Fairway Rollin' - Ep. 7: The Players Championship Recap

Episode Date: May 16, 2016

Geoff Shackelford and Joe House discuss Jason Day's wire-to-wire win at TPC Sawgrass, the "big three" of the tour, and Donald Trump vs. the PGA Tour. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to the Post Players' Championship Edition of Shackhouse. We have a lot of get-to, including a full wrap-up of a wild week, the changing guard at the top of the sport, some fun behind-the-scenes buzz, and of course the Speed Round. House, how you doing today? I am A-OK, Jeff Shackleford. How about that players finish? I enjoyed all of the tournament, including the hot Saturday.

and I really appreciate and admire what Jason Day did in terms of closing the door on the back nine. It was a door closing back nine by Jason Day. It really was because there were a few people chasing him. Of course, I'm not sure how much he was shaking in his boots when Ken Duke was knocking at the door. But, hey, when you look at the leaderboard and there's somebody there, that means something. But gosh, he's just on another level, really, because I don't know. he really played that great on the weekend and he just kind of coasted around and just showed why he's an elite player and on a different level.

So one thing I was really surprised by is I came to, I was very, I am skeptical, I continue to be skeptical, I was skeptical watching the tournament about trying, you know, the overwhelming effort to give this thing a prominence that it may not deserve on its own, you know, the identity crisis that this. tournament has. But the one thing that I was surprised by that I liked about it is, is that the design of the course let the old guys in the mix. We had three dudes, 47 or older, all with top 20s. My man, Kenny Duke, Reteef was in there, and Jerry Kelly, all with top 20 finishes. and, you know, the thing that jumps off the TV screen watching it over this past weekend is the sort of equalizing effect that the course had by taking driver out of the hands of the bomb and gouge guys and letting some of these other strategic guys into the mix.

The Ken Duke 65 on Saturday is like an all-timer, a lifetime round, right? Yeah, unbelievable. And those weather conditions, the golf course conditions, the whole thing, and the way he's been playing, which hasn't been very good. It was just surreal. And he saved the tour, by the way. Tim Fincham should send him the biggest gift basket of all time this week for posting that 65. Because if he doesn't do that, the whole sort of boondoggle on Saturday becomes a, oh, they lost control and it tainted the tournament. But when somebody goes out and shoot 65 and Hedecki had a nice round, 67, I think that kind of saved. the day. So what the hell happened, Jeff Schauchofford? What happened on Saturday? Well, a few things. Now, I should note, I left the property, and I was there all week, but I left Saturday midday, and I was in the press center for a couple of hours after the first, or excuse me, the second round was completed in the morning, and I walked outside, and the humidity had absolutely disappeared. It was almost like, for us in L.A., a San Anandah wind day. It was shockingly dry, but I didn't think much of it, and then I started driving to the airport, and I started hearing what was going on.

And I just, I wasn't totally shocked because the Greens were just ridiculously fast already. But knowing the guys who do the setup and how they work and how seriously they take it and how upset they get when things go bad, I was a little shock that they lost control. It's just, they are, they lost control of the golf course. And they have so many tools to make everything perfect and make Greens. and they just misjudged what the weather was going to do to impact the golf course. And the point is when you have greens that are 14 on the stint meter, that's like putting on a marble floor, that is right on the edge already.

And then you throw in some sort, believe it or not, a significant drop in humidity and some wind, a little more wind than they thought. And you're going to have stuff like that happen. And it was ugly. It's not what they want. It is not what those. I mean, those guys do an amazing job. They have every opportunity to screw up every week, and they almost never do.

And so for them to do it at that event, I mean, I just know John Munch, who does the front nine, and Robbie Warrer does a back nine, they're not going to sleep very well this week because they love what they do. They do a great job. They take their job very seriously. And Mark Russell as well, who's kind of oversees all them, they are just absolutely appalled at what happened. They do not want that to happen. They want the players to be deciding the tournament and it to be about the players. for their names and their faces never to be seen.

So the thing that I was slightly confused by, a bunch of guys finished their rounds in the morning on Saturday. And your explanation makes a lot of sense to me. But I don't remember watching, you know, the portion of the Saturday morning that I watched, any of the crazy, you know, aberration in putting performance that showed up Saturday afternoon. So what you're saying is the weather changed so much from the morning to the afternoon,

coupled with where they put the pins. That's the thing that created the really weird dynamic Saturday afternoon? Yeah, and there was one other mistake in there. So one of the things that I haven't been able to clarify with the tour is, okay, if you have the rain out, you come back the next morning. Now, generally, as I understand it and have witnessed, when they come back in the morning, they just do a clean-up mow of the greens. And then before the next round starts, they use that gap to do the normal preparation,

move the whole locations to the third round hole locations. Well, this Saturday, they did their double-cut, double-roll before the restart of play, which I think is a little weird because that means you're sort of impacting those players who played in the afternoon, had to come off the course, now all of a sudden they're getting greens that are freshly cut. Some players will say, well, that's an advantage to them. Where things got a little goofy, they then between the two rounds, they did their full preparation pre-restart of play,

then they rolled the greens between the rounds, and then, like I said, it was so dry, and it happened over a couple of hours. Literally from the time I was out on the range early, and then a couple hours later, it just completely changed weather-wise and dried out. Then they had some tough hole locations. Saturday is generally now at the players a day they do tough hole locations. And so then that was an added element.

And instead of the greens, when they first cut them being 14 on the stint meter, and then by the time the leaders come to number 17, let's say late in the day and they're 12, they lose two feet of speed on the stint meter. These greens, because of the weather, because of that rolling and the drying out, and there being no moisture in the leaf of the grass, meant they actually went up to like 15 and 16 by the time. time the afternoon rolled around with the heat and the dryness. And there you had, it's a lethal combination.

We've seen it happen too many times, and a lot of the time it happens just because Greenspeed starts so fast. Yeah, so that, I understand the motivating animus there, which is, you know, at a place designed the way Sawgrass is the green speed is the primary defense against the players. And, you know, we saw what happened, right? We saw what happened with all the guys on Thursday, you know, how many course records? There was a front nine record being threatened, a back nine record. 229s, yeah, exactly.

I mean, it seemed like a 60 was in the mix, and a couple, Rory had a chance at 62. Day himself had a chance of 62. So I understand the idea of wanting to provide the. course, its best defense. But yeah, so it got away from them. I have to tell you from watching at home, wasn't that bad to watch. It was kind of fun to watch. No, those days, those boondoggle days are actually very entertaining to watch. And NBC does a great job. They, of course, covered several of the USGA's total course set up screw-ups, and they do a great job. When something like that happens, they do not run from it, even though it obviously puts them in a tough spot being the

the television host and partner of the PGA tour that week, but they are all in, they don't shy away from it, they show it, and it is kind of compelling television. Again, it's not what they want, the tour wants. And I really do not sense anybody down there said, oh yeah, ramp it up, Mark Russell, get the Greens a little, do a little bit more, because that is what's happened before. There have been reactions with course setups where they do take it up

few notches and it blows up in their face because of low scoring or whatever is bothering somebody. But I really don't think that's the way these guys work. I've spent enough mornings going around with them on the golf courses. I've watched them agonize over a whole location that I sit there and say, guys, what are you worried about? I mean, they literally, Joe, will worry about a, you'll see a put and you'll see them not like the way the ball turns too hard at the hole. or they'll have a whole location where they're like, oh, you know, you can't get to within a foot of that one. You know, every ball is staying like two feet away. I mean, they obsess about things that most people don't realize.

They do not want embarrassing situations. They don't want to embarrass the players. They want to test them. But they are very, very careful. And so that's why I know this was a horrifying thing. But like you said, probably kind of compelling. And it's kind of fun to listen to the players get angry about it after the round. and it added a little, you know, a little zest to the weekend, right?

Absolutely, yeah. The drainage spouts got all-time coverage. I mean, I can't tell you how many times we saw the balls landing in the collection areas rolling down into the drainage spouts. That's an architectural flow. But it's all going to get blown up now. Yeah, yeah, and we'll get to that in a moment. I do want to get into that because I reported some stuff for golf world this morning.

Before we do that house, anything, else about day we want to cover, are we going to, we're going to get to him versus Spieth a little bit later on, but anything else about his performance, because I don't, I don't want to diminish what he did and kind of what an eye-opening week, I feel like already this was for people in, I guess in the context of us hearing about the big three and four for the last almost year, and now all of a sudden he's kind of looking like he's running away from the field. Yeah, we're going to talk about, he and. and Spieth, and I think naturally we should also be talking about Rory and Ricky in that conversation.

The only thing that I want to mention with respect today is how proper his game looks coming up to a U.S. Open. That two iron, and he said so afterwards, he's never hit his two iron that well. If he can hit his two iron off the tee and be mostly in play with that two iron at Oakmont, I love what I'm seeing out of him coming up to Oakmont. Yeah, and his agent is loving what he's seeing because his contract with Taylor Made is up at the end of the year. So he's going to be cashing in on this success. Not that he hasn't made a whole lot of money already. House, before we move on, we have a new sponsor, our friends at Fulton and Roark.

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All right. So you asked about the golf course. You were not very kind to it last week on the pod. You weren't a fan. And what if I told you they were going to try to bring back a little of the old Pete Dye swamp golf sandy scrubby look? I like that look. Yeah, that's what I want.

Okay, good. Well, that's what I was told last week by my various sources. The tour didn't really want to talk about what they're going to do to the golf course. They're going to change the 12th hole. That's been well documented. They put that out. make it a driveable, a risk-reward hole, kind of liven up a point on the back nine that's a little bit dull.

But then they're talking about doing a little bit of a pinehursty kind of thing where if you look at the old photos, and I just posted this on my website, jeffshackleford.com, where I'll have a whole bunch of show notes on the show. But there's this really cool site house. You'll get a kick out of this called Golf Course Histories, and you can take an aerial of today, and they embed that, and then they embed an old aerial,

and you can wipe across kind of with, your mouse, like move this bar and see the golf course then and now. And you've got to go see what TPC looked like in 1982. It was like sand everywhere. It was so cool looking and you realize how cleaned up it's gotten. So I reported in Golf World today. They're going to be bringing a little of that look back. I don't know how much with Commissioner Finchum they can do. He's a little goofy about that kind of stuff. He likes things very clean and precise. But that's the plan. but they right now are not talking about adding any length. And while I know you just touted that this is a golf course that neutralizes the driver a little bit,

I'm still not a big fan of that. On the other hand, the way Jason Day just sort of went, okay, fine, I'll use driver in a few spots, overpowered here, and then I'll use this two iron in other spots. I kind of admire that too, so I have mixed feelings, but I just see a lot of guys kind of, when they can't hit driver house, it just sort of, takes a certain aura away from a tournament. Like they're stifled, you know, there's a certain lack of aggressiveness that happens when you do that. So that's kind of where I'm a little bit.

And I think that's why they really haven't committed to how many holes they're going to lengthen because I think they have the same mixed feelings about the golf course. They know it's probably the right thing to do for certain holes, but they kind of like this democratic nature of their tournament. Yeah, I guess I don't really care that much about lengthening. it because I don't, I didn't really find myself missing out on any of the fan viewing experience by not seeing guys hit driver. It was intriguing to me to see whether Day was going to hit two iron or three wood on various

holes. And I like the approaches into the par fives. You saw guys with clubs ranging from like four iron all the way to three wood. The most impressive thing I saw all week, I think it was on 16, was day hitting a three wood and then an eight iron, a 210-yard eight iron that he's stuck to 12 feet. So I don't mind. The length thing isn't the issue to me or what I'm most curious about in this redesign. The greens are what I'm interested in seeing what they do with them. because, again, the way the trainage spouts were featured Saturday and Sunday this week,

all of those runoff, so many balls running off the greens. I'm interested in what the idea is behind the green redesigns. Okay, well, they're going to add a bunch of whole locations, but the way it was described to me was those are mostly for the Marriott play. So no offense to those who are going to stay at the Marriott and play golf at the TPC, but you're going to be getting some whole locations they probably won't ever use in the tournament. They want to just spread out the wear and tear. They do do a lot of play there.

Obviously, it's a place a lot of people want to play. So that's one component that will be interesting, and I think we'll probably help them with the growing the turf. Now, the thing you mentioned, House, we're going to get really seriously architectural geeky-wonky here, but I have to do it, do it, do it. Okay, so we have like this school of minimalist architects and who are Corrin Crenshaw and Tom Doak and Gilhams.

and I'm a part of that school and subscribing to that. And we're inspired by the old architects. And what the old architects did was to drain a golf course, they would create a swale and move water away from the play. Okay? Pete Dye has a thing where he doesn't like to do that. He likes to shape things however he wants, and then he sticks these big bowls with a drain at the bottom.

And it's my one real beef with his design style and his execution. I think it's just horrific. Whistling Straits is horrific. It has these bowls right down the middle. It's just awful. It's like the 16th green at TPC Sawgrass. There's one of these bowls behind the green. There's a lake right there, and it's below the level of the lake.

And you just say, Pete, why didn't you just cut a swale right here to the lake? And so we don't have to see these balls swirling around like they're going down a toilet bowl. And it's just a weird thing of his design-wise. And it's more expensive, by the way, house, to put these little drains in and do all that. So it's ugly. And ultimately, here's why we don't like it. You want a golf course to feel natural. You want to feel like the bounces you get,

the lies you get, the way it plays is natural. When it feels man-made in any way, when you feel like something's contrived and you know subliminally that it is man-made, as a golfer, it bothers you. And that's why people work so hard to make all the contours feel natural because I have no evidence of this,

but generally golfers embrace something they feel, like Link's golf. They know those contours were created by something else and not man. And so you embrace the weird bounces and you embrace the weird lies. Too wonky there? No, but to that point, for everybody that missed the greens, you know, or hit shots that were not precise enough to stay on, they all rolled out. to the same place. Everybody ended up in the same place. There wasn't a variety in the miss, which is, I think, what you're getting at and what I think I'd prefer. Well, that's another

component, actually. You're right. You end up with a bunch of players when there's a whole location a certain way. I didn't really even think about that part. But yeah, they end up with the same ship shot. And, of course, then you get a bunch of divots around these drains, too, which is not an attractive look either. So they're not going to be getting rid of those at the TPC. But by expanding some of these greens, they might impact those a little bit? I don't know. But I'm mostly excited to see what they do to the course. It was in great shape last week. I don't know how much people realize how immaculately conditioned it was and why that's why the scoring was so good. And they just, the greens were just astonishingly good the first two days. They started to look a little ragged on the weekend,

but if you watch, the ball still rolled really well. And it's a neat place, great venue, but it's time to get back some of the look that it used to have, I think. And because ultimately it's about restoring, and just to be clear, like bringing in the sandy scrub area, it's not really about penalizing the resort player or even penalizing the golfers. It's about visual intimidation. And it's about mishit drives letting them roll into the trees. So that will make the course harder in ways maybe they can't quantify. So that's cool. I'm into that. That's why when you started this whole thing off, you asked, are you interested in seeing it restored to some of that sandy, that Florida Swamp Golf? My answer is yes, and I can't wait to see how it all turns out next year.

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What were we talking about pimping? We were going to pimp the balls. Somehow that ended up on there. Yeah. Yeah, they ceased on that fine use of language. All right. And I think you have a word from our friends at the Athletes Collective. Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about athletes

collective. While we admire pro athletes and how great they are and we have seen Rory training in Nike and in fact it looked like he was training out on the golf course on Saturday. Those jogging pants were atrocious but we'll get to that in

good time. Let's face it, wearing the same logo as the pros across our chest when we play rec league sports or workout does not make us play like them unfortunately. Thankfully, you can now buy great quality, great-fitting activeware without the logos for 30 to 40% cheaper than the big brands

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I guarantee the satisfaction as well. And it's comfortable, house. I can't believe how... The performance stuff is never usually that comfortable. Anyway, it's great stuff. Yeah. I can't believe how they make it feel soft and yet perform. Anyway.

I know. I'm lefty speechless. Props to the athletes' collectives. Yeah. So how's the big four? The big three. Is it now the big one? Let's just stop.

There's no big anything. I know there is. Of course not. I keep talking about this. I use this phrase with Simmons a little bit, this recency bias. It's a big, it's big every week. Every week there's a new big one. It's a new big three, a new big four.

It's a silly idea. It's a dumb narrative. I understand the desire to do some organizing and some stratifying and some, you know, categorizing. It helps the golf channel and the guys that have to write about golf. But each and every week, we keep seeing it. These dudes are all awesome. And, you know, the narrative changes each and every week. So, you know, this week was Jason Day's week.

And we look back at his performance since July of last year. We say, holy cow, that's a pretty great run by Jason Day. What the hell's wrong with Jordan Speath? Oh, I don't know. Well, let's look at Jordan Speath's last, you know, calendar year. Here are his performances in the last five majors. First, first, T4, 2, T2. That's pretty damn good.

Yeah. While we don't like what we saw out of Jordan on Saturday, and I mean, Friday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, not his best performance. There's no reason that he can't bounce right back, and all of a sudden it'll be, oh, well, Jordan's back, and it will be coming up to the U.S. Open. You know, we have a couple of big-time tournaments coming up here still.

The memorials in front of us, Colonials in front of us, both pre-U.S. Open, ain't no reason that it can't be Jordan Speeth or Ricky or maybe even Rory. Rory, maybe we'll figure out how to make him. like, you know, four rounds work for him for the first time in 2016, it feels like. But even Rory, 2015, raised to Dubai champion.

He won the D.P. World Championship. Top 10 and six of nine, 2016 events, that's pretty damn good. That's pretty damn good, Rory. So what do you think? Well, do you think some of this, because I do know about your recency bias conversations with Bill, and I always enjoy them, do you think this is part of people not understanding just golf in general that sports, you know, on team sports, you can hide downtime better, but that golf and tennis are different.

It's an individual sport. You're on your own. You're an independent contractor. And when it goes bad, there are no teammates to cover for you. And do you think people just kind of, I mean, I'm not making an excuse for the media stuff that jumps on these big four and three bandwagons. I mean, I love to mock it. So I enjoy it from a different point of view.

But is there some possibility that that is an element that people just don't understand about golf, that it's such a fickle game. And once you're a little bit exposed and a little bit off, it just looks actually worse than it is? Probably. I think really the culprit here, though, is the media, you know, golf media, television and print golf media in search of. And the tour bears some culpability for this as well in the way that it wants to promote these younger players. I understand the motivation behind trying to come up with the Tiger replacement because we're at this really important moment in terms of sports programming. And we're going to cover this a little bit later in the pod today, where you are seeing across the board sports properties getting all-time record deals.

And the U.S. Open just was the beneficiary of this. All-time record deals in terms of sports, the network contracts. And so having a saleable narrative is kind of a really important part of that. But you have to have the right frame of mind when it comes to golf, the point you just made. So this season, we've had great performances from Bubba Watson. We've had great performances from Adam Scott. We've had great performances from Jason Day. You know, a bunch of these guys as multiple winners.

If Ricky hadn't hit it in the water on 17 at Scottsdale, he'd be a multiple winner already this year. Rory's got all these top tens. He's lurking every week. I mean, that's golf. And golf is at a moment right now, I would say, all-time great competitive-wise. The master's ticket this year was an impossible ticket to get. I was down there. We saw each other.

I have a buddy who lives in Atlanta. He told me the secondary market was. through the roof and we were sort of wondering why what's going on? Why are the tickets so hard to come by? And I think it's because golf's had a great moment right now in terms of the competition. And by the way, Tiger's not back yet. I know.

So, you know, I think the narrative big three, big four, big one, it's dumb. I'm happy to let it die. And let's just sort of recognize the competition for what it is. It's an all-time great level of competition,

I think. I agree. And by the way, before we go any further, we're recording this on Monday morning. Tiger's doing the Quick and Lones press conference in about an hour. So just forgive us if he announces that he's coming back and he's going to be number one by the end of the year. And he's talking smack and all that good stuff or some weird thing happens. He probably won't say a thing. But FYI, that's why we don't know what he's up to. But to your point, yes, they are desperate to, to,

create stars. And that's, I think, what ultimately bothers me. You've laid out that the game is in better shape than all the people who are running it are giving us a reason to believe. And it's just because of greed. They just want to get more, more, more, and they have motivations that are beyond things that a lot of people know about right now. And we'll talk about a few of those here in a minute. But it's in very good shape. Stop being so desperate to tell everybody it's never been better and this and that and we have these stars and just enjoy the great competition the players have been bringing every week. There are all these exciting young players. Last week was fun. We got some old guys. We saw some people do some fun things, haul in one. Russell Knox makes a nine on 17, and like he's got

hundreds of thousands of new fans now after the way he handled it. So classy. Yeah, it's classy. I mean, shanked a ball on national TV on the island green. It really doesn't get it. I mean, you just can you imagine how awful that feels? And then he comes back. The next. next day, and it turns out Cameron Morphid has a great piece on golf.com where Knox was basically just shaking. He could barely get the ball on the ground. He said he was just horrified to play the hole again. And so just hearing those stories and learning about all these other characters out there on the tour, Will Wilcox. I mean, what a, what a swing and a whole personality and the whole thing. Just awesome. So stop trying so hard people in golf on the big stage to promote and push.

Just enjoy what we have. And we have obviously somebody right now in just. Jason Day, who is trending in a pretty amazing direction. Yeah, now it is fun to nitpick a little bit. Oh, let's knit. Yeah. So let's start with Rory. Yeah. I am a person who grew up as a huge basketball fan.

So Nike has been an important part of my life. You know, I've now graduated to the athletes collective. Yeah. But I've always respected Nike and their style sense. what did they do to my man Rory on Saturday? Why did they clown him out like that? Oh, he wore him on Thursday, too, House. The job is.

But Thursday was like he could kind of get away with it. They dressed the man on Saturday like, you know, he was headed to go perform an oil change. I mean, if a dude walks up to my golf course, my local muni dressed like that and tries to walk out in the first tee, there's a 50-50 chance to start. Don't let him out. You can't go out on a golf course looking like that.

Sweat pants and a shirt with no collar? Come me, you're in the wrong spot. I wish that there was a way to get a script, a clothing script for every one of these tournaments. Because I'm betting against anybody that shows up in the joggers. I'm out on that. I'm taking the, you know, I'm shorting any player wearing the joggers. That's where it comes out. So look, he's got his own sort of performance issues going on.

But that outfit is not helping anything. No, it's not. No, it's not. Okay, that was a very get-off-my-law and old man ran. I love it. It sure was. Believe me. We look like a clown.

Okay, that's a little harsh, don't you think? Come on. What was the shirt? Okay, the shirt, see, I'm going to defend the shirt. Okay, it's a little like Star Trek-E. I get that. But he's trying to take the golf fashion to a new place. Nike is some things are going to work.

Some things aren't going to work. I think the shirt has potential. potential. I don't know about the color choices, but the collar is something. The joggers are a problem. I called Marty Hackle, our fashion guru at Golf Digest. I said, Marty, are we looking at a white belt type trend here? Are we going to be stuck looking at these stupid things for a while? He assured me that this will not last because, first of all, only like, well, nobody can wear them and look good. We've, we've now established. Yeah, because it looks stupid. That's why it's not going to last. But now, how's, the golfers used to wear plus fours.

They used to wear nickers. And they wore those to, you know, not get the pants dirty. That's a tradition. That's a tradition. You can look back in the history books and see old Tom Morrison plus fours. Come on. They're starting a new tradition or they're hoping to. And it's you've.

No. You've spoken. Rory has heard from the people on social media. Even he mocked it a little bit after the round one of the days. But then he came right back with him on Saturday. He pulled them up on Thursday. and then, of course, he comes back on Saturday with him. And the worst part is they, like, bunch up at the bottom.

They didn't quite fit right. It's not a good trend. But you know, I'll tell you what was funny was most people were more offended that he was doing something that was copying Ricky Fowler, not that he was trying to be different, but that he was not being original, which I thought was kind of a fascinating reaction. Huh.

Well, Ricky has been, he has an established identity as a forward-thinking fashion dude. And credit to him and Puma, they make his clothes look right. Now, I don't like the joggers, and I'm not a big fan of the joggers and the high tops. But I get what he's going for there and how that look, you know, works for these millennials. Get off my law! Get off my lawn. But the Rory thing was just such a misfire. It looked like he was going to the – he was going to – he was going to ask me if he could borrow the 50-pound barbell, dumbbell.

See, now you're complimenting him there. Don't feed – they like that. idea. That's the idea is to show you I'm an athlete, I'm in the gym. All right, we've been too hard on them. All right, House. So what do you, we have a little more time here before we get to the speed round. Do we want to pick on Jordan Speed or do you want to hear about the big behind the scenes buzz brewing down at Panavira? Yeah, I'm definitely, I'm much more interested in the behind the scenes. To me, there's no reason to pick on Jordan. He just took a month off and then showed up the golf course. Yeah. Where, where he's had mixed success. And so he missed the

cut. BFD, you know, call me when it's time for Oakmont, and that's when it's time to start talking about Jordan to me. So let's talk about the behind-the-scenes stuff. Well, okay, so once we got past talking about the Zika virus earlier in the week, which is on everybody's mind down there, all the players are talking about that. I started asking around, and it's one of the cool weeks for me covering golf to sort of hear what everybody at the tour is saying and what they're thinking. and I had, I don't know, I had just kind of thought that the TV contract ship had sailed. Well, it turns out it looks like the tour is planning to opt out of their network television contract this fall. And I'm eagerly awaiting a story I heard that the Sports Business Journal may be posting very soon about this.

And I was able to sort of confirm, I didn't even know they were working on it, that this is what's going on. And now, I know this is very exciting to most people to talk TV stuff, but as we all know, the way the networks present golf and how it's all done is integral to how we enjoy viewing the sport. So the current contract house goes to 2021 with NBC and CBS. They have an out at the, this year that they can notify them, renegotiate and start a new contract in 2018, which isn't that far off. Their contract with a golf channel is ironclad and goes through 2021. but I also got a sense from people that they think the tour is trying to get out of that as well, and I don't think that's going to be a very pretty fight if they do. But set aside the Golf Channel part for a while because I think the more interesting component

is them going to the networks and saying, Sayonara, we want a new contract, and we want these things, we want you to do this, this and that, we want a whole lot more money. Now, my sense is that we've passed the peak of the sports rights field. situation. And so I think it seems like it's a very fascinating time to be re-entering the market with CBS and NBC and then hoping that ESPN, Fox, and Turner are interested in golf. And my sense is that they're not very interested, but somebody at the tour told me, don't you be surprised if Fox is in the whole thing and all that. And I'll believe it when I see it. So again, it's kind of behind-the-scenes business stuff, but it really is going to impact potentially a lot of news,

and interest in kind of maybe reopen people's imaginations or desires to express what they'd like to see the networks do. Because when you reopen these contracts, that's one of the things that you can do is ask the networks to step it up or change this or get rid of these people. Yeah. Yeah. That's the point that I'm most sort of interested in is that it's an opportunity with a new commissioner coming in, with Jay Monaghan coming in. He gets to put his stamp on the way that the game is presented going forward. And we have observed early in the Shackhouse podcast that especially in the first part of the calendar year season, there's such a discrepancy in the way the game is presented between the NBC programming and the CBS style of presentation.

and if the tour uses this moment to try and improve the overall viewing experience. I mean, it seems like, you know, for instance, the gaps in coverage we've noted before where you're watching on a Saturday or Sunday, some of the early round performance, and then there's a dead zone sometimes where guys are playing great holes at iconic golf courses, and we're not able to watch it on television. because of whatever's going on between the changeover from Golf Channel to the network, that's got to change. That's got to improve.

So maybe something like that can happen. The improved and more pervasive use of the technology to enhance our viewing experience, there was a ton of pro tracer in the broadcast this weekend. Yeah, there wasn't enough, though, was there? No, no, it wasn't enough. I can't get enough of that. So those are just a couple things where you hope that using this moment to open up, crack open the deals, leads to enhanced viewing experiences. Yeah.

Well, that's, I think, one of the things they'll do. But really, this is all about Moneyhouse. I'd love to be a romantic and tell you this is all about improving the product. And that will happen. But Tim Fincham has a contract through June. He wants one last deal. He's all about the deal. I don't know if he really is a fan or cares about the fan.

And he wants to have one big golden parachute when he leaves. One more big buyout. He's got a board that will vote for it. I mean, even like the PGA of America president is on the board. And he's also now a PGA tour employee. So, I mean, he's got the board stacked for himself and to cash out. And that's what's sort of depressing to me is I feel like, and the people who were telling me this from the tour,

are Big Jay Monaghan fans. they're big on the new commissioner coming in, and he's not going to get his chance to put his imprint on the deal. And so if this, if this in fact plays out the way, it was presented to me at the players. That would be a bummer. Yeah. All right. Let's get to the speed round. It's brought to us by our friends at Calloway Golf and the new XR-16 driver.

It's where fast meets forgiveness. It's been winning a whole bunch of tour events. House, no forgiveness from you. on joggers. I think we can now scratch that one off the speed round list. We've covered that. Yeah. You know where you stand. You've been to Top Golf. There was a Top Golf announcement last week. What did you catch any of the text on that and did anything about that strike you as positive, good, bad idea? Yeah, I'm, I can't wait to hear your insider take on this. I saw the news. I saw the fact that the PGA and the LPEC GGA have in Top Golf have all cut a deal.

And it seems like that creates all kinds of opportunities. We have circled Top Golf, you know, in an early Shackhouse podcast, as one of the ways to that folks can grow the game. You know, you asked me about Jay Monaghan coming into the mix as a new commissioner. What are the opportunities for growing the game? This top golf thing has enormous appeal because it lets casual players and it lets folks that are novices show up. You don't even have to bring your own golf clubs. And, you know, it's in a controlled environment, enjoyable setting and, you know, take some swings and maybe have an adult beverage or two and just enjoy yourself.

So these partnerships with the tours are really interesting to me. What is the design there? Well, that's the problem. There was no design announced. You're absolutely right. They're absolutely booming. They're doing amazing stuff. They're making a lot of money.

People love going to them. It's like really cool bowling for the 21st century. And I guess the positive of the press conference is that they have a strategic alliance. The LPGA commissioner, Mike Wan, was on the podium. He was practically jumping out of his seat. He was so excited wanting to talk about all the ways he foresaw this deal helping him. Tim Finchum was like doing his Ben Carson impersonation could not have been more bored sounding.

They had nothing tangible to announce. It was just awful, you know, that he got up there and just he should not be up there doing this. He has no energy at this point to like sell something. And then, of course, the Top Golf CEO was there and he was great talking about stuff. So I did a column at Golf Digest.com, kind of thrown out ways somewhat a little tongue-in-cheek, but not much. I was pretty serious about all those in how they could include.

corporate top golf a facility at tour events and all that cool stuff. So I think there that we will see stuff that's tangible, that's fun soon, but it was probably a slightly premature decision. All right. Next topic, house in the speed round, because you see how speedy we are on each one. Did you, Berkman's light, did you catch any of that at sawgrass? Our new high-end hospitality. I know you wandered in there. It looked like you. It looked like you. is easy to get to the food lines, which is by far the thing that I'm most interested in, is access to the food. I find the whole thing, like, slightly off-putting because it seems like, you know, it's a golden ticket kind of deal where you have to have a badge, and the price of that badge is something astronomical. And I guess it's supposed to be for high-end hospitality, but the joints looked empty.

What the hell is going on there? Yeah, it was. This is the trick. You know, golf wants to be cool, it wants to be popular, but it also knows that it can cater to people with a lot of money. And the tours, you know, they, as always, they saw what Augusta was doing. Augusta has this Berkman's place that's a super high-end, $6,000 ticket, all you can eat food, very private. Augusta does nothing to promote it. They don't want people to talk about it. They don't want them to know about it, except in certain circles. And I admire them for that. I think it's a little over the top, but I get why they do it. There's a audience for it. So the tour, of course, saw that, and they decided to shut down the clubhouse and only allow the people who pay for this $5,000 ticket to go in, and they have, you know, Brazilian blowouts

for the women and manicures and all this, just really over-the-top stuff. But they, the difference is- Brazilian blowout. Yeah, don't ask. Anyway, they then want you, they want to promote it. They declare that it's already better than birth. You never declare you're already better than anything Augusta does, even if you are. Don't just don't do that.

But then it just made the whole clubhouse area just dead. And Mark Russell is basically running the tournament. He got turned away from the clubhouse the first day, which was rather hilarious. So they went a little too far. It was a ghost town. I did not actually get in. I could see it through like a hallway where the player died he is. You didn't have a golden ticket.

But I could tell, no, but I could tell what was going on with the buzz. And it was not existent. Well, I would have had somebody in there shuffling out some food. I saw some sushi look, look spectacular. All right, House. Any other speed round topic you want to get you? Yeah, I want to hear about this. You had some insider scoop on Donald Trump, the tour, and Dorell.

All right. What's going on with the Donald? Oh, yeah. While we're just throwing out stuff, we might as well throw out the other fun topic behind the scenes there. I did tease you with this one. So the Donald, the presumptive presidential. nominee from the Republican Party, hosts the tour at Trump Dural. Rump Dural has a long-term contract with the PGA Tour to host a tour event. However, there is an out clause for the tour

that allows them to end that relationship if they are not able to secure a sponsor for the WGC event in March. They are currently unable to get a sponsor. They're very tough events of sponsor. There's only like a dozen or so companies in the world, or at least in the United States, let's say, maybe not the world. Maybe it's up to maybe 20 around the world who can afford to sponsor WGC event. And now there may be some element of a Donald Trump relationship that companies don't want to be a part of. I don't know. The word is that the tour is looking at a possible tournament in Mexico to just all out replace the Miami Tour Stop, just end one of the most. Seriously? Are you being serious?

Yeah, yeah. Come on. They like to do the leveraging thing. So this may be a leveraging play. That's not leverage. I know. You're going to leave Doral. It's an iconic golf course. They play it at exactly the right time in the tour schedule.

That Florida swing is awesome. And the tour is threatening to go to Mexico, seriously. I know. So they have a TPC or something in Cancun. Cabo is about the only place I could see tour players actually wanting to go. You know, I can see where a Mexico event right after Riviera, like a transitional west coast of Florida thing could work. But either way.

I like the tour event in Mexico. I don't have any problem with that. It's just the idea of swapping out to row. Well, and that's the sad part is, yeah, one of the events that helped build your tour in a major city at a golf course that a lot of money's been put into to make it better, and then just to walk away maybe because you don't like Donald Trump. And they have had a rocky relationship, the tour, in Trump.

He's obviously a tough guy to deal with when it's his golf course, and he is somebody who does not. like Los Scores. So he intervened on some things, I think, and that created some problems. But what is most fascinating about this house is with the calendar year schedule, the tour has to decide on next year's schedule pretty soon because they start again in October. And so they're going to be announcing here their decision, I would say in the next two months at the latest, regarding Donald Trump and Dural. And he's going to be, here he is, one of the two prominent candidates for president,

and they're going to make news potentially if they decide to call an end of this. And I'm sure he'll call them out. And so it's going to be a fun story to watch. It's just something to keep an eye on. Yeah, I tell you what. I never could have imagined the PGA tour schedule could be part of a presidential campaign. Well, how about this? The tour taking on Donald, I know which size.

of that, you know, public relations battle. I'm choosing. And by the way, my man, you know, his financials are somewhat obtuse. It's not easy to get 100% on exactly how much money he has. But he has enough money to sponsor the event. Why doesn't he just make it the, you know, the WGC at Daryl, sponsored by the Donald? I know. I know. And it would be great. He could, he could really make Tim Fincham very angry doing that. Because I think he, I really do sense there's something personal there. He just doesn't want to deal with him and he wants to move on. Yeah, it's fun times.

A lot of interesting stuff. Again, if you're kind of into the behind-the-scenes stuff, a lot of cool entertaining stories to come. And then, of course, we've got fun stuff coming up here with the two Dallas events and the upcoming U.S. Open, which we're going to have some fun pods on that house. I'm working on a couple of interesting guests, and I hope we can get some cool people on to talk about Oakmont. And for those of you who have not listened to the Shackhouse podcast, you know by now, those of us who have been with us here now for seven episodes, we love Calloway Irons, not just because they're the sponsor of the show, because they are absolutely beautiful clubs. They deliver ball speed, distance, and of course, they just feel incredible.

They're the number one iron and golf with the 360 face cup technology. And best of all, right now you can go out get these beautiful CaliCol. Holloway irons with the 360 face-up technology for a 50% trade-in bonus towards a new set. Stop taking our word about how great these irons are. Take your old beat-up sticks to a retailer near you for a 50% trade-in bonus and find out for yourself. For more on the new irons, go to callowaygolf.com. And House, one more word from our friends at the athletes collected before I mop up a few details here. I do.

I want to thank again our friends at Athletes Collective. They offer great quality, great fitting activeware that you can wash multiple times without shrinkage. This activeware does not have logos and it's 30 to 40% cheaper than the big brands. Go to Athletescollective.com and enter the promo code house. You will get 15% off your first order. All the orders include free shipping, which is awesome. And returns to U.S. or Canada, 100% house satisfaction guaranteed Athletescollective.com, my friends. All right, a few things. I'm going to do a lot of you don't know. I have a website. It's jeff shackleford.com. Just Google Jeff with a G, G, EOFF, and golf. And the site will come up. And I'm going to do some show notes, as I have done for the previous show. So I'll have a few of the articles and things we mentioned in here. We didn't get into too many detailed things. But I will put a few links up related to what we discussed today. And check that out. House from D.C. on Twitter. I'm Jeff Shack on Twitter. And just a reminder, too, to make sure to

subscribe to the newest podcast from the Ringer Network. They've broken off a few houses. I think the Shack House kind of set a pretty cool precedent. I don't know, but I just hear. Keeping at 1600, which I'm absolutely loving. The Watch, great show, the Ringer NFL show, and the Ringer NBA show are all on their own. They're stand-alones now. So get on iTunes, subscribe to those shows.

This week's Keepin at 1600 has a great interview with MSM, oh, excuse me, last week's episode with Chuck Todd. I listened to it on the way to the airport from Pana Vida, and he is phenomenal. First you get to hear Chuck drop a few beautiful obscenities, but he does this beautiful mini rant on the media and millennials that you have to listen to. It's not nasty. It's brilliant. I mean, he really nails it.

And they're just doing a great job covering the campaign. And also the watchhead, Colin Farrell on discussing his new film, The Lobster, the NFL show, the Ringer NFL show featured Colts quarterback, Andrew Luck, who's always a great interview, talking about his obsession house. Brace yourself with books, an athlete who reads. It's a miracle. I don't know what you're talking about. And Bill guest hosted the Ringer NBA show last week.

That's awesome. And of course, he's had some just fantastic shows of late, as he always does, with some non-sports people that have been really great listens. So you can subscribe to Keepin a 1600, the watch, the NFL show, The Ringer NBA show on iTunes, SoundCloud, and Google Play Music. And, of course, you can find our shows there as well, the back episodes, if you have not listened to them. We'll be back in a couple weeks to talk about the Dallas events

and preview the Memorial Tournament. Yeah, we got Callaway Live recording on Friday. That'll be out live on the inner webs sometime next week, right? Yeah, yeah. So we'll look forward to seeing you here in beautiful Southern California. Don't need to bring anything more than a sweater. Done and done. All right, we'll see you soon.

Thanks, everybody.