interesting, you know, Neil Oxman, Tom's caddy, and of course many people just know him as Tom's caddy, but he's one of the foremost political strategist in the United States. He owns a company called the Campaign Group in Philadelphia, Caddys for Watson Grattison, and just does it because he likes to be around the game. But this guy's brilliant. And, you know, he started circulating articles to Tom and to Andy North and myself early in 2014 on Millennials. And tried to, and Andy, understand how these people think. And, you know, Watson got criticized for this generation gap, but I can tell you, without any reservations whatsoever, the people that were really looking forward to playing for him going into that Ryder Cup were the younger players.

I can't tell you how many of those guys stop me after we picked Tom or made comments to me in the lead-up to the Rider Cup. Man, I can't wait to play for Tom Watson. To play for a legend and icon, you know, how motivating is this going to be. And I've got to be honest with you, I saw no generational problems at that 2014 Rider Cup until all hell broke loose on Saturday night in that team room with Phil Mickelson. And then all of a sudden it became an issue on Sunday night. And I said this in the book. I mean, there was talk within the PGA of America on that if we won this thing,

why would we not bring Tom Watson back as the Ryder Cup captain? So I just think there were a lot of things that took place over there. problems, but it's been interesting. Like you say, Davis is one of these guys that, you know, he wants everybody to be all in, I think, on the decision. He really

tries to build consensus almost to a fault. I want everybody to like him, which they do. But, you know, sometimes you just got to make tough decisions and make people mad. And it'll be interesting to see how all that

unfolds. So, Ted, you've mentioned the 2014 decision-making a couple different times here, and one of the things that always stuck out to me, and I'm hoping that we can avoid this year, did this go around, Chris Kirk had won the tournament in Boston, the one that's coming up this weekend, and immediately the day after, got a call from Tom Watson with Tom telling Chris that he was not going to be on the team. And there were some stories that came out afterwards that suggested that Webb Simpson had, you know, kind of lobbied Watson a fair amount. And Kirk, by contrast, had done no lobbying whatsoever. But we missed out on both Chris Kirk and Billy Horsal, two players that were hot going into the Ryder Cup. And instead had some guys that have never won a Sunday singles match, including Webb Simpson and Keegan Bradley and Hunter Mayhan, the inclusion of the fall events, let Davis focus on guys that could come in with a hot hand. Do you think that

might sway his thinking this go-around? You know, the captain's picking out. We're going to be on the Tuesday night, and you're correct, Kirk won the tournament. I don't know if you recall how Kirk won the tournament, but he absolutely limped in on the 17th and 18th holes for the victory. This won the FedEx Cup that year. If you remember, he hit about

four inches behind his on the 18th hole, laid the sod over it, and knocked it in the hazard in front of the green and wound up losing the tournament to Kirk and then of course he went on to win the next two events. And I remember

I was in New York in my hotel room. Tom was still in Kansas City, and I was kind of the statistician that Davis has referred to numerous times during the last couple of weeks, and so I sent Watson a text, and I said, you want the numbers on Chris Kirk? And he texted me back, and he said, are you kidding me? He said the guy was choking his guts out, the last two holes. And if you recall the way he finished, you know, I fear and the ability to pick a player, you know, after the, I think it's really interesting. I was looking at that list in preparation for this interview, and if you

look at the five guys that are really kind of next right now in the points, in Fowler, Watson, Couture, Furek, and well, I threw Furek in there, J.B. Holmes would be the fourth. You know, it's doubtful, I'm going to say at this

point in time that one of those guys is going to win the FedEx Cup. So then you look at the next group of 10, Gersie, Haas, Berger, Apple, Moore, Hoffman, Na, Summerhays, and in those guys, it just seems like every Rider Cup, these guys are all bunched in that 15th through 25th rung, and they never make the Rider Cup team.

And, of course, you've got Kisner and Justin Thomas, who we've already talked a little bit about. So, you know, I've got to tell you, even though that last captain's pick is going to be after the take that Sunday to make that choice based on what these current points are, which, again, is kind of interesting to me with all these revamps that have been done with the task force and the point system, I think it's going to be a mute matter, really.

Now, let's get on the topic of Furik because you wanted Hunter Mayhan in 2012 over Furik, and you mentioned how close C.N. Davis are. Where do you see him playing into this Rider Cup? And also, Ted, I think the golf course is a factor here. I was a little shocked by Luke Donald's, possible inclusion on the European team because of his length off the T and the length of Hazeltine.

And I'm curious if you think that will play into the decision, say, if it comes down to Furek and J.B. Holmes, for instance. I think, Jeff, I think it'll be a big factor in the decision. And I think that Jim Furek is going to have to do something absolutely stupendous here in the next few weeks to play his way on that team. I just think, I mean, I think right now you can look at Ricky Fowler, Bubba Watson, Matt Coocher, and J.B. Holmes, and you can just say those are going to know how you guys feel. House, I know you're not on the pro-Ferick campaign, I believe. Is that correct? Well, we've seen plenty of Jim Shurek over the years in the Ryder Cup, and he hasn't exactly distinguished himself.

And, you know, what you particularly recall is the performance on Sunday at Medina. And I think the four guys that Ted just ran through have over the course of this season, distinguish themselves. I especially like the idea of having all three guys to go along with Patrick Reed that were on the U.S. Olympic team. I really like that narrative. Those are guys with a team focus, even though the competition down in the Olympics was stroke play. They all participated in that team environment, that team experience. And Ricky Fowler especially kind of took the lead, at least, you know, according to the way the media told the stories, in being kind of an ambassador for the U.S. team

and really encouraging Bubba to participate in the full Olympic experience. So I very much like Ricky's inclusion. The only guy I wonder about is J.B. Holmes, and that's just because he hasn't been in great form over the last couple tournaments. But that would be the only one if Furik got super hot that I could understand getting bumped out. What do you think, Ted? J.B. Holmes, you know, you look at his record. He's only played in one Ryder Cup, and that was a Valhalla, and he was 2-0-1 in that

Ryder Cup. So you got a guy here that's never lost a rider-cup match, and due to the length of the golf course and his ability to drive it long, I think he's a guy that you'd want to take a serious look at. I think the other thing is interesting to me. If you analyze the A-player that the United States has on their team now, I mean, between Reed, Snedeker, Speeth, and Walker, these four guys, have only played in one Rider Cup. Yeah.

Throw Holmes in the mix. He's only played in one. So you could conceivably have a United States team that I know everybody talks about the six rookies that the Europeans have, but you could have a U.S. team that has five guys that are playing in their second Ryder Cup. And as much as I love Ricky, you know, his career Ryder Cup record is 03 and 5. I mean, he's played eight Ryder Cup matches and he's never won one. Yeah, the other thing that I thought was interesting after Clark made his picks, and I'd be

curious to get your opinions on this. But if you look at the six guys that were on the team in 14, okay, Bjorn, Donaldson, Dubasson, Gallagher, McDowell, and Poulter, and you replace them with Thomas Peters, Cabrera Beo, Fitzpatrick, Willett, Wood, and Sullivan, I'm not so sure those six guys that are on the team this year aren't stronger than the six that were on the team last time. And I think, you know, we're going to have our work cut out for us. I do too. I think this is a very good European team. I'm a little stunned at how much Clark is leaning on this experience card. Personally, I mean, Thomas Peters was a no-brainer to me,

and Russell Knox would have been a no-brainer. Kimer, you know, John Huggin made an interesting point, Ted, and his piece wrapping this up, and I haven't put it on my website yet, but he feels like Kimer's going to be a liability an alternate shot because of his short game issues and that he can get. Now, it tends to be on very tight grass, and I don't know what Hazeltine's going to have around the greens,

but he feels like he's not going to be an alternate shot player because of his propensity to suddenly develop some chip yips. So I guess what I'm curious, and you get into this in the book, but this experience veteran card, where do you come down on how vital that really is to these picks? You know, I think all this stuff, Jeff, is way overblown. I mean, I really do. I mean, it's going to be like any other.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, you developed an 85-page manifesto on why Tom Watson should be a captain. Come on now, Ted. Yeah, and after having going through that, I think it's overrated. I mean, I think it's going to be who's, you know, who's in form again when that week takes place. And, you know, that analogy you just made about Kimer, well, then you know what you do? you've got to sit four players during the alternate shot. That's a guy that he never sees the alternate shot format. But, you know, the 14 Ryder Cup and all the heat that, you know, Watson got

and ultimately me for picking him, the stat that got lost there was the fact that, you know, our team got beat by 35 shots in three days. I mean, for crying out loud, you could have fused Vince Lombardi, Joe Tori, Red Arbach together, the greatest minds in, coaching, and there's nobody that was going to overcome that deficit. And, you know, I had the luxury of being up close for three of these Rider Cups and, you know, being in or at least hearing what the rationale was on some of these decisions that were made by captains, and these guys just, they go out and they play.

And, you know, one of the funniest about this in the book, but I remember on the sixth hole at Glen Eagles, Mickelson comes up to Watson, and he says, captain, he said, I just want you to know in the last five years of alternate shot play and international team competition, I have only missed five fairways total. And Tom gets back in the cart, and he looks at me, and he says, and so he sends, you know, he really wanted to send Spieth and Reed back out to play on Friday afternoon. He didn't, because the bottom line is, Spieth had told him one of the assistant captains that he did not want to be paired with Patrick in all.

alternate shot competition because of the way he was driving the ball. So Tom then threw Bradley and Mickelson back out in the afternoon and alternate shots. And they're three down after eight holes. They have not hit a fairway. And Watson walks up to the ninth tee, crosses his arms, looks up at Phil, and he says, I have a question. When is one of you two guys going to hit a fairway? And he turns around and walks away.

So, you know, you can talk about all the planning, all the, the bonding, all the great things are going to happen in the team room. That's the other one that I find humorous now. They talk about how important chemistry is and the atmosphere in the team room. Let me tell you something. That to me is the most overrated

facet of all this. These guys are professionals and, you know, they're just all about doing one thing and that's getting on the golf course and competing. And it's who makes the putts and who competes the hardest that's going to win this thing. So, Ted, one last

question, looking out into the future at potential captains, we've seen one guy have a bunch of success in another international competition as a captain, and that's Fred Couples. Do you have any thoughts on whether or not we might see Fred as a captain of the Ryder Cup? Well, I'll tell you what, Joe. I was the guy that made the calls for the task force, and I'm not going to mention the names because I don't want to violate confidentiality, but of the four players that were on the five players that were on that task force, three of the five players and one of the former captains told me,

in the first phone calls that I ever made, that Fred Couples absolutely had to be the next Ryder Cup captain. And I would have bet everything I had that that's what was going to unfold. And I remember, you know, Davis actually was one of them. And, you know, I remember, you know, when he said that to me, I said, well, I'm kind of surprised to hear you say that because Fred didn't seem to be too engaged when we were at Medina. And you've got to do is you've got to support him or surround him with vice captains that are detail-oriented that can do the things that he's not going to be engaged in and just let him do what he does best. And he said the players love playing for him. So, you know, I think Fred Couples in Paris is still possibly in the mix, Joe.

I really do. Then I think after that, no question, I think Stricker is going to be the Ryder Cup captain at Whistling Straits. He'll break the mold in being the first Ryder Cup captain that will not have won a major championship. If it's not Couples in Paris, it's going to be Furik. Furik will probably be the captain in 22 if he's not in 18. you can go to the bank on Phil Mickelson being the Rider Cup captain at Beth Page. Now, Ted, I know House said last question, but I have to get this clarified from the book. You were driving around with Fred, and of course he was more interested in hanging out with Michael Jordan at Medina.

But you asked Phil Mickelson at the Scottish Open Pro-Am. You talked about Phil during the round, or excuse me, about Fred during the round, and you asked him why he was so successful as a President's Cup captain. Now, was Phil, was he playing with you when he mentioned that Fred studies a position of the sun to determine who's going to have a great week? Was he having fun with you or was he serious? No, he was dead serious. No, come on.

What does he do? First of all, where does he pull these charts up? Does he even have Internet access? I don't know. Somebody's got to be feeding Fred the charts, but I believe that. In fact, I said to Phil, you know, have you, I didn't say have you, I probably knew with Tom's reaction. I think I said, have you talked to Andy North about this?

And Phil said, no, no, those guys have got their own way of doing it. They're not going to listen to me. But no, that's a true story, and I believe that. And, you know, he went into some detail about if you study these. these lunar tables or solar tables that, you know, if the three of us were, if you're analyzing how our week's going to be, two of us are going to have a bad Thursday and one of us is going to have a great Thursday and the whole idea is to really understand who's having great days and put them together.

Wow. Well, that's, well, you can't argue with a success. They've had some great runs with the President's Cup. Well, Ted, this has been so enjoyable. There's so much more in the book that I had on my list. here that we can't get to. And I don't, I don't even want to spoil it anyway. I want people to buy the book, because it's, what's neat about your book, Ted, is we're focusing on the Rider Cup portion. But obviously, the title doesn't even mention the Rider Cup, but you get into a lot of different

elements that are behind the scenes in the game. And it's a, it's a, and then there's also sort of a media, how to handle a media firestorm element that's just great reading for anybody. And you just, for a guy who isn't a writer, you sure made a great, breezy, fun read and really awesome behind the scenes kind of stuff. So congratulations on the book.

There's two people that always need to acknowledge when I talk about the book. And, you know, I am proud of the fact, Jeff, that I did do 100% of the writing in the book, but Dave Shedlaski, veteran golf rider, was Dave was kind of my advisor. And, you know,

I would write these chapters, and I would send him to Dave and he would give me feedback and and you know I'd tweak him or do whatever he suggested but Dave was insurmountably important in the whole process and then certainly classics of golf publishing and Mike Beckerich because this thing

began as a self-publishing effort and ironically and this is I guess the good thing about social media something got my manuscript done I just took a picture of the notebook it was in and and tweeted it and you know Mike called me the following week I'd never met him

and he said, hey, I saw where you're writing a book, would you send me the manuscript? I'd love to read it. Maybe we'd be interested in publishing it. And, you know, he read it, liked it, and the rest was his important people in this process for me. Yeah, great. Well, that's, I'm really thrilled they've published it. And I think that, you know, maybe a lot of people might be scared off if they think it's just going to be a sort of a rehash of what you went through with the Holy and Poulter thing. but I think they'll be regretting it that they don't pick it up

and because there's just, you learn a lot about what goes on behind the scenes in golf and the five families and television and the Ryder Cup and like I said, the Ryder Cup stuff is so entertaining. House is going to enjoy this on his summer break. So Ted, thank you so much for joining us and I hope you enjoy the Ryder Cup. Yeah, thank you, Ted. Hey, thanks.

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You know what time it is. 30 seconds to better. It's time for this speed round, Jeff Shackleford. Speaking of speed, quickest way to improve your game is the Callaway Instruction Series. 30 seconds to better. Give Hank Haney and other teaching pros 30 seconds. That's not very much time.

They'll improve your game just like that. 30 seconds to better is available on the Callaway TV app for Roku and the new Apple TV. So, Jeff, let's kick off this speed round. I have a question for you. I've been hearing some stories about Tiger Woods dining room. Oh, geez. And it's filling up with boxes. What is going on with Tiger's dining room?

Yeah. This is one of those little silly things. things that went viral. Nota Begay on the Golf Channel mentioned, I think, on one of the postgame shows that he visited Tiger at the house, and the dining room is just filled, filled with boxes from the

UPS man, from all the equipment manufacturers who are trying to lobby Tiger to join their team now that Nike's no longer making equipment. And, you know, I read it, and I thought about it. Now, wait a second. This house is at least 40,000 square feet. It's like the size of an IKEA.

And you're telling me that all these companies, a company like Titleists where he didn't have maybe the best ending, they're sending him stuff. And the more I thought about it, and I'm sure there probably were a few boxes in the house, but it's just one of those. I feel like it's one of those stories where we're trying to let everybody know, particularly sponsors, a tiger is just chomping. He's excited. He's thinking about it. And I just don't think he is. I, and you know, I feel I'm really happy he's taking this time away because he needs to clear his head. He's got injury scars.

And the only way to deal with that is to just, just stay away from the game. And he's doing the right thing until he's ready. But this idea that, come on, he's just, that they're all just the guy, the UPS guys, you know, knocking on the door every day. I'm sure he's been sent some things, but come on. Really? He doesn't want to play golf right now. Huh. So you're in Crenches.

I know I'm blasting right by the speed round conceit here. No, it's right. We never obey it anyway. It's true. We never do really make any of this very speedy. I believe the whole thing. I believe, A, the tiger's chomping at the bit. B, that golf can't wait to have tiger back.

C. Well, that I don't disagree with. Every manufacturer on the planet is sending him something to try and catch his eye. And D, Tiger's trying some stuff out. Well, I have a little inside knowledge that we may learn here in the next few weeks. Oh, Shaq knowledge. Shack died. Let's hear it.

I've been hearing rumblings that there's, there have been some investigative types down in the area, checking out to see if he actually is practicing at all or trying to make a comeback. And I think we'll get a little more insight on that here pretty soon. then we're also going to just kind of be exposed to Tiger at the Ryder Cup. He'll be driving a cart around supposedly. He's one of the 400 vice captains, and he's, Davis Love says he's texting him all the time with his pairings and who should be picked, and so he'll be kind of making his return to the limelight at the cup.

I mean, he'll try to stay behind the scenes as best as he can and leave it to Davis. Look at you. Teaser, Tiger, teaser. Yeah, so I'm not feeling it. I'm feeling like he's just trying to keep sponsors happy that have stuck with him. All right. House, you touched on it before our Ted Bishop interview. You absolutely love these playoff mustaches that Ricky Fowler and Justin Thomas are growing, don't you?

So here's the thing that made me feel very, very, very good. I actually, in one of my many fantasy golf forums put a large amount of stock in, Ricky Fowler this week. I'm very happy to report. For the Deutsche Bank? Or for last week? Last week, for the Barquies. I actually liked him quite a bit. I thought, you know, he's, the form that he was showing in the Olympics, it felt like a

breakthrough kind of moment was coming. So I went ahead and invested a little in Ricky. Now, I'm very happy to report that I did not invest any of my hard-earned greenbacks on Ricky. and the experience I had Sunday after the way that he finished at the Barclays was relief because I looked at myself in the mirror and said, God bless, I did not bet on a dude with an awful mustache. I mean, you can't, you look yourself in the mirror and say, you know,

I put a lot of my hard-earned, you know, blood-sweat and tears money on this guy. And you look at them and you say, how could I? possibly invest in that dude. So I was happy to take just the fantasy loss, not an actual money loss. The mustaches are awful. Yeah. It's not Errol Flynn. It's not Johnny Depp for you.

It's, it's, it's not even, you know, the hockey guys do it right. They come by it honestly. Those guys can grow facial hair as opposed to Ricky and Justin Thomas. Okay. So now we're cleared. House, no, if you can't grow facial hair, don't go for the playoff mustache. That's my view. Yeah.

Well, they are going for the mustache because they can't do the beard. Of course, Graham Delette did the beard, and his short game went to hell. Yeah, but Graham Delette can have a beard. Oh, yeah. The man bombs the golf ball. Have a beard, Graham Delette. All right. So what else have we gotten the speed round?

We've got, oh, how about this USGA RNA rollout? Did you, I'm curious because I follow this and I kind of know a few things. behind the scenes or half for a few years of where this was coming from and why this is coming. But did you see these stories about the beginning of this rollout that they want to tone down the rules? Give me your sort of knee-jerk reaction. Yeah, the story wasn't that the rules themselves are under review for fine-tuning and making them more relevant to the way everybody that's not a pro plays the game. Instead, the stories were about trying to make the language more clear.

And the thing that struck me is how disconnected the ruling bodies are with the way that at least here in the U.S., most of us play the game. It is perhaps the only sport in which the professionals play under a set of rules that mostly don't apply to the way that the rest of us play the game. I mean, it's very curious in basketball and baseball and in most of the other sort of major sports here in the U.S. You can largely play by the same rules as the professionals. Not so when it comes to golf because none of us or, you know, save for a rarefied few that get to play perfectly manicured courses with caddies and four caddies and so forth have the benefit of playing under the pristine conditions with all of the eyes in the world helping the professionals play a game that is absolutely unlike the game that the rest of us play 99.3% of the time.

So I am looking forward to anything that would have the impact of making the rules less complicated, less cumbersome, less, you know, intrusive than invasance. anything that's going to help, you know, make the rules stop cutting the legs out from my enjoyment of the game. I support, but I wasn't really blown away by the news stories. Well, yeah, and that was because they rolled it out as this Grow the Game initiative. This is going to grow the game. This is the equivalent of the King James Bible to the Bible. And nobody really wants to. Yeah, the Living Bible. Thank you. Yeah, there you go. Thank you. I'm glad you know your Bible. I'm glad that Holy Cross education paid off.

You see the Pepper 9 people right now are just going, no, he didn't come here. Well, yeah, in between gambling and martinis, I have to spend my downtime somehow. So what's sad is they try this. It's, you know, the phrase grow the game. It's just getting so old. We heard it at the Olympics, and it's just become this go-to thing. And then they throw that in on the rules thing. It's not going to, not one person's staying away from golf because, oh, the decisions in the book is two inches thick.

So I'm sure the rules people who are working on this, and they have a lot of great people behind the scenes who they, I think, are getting together. I believe Doug Ferguson is going to write a piece about this and how they've been doing this kind of on their own time out of a love for the game. And they know that when you read these things, it reads like a law school manifesto. It's just awful. It's all this legal jargon and big words. And they want to trim all that out and really try to kind of make it a little bit more accessible. And so it's a noble effort. It's a good thing. But as you say, ultimately what we still need probably are some relaxed rules, which Golf Channel did a cool thing on, with enough rules that you could just fit on a bag tag. That's it.

Yeah, it was great. And it was just like the perfect thing to make somebody say, okay, I got it. I got the general gist. And then when they watched a pro golf event, they would get why they have more specific rules. but hey look, the rest of us don't play by that or need to play by that. And they just, that's a hard thing for them to accept. And I don't think that'll be a result of this. You have too many lawyers that are involved in all this. They've invested so much time. Here's a big part of it. And this just drives me nuts.

You know, they've invested so much time in memorizing the rules that they feel like, well, gosh, I can't believe we've gone to all this. I've devoted my life to memorizing all these things and knowing them. And then people don't take them seriously. And I always just find that comical when they belittle golf pros for not knowing the rules. You know, this is your profession. You need to have studied this. And then the player doesn't know the rule.

Well, it's because the decision book literally is two inches thick. The rules are hard to read. And yeah, the players should know the rules, but you can't know them all. And even people who are rules experts don't get 100 on the rules exam they do. So it's a little world that's in a bubble that there is a group trying to kind of change that enough, but the kind of big picture people, supposedly big picture thinking people in the USGA and RNA still kind of cling to this old school mentality that these rules are really important, the way they've been structured. And as you know, most golfers kind of now roll their eye at that. So roll eyes at that.

Yeah. And it's going to be an interesting. It's going to be a fun thing to watch play out, though, I think, because we just keep having these incidents at the tournaments that don't look good. Yeah, well, that's, you know, they need to figure out the rules they want the professionals to play by that take into account the way the modern game is played in the way that the courses are being, you know, pruned and designed and developed. And the challenges that that represents.

and presents to competing, fairly competing the money tour. But to me, call me when the bag tag rules are ready. That's when I'm interested in hearing about a rules update. Otherwise, I'll get you one. I'll get you one. My buddy Charlie Reimer from Morning Drive. I know he's got a box of them somewhere down there at Golf Channel headquarters. It was a cool little initiative they unveiled.

I don't know how it went over with the governing bodies, but I thought it was a great idea. So, yeah. Well, that was another not very quick speed round. That's how we do it on the Shuck. Well, with that, I think that's probably our cue to sign off, right? So anything else you got? No, that's it. Let's get ready for a wonderful Labor Day weekend.

Another great tour event at the TPC Boston. And maybe somebody, one of these hard charging brothers from the back are coming up, one of a Ryder Cup spot. Maybe we'll see something we don't expect. All right, House. Well, if you get a little bored there on vacation, just a little reminder from our friends at Calloway, who sponsored today's show, as they always do,

that their favorite, our favorite, my favorite online live show from Calloway, Calloway Live. It rolls on this week with former NFL coach Herm Edwards, because what better time to talk with Herm than right before the season. And the week after that, Chris Harrison from The Bachelor, I know that's your favorite show to study. Question is, will he hand out Roses in Carlsbad? Tune in to find out.

Watch these in over 40 episodes of Calloway Live at CallawayGolf.coms slash Calloway Live or just Google Calloway Live. Comes right up. My favorite episode House, of course, is Season 2, Episode 7. That is a shameless plug, folks. That episode featured the Shack House participants. And I know you probably don't like, since you don't like to listen to our shows, you probably haven't gone back to relive that one.

But I think it's a good chat, and I think we had a lot of fun with Harry Arnett. And they've just had some tremendous guests lately. Greg Maddox just most recently, the folks at Seamus Golf, they just have such a diverse group of guests, and it's really a cool show. So check out Calloway Live. For sure. One of them that's worth watching is Ted Bishop, who had an Austin Calloway Live. Our guest today, he did.

He did. And we thank Ted Bishop again for joining us, and he was just super. and we look forward to talking more about the Ryder Cup in the upcoming weeks here on... Shaku!