Fairway Rollin' - Ep. 22: Ryder Cup Recap

Episode Date: October 5, 2016

Geoff Shackelford and Joe House discuss the Ryder Cup, Tiger Woods's vice captaincy (25:50), and the memorial service for Arnold Palmer (37:03). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shackhouse is presented by Calloway Golf as a thank you for joining us in the Shack House this season. The folks at Calloway are offering our beloved listeners free shipping on any order through Callowagolf.com using the promo code House. Get in there and buy yourself something special like maybe a dozen or so Chrome Soft Golf balls or one or two of those Callaway wedges that Patrick Reed used with great success at Hazeltine. That's Callawaygolf.com promo code house. And today we'd also like to thank our sponsor at Athletes Collective. You know, if you ever wish you didn't have to wear a logo across your chest when you're out for a long run, you ever wish you don't have to pay upwards of $65 for a quality running shirt, thankfully you can now buy great quality, great fitting running gear without the logos for 30 to 40 percent.

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I've been sleeping in the athletes' collective shorts. Very comfortable to sleep in. That was a little more detail than we needed, but nice that you shared. I like to share. Today on Shackhouse, Samuel Riders Cup, All Things, Rider Cup from Hazeltine National. Plus, will Tiger Woods play in Napa Valley? What's wrong with Jordan Speeith? What happened at the Rider Cup for him?

We'll discuss where he goes from here. And, of course, the King, Arnold Palmer. His service was this week. It was an amazing memorial service. We'll talk about it. Plus a speed round. Looking at the Ryder Cup, we're going to give out grades. Let's go to the Shack House.

House, what is going on? Did you recover yet from that incredible Ryder Cup? Shack Daddy, I arrived today. We're doing a Wednesday recording. I have mixed emotions. Many mixed emotions. In the first place, I am slightly sad for two reasons. this is the last shackhouse of the season,

although we are going to have an occasion to get together a few times through the fall and into the winter. Pop-up. Pop-up episodes. Yeah, maybe we'll have something to talk about after next weekend's tournament out in Napa if the Tigray, if the tiger can make it happen. The other reason I'm slightly sad,

we delayed, we deliberately delayed today's podcast because we had a very special guest lined up. New European star Thomas Peters was going to join us today. The scheduling could not be worked out, so he's not going to join us, but we are definitely going to have Tommy P. I'm going to ask him if I can call him that. We're definitely going to have Tommy P. on a future Shack House. We will.

Am I right, Jeff? Yeah, and we'll get him at a time. We could have had him today, but it would have been a very short window. And he's playing over the Dunhill Cup, and today's Wednesday of the Dunhill Cup. great pro-am party and we just knew we wouldn't have him have him very long and if he's got a great sense of humor he is a very sharp young man and a very funny and uh we want to have him on when we can we can have him on for a little longer than normal and really talk to him plus it might be kind

of fun to to get him when this whole thing has calmed down because he was obviously on the losing team but the breakout star of these rider cup matches and what an an amazing performance he put on. Obviously, he had a good partner in Rory McElroy. That didn't hurt. But he was a guy for Europe who Darren Clark really didn't even want to pick. He wanted to have Luke Donald, apparently. And Peters gave him no choice by his amazing play. So we will definitely make him a top priority for a guest. And we do thank he and his people for trying. But, you know, it's such an exhausting event for those guys' house. And, you know, I think one of the more interesting elements. Obviously, Patrick Reed was the superstar of these matches.

But I was taken. I'm curious what your reaction was to the duel. I was with Mickelson Garcia. So I only heard the roars. But in watching the highlights, I've got to say, I love the emotion from Reed and Rory. But I do wonder if Rory maybe gave a little too much energy to some of those reactions because it sounded like from the people who followed the match that his energy started to slip as the match went on and after the afterwards he he was zonked he was exhausted now he did play a lot he played all five matches but i think it is a little bit of a lesson that in match play love the emotion it's everything we love about the writer cup but you do have to pace yourself yeah so i'll give a very quick take on on the rory and read thing but i wanted to make one

follow-on observation about the great play of Thomas Peters. Probably the very best observation either of us made. And the preview show, we were looking at odds for top point getters. You love Thomas Peters at 25 to 1 as the overall point scorer in the Ryder Cup. I'm very sad to say I didn't do anything with that because I was worried about him getting enough rounds. I want you worried. Captain Clark had him teach him. up for all five rounds and boy oh boy did he acquit himself quite well. On the Patrick Reed

Rory McElroy front, Rory himself confessed that he had a little bit of an energy waning experience on the back nine. He had no birdies on the back nine. I don't know if it was the energy he exerted that day, but you know he did to his credit and we will get around to giving some grades. it's easy to go ahead and get Patrick Reed and Rory out of the way. Let's just give both of them an A-plus-plus for the weekend. I mean, there's no other grade to give those two dudes. The thing that I was most impressed by with Rory was not his play, but instead his leadership, his taking on the mantle of kind of the villain, the theatrics that go along with,

being the focal point for his team of all of the vitriol, and, you know, proper animosity, fan animosity. And he really played it up. And I think, you know, at the end of the day, it did probably take its toll a little bit. He confessed it so on the back nine. But it didn't diminish at all how brilliant over the course of the three days. His play was. And on top of that, I thought the way that he conducted himself, it was in the spirit of the event.

he was with great sportsmanship, the finger wagging, the flexing, the screaming. Well, I don't know if that's sportsmanship, but... Well, no, no, but at each moment, you know, he gave a wink, he gave a nod. He put his... He and Patrick hugged each other as they walked off the green on eight, right? Yeah, that was cool. So that let us all know that while the competition is fierce, they're still doing it as, as competitors. They get it, right? It's not crossing the line for them in the way that...

that it appears that the line was crossed by some of our fans. And I'm interested in your take on that. We heard from a lot of folks on the ground there at Hazeltine that our fans did indeed cross the line. PJ Willett put Danny Willett in a very bad position and delivered us a wonderful 0 and 3 performance out of Danny. Thank you, PJ. But the insults directed at our...

fans may have had a little bit of merit to them. What did you see? Well, there are too many people on site. So what happens? That just increases the chances that you get a few idiots. And then the Ryder Cup is a tough event for fans because you can sit at a green for three hours waiting for a match to come and you may, or all the matches to come and may only get one. So you get some people who drink a lot and they get annoyed that they're sitting there. and they're not seeing much.

But I would say that most, you know, out of 55,000 or whatever they completely oversold the thing for every day, most of the people were incredible. How she wouldn't believe some of the outfits that people cook up for this. And, I mean, just the passion, the devotion to these matches and that this is a, I mean, it's just, you know, this was my first writer cup. This is the time of year when our magazines never really have sold many hands, so they've never sent many of us to it. And I was just, the energy is so different than a normal golf tournament just because of the way the people dress, the excitement over being able to kind of scream and be a

part of the matches. And so, unfortunately, you get a few morons who don't know how to handle that or know how to handle alcohol. And then you get, you know, the PGA of America not really learning from Medina where they had the same thing, big crowds, a little too much alcohol, not enough bathrooms, and knowing that there are only four groups at a time on the golf course in those first two days, and not just getting out in front and issuing a few reminders on the video board. So they do that for Sunday. They issue a thing at 1030 in the morning. They also have a message on the boards.

And lo and behold, now, I went with Sergio and Phil and heard nothing. There was one moment where some cameras went off. Mark Rolfing thought it was a heckler, it was cameras. great match, very civil crowd, a lot of passion. So it was one of those things that probably could have been prevented. PJ Willis, you know, that, I'm sorry, the gloves are off after what he wrote. I wasn't satire. I don't know what that was, but it was pathetic.

So I feel bad for the guys who got those really awful bits of heckling, but it was something that could have been prevented probably because I felt like the crowd was sort of policing itself on Sunday because of that. People were aware that it had that potential to kind of spoil what was an amazing week. And I think I would rather focus on that that this was such a great group of fans, so much passion, and the venue worked very well in terms of space and all that good stuff. And then we just, we were reminded again that, A, match play is amazing, and then when you throw in teams and all that goes into team match play, both within groups where you have foursomes or four ball play and the strategy and all that. But then also just the patriotism,

the other stuff that comes into play. There's just nothing like it. It's just on such a different level than regular stroke play golf. And it just reminded me how poorly the game is served by the fact that we just play 72 holes of stroke play, individuals nearly every week. And it does this every year, and we don't learn from it. And I mean, the Olympic golf was exciting, but it was nothing like this, nothing. It wasn't even close. And it was great. Well, sure. Right. That's the unique quality of this event, the natural and beautiful phenomena, the fervor that comes from in the first place rooting for your country, but also that that team aspect, right? We in the U.S.

understand team sports. We're wired to root for our teams, you know, at a very early age. And, you know, the thing I was left wondering is how can we come up with more team-driven events in golf because of the opportunity to draw in non-golf fans? The Ryder Cup and the Masters, two events where my wife walking by the TV might say, hey, you know, she recognizes the event for what it is and actually expresses an interest as opposed to the other, you know, 30 weeks through the summer where she sees me sitting there watching golf and it's just like, seriously again. Yeah. But, you know, is there, I guess there's kind of a danger. you don't want to overdo it with the team effect,

because you don't want to undermine the natural passion, but there's got to be a way to get a little more team golf going. I liked very much a suggestion that came across my Twitter feed, which was what about like a manufacturer kind of competition? I mean, it would be more in the nature of an exhibition, right? But the guys of Callaway taking on the guys a title list, that could be pretty interesting. Yeah. Well, two things.

One, we can just improve the game by having, the fact that we don't have a couple of, on the schedule, a couple of partners events where it's just a four ball or it's different format every day. And we have it coming up with the World Cup, but not entirely down in Australia. Not true. Two people playing together and match play and all the stuff that goes into it. So that alone would help things. And there are ways to do that. Looking back in the history of the game, we've had tournaments like.

like that. If you go way back, we had we had tournaments like that with the Steinmean effect. There's so many ways. But to your point, and I think what this should be a goal for, one of our pop-up pods, I have been hearing rumblings for quite a while that there is somebody who is trying to put together Formula One style golf, where you have teams like you're discussing. and I don't know if it would be manufacturer driven, but it would be corporate sponsor driven. And it would be a Formula One style team format. And I haven't heard much about it lately. They've been very quiet, but I want to kind of see if I can track down and if these people are ready to go public with their idea.

I've heard there's some big money potentially behind it. But I don't know specifically if it's legit or not. But I think that when you look at the way the European tour is now, and I have a, I have a, a little work to do later today house there. The new commission is throwing out every idea possible to see what sticks with some different formats, which I love, and it could be

the kind of thing that the European tour embraces because they love Formula One there. So I'm with you, though. It just, we just have to learn from this. Golf has to figure out that these tours will not do well if they're just worrying about serving the needs of their members and giving their members playing opportunities,

And this has been a struggle for a while now. I've dealt with it with course setup discussion. How do you not set up courses to be interesting? And that's probably segues us nicely to the writer cut. But we've struggled in golf with getting people understand that. That, you know, we need excitement in golf course setup to make people enjoy watching golf because that's what pays your bills. And even that has been a struggle.

But now we're really at a cool place where, people are now trying to set up golf courses with more drivable holes and more chances for for thrills. And that happened at the Ryder Cup. Now it was a little bit controversial the way they went about it. It was a little bit silly, frankly. But did you have a sense of that? I'm talking about every pin being in the middle of the green. Right, well, that's right.

And that means you may be slightly in agreement with Justin Rose and the criticisms that he levied about the setup, about it not being the kind of test of golf that he might have preferred for that final day. My sense was on the complete opposite side. I think in those singles matches, what I want to see is guys go out and beat each other. I don't want the golf course to be in the way that the stroke play event, you know, the golf course is the natural distinguisher between, you know, different kind of skill and talent. And the match play format is just a guy playing a guy. And the holes can be anywhere on the golf course. The guy, one guy's got to beat another guy. And Hazeltine, you know, lent itself to, on the last day, you know, a birdie fest.

I mean, Phil and Sergio had 19 birdies between them, and they properly have the match. The guys that were able to make Eagle and Bertie and take advantage of their accuracy, and then most importantly, rolling in putts on Sunday, ended up winning the matches. You know, that's how Martin Kheimer came back and salvaged his only point of the weekend. Captain Spittheimer. But he rolled in a bunch of putts on the back after Cooch went up on him quite a bit on the front. I'm absolutely fine with that kind of challenge in that kind of setting. That's what I want to see.

Go beat somebody. I don't want the golf course to be the thing that's distinguishing the guys. I want one guy to go beat the other guy. Well, and that is what happened. You're correct. So I think where this philosophy came from, well, it started with a, few things. One, in past Rider Cups, the U.S. has always done this stupid U.S. Open-style setup of high rough and tuckpins and it's backfired on them multiple times. And it was not

particularly interesting watching people win holes with bars and bogeys. But then in Medina in 2012, Davis-Love sort of took the blame for a whole location on the 17th hole that they felt was not advantageous to the U.S. team. I thought that was a little harsh on himself over that. So this time around, he kind of gave a philosophy to the PGA of America's Kerry Hague, who then was charged with executing that. And so they didn't get caught up in the nitty-gritty of the holes. But that said, it was a little bit going a little bit far the other way to just literally stick every hole in the middle of every green.

And where I lamented it was you occasionally just would like, I totally get where we, I'm with you that we don't want the golf course to become too much of a factor in each match. That said, it is really cool and interesting when occasionally there is a hole in a whole location that rewards maybe you for having the honor on the tea that calls on a thought. And the 17th hole was the one that just leapt out all week. They never put, it was this little part of three over water. terrible Reese Jones green complex, just goofy and bad bunkering, but still green water, tea, pressure, rider cup, there's still enough great ingredients there. And to never put the whole really very close to the water was just weird. Because I did a thing there with John Cook for Morning

Drive earlier in the week, and John's a, you know, former great Rider Cup player and performed amazingly. And I said, so the thing I'm dying to ask him as somebody who's played in these, I said, John, so what do you do? Do you want to have the honor on the T on this? And he goes, well, you know, it depends on the conditions. And you factor in all these different things. And that, that part of match play is really fun. And that's what I think Justin Rose was getting at, is that that you just have to inject some of that element from the golf course from time to time. And they just, they went totally the other way. Now, the other thing I want to say, house, was that Sergio Phil match? That doesn't take away in any way what those two did. It was,

spectacular. Two sixty-threes basically and back and forth crazy good golf and I just don't think because the writer cup it all happens so fast that people really have thought about what Sergio and Phil did on those last two holes fill making long or you know lengthy 15 to 18 footers downhill actually the one in 17 was probably like 14 feet 13 but downhill greens were about 14 by Sunday on the stint meter making those puts then Sergio who never makes anything getting right up there and not taking a lot of time either I thought he the one on 18 I thought oh he's rushed it he's choked and he just he knew it like halfway in it was in that was just spectacularly clutch play from those two who

haven't both been very good on the greens and so yeah that's the other bummer of the writer All these great little things that go on like that, and it all happens at once on Sunday. But that's the way it goes. I know. This is not an original sentiment coming from House, but, you know, I saw it many times over on Sunday. If Sergio could channel that putting into any of the majors, I mean, he really is an incredible putter in the Ryder Cup. I fear him. He's one of the handful of players that I'm genuinely concerned about in any.

matchup, whether it's in foursums, four ball, or singles. He's formidable because he puts his ass off in the Ryder Cup, and I have no explanation for it. It is amazing. Why that doesn't translate, right? I know. Everybody, everybody looks at him and just thinks, why don't you do this more often? And they both, yeah, they both have the claw grip. And now Phil, you know, he is able to have these moments, as he did at the Open Championship, where he does channel the putting that he puts, the putting display he puts on at the Rider Cup. But it, because Sergio's ball striking, me, I heard Johnny, I could listen to the telecast as I was walking around.

And, you know, Johnny, you just hear him just going, my gosh, if this guy could just putt at all, he'd have won so many majors. And so it was a spectacular match. They never really spoke to each other the whole round except the give putts. Phil did. There was one little, I went out, of course, because I want some gamesmanship. I knew they didn't like each other. I didn't quite realize they didn't like each other as much as they really don't like each other.

But there was one moment where Sergio had a hit a put up, and he had about a, I don't know, about a two-footer. And Phil had to come up and kind of stand on over it and look at it. And then he finally gave it to him. It was fun. It was the only moment where they kind of had a little of that. And the matches this year were really, other than obviously we had those reactions. But there was very little gamesmanship between the players, which I thought. was interesting. I always enjoy that when that comes up in match play, and the Ryder Cup brings it out

every time because, again, they play stroke play every week. And so anytime somebody doesn't get a putt given, it starts to create tension with these guys because it just doesn't take much. They're just not confrontational people normally, and they don't play a confrontational game except pretty much every two years of this or in the WGC match play. Yeah. Well, we're going to have a chance. Yeah, we'll do some grades later. Yeah, let's do our grades and we'll cover off some of the other important Rider Cup stuff and let's take a quick break to hear from some of our Shackhouse corporate friends. Friends, ever since the inaugural episode, Shack House has been brought to you by Calloway Golf. Calloway yesterday released a 10-minute documentary-style short film called Golf Lives.

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game daily when he's not in the studio or on the road. You will see this in the documentary. It's a really incredibly produced video must watch for all golf fanatics out there. Also, rap fans, seeing a little bit of scarface, a side of scarface you may not anticipate. Watch golf lives on Callaway TV, Roku and the new Apple TV, or visit Callawaygolf.com. That's Callawaygolf.com slash golf lives. All right, so Tiger Woods, Vice Captain at the Rider Cup House. Now, we're recording this on Wednesday. He has until Friday to commit to the Safeway,

which he has verbally said he intends to play, maybe hopefully. He has not, as of this recording. He kept a pretty low profile at the Rider Cup. I don't know if you noticed, but he generally avoided doing interviews. He did a few, but I thought it was really admirable of him. He really kind of stayed behind the scenes, and he did play a key role in convincing Davis Love to send Jordan Speath and Patrick Reed back out for that fourth match. Their intent had been nobody would play five matches, and Spieth kind of wore down, and it was probably why they have that clause, the task, the infamous task force. But he convinced him, and Patrick Reed just carried him around, and they had a great rematch with Stinson and Rose.

their first match was sensational, even though they lost five and four. They played great. They just got whooped by two great players. And then the second, the rematch, Patrick Reed, just took it to another level. I think Jordan contributed three or four holes at the most. But Tiger was in charge of those two. They were in his pod, whatever that means. We heard very little from behind the scenes. But Tiger did say to people that he intended to play the safe way. He was asked quite a bit. And so we're going to find out here pretty soon if he's going to do it. But I found when I saw him, I thought he looked stiff and kind of flat. Now, again, it may have been just he was sort of bummed that he's not a player.

And this was a weird role for him. But he just, his body language seemed off to me when I saw him out there. But again, he kept a pretty low profile. So are you feeling the excitement about the big return? I really am. and Golf Channel is helping. They have already begun running the ads. And I'll tell you, it caught my attention the first time I saw the ad on the golf channel,

holding out the possibility of the Tiger on October the 13th. I have the date circled on my calendar. My take, I like very much the role that Tiger took on here. It is exactly sort of befitting his station and his stage of both life and and his career to be, you know, he was a quiet leader. He was an appropriate mentor and advocate for and two Patrick Reed. I very much enjoyed the stories after, you know, that came out on Monday that talked about reed deriving inspiration from Tiger and the bond that the two of them forged.

And I liked what you just relayed, that story about Tiger insisting that, and Speedth go back out, it actually kind of boggles my mind that there was any question whatsoever about the idea of Reed going out. And they're laying up guys. Chris Solomon, before the week started, said that Reed, and I couldn't tell whether it was tongue-in-cheek or not, that Reed had gone to Tiger and said, I'm playing all five matches. Don't consider doing anything else.

And whether that's true or not, you know, it was absolutely the right message and the right strategy. I regret the fact that that Reed and Spee didn't play all four matches at Glen Eagles. That was by far the most interesting and exciting combination that was going there. But I

think Tiger in this role leading up to him returning to the tour, I was impressed. He should be kind of behind the scenes. My very favorite, I will confess, and this is going to be a little bit tongue-in-cheek.

There was a picture that went out there. Now look, Paulina put it out. She Instagrammed it. That means that Tiger had to approve it. It showed a moment of Tiger and Paulina. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. He didn't have to.

Wait, wait. Paulina, yeah, I'm sure she had him sign a disclosure form and she checked with him, you know, right. Well, whatever the circumstances under which publication was made, I will say the publication was made.

She was very happy, and Tiger was clearly in his happy place. He had a glass half filled with a delicious brown beverage that may or may not have been Coca-Cola. With a little rum, you mean? Yeah, that's his preferred drink. I was happy to see him let his hair down a little bit in that environment. It kind of confirmed what, you know, the quiet behind the scenes role that he played,

and there he is, just sort of celebrating along with everybody else. I like the tiger that we saw this week, but I'll really like the tiger that we could to see next week if he has a golf club in his hands. Now look, speaking of golf club in his hands, he's got all new equipment. Have you seen the stories about what he might be playing with? Yeah, I don't believe it's accurate. So that's why we're not going to give it any...

No, I don't... Here on the Shack House, Shaq is saying the early reports of the equipment that the Tigray might have in his hands next week, not accurate. No, I checked with a couple of people who would know and they said he has most definitely not made any decisions as concrete as the one you're referring to.

So I find it hard to believe that he would show up in Napa with a big mixed bag of clubs. I think that he's a very smart businessman. His agent, Mark Steinberg is a very, very creative, intelligent agent. And, you know, Tiger has made a lot of money. and done a great job of kind of buying into the Nike. Everything's just very orderly, clean, and tidy. I just don't see him. I'm not saying he's got some obsessive-compulsive thing.

I just think that he knows from sort of a branding image standpoint and what he brings to the table for a potential sponsor that it's in his best interest to try and have a relationship with one company and coming and having a hodgepodge of clubs and auditioning clubs in the public arena is just not his thing. I think you'll see him show up with his Nike clubs if he shows up.

I'm psyched. That's awesome. That adds to the intrigue. What's he's going to have? We'll be looking at the ball, we'll be looking at the drive, although we're looking at all of it, right? Yeah, and the fans probably will get a good chance

to look at the ball because he's been known to hit it a little wayward. Although, and the last thing on Tiger, Golf Digest, Guy Yocam, who handles the great My Shot franchise, has just done one with Ypres, and Ypres has told him that he's played some golf at the medalist with Tigers, some nine-hole rounds, which in itself is news, and that he is absolutely striping the ball, and he's going to make a spectacular comeback, might make a spectacular comeback. So I have no reason to think that Yesper has, he has no he has no reason to exaggerate or make that up. He was asked the question and he answered it.

So I think that's one of the most encouraging things I've heard because I haven't heard a whole lot else that has me encouraged. Yeah, the quote was that he observed Tiger. He was flushing it. Boy, I love that. So you know how I feel. I want a healthy, successful Tiger back on tour competing with the cast of characters that,

emerged this season. So I'm fired up. Like I told you, I have 10.13 is circled on the house calendar. All right. Well, on that note, we have a lot more to talk about. So let's hear a few more words from our sponsors. Hey, friends, a quick word from our good friends here at the shack house. Me Undies. Think about it. Underwear is the first thing you put on and the last thing you take off. Why would you settle for anything less than the best feeling underwear on the planet? Miandis is producing the most comfortable underwear you will ever experience for the price of two cocktails. That's just two regular old, you know, running the meal, Zaziraks. Miandis will deliver your favorite pair of underwear right to your doorstep.

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You get a post-shave bomb added to your order for, free for throwing in that code house. So go to harries.com right now, enter house, go to the checkout, claim your free trial set and your post-shaven bomb. That's harris.com. In fact, you know, I didn't use the post-shame bomb today. And now I was wondering how house why I wasn't feeling right today. Now I got it. Anyway. Get the bomb. Everything's the bomb at their website. Love all their products, love harries. Harries.orghum, code house. Obviously the other story, the huge, enormous story, that is golf and is our sport, is Arnold Palmer's passing. And this week, they ended up having an incredible memorial service.

You know, early on, House at the Rider Cup, it was still very uncertain what they were going to do. The family had a small service where they spread his ashes at the golf course. But it became fairly clear by the weekend that they were going to have a pretty big deal. And it was an incredible service. And a lot of people showed up. Tiger wasn't one of them. And yeah, it was just an amazing service by the Golf Channel, I think, really put it together.

I'm not entirely sure who did, but Jim Nance was just incredible. Jack Nicholas apologized for reading from a very tightly prepared notes. He was incredible. Did you get to see any of it? I did get to see a fair amount of it. The thing that I like the best is it didn't feel like. a service. It felt more like a celebration to me. Yeah. You know, the testimonials. And I really felt like the way it worked out kind of schedule-wise and timing-wise, we had this incredible sequence of

events as it relates to Arnie's passing. In the first place, the day that it was reported that his ashes were spread in La Trobe, somebody grabbed this unbelievable photograph of a rainbow over the property that, you know, made all the rounds, went properly viral. And then on Friday, the very thoughtful, and I don't know who collaborated on this, and came up with the idea in the first place and then executed on it, but Arnie's bag on the first tee from the 1975 match, and then our boys go out and sweep 4-0 the morning matches for the first time, Since 1975, the year that Arnie was the captain.

I mean, you can't make that up. That's just beyond coincidence. That means, you know, that Arnie was looking down. I know all the silly cliches, but sometimes, God darn it, the cliches makes sense. And this is one of those instances. So I thought that set up like a perfect kind of context for yesterday's celebration. And then so many folks hit it out of the park in terms of their remembrance of Arnie and the way they wanted to celebrate his life and communicate that to the group. And it really came through on TV.

I was touched by Sam Saunders, obviously, you know, Arnie's grandson, who did an incredible job of just personalizing Arnie. And so many of the stories, both in print and yesterday, you know, had that effect, convey that message, the genuine, sincere person that Arnie was and how he made you feel like the most important person in the room any time he was with you. So that was my experience of yesterday's celebration. Yeah, it really was phenomenal in the way they presented him. All the stories that were funny and light and kind of what he would have wanted was how the family conveyed to some people. Obviously, of course, Tim Fincham had to act like he was giving a college course on the business of sport. But I felt like the people who were sort of, what's the word I'm looking for? Boring were a nice sort of relief between the

ones who were really emotional and really had the room sort of on that verge of tears and laughter. It will be very interesting to see with that service and a lot of the things that have been written and some of them I think have been better than others but most of them have conveyed the same thing that he set the tone for golf he he he really you know I hate that when when they say oh we wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for him or we wouldn't make the money we make you know some some things might have happened but he certainly was a big part of it and he was also a big part of helping athletes be better protected to make money not everybody's learned from it. But early on, I was watching the Arnie documentary yesterday. It was just fascinating.

When he broke from Wilson and kind of got things squared away with Mark McCormick, he established that the athletes should not get screwed. And I hate to put it that way, but that really was what it boiled down to was he put his foot down and then built on that. And so I really hope, though, Ryan Lavner of Golf Channel wrote a very interesting piece that I hope, a lot of people. It probably kind of got lost. It was tricky timing to do it, but the people in golf who've been uttering all this about Arnold and Palmer and everything he's done for the game actually take to heart some of the things that you can learn from him about showing up, about being nice, being press-friendly, all the different things, signing autographs that Arnold did,

because it was a rough year for the game. to those who are following these players, and they saw a lot of behavior behind the scenes with agents and players that is disconcerting. There's a sense that some of these guys are starting to drift a little bit from kind of the legacy that he left behind. And it's hard to be, and we've been spoiled, House, because golf is such a humiliating sport,

and usually it keeps these guys humbled. But the money now is so great that that hasn't been happening quite as much. And we'll touch on this here in the speed round. The speed round, by the way, house, is brought to you by Odyssey Golf, brought to us by Odyssey Golf as well. Control your speed on the greens with a new Odyssey Works putter. Find the putter that's best for you with the online fitting tool at Odysseygolf.com. Odyssey was guiding those beautiful Patrick Reed putts into the hole at Hazeltine.

And those greens were, I'm sorry, they were fast. They were scary. So you need that little soft Odyssey touch. house. Let's give a grade. Let's get right to Jordan Speath. Let's get there. He was a guy coming into the year. He took, well, he had an amazing 2015. He showed up at Capulah looking muscular, healthy, happy, ready to go. But it turned out, you know, the whole year was he's just a little bit off. And the Ryder Cup was just a great sort of summation of his year in that he was close. He was good. He was really good occasionally. And then he was just had these sort of tragic

comic moments summed up best by his losing his match to Henrik Stenson. He was great to get all Huck Finn, take off his shoes and hit this shot out of the water. And when he stepped into the water, that made his ball move. Yeah, the ball moved. He lost the hole. And that was the end of him for the week. And I hope, I hope for the year he's supposed to playing in Australia later on. I'd love to see him shut it down. I thought he looked thin. I thought he looked he just looks a little tired. And I think he's at a point that's very dangerous for his career. He needs to kind of regroup and come back fresh at Capulua. Yeah, we want happy, healthy, competitive Jordan Speeth in our lives because that really creates the competitive dynamic

that we craved throughout this season, especially in the majors, as between he and Jason Day and Rory. I mean, it looks like Rory is roaring back into form. We want to beat at his best to be competing with those dudes. And it's curious, there's a kind of symmetry to Jordan's season ending in the water because you could point to the 12th hole at Augusta back in April, and say maybe, you know, that was a derailing moment. You know, he was, you know, six holes away from being a repeat champion at the Masters

and how different might his year have gone if he was able to have closed that out. And instead, you know, he will always be associated for the rest of his professional golfing career with that collapse at 12. And then, you know, the Ryder Cup moment here was not that big a deal. I'm going to give him my grade for Jordan this week is a B. Oh, okay. I was a B minus, so we were close. Well, you know, Patrick dragged him around for sure.

But, you know, Jordan did show up. There was some moments there, especially on Friday. Patrick's driver got a little crazy on him. It got a little cranky. Well, his T-ball is what I'll say. Because it was going right and it was going left. And by the way, Patrick Reed was emboldened by, I think, playing with speed. I think they feed off each other well and not necessarily everybody wants to

play with Patrick from what we gather. And Jordan does and takes any element of whatever awkwardness out of that team element for Patrick might be. So to me, that's that he still played a huge, huge part in the whole thing because he helped push this guy along. Now, how about, let's go over to Europe. How about what do you give Danny Willits week? Well, it gets the F that it deserves, but that's his brother. His brother helped him earn the F. Let's extend his week into the wee hours of Monday morning. Okay, just so we're clear.

You do know about that, right? On his Twitter feed? His little follow-up tweets. Yeah, okay. That he needs, yeah. Yes, of course. He just had to stick it to those nice people in Minnesota. Well, the takeaway is he's a guy without, who doesn't quite have the mental maturity, is the way I'll put it.

And this distinguishes him from, we already. gave Rory at A++, Rory demonstrated a mental maturity that was unexpected. You know, he took on that villain mantle. Danny Willett was not up to the challenge presented by, you know, the unanticipated interjection by his brother, which led to, you know, a sour taste to start the week. He wasn't able to overcome it by focusing on his play, and he didn't play well. And, you know, he He earned an F and then he put the F icing on the F cake with his dumb tweets on Monday. I have nothing to say. I completely concur.

It was just not a great first writer cup for him. All right. Let me, I want to ask you. I have one for you now. Okay. I have one for you. So you go first. You were physically there.

So you weren't able to, you won't be able to give NBC a grade. so I'm going to let you off the hook on that. And I'm not able to give him a grade because I work with him as well. So I'm just going to pull a Vin Scully like the 1975 Masters where Vin, Vin put the final moment, the big putt, he knew he didn't want to talk. So he moved the mic away. So I'm just going to do it in honor of the great Vin. I'm just going to move the mic away and let you talk about NBC's week at the Rider Cup.

Well, I'm happy to do it. I'm going to give NBC a C plus. And the reason that I can't give them a better grade really breaks down to the lack of ProTracer. I just can't get my head around why an event like this, where you know exactly how many guys are going out. It's an extraordinarily limited field. It's not an all-day kind of thing. I there's the only way for me as a as an outside observer and I'm a person that that loves golf and consumes the golf and I'm I'm really channeling here you know the legions of you know irregular golf fans who tune into the Ryder Cup because of the great event that it is and here on our home turf I have come to rely on Pro Tracer to help me navigate around the golf course the shot shapes and the you know laid against the. the landscape help me see what guys are trying to do.

And when they miss, I can better understand the reason for why their misses put them in the bad position that it put them. In the absence of ProTracer, all I see when I'm watching a broadcast like what NBC put on is guy hitting ball off T. I can't pick up the direction of the ball at all. Then they flash to the ball in the air and the ball landing. And I can't pick out where it landed and how, you know, if it's not in the fairway, in relation to where on the hole that ball landed without the help of ProTracer giving me a sense of direction off the T. So in terms of the viewing experience and the consuming of the golf, I did not like the lack of Pro Tracer one bit.

I did like quite a bit the handling of the crowd. I thought they did a good job of identifying that the fact that the crowd could be an issue. They also did, I thought, an admirable job of capturing the patriotism, the inspired, you know, impromptu singing of the national anthem a couple different times. And the reaction of the players to that was pretty cool to catch. and they caught that. It was neat to see them relate, you know, where you hear roars all over the property because of how many people there. And you said they oversold the tickets.

You could hear the roars. And then the guys on the ground were excellent at identifying where the roars were coming from and you could kind of, you know, pick up on what might have happened. And, you know, that was helpful. I thought the broadcast team did well, always like Dan and Johnny. it was curious to me that Tariko was kind of, I don't know exactly what role he had. You know, he's a friend of the shack house, Mike Tarrico is, and he's an excellent narrator of, you know, a golf event. He delivers a wonderful narrative.

I don't know why he was playing an MC role, why he was sitting off, you know, in a tower, essentially, or off, you know, to the side of the property. I guess giving a couple of different summaries. I don't know exactly what the point is. Maybe they're figuring out how to integrate him. but, you know, that's a guy with an esteemed and accomplished record at providing a good narrative for a golf event. So I'd like to see him incorporated in a bit more. So C plus grade is what I give the NBC. All right.

And then the last grades we have to give are to the two captains. Davis Love, Darren Clark. I'm going to go with a... You're not going to give three captains? It's not going to be Mickelson, Love, and Clark? Captain Mickelson. Well, that's why I'm going to give Davis love a beat. Oh.

Yeah, he had the superior team depth-wise. I mean, when you can send out Zach Johnson as your kind of last man standing and Europe's countering with Matthew Fitzpatrick, nothing against him, but a very fine player and maybe a future great writer-cup player. But Zach Johnson, that's like your kind of anchor man, but he's not that. great right now on the golf course. He can still scrape it around and can just be a nightmare for somebody in a match. And so they had the deeper team, the U.S. and I thought that Love gave a few things away that were a little surprising. It was obvious that they needed to wait for Phil to finish his

round to get his thoughts. He mentioned Drew Love, his son slipped him a possible lineup, I think, for Saturday afternoon. I joke to somebody. I wonder if the locker room attendance is like writing in some tips in the bottom of his shoe in the morning. He was listening to everybody. And I thought that was a little bit odd

that he wasn't a little more, having done this one, it's a little more definitive about, all right, I'm running the show here now. I've heard all your input going to the matches and this is what we're doing. But he did make a great call in picking Ryan Moore.

I think like Darren Clark, that was a little bit of a struggle for him. I think he really wanted to pick somebody else. And so he did kind of at the key moment there, make the right choice. Ryan Moore ended up playing well enough and then, of course, clinched the matches. So I give him a B. Darren Clark, I've got to give a C plus to. Again, he was kind of given a team that wasn't as deep. but he proved that what we've kind of been seeing recently, experience is a little overrated.

Thomas Peters was incredible, and he really didn't want to pick Thomas Peters, who forced his hand. He wanted to have veterans, and his two veteran picks were not great. Leo Westwood was pretty much disastrously bad. Yeah, if by not great you mean abysmal, I'm going to have to agree with you.

Well, I'm trying to be compassionate, because it's a tough, there's a lot of pressure. these things. And these guys are working for free for the week. And I don't ever want to be too hard on anybody because they're there. They're putting themselves on the line. And yeah, Lee Westwood, but he wanted to be there. And he was not up to the task. Russell Knox, Paul Casey, there were some people on the sidelines who sure would have been nice to have been there for Europe, see what they could do. Yeah, I have to agree with that. I would have liked to have seen both Knox and

Casey just for the competitive element. So in addition to those two, you know, really poor judgment calls on the captain's picks, I also was stunned by one thing by Clark that just stuck out like a sore thumb at me. How did he, how could he come up with breaking up Sergio and Rafa after they have the match against Spieth and, and Reed? Yeah, that was a very, do you have an explanation for that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. one of the things that they have to do is submit that lineup for the afternoon.

Pretty, I'd say about an hour before the first tea time, I believe, of that afternoon session. And those guys were getting thumped when he was having to kind of make his, get close to the decision. They fought back a little bit. They got to within two or three down, I think it was. But he had to submit that lineup, and so they weren't looking so hot. then they come back and they play beautifully and they come all the way back. And by then, you know, they took that match to the last hole. Now I'm drawing a blank. Did they have the match? I think they have the match. Yeah, because they, I think they have it with par on 18.

Yeah. And so that was one of the, they made par. That's right. And so a lot of people have said, well, they need to figure that out so that those captains have a little more time. But the problem is, literally as soon as that match is done, that first match of the afternoon is going off. And it's kind of tricky. So that was why he did that. That said, it should have been kept together for sure. Kimer should not have been sent out there with Garcia.

That was a, they were not a great team. I'll change my grade, yeah, from D minus to D. Because the day before Kimer and Sergio got their ass handed to him by Zach Johnson and Jimmy Walker, I mean four and two. Yeah. So it's not like the Sergio Kimer group who was so compelling the day before that he just had to have that back together again. Anyway, that's something for them to fix format wise. One last thing on Davis Love where maybe I should bump his grade to B Plus.

Finally, finally a captain who just has our guys in red, white, and blue. House, we have seen so many bad Rider Cup uniforms over the years wearing beige, and lavender and all these stupid things. You're like, come on, man, it's a red, white, and blue. Dress like Americans. And I thought that Davis Love, Polo did the uniforms. I thought they did a great job. The guys looked cool.

They looked American. I don't know about the white pants. They were a little see-through. It was a little more than we needed to see. But all in all, they looked like Americans. I thought Europe looked a little, they were going for the drab. Darren had them in like grays and just blah colors. And I just liked seeing our guys.

It was so cool out there seeing them in the red, white, and blue. Their entourage is all kind of gussied up in the big, bold color. And it just kind of added to me to the look of the whole thing. Yeah, it was pretty vibrant on TV. And there was a really stark contrast between the U.S. uniforms and the Euro uniforms. The only thing that I would quibble with at all, the Sunday singles match, as the U.S. uniform could have used a little more red. There was a couple times where I looked very quickly and saw blue and white as the predominant colors.

It wasn't sure at the onset or early in the broadcast, whether it was a Euro or a U.S. I mean, just that's just glancing blows. Well, they had a red out with the spectators, so that was probably something they could have coordinated a little better. So maybe I'll give Davis a B plus, maybe throwing that in. Cool. All right. So I think we've beaten. that one up enough. So a few words just kind of about where we're at with the pod. We've done 22

shows now, and like you said, we're going to take a little bit of a hiatus, but we're going to have some pop-up pods now and then based on news. And one of the ones, though, for sure, House, is we are going to go down to San Diego, and you're going to come west for the links at Petco Park, which is in the first week in November. I don't know what the status is, frankly, of T-Times. They sold out pretty fast last year. They were probably too generously priced in terms of affordability. They raised the price a little bit this year. It's still a ridiculous bargain for what you get.

And I don't know how the sales are, but I'm pretty sure it's probably going to sell out again. So if you're in California and you love sports, it is a great thing to come to. We will do a pod from down there. It's just, I can't wait for you to come out and see it. so cool. It's a great ballpark, first of all, which you haven't been to Petco, right? No, no. And the one thing I want you to give me some comfort, there's no

danger that with my hacky swing where I fall off balance sometimes, even with a nine iron, I've been known to fall off balance. I'm not going to fall from the upper deck of the stadium, right? No, no. That was one of the wild things about this last year was, well, one, how well, one, how well done it was for the first time, but you just think, wait, this can't. work in a ballpark with balls flying everywhere and and people hacking and getting nervous and the

winds was blowing and it worked beautifully it was amazing really you never felt in danger the first tea was covered by a tent so you could hit off of home plate which was totally cool and no it worked beautifully you know you do get up high petco is a and it's got some interesting verticals and views and you get this downtown in the background. And so, and when we play, when we play, I have decided that I think the winner of the Nats Dodgers series, you know, if the Nats pull it off, I will wear a Nats hat when we do this. And you will be forced to wear a Dodger hat, I think, should the Dodgers prevail in this

three-game series, or five-game series. Is that an acceptable wager for you on our? We're both going to be wearing Nats hats. I can't wait. It's going to be spectacular. The Shack house. With the Nats hats at the Links at Petco, those folks in San Diego, I don't know. Do they really care?

Are they going to give us a hard time for wearing Nats hats hats? The Dodger hat may be a problem for them since we are in the same division. Well, I'm not worried about the Dodger hat. I think you should because I think I like our chances quite a bit in the series. But we'll find out if it doesn't get rained out. We'll find out here in a few days. I've got game four tickets, which I hope I don't. need because the Dodgers just sweep it.

But I have game one tickets and I'm very happy that Max Scherzer's going to be throwing balls in the shadows to the Dodgers lineup. I'm not that worried. It's a late afternoon start and the shadows out at Nat's Park can get a little bit intimidating for folks not used to it. Right, right. Yeah. Clayton Kirshaw, future Hall of Famer really is bothered by those kinds of things too.

Yeah. Well, it's a shame you can't pitch at Dodgers Stadium all the time. Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. Well, we'll see how it goes. So now what I want to also say before we get into a rat hole about baseball, nobody wants to hear about probably, we would love if you either on my website, jeffshackleford.com, or the Calloway community where there's a Shackhouse thread, or on iTunes, we would love to hear your feedback because we are going to hit a little bit of reset button here and ponder now. We had no idea what we were doing, house. We didn't know each other when we started this. We didn't know where the ringer was going, all these different things that have gone on. And we're very pleased. You know House out at Hazeltine on Sunday. Now, all week I got some shack houses.

I got nine shack houses screamed out at me. It couldn't have been me. You heard some of it? Shack house? Oh, yeah. You got some of that? Oh, full with all the energy. with all the the the the the ver it was just incredible it was amazing um so thank you all for uh for

listening and and channeling house when when when out of the golf tournament a couple of my peers were like what the hell was that um i said ah you know listeners come on so we would love to hear your feedback we uh we we definitely plan on on popping up now and then we love having great guests but we'd love to know what you'd think if you want more guests fewer guests longer should Shorter Show, and all that good stuff. So all those various places, of course, you can find us on Twitter, too. Jeff Shack at Twitter for me and House is at House from D.C. So we'd love to hear what you think.

And we certainly appreciate you all downloading and listening all season long. And we hope you'll stay with us here over the fall in the wraparound months, the lull and golf. but we won't completely disappear, right, House? Yeah, big love to everybody for listening to the Shack. Shack House, pals, you've heard us here on the Shack House. Talk about our stylish clothes, our tequila, our putters, our underwear. Today, we are pleased to once again have the opportunity to talk about something a little more personal. And that's the continuing collaboration between Shack House, the Ringer, Calloway Golf,

with a terrific charity called Golf Fights Cancer. Golf Fights Cancer is an organization that taps into the passion and generosity of all golfers to raise much-needed funds for cancer-related organizations and families living with the awful disease. Everyone knows that Shaq and I are givers. We give you great guests, great suggestions for places to play the game, maybe eat some great food while doing so, and we give you occasionally great advice on how to be. to allocate the little capital.

Now we're asking you to do something for us. Join Jeff and I, and please get involved. Golf fights cancer held its recent Good Guy Invitational. It was just this week. Guys and gals like you and I that share a passion for the game have been touched by cancer and want to do something to give back. Shaq and I invite you to be honorary good guys. Become part of Team GFC, make a donation in support of, or in memory of the favorite golfer

in your life. Golf Fight's Cancer made up of a community of regular golfers like you and me. They've raised more than $5 million since inception. Please check out the website today and get involved. It's www.golfightscancer.org. You can learn a little bit more about the charity and the mission, see how you can help. That is www.ggggfightscancer.org. Thanks, friends.