Fairway Rollin' - Is Bryson DeChambeau Changing Golf?

Episode Date: September 21, 2020

On the heels of DeChambeau’s win at the U.S. Open, House and Hubbard talk about how Beefy Bryson has been vindicated by his new style of play and how he may be making us rethink what it means to play good golf (01:20). They also talk about some of the less-than-stellar performances of some of the other players on the leaderboard, and who is making the Golf Kill List (33:43). Hosts: Joe House & Nathan Hubbard Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome. This is a golf podcast unlike any other. We're here late on a Sunday night to talk about the U.S. Open on Faraway. Roll and the golf podcast on the Ringer podcast Network. I am joined by my PGA tour correspondent on the ground, Nathan Hubbard, and we're going to talk about beef Bryson because boy, oh boy, the incredible bulk got it done. He got it done in record making fashion and, I mean, protein shakes for all. Look, we knew 6,000 calories a day was the way to live. And now for all of us faties, life has been justified. I feel great. We can do anything,

eating 6,000 calories a day. Unfortunately, if it was only that easy, right? I mean, but eating the 6,000 calories part, I got that on lock. I can handle that part. Was there a moment, house, when you didn't feel like he was going to win after Friday night?

Oh, sure, sure. I mean, this is the thing. And I don't know if I'd call it a dirty little secret. I don't know how to properly characterize this. but like the golf course was giving up low rounds, Nate. It did all week. Right, all week. So like, who's to say that?

Dan Hicks. Dan Hicks is to say because he wants you to know two things. Number one, he's a member. And number two, wing foot is really hard. Really hard. It's going to be so difficult. It's very difficult. It's really kicking the asses of all these players.

And we're looking at the leaderboard in rounds. one and a little bit to round three. And people are playing great and they're kicking the course's ass. On balance, right? The golf course got the better of virtually all the guys. The golf course accomplished all that it was sort of touted to to have in store for people, which is putting guys in uncomfortable positions and having them playing out, playing defense and playing uncomfortable golf.

Mission accomplished, right? House, here we go. We're going to go backwards from 20 to 1 really quickly, top 20 golfers in the world. Because we're going to talk about Bryce in a bunch, and there's a whole bunch of implications related to him winning that we've got to address. But if we go from 20 to 1 in the world rankings right now,

like everybody, except maybe three or four guys, were involved. Matthew Fitzpatrick is number 20. I didn't hear anything about him this week. Did you? Well, I did because he was right at the cut line. Okay. And I had bet him in a head-to-head with, oh, God, I don't remember who, but Matthew Fitzpatrick beat whoever he was in the head-to-head and missed the cut by one.

He finished it seven over. Okay, but you made money. Of course I made money. Great. Okay, 19. Hidecki. We heard a lot about Hidecki this week. Are we going to do the Hodecki right now?

No. No. I just want to go backwards just really quickly because everybody at this point has said, oh, wing foot, it didn't have teeth, it didn't. But like Hideke was in the mix. 18. Matthew Wolfe. He was in the mix.

17. Tommy Fleetwood. Okay, not a factor. But we talked about the heart issue in the last podcast with Justin Ray and whether there's a coefficient for how Tommy Fleetwood is one of those guys. who is not getting it done. But listen, he belongs in the world rankings, but in this thing, he wasn't a factor.

And I don't want to call that a heart thing with Tommy. He's his game sucks right now. Okay. Guess who's number 16 in the world? Louis Euseyzen. Wow. Okay. Number 15.

Ty Hatton. Okay. He bombed out. Fine. Number 14. It's top eight, Tony. It is a top five, Tony. This week is top eight Tony.

right. Okay. 13. Daniel Berger. Probably the biggest single disappointment of this entire week was Daniel Berger. You wanted more out of your burger. Maybe only matched by number 12 in the world, Patrick

Kentley, who just, he was in the mix, but not really, right? He was always hanging around there. He's going to top 25, but he's not actually going to pull up. He's another guy whose game has sucked. Number 11. Adam Scott.

Okay, we didn't really hear much about him this week, but he was there, fine. But like we saw some shots. Number 10, and here we go, Patrick Reed, all over, right? Sure, sure. Probably could have won everybody loved his completely disastrous third round. Saturday. Eight over, you know, but he was.

Submarine Saturday. Ton of camera time. Okay, again, what we're measuring this against is was winged foot, a good test to filter out the best players in the world. Number nine, Brooks wasn't there. Number eight, Xander Schaulay, all over the telecast. Number seven, Webb Simpson, sneakily had a chance to get in the mix here, hit the coolest putt of the week.

Maybe ZJ hit a better one, but Webb was unbelievable. As usual. Number six, second biggest disappointment of the week, Colin Marcala. Yeah. And we got to talk about him later on. Number five is the big boy, Bryson, who won. Number four is Rory in the mix. Number three, JT. in the mix.

Number two, John Rom was in the mix until probably midway through the third round. And number one was DJ who had a sneaky top five Tony back door. Top, what was it a top five or top six? It was top five. Okay. So look, a whole long-winded way of saying, that's everybody. Tie for six, DJ, my bet. Okay, okay.

Zander was alone in fifth. Those are the top 20 guys in the world. They were all in the mix, except a couple of guys. Like 90% of them, 85% of them were in the mix. Wingfoot did its job. We got a respect what this tournament did. And by the way, it was boring as hell and we'll talk about all that. But this course brought out the best golfers at the top of the leaderboard.

And it filtered through. And if we really, you know, as you and I say, widen the aperture. and we go from 30,000 feet, and we start from the restart, who's the golfer, who's made the most noise, who's been the most impressive, and who for parts,

if not most of the season, look the best. It's the big boy. It's the best. Frank and Bryson has been the story since, you know, June, and I absolutely adore what he's done. I respect every aspect of the entire, the imagination of it, the vision of it.

Him and then, you know, some of the commentary around his performance this week, folks have, you know, done some of the data mining to find out like what, where, where did he recognize that he needed to do something and point, folks are pointing back to the PGA championship at Bethpage and him watching Brooks go out there. and kick ass and take names. And Bryson recognizing in his own game and inability to score the way that Brooks did, and I believe it was Bryson's self-acknowledgement

that he can't, he could not back then advanced the ball far enough to score from the rough. His problem was from the rough. And here we have a guy who missed the most fairway, in U.S. Open history who use the advantage of distance and I'm going to do a little

you know, Brandl action here. Randall talk about the angle of dissent. Yes. Right? And that is the distinguishing factor. It neutralizes the hard greens when you're coming from straight down instead of hitting a four or three iron into a

green that you can't stop it. That's the point. That's the point. Exactly right. So it's not The distance is certainly an important part of it because it means that he has wedge or nine iron in his hands. But there isn't rough deep enough. I mean, they tried to maybe with a rough hit memorial was deep enough because he did hit a 10 out of there. Well, fair enough. But let's be clear.

He was still 26th in Fairways hit this week. So he was accurate And guess what? He was 11th in putts. So, I mean, we're like, oh, he's big and beefy and he hits it far And that's the key. Dude can put.

And if you heard the little bit of shade that Rory threw at him, it's probably not time for the Rory Shade, but we need a whole separate pot on the Rory Shade. The Rory Shade was, hey, I don't know if anybody likes this, but like, and I'm not even sure that putting should be legal.

Right? Which was Rory saying, I don't know what's going on with the way he's anchoring that thing. Well, he calls it, it's an arm lock. And it does have a type of anchor resemblance. How many dudes have you ever seen in the games that you play

out on the munis and fancy country club courses that you play? Indeed. Are doing the arm lock. Nobody. Nobody. None. Zero. So is the lesson from this tournament

go swing out of your shoes quite literally. And that's going to get you there. Or is it that maybe there are some angles and the science of the complete, you know, the complete science of the way he approaches the game, which includes putting. I mean, dude made a 40-footer.

He made the putts today that you have to make to win a U.S. Open. That's exactly right. And honestly, I don't know that there's any lesson, any takeaway from this. this, the basic proposition of getting yourself into a position on the golf course to where you can have the shortest club in your hands possible and the highest amount of loft possible as you approach the Greens, that applies for all of us. That's everybody. That's everybody

that plays the game. We prefer to have shorter irons than longer irons in the greens. Every single old dude on the telecast. Listen, I love the NBC. We've beaten up a lot of the, a lot of the coverage since the restart. NBC did a okay job, but I appreciated the transparency of the commentators who all basically said, I hate that this is happening. I hate that this is happening. I respect it, but I hate this is happening. And here's the thing. There's a whole bunch of reasons to challenge the Bryce and stuff, and none more so than the manufactured Cisco. I just saw my mom, and now I'm going to do, you know, Ricky Bobby,

thank all my sponsors. Like, I just won a NASCAR race. The whole thing was out of control. But if you don't respect the hustle, dude turned on the lights on the range last night and was wailing on Three Woods and drivers, you know, knowing he was two shots out of the lead,

but he knew he had the lead last night. And he knew this was his chance. if you can't respect the hustle, like you're just hating, I think, at this point. And I got a lot of hate to talk about related to this guy in the way that he handles the brand. But there is nothing you can say other than mad respect for the game because he's changing it.

He changed it. I mean, and look, he changed it in terms of an innovation that makes 1,000% sense for him. This is not changing the game. writ large because there are not many human beings on planet earth that can accomplish what he accomplished in the time frame within which he accomplished it who already have the natural god-given talent to be successful enough at golf to where the increase in swing speed and you know just the basic analytics of it um that that whole package that you could slam that thing

together in the handful of months that Bryson accomplished it. But the innovation, the changing of the game innovation is it creates a new way of thinking, a new way of attacking this, that for kids coming up, that maybe they, you know, it's something for them to focus on. And whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't, I mean, I don't have an opinion. I just like the idea Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Here's what I, what I say is, I like the idea that there are, there are a multitude of ways of being successful at the game. That's my point. But yesterday, we heard Bones, who, you know, is at Wingfoot, like, reliving his most

traumatic moment as a human, probably, in his professional life. What is the one thing that he said? Did you hear his comment? I don't know. If he said, I just want to say, you know, Bryson's hitting. And so he puts his hand because he has this amazing ability to talk. four feet from the guy who's hitting. Like he can speak.

He's so much better than Roger Malp. Doddy Pepper, they all got to figure out how Bones speaks at the decibel level that he does in somebody's backspread. He's been doing it for 30 years. What do you mean?

But he hadn't been talking in backswink. So he's figured out, you're right. He's figured out how to talk when other guys are hitting. So Bones basically goes, uh, well, Bryson's hitting this,

uh, 450-yard shot with a seven iron. I just want to say that if you are a parent, out there raising boys or girls playing golf, the one thing you have to do is teach them to hit the living fucking shit out of the ball. That's what he said in so many words.

He said, swing speed is the only thing that matters. And it was astonishing to hear that. By the way, from a guy who's caddied for a player who has great swing speed, but is the most feel, shot-shaping, you know, sort of creative-minded, visionary, probably we've ever seen in golf to say it doesn't matter.

matter, teach your kid to hit the crap out of the ball. But Nate, we know that to be true. And that's not a revelation. And Bryson Deschambeau doesn't get credit for that. The generation that Bryson belongs to, Bryson is just one of a handful of guys. And he happens to have an advantage because his physical stature permitted him to make a big leap in this. But look, he's from the same generation of player as Jordan Speath.

and Justin Thomas and Daniel Berger. Who are four feet 11. Exactly. Don't hit it. Precisely the point, though. Those guys hit the daylights out of the ball relative to their stature. Justin Thomas is behind nobody in terms of how far he puts it down there. He can put it down there just as far as he needs to.

His problem is not, you know, angle of descent. His problem is, you know, accuracy. He hits it into spots that he can't get out of. I think we've missed the point. I think there have been these little threads from when he won in Detroit to when he competed at some other tournaments to even when he disappeared.

I mean, if you go back and run back the last podcast, you and I did, Mark Hubbard himself, from Mark Hubbard, who was almost DFL this week, on up to Rory McElroy, who we still want to believe is the best plan. All of them did not think this court, was suited for Bryson. But the thing that I think they've all missed is how hard he works

hitting shots out of the rough. That's it. He takes the seven all the way on up to the 56 degree wedge or whatever his highest wedge is. And he's hitting it out of the rough and he's working on it and they can't defend against it. That's right. That's right. Unless they change the damn course and move all of the bunkers and the hazards and everything forward, in which case Brendan Todd's going to win every tournament because he won't reach it.

They can't defend against this. Yeah, well, the rough is not a defense. That's what the takeaway. There are defenses still out there. Out of bounds is still a defense. You could make it firm and fast. Yeah.

Right. Some guys can't do it. You're right. The only thing that kept Bryson from playing better at the memorial was he didn't take his wedge out. He tried to hit a three wood out of the damn rough. And what did we see this week? Clearly, in the last two months, the guy's been in the rough

working super hard on how to get out of it because he wasn't having to just muscle every time. He actually struck the ball super well. That's exactly right. And that's the sneaky part of his game. And the question is, where do we go from here? Because the last two guys who distance themselves from the rest of the pack are the two most non-traditional, unorthodox guys in golf. What do you mean? Who? Who are you talking about?

Matthew Wolfe, who swings the club around his head like he's, you know, a ninja fighting 6,000 guys attacking him from all angles and then strikes the ball beautifully somehow. and BDC, you know, doing his thing. I mean, it is a different world in terms of sort of the traditional. I mean, and yet, ZJ and Oushausen were still in this thing. Yeah. So that's the point. I don't, when you say, where do we go from here? We just, where I say is we're going to, we have two masters in front of us.

The next two majors are back-to-back masters, one in November and one in April. and let's just see, you know, how this plays out. The leaderboard, as you went through that top 20, this leaderboard is ripe with guys who are in outstanding form. Harris English alone and fourth has been awesome the entire restart. That's not a fluke. Dustin Johnson's been the best player since the restart, tied for sixth. Top five, Tony, tied for eight.

But they weren't really in it. But none of those guys were really in it. Here's what I'm going to ask you. the last time that somebody had a conversation like this was you know about tiger in 2000 if we get to april whatever it's going to be after you know the monday after the masters the second masters and bdc has three majors sitting on his mantle does the game need right do we need to respond do we need to start bison proofing in the way that we tiger proof courses back then because this is the most significant

come on no but really this is the most significant revamping of a really good golfer's game since Tiger completely redid his swing after winning his 97 masters and then came back and went on a crazy heater look do we have

to ask these questions after the run that Brooks was just on were you worried about Brooks proofing any venue no because guys were winning in between but he had you know top five finishes plus, you know, four majors in 18 months. But he didn't have three in a row.

I'm asking you, hypothetically speaking, if Bryson wins the next two. Let's bet right now. Oh, shit. No, there are, the odds are, there are no odds for it. Nobody will write this because it's impossible. There's no chance. There's no chance. Okay, but what it's telling us broadly speaking, it's not just about Bryson.

Like, what we know now is that the guys who hit it can carry it in the air. there's 10 guys who can carry it in the air 320 to 360 yards. And it looks like they're the only ones who can win majors. That's not true. Okay. Kalamara Kawa just won. Okay. And by the way, Kalamarkawa was awfully close.

He just had a bad Thursday. He was rounding in the form. If he could have birdied 18, he finished right on the cutline. He was plus seven. And his back nine, I just want to do this super quick. his back nine to get in. He was very, very close to making the cut. He shot a 33.

You know, he was two under. I'm not trying to sort of be argumentative or clown it. I enjoy it. But, but, but, but like the question is, our golf course, this was supposed to be the hardest golf course on the planet. And what we started this. Oakmont has a, might have something. say about that. Ish, ish, okay? But what we started the pod with was actually, if you go through

the top 20 golfers in the world, it did serve, they all, except for a few, played a role this week. The screaming that's going to come out over the next two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, because we've got a little bit of a vacuum in the schedule, is going to be, hey, this was where we were going in the beginning of the restart, and then Bryson had a little bit of a lull. And where we were going was, oh, my God, how are we going to defend? against the length, right? And now that Bryson just won, and Wolf was second, you know, with his crazy hitch and crazy swing, it's going to be a big topic of conversation.

And what I'm asking you is, do we need to change the courses, or is this okay? It's a okay. I think we can just, you know, admire Bryson for the incredible personal journey that he went on in in 2020, he took the 2020 chicken shit and turned it into some genuine chicken salad. I mean, plus four protein shakes and some chocolate milk sitting up there on the winter stand. I mean, it is a really unparalleled story. Is there another athlete that you can think of in any sport that went through a transformation like this and recognized, you know, we have it all the time.

we love this narrative in other sports that we enjoy in football and in basketball, especially baseball too, where a guy recognizes some aspect of his game that's not up to snuff and then does something about it, especially in Bama Hoopshead. So every year, I want to hear, you know, in the summer, after the NBA finals, what are guys working on? You know, after every fall, I want to see, you know, some guys have made progress in their three-point shooting, their post moves. Kobe working with Hakeem and the post, right.

That's exactly right. So to me, this is of that same genus, that same phylum, you feel me? Yes. And so, I am 100% with you. I have been sort of socratically leading you to this point. Why are people going to scream about this? And the answer is, nobody likes this guy. Well, I mean, I don't know.

Nobody likes him. I don't, he's not as disliked as Patrick Reed. Bryson, how did you do it today? You know, you made all these transformations in your body. You've changed your swing. This was this opportunity to spike the football. And he thanked Bentley. He thanked Bentley.

I thought maybe that was a friend of his. I was hoping that's just his pal, Romaine Bentley. Couldn't that be a friend of his? Couldn't that be his buddy Bentley? He thanked his sponsor. I mean, why doesn't he just wear the full body fire suit from NASCAR? The best one was he thanked CPG. And immediately Twitter was like, oh my God, he just thanked Club Pro guy.

But sadly, it was not Club Pro Guy. Club Pro Guy did not miss the opportunity by that. way. There's a clip. He immediately grabbed the clip and put it up as he should have. I mean, no normal human would do that. I don't think, like, just take a breath. We just had a highly manufactured moment brought to you by Cisco where you walked out of the scoring tent and supposedly saw your parents and faked like you were emotional. And then everybody was weird and the whole thing was weird. So we got through that corporate thing. Now you're going to get your first actual genuine ability to say, hey, I've worked my ass off for this and I'm super proud and, you know,

I know I've done some things wrong, but, you know, like it was time for a moment. And instead, we got a Bentley ad. So the reason everybody's going to scream about this. And by the way, the only reason it wasn't even worse, this was like an all annoying final because it was the perfect pairing for Bryson because Matthew Wolf, you know, God love him. He's not the most, I mean, the dude is a chatter box. We got that from whatever the special, you know, early COVID for charity golf thing was. We figured out, boy can talk, you know, with all of them. And so the two of them in a final pairing was, I think, I think, almost as bad as if Patrick had read it had been there for most people.

No. Here's that maybe I, I don't know why it is that I feel overly generous. really gracious. You really are. When it comes to Bryson, I, I think a lot of what you are properly identifying is discomfort.

You know, he, he's not comfortable on that stage. And so he, so he uses, it's a defense mechanism for him to have this script and have, and he just cannot have, you know, he lacks all

of the emotional intelligence that Rory, who's really unparalleled in this respect, in golf, in golf. Jordan Speeth is kind of up there, but Rory is unparalleled in terms of, you know, sharing what feels eminently relatable, you know, sentiments and genuinely insightful. I just don't think, you know,

Bryson's not comfortable at it. He's not good at it, right? I'm going to tweak you just a little bit. Go ahead. I actually think he has a lot. of emotion inside him. What's weird about Bryson is he doesn't know how to communicate. He's not comfortable with himself.

Okay. And it might be because he's a genius. And there's a lot of really smart human beings who communicate terribly because there's so much happening inside them that they're not great at... Whatever's going on with him, my point is this. If DJ had won and hit it 350 yards into the fairway, we would not be talking about we've got to change the course.

course. We'd be saying, wow, what a hit, you know, what a run. If Rahm had won hitting a three, Bryson won, and it's going to engender this, hey, do we need to change things? Because people have a, you know, natural adverse reaction to a guy who is pushing every single corner of the golf bubble, right, of the norms, because he's doing this, he's talking about his sponsors and his brand. He's hitting the crap out of the ball. He's putting in a weird way. He's strategic. He's strategic. He's strategically approaching a course differently. He's a, you know, the opening pod that you and I did on the restart, we just said, there's a lot of people who, if you ask them, they'd be like, yeah, something ain't right with

Bryson DeShambo, which is just, he's a different guy, and they're not comfortable with it, and there's just something there. I don't think that means we have to change the course. I think it's more about us than is about him, and he's pushing the envelope in ways that we have not seen the sport since Tiger Woods. That doesn't mean he's Tiger Woods, guys. It doesn't. But he's making us think about what it means to play good golf for the first time in 20 years.

So that's wonderful. That's terrific. We talked about this earlier. That's the kind of innovation that I admire. And I don't think we need to continue pop psychologizing, you know, the Bryson disposition. Part of the thing for sure that definitely is in the mouths of the, golf commentariat is, you know, the ongoing discomfort with the advances in technology and the ball.

Right. And so, you know, there's plenty of evidence out there that the ball flies farther and that the, you know, the equipment makes it easier for guys to get around the golf course. Like all, you know, scoring is up, but distance is up. Like, that's not. But to me, I still, the part of it that I find most compelling when it comes to professional golf is the competition. It's a fair playing field

because all those guys have that same access to the same technological advances and same ball advances. And they were all there this week. That's it, exactly. Except for Brooks. I just, what I wanted was either a super weird Kevin Garnett, anything

as possible scream. Or like a double middle fingers. I showed you guys you know, F you a moment. I think he And he gave us, he gave us like a commercial. And it was just, which in its own way is wonderfully Bryson. There was the question put to him.

Do you feel validated? And he said, yes, I feel validated. So that, that was it. I mean, that's, not until he talked about CPG. Like Twitter wasn't like, right? Yeah. I mean, he did get the ad plugs in first. Anyhow.

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Whoop. Is there anybody that you want to kill? Yes. Okay. Well, then let's skip the superlatives because really... No, we said it. In our offline conversation, you said the sneaky part about this U.S. Open

is actually not the Bryson stuff, which, you know, listen, we spent enough time on it. It's some of the subtext of what happened underneath it, right? And it is things like, holy shit, ZJ was in this U.S. Open in a real meaningful way. Top five Tony did his standard thing that we could have depended on. And, you know, like, he's actually now the easiest bet on earth, right? It's, where is Patrick Cantlay? Like, has he just been passed?

Is he done? Are we ever going to see him win a major? It's, have we overblown Xander? Is Zander ever going to be able to be the guy who steps up and wins? Or are we just going to talk about him as the great hope? What else did you see? Well, I was taken by the results. I did mention Zach Johnson to you.

And I also mentioned Louis Ooste, Louis Ooste, Louis Ooste. Because at the beginning of the week, when we were talking to Justin Ray and then again with your brother, we wondered aloud who could, who could get around this, this golf course? Was this golf course going to be, you know, accessible to guys who can't get off the tea, you know, drilling it 330 yards? Is there going to be a possibility of guys, you know, who strategize and plot around and might have success otherwise? And I think both ZJ, and Louis Uste, prove that up. Now, Louis Ustey, both those guys are, you know, top class in majors.

Louis finished third, his sixth career top three finish in a major. ZJ has two majors under his belt, 44 years old, tied for eighth, and, you know, he beat Rory today head to head. They were matched up today, and he took Rory's, you know, he took the Nassau. Man of the year. that's right yeah man of the air that's exactly right but i did like seeing you know we we're sort of wondering aloud oh is there a way for other guys and and it also really did reinforce the the quality of play that we've saw from the you know from the restart from guys like house yeah

Zach johnson finished 12 strokes behind but but what you're that that just means congratulations, Bryson. That's what that means. Because top 10 still matters. Top 10 and major still matters. Yeah. It does. I know. And I look at it and Webb was in there. I mean, you're making a good point. ZJ was there. Webb was there. Louis was there. Lee Westwood was there for a bit. He was interesting for a bit. I think we have been reduced to eight to 10 golfers who have a real shot to win. Two or three. three of them are going to be in peak form at a major. And we're going to have side show bobs like Louis Eustazen and Zach Johnson and others who are going to make a nice

appearance. But did you ever think Louis or Zach were going to win this week? No, although Zach did have a little run in him and where the odds were like got super exciting. It was available at like 200 to 1 at one point. And his 68 yesterday, Saturday, it's kind of exciting for a bit there. I mean, he shot four over today. So he was only two over. And at that point, he was only seven shots out of the lead. So you never know

on a Sunday, but in any event. Who are we going to kill? You ask the right question. Who are we going to kill? I mean, Matthew Wolf cannot make a short putt when it matters. No, we're not killing him. He's also 21. He's also 21. So, bro, he's played in two majors. He has top five finishes.

So we're not killing Matthew Wolf. Oh, no. I'm loving Matthew Wolf. I'm kissing Matthew will. Who are we killing? I don't know. Who's your, who's your number one in your, your kill zone? In my kill zone, it is Hideki Matsuyama, who just, he just can't get out of his own way on the putter. It's just so painful to watch such an amazing golfer, who, by the way, has, you know, his own country's media behind him every time he breathes in or eats nachos, much less takes a swing on a golf course. They follow him right. He's a massive hero.

and he just cannot figure out how to put the ball. This is a guy who should have four majors in his pocket right now. And we just never really believe when he's in the heat of the moment that it's for real. See, I feel like you did that just for me. This is our brain waves being on the same wavelength. It really is because he's my number one as well. And the reason he's my number one is because I had a healthy wave. on him to finish in the top 10.

And I know I know so much better than to start counting money, but I really felt good when he arrived this morning on the golf course at even par and you know, in very good

shape to certainly hang in the top 10 and maybe make some noise if he could ever figure out. And he started off what did he start off? Either four over or five over. through the first four holes. I think he doubled one.

I'm going to look it up real quick here. He started off, oh, yeah, he doubled one. He started out off five over through the first four holes. But then he made a nice birdie on six, a really impossible birdie, and then stuffed it on seven. He had a seven foot put on number seven. And you know what he did? Right by the edge.

And that really was it. That's it. cannot grab the tournament back. If you can't grab your round of golf, you need that opportunity because of your skill, put you in the position to grab that round back, snatch it back, and turn something good out of it. He just couldn't do it because he's a terrible putter, and that's it. All right. Well, there's three other people who were going to kill, and you can fight me on this. I'm going to bucket two of them together, and I'm going to save them. We just have to be honest, and you know I'm right or die.

You know I love him. But Jordan Speath has got to change something significant. It's not good enough. It doesn't make sense. We're now wasting the prime of one of the best golfers we ever had. And he has to change something in his professional life to solve this problem. And David DeVall's been saying it on the Golf Channel, everybody's been saying it.

Like, I wish you would just walk away from whoever's coach. Like, give us something different, Jordan. Be brave enough now to push away the people who you were closest to, not as friends on a personal level, but on a professional level. Something has to change. I don't disagree with what you're saying. The thing that I wonder about is, obviously, he has a game plan. He's acutely aware of being lost.

but the challenge is why why wouldn't why can't it work for him to just play through it? Why isn't playing through it a possible pathway out of it? Here's why. The restart tells us exactly why House. John Rom disappeared for a little while during the restart, came back in one a bit. DJ, double 80s, disappeared for a little bit, came back in one.

J.T. out of it. came back and won in Memphis, right? Bryson, we didn't talk about him much other than a joke after the memorial because it seemed like he was on a downward trajectory. The best players in the world are, you know, understandably, golf is hard as hell. Like, it's impossible.

Yeah, you say that all the time. But the best players in the world don't go away for two years. They go away for two months. And then they resurface and grab us by the throat and remind us that they're great at what they do. Jordan Spieth is not resurfacing. You have to, the growth mindset in this moment is to open yourself to change and doing something different.

A closed mindset and sort of staying stuck in your ways continues doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And that is the definition of insanity. Yeah. Here's the problem, though. He just had a four-month break. We didn't see anything different, right? Like a lot of guys. What did he do different?

We don't know. Who knows? Who knows what he was doing in those four months? Do you know? He's got the same people on the range. He's got the same coaches. He's got the same setup where it's taking him so long. I mean, this guy, it just feels like talent.

It feels like when Prince didn't record albums. Like, what are we doing? Give him his master's, like, give him a different producer. Like somebody, somebody change him to rejuvenate. the creative energy that the best golfer, you know, as far as we knew three years ago of a generation needs to resurface. My point, I think you're right, which is like he, his comments this week sounded wise. They sounded insightful. They sounded humble. They sounded understanding of the situation that he's in. My point is at some point we've got to see consistent results in just

give me one tournament where he shoots four rounds in the mid to, you know, upper 60s. And we go, all right, that's a top four, you know, top five from Jordan. It's going to come. What we're seeing is 62 followed by an 80. And it's not enough. He has got to make some kind of change because he's wasting genius. Well, I, I'm not prepared to call it a waste because the time horizon for golf. You know, we understand how fleeting that incandescent talent can be and how quickly it can leave and how short that that burst may be.

And part of the real appeal of Jordan was that he was kind of it for like three years, like two and a half years. he didn't go on a seventh month heater, seven month heater, six month heater. He was like on it for a full three years, like age, you know, 20 to 23. He was on it. And then he plooped it in the lake in front of 12 at Augusta. So somebody get him a scuba suit and get him down there to dig it out because it's there. It's not gone. It's there.

Well, and I'm glad that we're talking about the 12th. at Augusta because, look, if there's any place for him to find that magic, to rekindle that, that, you know, incandescent talent, why can't it be the masters and why can't it be this November? And the answer is he's got a lot of work to get it done, but we would ask that same question about the other two guys who are on the kill list. And I hate to tell you that they're on kill list. But Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods showed us where they are this week.

I mean, you just talked about two guys, one guy that's 44 and another guy that's 50. They're, these guys Phil is that's so much that unpack for you there. Go, go.

He's a master marketer now. He's not a professional golfer. That's right. He's a professional salesman. That is right. And that is awesome. I'm fine with it. He's great at it. He's hilarious. How many human beings would he have maimed, injured,

or killed this week if there were actually fans on site? Honestly. How about this? That was probably, the fans probably were his best chance at having any success at all because people would have been heading the ball, kicking the ball.

I mean, you know, they would have been helping. Three guys would have walked out a wing foot with Callaway tattooed backwards on their forehead this week. It was an unbelievable display of spraying the ball. But that's, I mean, he's 50. What do you want? I don't want anything from him. We knew what we were getting. I appreciated that he was self-deprecating enough to record the commercials. But let's call it what it is, which is that Phil himself is one of the few athletes, you know, unlike some football players, quarterbacks who get into their 40s and, you know, don't know.

Phil understood the limitations of his own abilities. It's why he started on the Champions Tour a few weeks ago. It's why he's moving into these marketing things. He's going to show up at these tournaments. He's done competing for a win. Sadly, Pebble Beach will probably be his last win, right? We're going to love him for who he is. We're going to love the Tiger Phil back and forth,

and they'll do all kinds of fun things that are quasi-champions tour-esque, probably just to put money in their pockets, not everybody else's. He'll make a few chances. Fine. We'll drink his coffee and that's it. The question is, is Tiger Woods there?

Or do we still think he can have a renaissance the way we just talked about potentially Jordan Speath? What do you think? What I think is that the window for Tiger is narrowing in the sense that he can't go win at these big boy golf courses anymore. Ever?

We can just start, yeah, Is Augusta a big boy course? No, no, no. It's different. Augusta is a shot maker's course. Augusta is a feel course. Augusta is a place where strategy still matters, where understanding and knowing. He has no chance at Tori next year,

the place where he won on a broken freaking leg. And the USGA ran, what, 11 million? Is that even a number? Commercials this week showing him winning. Just go back and look at. Look at how he's done at Tori the last three years. The last three times he's played it. He has no chance.

No chance. No. He can't play it. It's too big. It's too big a ballpark for him. Look at how he played at Bethpage. Look, we called one thing right this week. And it was that Tiger Woods was definitely going to miss the cut here because it's done.

I was rooting for him to make the cut. That's not the point. I know. The point is what are we like, what do we really think? Yeah. And what you're saying is that's where he is. So you're saying to me that he is, that he is closer to Phil

in terms of being done, done, done than to Jordan, we're more likely to see a Jordan Renaissance than a Tiger Renaissance? Of course. He's almost 20 years younger. This isn't rocket science. He's had 15 less surgeries.

Will we ever see him in a president's cup or a rider cup ever again? As a captain, sure. He will never play again. Well, no, no, no. I wouldn't go that far. because, you know, what if he goes and kills Sherwood? He can play Sherwood.

There's a bunch of venues where he could be successful as he looks at. You just buried him. And then I told you, you're never going to see him play a competitive round that matters again. And you're like, no, we got to hold on to it. And I'm with you. But realistically. No, he can't go play in these big boy venues in the big boy events. He just, it's too much for him.

But there's plenty of opportunities still on tour for him to top five in the win. Of course he can still win on tour. He played well on Thursday. He did. Exactly. We were excited. It's just hard. It's over, man.

You can see he doesn't have the physical stamina to grind the way that he needs to grind to be successful at those vent, at wing foot size venues. Like he can't take everything in his entire life, set it aside, get himself in the perfect kind of physical condition and grind, grind, grind. grind, grind, grind, to have enough game to be able to navigate wing foot. Those days are in the rearview mirror. That's all I'm saying. Okay, I'll take it. There's one other guy we're going to kill,

and then we need to talk about the optimistic, hopeful things that came out of this week. The one other guy that we have to kill is Justin Rose, who has now... Justin Rose? Why do you want to kill him? Well, I don't want to kill him, but he had the same score as Tiger Woods. He made a club change at the beginning of this year.

He has been awful since the restart. and it's not getting any better. And, you know, according to the world golf rankings, the dude is now 23rd in the world, but he's falling fast. And this might be it. I mean, he's a fine chap. I really admire what he did with his foundation

in terms of starting the UK Women's Association, you know, the women's focus. that like he's on other stuff he's doing other stuff in his life and and that's great there are four englishmen four ranked ahead of him paul casey matthew fitzpatrick Tommy fleetwood tarl hadden he can still win you know once a year something like that but he's not a factor in majors sober yeah which is fine big deal be okay so let's move to what we're was positive and exciting out of this week because the point of this week, I think, in the macro level was there's a new generation of golfers coming in, some of whom are playing old school,

some of were playing new school. But the leaderboard this week was hopeful of, you know, telling us that there's a next generation that's here and here to stay. I mean, it's kind of insane because it felt like we were just talking about the next generation with JT. and Speeth and, you know, a little bit of Fowler, Burger, you know, Fowler's older than those guys, but, you know, the guys who were at the beach together, that was supposed to be the new generation. And now we're already on these kids that are right out of college.

Victor Hovlin tied for 13. Matthew Wolf, two top five finishes and two majors. And Colin Markawa won the effing PGA championship, missed the cut here. But like, those three kids have been pros, for all of about 12 and a half months, if that. I don't even know if all three of them have been pro for a full calendar year. I mean, that's insane.

And that is awesome. And each of those three guys have a different way of getting around the golf course. See, that's part of what I find especially intriguing. And that's why, you know, this sounding the alarm for the bomb and gouge brigade feels a little overwrought to me. That's all. That's all. Because these three guys couldn't be more different in how they get around. And we've said on this podcast, and we've had other professional golfers on this podcast say, of those three, Kalamarkawa is the one that has the highest ceiling potentially. And he is the guy that doesn't hit the ball, bomb and gouch. Do you believe that after these last two

majors in which Matthew Wolfe was unbelievably impressive? He didn't win. and I know Colin won the PGA. Matthew Wolfe surprised me in the last two majors. I love him. I love him. I love his attitude. I love his chatterbox. I love being introduced,

his introduction to kind of the sporting public stage by way of that round at Seminole. He was kind of an afterthought in that charity event, the Taylor made charity event, where it was him and Rory and DJ and Ricky. But you know what? He's a pretty interesting kid, and he's got a great attitude. Yes, there were 10 fans on the course. They were all in grandstands in people's yards.

And what were they doing today? They were howling like a wolf, Nate Dogg. They were howling like a wolf for Wolfie. Yes. And that was the biggest eye opener. First of all, it made me miss fans. This was the sporting event above all sporting events in which I, I just missed fans because it just not seeing Wolf and DeShambo,

who are two of the biggest, like, amazingly awesome headcases of all time, have to deal with the pressure of fans. And it just got highlighted by those guys screaming Wolf's name, which would have been amazing if 40,000 people were doing it. It would have been amazing. I mean, this event, so the PGA felt kind of different. It did not, to me, feel that deprived or the impact of the fans was not because of how like the seedery of it, the setting of it, the way that it's just sort of and then the fog and everything like that. This event is supposed to have 40,000 people, you know, around greens and stuff.

And they're supposed to be giant roars. imagine the roar on nine when Bryson made his eagle and then Wolf put his eagle on top of it. Like just imagine. I don't even think they make those putts in front of the people, by the way. I think Louis Oostezen might have a better chance. I think DJ could win the tournament. Great call.

Great call. I mean, there is, the guys have said throughout this restart that, you know, part of, you know, adapting to the no-fan thing does have a meaningful impact. on the amount of pressure that they feel. It's a different kind of pressure. Well, look, pretty damn good. I'm pretty happy. You have to say, it's been amazing. In view of where we were between March and June, we've just had 15 unbelievable weeks. And if you sat down at the beginning of the year and said, here are the winners of the first two majors

are going to be competed, sure, sure. Pretty great. Pretty cool. Colmarcowa and Frankenbrizen. We have eight to ten legitimate contenders for the heavyweight championship of the world. We have not had this in golf really ever. And we've talked about this multiple times. We got so used to just rooting for one guy, Tiger, and what we sort of established this week, really, because Tiger was kind of hanging around.

on the PGA. This week, we understand that Tiger is more fill than sort of with the up-and-comers. That's okay. We love him. Hopefully he gives us some Renaissance moment. We need to cherish that master's last year for what it was. But now we have to appreciate this moment in which we have eight to ten absolute game changers all out there throwing haymakers, each of them, with the exception of Xander, won a tournament since the restart. And it's a gift if you're fan of golf. We're not going to do any better than that. Nate Dogg, always a pleasure. We're back again soon. We're on this little stretch here where guys are going to start trying to collect some FedEx Cup points. They're going to try and build up that resume a little bit. And you know what? I'm kind of intrigued to see what, you know,

if there's some new names that start appearing on these leaderboards and so forth. We also have some good stuff coming up for the show over the next month or so. Have an angle on some interesting other walks of life kind of of golf folks perhaps a little l pga action here i'm excited to see what's going on with their tour i we have a line on on a uh l pg a correspondent on the ground nate dog i'm not going to share it with you right now we have some other folks from other walks of life coming up so i we have a nice little fall it's fall here by the way on the east coast is it fall on the west coast no we don't have seasons we just have fires ish right i didn't i walked right into that I don't want to end on that note.

Well, we can talk about earthquakes if that makes it better. Or spiders. It's spider season here in L.A. Oh, Lordy. You know what it is? It's the fall golf season. A bunch of it's going to be on the West Coast because the Asian swing is now here between Vegas, Shadow Creek, and TPC Summerlin and up at Sherwood.

So September, October, November, between the Masters, and this equally, you know, all these tournaments of equal importance to people's, you know, progress on the FedExup, this is going to be a great fall. Yeah, that's it. That's the right note. Nate Dogg, always a pleasure. Thank you, my brother. Thank you.

Thank you.