Fairway Rollin' - Jon Rahm Rocks the U.S. Open!

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

Jon Rahm emerges victorious at the U.S Open and House and Hubbard are here to give their instant reactions to the historical win as well as offer their insight into the difficulty of the course and how it tested even the best players during this tournament. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The postseason is here and the Ringer NBA show has you covered with real ones, group chat, the answer, and Ringer NBA post game. Check out the Ringer NBA show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome. This is Fairway Roll in the golf podcast on the Ringer podcast network. This is a U.S. Open major recap. Bertie Buddy, sometimes the obvious answer happens to be the correct answer. the favorite John Rom won the 121st U.S. Open, and it was glorious. Nathan Hubbard, our PGA tour correspondent on the ground is here.

For instant reaction, we're literally taping this like four minutes after John Rom's acceptance speech, right, Nate? Yes. The Jets, the Jets fucked up the flyover. Everybody. Everybody fucked up the back nine except John Rahman. That's why he won this tournament. Why did we need the Jets? I mean, I understand the relationship with San Diego and the military base nearby, but

we really, I mean, come on. Anyway, everybody except for John Rom, that's exactly right. And that is the perfect topper. Now, we did a green room a little while ago. Great job. Thank you, Spotify, for making it easy enough for a dummy like me to set one up. We were talking a little bit about what our preference is in terms of. of a major championship,

we ended up with two and a half hours of unbelievably dramatic golf because we ended up with a fantastic, all top guy kind of leaderboard. The only guy really missing was DJ, the number one player in the world. Not anymore.

No, he briefly snuck into the top 10. Yes. Just down the back nine. So we had the entire top five guys in the world. We're all within the top 10 and in striking distance. I mean, I loved this leaderboard. I say what you will about the course,

and I get it. It wasn't the most interesting watch we've ever had. But boy, this tournament, by the Sunday that we got was awesome. Yeah, that's right. So we wouldn't want it any other way. And this, I think, it's not hyperbole to say that this is the best Sunday leaderboard

that we've had in a major since when, when, when, when, what might compare? I don't, I really don't know. We have not had it this pact in a long time. We haven't had it this pact in a long time. I mean, that, that's absolutely correct. It was fascinating, right, to see what happened from there. I mean, ROM won because he birdied 17 and 18, yes, but he shot 34 on the back. Think about the other really great guys who were chasing him.

or who had the lead. Louis shot 36, Brooks 37, Morikawa 38, McElroy shot freaking 39 on the back. So these guys, and Bryson was eight over.

So it was the back nine, the much maligned back nine, that separated the wheat from the chaff and really created separation at the end. And that is exactly what the U.S. Open holds itself out. I mean, it is absolutely,

thousand percent on brand. And the reason that guys got into trouble was by missing fairways and missing greens. And we saw, you know, from Bryson trying to hack out on 13, trying to advance his ball. He twice attempted it unsuccessfully from a wayward drive because there was a T-box. And this was one of the high water marks of a broadcast that I. felt was was pretty more a bun to be honest with you. Yeah. But Zinger, Paul A. Zinger shared with us that he had been in communication and Shane Bacon

had made an observation to him to keep an eye on the T-box on number 13 because guys were slipping. And lo and behold, Bryson slipped. His drive went right. It landed in a spot that, you know, it probably counseled in favor of him advancing it into the fairway to protect his ability to, to, to. still have a chance at Bertie, but that's not Bryson. That's not the way he's played any of these golf courses over the last 12 months.

Let's play a Bryson game. Go ahead. We're going to play a shots gained Bryson game for the fourth round. Shots gained off the tee. Did he gain or lose? Gained. He lost 0.62 strokes off the tee. Okay.

Shots gain around the green. Gain or loss? Gained. Lost four strokes around the game. Well, you know why, and I'm being a smartass. All of that was because of what happened on 13. He blasted a sand shot into a 12er of Stellas. Yeah, I mean, just awful.

Four strokes he lost around the green. He actually, his approach stat was great. He gained a bunch of strokes on approach today, but he lost them putting, bled them around the green, and he lost them off the tee. And it started with that slip. on 13. The guy's swing is so dependent on that rotating footwork, right, where his left foot opens on that big, huge swing. It was slippery on 13. Shane Bacon had been talking about it all

week. He got up. His right foot slipped, didn't allow him to release. And it's like he just mentally unwound from there. So let's just go ahead and dispense with Bryson and Brooks, because that was one of the interesting storylines coming into this. It's like, duh, you know, we, We loved it. Our pal, Kevin Clark, wrote about it. And, you know, Brooks was able to hold it, get together better on the brook back nine than Bryson. And Brooks had a couple putts. Man, if he could have, you know, protected it would have got interesting.

But as it was, you know, he shot 69, shot under par. Yeah, played great. And continues to, like, distinguish himself as, like, we're going to see more Justin Ray stats about Brooks in relation to par in the major. This one's another feather in the cap, another top five. Like, you know, notwithstanding not being able to really put a scare in anybody on the back nine, it's still an enormously successful major for Brooks Capcom. Yeah, a grown-ass man. And I just don't think this little spat becomes him, nor does it serve him.

He is not going out and delivering. It feels like there's just a fraction, which is the difference between winning. and losing a tournament like this. There's just a fraction of distraction or drama that seems to keep him from just being the fucking man suit that he is, putting it on and going and winning the golf tournament. He's not happy with a T4. You're going to attribute Brooks's inability

to kind of really go low. I mean, he would have had to have shot, I mean, to tie Rahm, he would have had to a shot ultimately 65, which is... Yeah, he wasn't going to win this, but he lost it earlier in the words. week. He shot 73 on Friday. The 73 on Friday was the thing that kept him from winning the golf tournament.

That's absolutely true. Yeah. Two bogeys on 14 and 15 when he'd finally gotten it back under control on Friday that just, you just, you know, he did not play his best golf. He played great on Sunday. And again, you just look at him and go, this guy is, he's something else that he can pull into these majors after kind of mediocre. But I just, it feels like it's a little bit of a distraction and it's not serving him. I want to see him go head to head with Bryson and win a golf tournament.

And then he can taunt, he can bring in his sponsors to taunt all he wants. You said it offline, House. It did feel a little bit like the vibe in the crowd started to shift towards Bryson. And when that's happening, it's starting to backfire. Well, that is an interesting observation.

I sent you guys a note yesterday, having watched Bryson approach the first T. arrive at the first tea. There was a lot of support. There was a lot of outpouring of positive vibes in Bryson's direction. And then Bryson was having some exchanges

with the crowd on the first tea. It felt very natural. It was honestly like the most relatable Bryson. I feel like I've seen. I don't know how long he was like amiable and relaxed and friendly

and it felt natural. It didn't feel forced. And I wondered to you guys a lot of, like, is public sentiment shifting in his favor now as a result of like the kind of relentless bullying vibe that Brooks has been

giving off? Well, I think you're right about that. He did himself no favors shooting eight over on the back today, though. That was just a weird stretch that only Bryce, it was reminiscent of the memorial when he flamed out, you know, trying to repeatedly whack the three wood out of the rough. There are times where

he's so scientific that he almost doesn't have the emotional IQ to adapt in real time and go, okay, I actually need to make a slight change here. It was, I thought it was a, I thought it was a valiant title defense, though. Lots of credit to him until he made the turn. He was right there going into 13. He was, and 13's a birdie hole. I mean, that's, that's the thing. I love the observation you just made because what it makes me think about is like the, ability to adjust as the circumstances warrant. And yet 13, he would not deviate from his, I'm going to swing as hard as I can. I know that I can advance this. I know that I can have the success that I want by following my game plan.

And his inability, it's like, you know, NFL coach or NBA coach who doesn't make second half adjustments. That's exactly right. He never had a moment like that at Winged Foot where he was challenged. like he was on 13. Yeah. So in that respect, and then, you know,

because you said it a little while ago, Tori gave us kind of what we want out of the U.S. Open, right? Challenge. Yeah, it did. I mean, look, 13 took down Bryson. 13 took down Colin Moracawa. I just, I got to ask you, because we now need to get back to Rom,

who from a karma perspective, as he said in the post-round interview, he handled himself so well coming out of the memorial. He did everything right. He was a company man. He kept his temper in check. You know, he obviously had an emotional reaction when they told him on the back of that green. But other than that, he did absolutely, and he didn't do anything wrong in that situation.

I'm just saying he handled it so well. He deserved this all the way through. That said, House, you tell me, because yesterday, Saturday, on 14, he doubled. And even though he got one back at 18, you kind of felt like coming in at 2 under, he had just missed it. by one because there were so many good guys around the huddle. I felt like, I just don't know that he's going to be able to deliver. So to see him come out and grab it today, he needed help, and he got it because the guys in front of him kind of took a dump on themselves on the back nine. But I really thought to myself on Saturday and that double on 14, ah, poor John Rom. And let's be explicit about it.

He doubled 14 because he hit the flag stick. And by the way, we need to do a count. I know there were some people have been doing stories about it, and I haven't had a chance to take a look. The number of flag sticks struck during this tournament. It feels like an unprecedented number. And somebody made the observation that the flag sticks in the U.S. Open that the U.S. GA uses are like a quarter inch larger than the flag sticks

that are normal on tour. I can't imagine that quarter of an inch produced this result, but the penalty of striking the flagstick and having the ball come all the way back to, same thing happened to Sergio, something about the Spanish and striking these flag sticks, but outsized penalties. But I would say in just a general cosmic, carmic sense, that's the kind of adversity that you have to navigate to be a U.S. Open winner.

And so it makes sense to. me. It doesn't surprise me at all. I think you're right. I think the only reason is his shots gain approach in round three were sort of tepid is because, I mean, he was still positive, but because he did hit that flag sick. I think other than that, he was hitting his irons great. And really, in round three, it was his putting. I mean, he almost lost two strokes putting that round. So he just came back today. And obviously, those putts on 1718. Those were benders. I mean, those are really epic, epic sort of poster moments. The only thing that I really was just, disappointed in is you think back to what that green looked like when Tiger made that put

and you look at the sort of corporate hospitality tents and the sparseness of the crowd today. You know, thank God it wasn't more crowded, to be honest, because we might have had more streakers just waving the, waving the club and balls around. You know what I'm saying? Well, what about the guy on 13 actually took some swings? I mean, that's, that's an all time. Like, whatever the penalty is, however much time he spends in jail. I would say so.

By the way, his swing looked pretty good. I agree with you. I mean, all about it, everything. I mean, somebody needs to get that guy on a pod. Maybe the foreplay guys will get him on. You got to get that guy on the pod and celebrate that heroic. Now, we don't want to encourage people going out there interfering with the tournament, but still. Yeah.

In fairness, he didn't even really interfere with the tournament, did it? I agree. I agree. So it was fine. But look, those were some iconic. putts on 18. We know this is where he won his first tournament on a huge eagle putt to win. So there really is something about this place that Carmically was right for John Rom. He was due. But I do think in this era, there's going to be a lot of guys who were due. And the guy who I'm

most worried about in this suite of great players who all were huddled around the leaderboard today is Xander Schoffley, who made a putting change two weeks beforehand. He moved. He moved. move to that, you know, the sort of anchor, arm, straight thing. His round three, he lost freaking almost two strokes putting. It did not pay off for him. And I just worry that he's the kind of guy who's going to get lost in the shuffle of this, you know, better than ever series of golfers who are at the top of every single one of these tournaments.

It's going to be hard for Xander to grab one away because on any given week, the greatness of a guy like John Rom is going to poke through. Well, I'm just going to glass half full. It's another top 10 at a major for Xander Schauliffely. He's awesome. He's collecting top tens and top fives in majors. And he's super young and crazy talented. Like, I don't, I don't think, see, I, at his age and you don't think he's

Louis O'S Tazen. It's not scar tissue. He, it's like another rep, another rep. And I think for, I hope he treats it that way. Yeah. there's no reason that he can't like i never detect anything when we hear him give interviews that suggests that he's laboring with um you know the lack of success in fact the spot where the the the sort of most obvious moment where you might have seen some some kind of self-doubt

or lack of confidence would have been after the masters when he hit the ball in the water on 16 which is still like just unforgivable um that that happened uh and he's like i hit the shot. I flushed it. I hit the shot that I wanted to hit. So like if he's, if he's got that kind of confidence and he keeps collecting top fives and top tens and majors, I'm not worried about his ceiling. So you're not worried about him. Are you worried about Rory who just keeps missing puts that he's got to make in big moments? Well, he was right there. He was three under going into the 12th hole and the 12th hole, he had honestly what I treat as just bad luck. There's no reason.

He didn't try and do anything heroic. Now, he made bogey on 11, which wasn't great, but the double on 12. I mean, the bogey on 11, you can still kind of, you know, you're still in the tournament. to double bogey 12, it just makes, you know, it was done. The tournament was over for him, although he came right back

and had an eagle try on 13. And if he'd made that, that put, and I think this is the point you're getting at, if he'd made the putt on 13, he would have got himself back to 3 under with birdie opportunities, clearly on 15, 17, and 18.

he just all he did was hit in the in the left rough off the T on 12 and and and it just spiraled from there. It just he had a nine footer on 11 he missed. He had a 10 footer on nine that he missed. He just he had a lot of opportunities today to put to put the ball in the hole. And look, John Ron made his putts. Rory didn't. I really think Rory had a chance to win. this thing today. And he just, he didn't execute well in the, in the fourth round, and he's

going to remember that. I, I would just wonder, can you think of a time when he's, um, putted great on Poa, Anua? Now, he's played the West Coast, um, venues well. He's played, um, in Hawaii fine. Is he, I'm trying to think, I mean, did it, Keowa count as a place where he, I mean, he putted his ass off at Kiowa a long time ago. Yeah. But, you know, and those, are a poe blend. I just... Well, it's fair. It's fair.

But, you know, of the guys, you know, besides Russ Henley and Matthew Wolf, really, I mean, McKenzie Hughes also was terrible. But it really felt like Rory had a very, very disappointing round. But to your point, he had some bad luck that swayed at probably two or three strokes versus where it ended up. I just, he didn't do enough today to get himself to five or six. It didn't feel like that got taken away from him. and that's why he finished, you know, one under.

So I just, now we got to come back and say, the last two tournaments that John Rahm has played, he's clearly been the best golfer on the course. They've both been really hard, really strong tests. He's now going to ascend to number one in the world. DJ has not had number one in the world form for quite some time, so it feels right for him to be supplanted in this way. Is he separating himself from the other guys,

Or do you still feel like between Rom and Morikawa and DJ and Brooks, et cetera, all these guys clustered at the top, that they're still all sort of going to trade a bunch of blows like, you know, heavyweights in the Ali era? I think they're going to be trading blows. I mean, I think he is, and there's no arguing it, he's separated himself from the cluster, but it's not a secretariat level separation. You know, it's by half a length or something. Maybe a full length because of how incandescent.

that third round at Memorial was and how much better he was than everybody else in that third round at Memorial. But, you know, I don't like every one of those guys I fully expect to see at the Open Championship. And, you know, I, would you bat an eye if Rory or Brooks or Jordan Speeat, Jordan Spee, like, you seriously, you know, I, it feels like they're going to run it back. One interesting thing about this, let me ask you, do you think, because we talked about the streaker, do you think the crowd had something to do with the pressure that we saw some of these guys feel? Because remember, Morikawa won a major with nobody around. It was silent like ghosts out there when he was playing. He didn't have to contend with the crowd. Did that have something to do

with what we saw out there today? I don't think so. To me, it was entirely the challenge in front of them. It was the golf course. It was a really, really traditional U.S. Open kind of pressure, Sunday afternoon pressure. That's the way it felt like to me. I didn't detect anything in the crowd behavior. And it could be attributable to the fact that it was a really small crowd compared to some of the crowds that we've seen. It was definitely a smaller crowd than what we saw at Kiowa. It just, the crowd didn't play a meaningful role. I didn't feel like in changing the pressure in any direction for any of the players. The course was the challenge from my observation.

Well, and probably if there was a disappointing moment to this afternoon, it was Louis stepping up on 17 in a tie for the lead and yanking that one left. And it really was reminiscent of what happened not about a month ago, two months ago in New Orleans as he's playing with Schwartzel in that playoff against Leach and Cam Smith. and he steps up in alternate shot and blocks it right into the water. It was a different swing, obviously, because this was more of a pull. But, you know, Louis now is the only player in men's golf history with six runner-up finishes

in majors and either one or zero wins. That's straight from our guy, Justin Ray. It's painful. I think you said it best. What did you call him? I don't know. What did I call him? The major sniffer.

That's what you called him. He is the major sniffer. You know what, though? It's kind of fine. It's kind of fine. He's likable. He's got his great horse farm down in Ocala. We found out from Kevin Clark that he's the second most famous athlete from Ocala.

Dante Kelpepper is number one. Dante Culpepper gets to hold on to number one. I don't know. And, and, you know, like, you collect gigantic checks by getting second place and all these majors. Yeah. And listen, he's done it. He's done it six times. Only, only 12 other guys have, have.

that many runner-up finishes in majors. Now, those 12 other guys have combined to win 95 major titles, according to Justin Ray again. So that's the difference. There's a small difference. Okay, that's fine. I, look, it doesn't impact my ability to root for Louis. Like, if Louis had won, I would have been totally fine with it. I bet on Louis this morning.

I was like, he can absolutely win this golf tournament. Let me make sure I have a little bit of coverage on this. I don't want to be there with my pants down. I probably bet on 40 different things, by the way. He played very well. It just the bogey on 17 is inexcusable. 18 was playing the easiest of any 18th hole in the history of the U.S. Open. So you knew you were going to go get it there.

I mean, that's a fact. So you knew you were going to have a great chance to get it there. You just got to find a fairway on 17. And he really had driven the ball well all week up into that point. So it's a disappointing finish for a guy who, who frankly had a chance to a real, real chance better than some of the others he's ever had to win this thing. Let's do some of the atmospherics before we move off this. So how much of the broadcast did you feel like you got to see? Because it was on to the credit of the combination of Golf Channel and NBC and Peacock.

it was 12 hours of golf every round, which is commendable. Yeah, I think it was 78% commercials. So yes, did we have any uninterrupted commercial there on the back nine? How was that? No, we didn't. We had some playing through. We had play through. At one point, there was a commercial for the U.S. Women's Open, which happened two weeks ago.

So I don't understand exactly what happened. This was not a particularly compelling telecast. It was gray, first of all, the marine layer never left, so we didn't get to see the sunshine in California. It felt like they over-relied on the parasailing guys. We didn't get a real sense for elevation changes because I didn't feel like we were seeing a whole lot of drones. Maybe they were afraid they were going to interfere with the paragliders.

I don't know. But it just wasn't a very compelling telecast, save for some interesting insight from, from Woody and from bones on the course. I just, I didn't get much. Did you? No, and part of this does definitely square with the criticisms that a lot of the sort of architecture-oriented folks, the criticisms of the venue, what rang true to me was the redundancy in visual.

Like it just, I couldn't, it's not easy to separate just walking into the room and looking at the hole, separate the holes. They have a real, you know, repeat. Monotonous. Yes, absolutely. But then when it's done, yeah, when it's done and they do the interview with Rory yesterday and they've got a camera on his balcony, they know that he just had a baby a little while ago. There's a three-year-old walking on the balcony. And the donkey interviewer says, oh, we see Poppy up there. And Rory, like, has a, are you fucking kidding me? Look on his face. He's like, that's an older cousin. Like, can we at least get that? those facts straight if we're going to invade as privacy?

Yeah, and there was a lot of observations on the back nine that felt like they weren't taking into account all of the twist and turns that were possible. There was a lot of pronouncements about guys being done, so on and so forth. Ultimately, that they bore out, but... There was a lot of golf left. You text me, hey, they're shutting doors. We got a lot of holes left. Yeah, and, you know, we didn't get, we got fireworks from one player, which was appropriate that they came from the winner of the tournament.

But everything else was disaster zones, guys just absolutely collapsing. And it felt, I don't know, it just didn't feel as, as, I, the only moments that I was really like jumping up out of my chair with a go. goosebumps and the hairs up on the back of my neck were the were the were the rom putts the rom put on 17 and the round put on on 18 those were we're both otherwise the combination of of the visual factors the visual effect and we we really couldn't put our finger on why it was that the guys other than than the pressure of the moment what what like why was it that that bryson threw up all over himself on 13. Why was it that Rory encountered the trouble he encountered on 12? You know, what was it about those holes the way they looked? We know Bryson slipped.

Yeah, but he in the post round attributed it all to just bad luck. He took almost no accountability for the eight over on the back. A lot of it felt like bad luck. I have to be honest. In the way that poor McKenzie Hughes caught nothing but bad luck with that tree ball. I know. I mean, he snapped it. He did snap it. It was an overcooked hooker. I do think, though, when you go back and you look at the scores, I mean, Brooks was really disappointed when he bogeed 18.

But let's say that he gets a birdie there and he doesn't bogey 16. He still only gets to five. So it just didn't feel like anybody had a chance really to catch ROM after those fireworks other than Louis. And Louis really had the chance to do it. If he could have just found a way to par, you know, we were going to get a playoff. But now instead, we get Father's Day dinner. And that's not a bad thing. We love Father's Day dinner.

So let's go eat our own Father's Day dinners right now. Big thanks to everybody for listening all week. Thanks to Will Zallotaurus. Thanks to Jason Crock. Thanks to Patrick Cantley for coming on. Now, look, we are not going to get in the business here of establishing a fairway role and jinx. I know that Zalotauris and Cochrak did not have the outcomes that were hoped for. Can't where did he end up? T-15 at plus one. Okay. There we go. So there is no such thing as a fairway

roll in jinks because Patrick Cantley finished top 15. Welcome back, Matthew Wolfe. I always believed. I always believed, baby. You're the only person I heard talking about Matthew Wolfe in any of the weeks leading up to this. And, you know, congrats to him for... Great to see him out there. How thoughtful he was for the revelation, how, how candid he was about what he was going through. Congratulations and

kudos to Bubba for Bubba's, you know, efforts with Matthew. Like, all of these things are important to us as consumers of this great sport and the competitive aspects of it. To see these guys interacting this way,

showing us a new kind of interaction aside from different from the now hacky bryson brooks kind of stuff and you know we got a lot of great you know rory was his typical um introspective and thoughtful self and gave a lot of great you know the the the green reading books are going away um which is terrific we we definitely support that here on fairway rolling but you know it was a it was a very in many respects like a traditional U.S. Open week with a really great Sunday leaderboard and a super, super, super proper winner, right? It was all we could have hoped for. I do think that at the end of the day, I'm looking forward to the next couple of U.S. Opens being on different, more interesting courses.

The next time we come out to the West Coast, it's going to be down the street at LACC. Yeah. Well, we have the country club next year up in Boston. Yeah, so we're going to have some more interesting venues and hopefully a little slightly more interesting visual presentation. But if we get these kinds of leaderboards on the back nine on Sunday afternoons, it's going to be everything we could have hoped for regardless of where they play it. That's a fact. All right, Nate Dogg, well, thank you very much. As always, I'll talk to you in about a week. We're going to give ourselves a break, take a little bit of a breather here on Farroway-Roll.

and we'll be back in no time because the British Open is right around the corner. I love this streak that we're on of like major, major, major, major. It's just, I love this schedule. I'll be boots on the ground in Hartford this week. So I'll scope it out. We'll talk about that next week. Hey, I can't wait to hear some results. I don't even know what to tell you to go eat.

I'll come up with some suggestions between now and then. Thank you our Eagle Enthusiast. Thank you our pod saving, pales. Thank you our birdie buddies. Until next time, let's hit them straight up there.