Fairway Rollin' - Koepka Repeats and Wins Another PGA Championship, With Bill Simmons | Fairway Rollin’

Episode Date: May 20, 2019

Joe House is joined by Bill Simmons to break down Brooks Koepka’s victory at Bethpage Black (3:00). Then Chris Vernon calls in to list his winners and losers from the weekend (25:50). Host: Joe House Guest: Bill Simmons, Chris Vernon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's major championship recap edition of Fairway Rowland, brought to you as always by our presenting sponsor, Callaway Golf Makers of the Epic Flash Driver, the Chromesoft X golf ball now featuring the triple track alignment aid, as well as the Odyssey Putter, which led the putter count across all putters at Bethpage Black to PGA championship this week. Today's episode also brought to us by destination Kohler in Kohler, Wisconsin, home of Whistling Straits and Black Wolf Run, ranked by Golf Digest, as four of the top 100 public courses in the United States. Kohler is also hosts of the 2020. That's the 2020 Rider Cup right around the corner. Whistling Straits is going to be hosting the Europeans. it's time for the U.S. to put it on them one more time.

Imagine summer on Lake Michigan in the land of beer and cheese, rounds of championship golf and ice cold beverages, my friends, deep fried Wisconsin cheese curds. It don't get any better. Time to get rolling to destinationcolar.com to book your package today. That's destination coaler.com. Hello, friends, and welcome to this. golf podcast, unlike any other.

This, my friends, is a major championship recap here on Fairway Roller. The Golf Podcast on the Ringer podcast Network, presented by our fantastic friends at Callaway Golf, makers of the epic flash driver, epic flash featuring Calloway's new Flash technology they created it using artificial intelligence and machine learning to promote faster ball speeds across the face. You know who had faster ball speeds across the face all week long. Phil Mickelson was playing with his Epic Flash sub-zero, and he was second in the field in driving distance at Beth Page. He averaged almost 319 yards a drive on the week. That's Phil Mickelson. He's 48 years old. If you're 48 years old, you want to hit the ball 300. 120 yards. Go get yourself one of these beautiful epic flash drivers. Of course, we are going to break down all that happened over the course of these four days.

It was a terrific job by Brooks Kepka holding on at the end and fending off his good buddy, Justin Johnson. I've got to have the pod father Bill Simmons on to help me put in context what we saw. And my man, Verno, he comes on and we lick our wounds a little bit. Let's get right on to the first tea with a pot. father, Bill Simmons. On the line, it is a major championship, which means we need a major podcast voice, the podfather himself.

Hi, Bill Simmons. What's up, House? I'm disappointed. I thought Kepka was going to choke. I wanted DJ to make the run. DJ went the other way. So, DJ, one of the all-time runner-ups of our lifetime. He has now achieved a runner-up in each of the four majors.

Some people call that the Ricky Fowler. Yeah, what is the runner-up? up grand slam. What's the leaderboard for that one? DJ's on it now. DJ's on it now. I don't think he likes being there. Do you think if DJ had caught Kepka,

do you think that would have had like speef-like ramifications for Kepka? Because I texted you yesterday and I said, I thought Kepka was the most conference tournament guy I had seen with a lead since Tiger mid-2000s. And then of course Kepka

almost blows the lead today. So basically we're never going to see Tiger in the mid 2000s again. Who knows? This run that Kepka is on is certainly Tiger-esque and he has a chance at because he doesn't turn 30 for another little while here. I think there are

three more majors for him where he can continue to run up the tally of majors before age 30. Tiger's the all time leader at 10, but Kepka can put himself in super rare verified air, like the Ben Hogan, Jack Nicholas kind of air, if he pulls off another couple. I think Arnie maybe is in there also. I don't remember the full thing, but, you know,

I was just to say, I really enjoy him. Unfortunately, he kind of ruined the weekend. It's such a dramatic Friday morning about Kepka, bet against Kepka. And then he just kind of did good enough to win, but I thought it was interesting after Friday, I think it was after Friday, and he was warming up on Saturday, he talked to the press, and he was saying how he didn't like that. I think that's from a ceiling standpoint. The fact that he probably doesn't even feel like he played that well, and he won this, and he was lingering in the Masters, in the Toronto series, because they didn't play well,

and they still won battle team. He can hang around even if he's not playing that well, and if he has one really good round, it seems like it just vaulted him. Yeah, so he went 63, 65 going into the weekend, and, you know, set a bar that was, you know, historically something that folks, you know, he was in the all-time record books. He was threatening all of the all-time PGA records for sure. He said after the 65 that he didn't hit the ball that great. He then shot 70, even par after round three, and said he hit the ball much better during that round of 70, but he just didn't put as well.

But he'd created so much space for himself that it was going to take somebody coming from the with a with a crazy low day to threaten him combined with him dropping strokes and it's it was by far the hardest day at Bethpage. It was the the field was like well over two strokes worse today than any other round. And the interesting thing to me is this really played like a US Open. I mean, we had five guys finish under par. There were a ton of guys that absolutely blew up today. And good guys, you know,

we had a little bit of allocation on Tommy Fleetwood. He shot eight over today. Harold Varner the third, who was started off in the final group, was at least 10 over, if not 11 over. He was paired there with Kepka,

and we didn't see him after the fourth hole, and it was appropriate that we didn't see him. I was texting you and Sal, I was like, how did we not bet on him shooting like a 78 or higher. The rando in the final group, it's metrics on this.

The random guy, the greatest moment of his life base of the preordane, basically. Yeah. I can't go against HV3 because he and Verno are dogs. I know he's a friend of the podcast. I'm just saying that's such a tough spot.

For somebody who's not normally, like in the mix like that. And now you're playing with Kepka, who is just destroying everybody and you're in the final pairing. which is exactly what happened. He also lost a ball. This course is such a nightmare.

People actually lose balls during majors, which I just can't wrap my head around. Well, he was in that position on the fourth hole where this felt very relatable. I mean, I can tell you, there are some number of times that I, my own self, have been in the high hay, have tried to hit a wedge out.

The hay grabs the hazel. It goes dead left. The ball is gone. And because nobody at the tournament was expecting him to hit it left as he tried to chop out to the right, they couldn't find the effing golf ball, and that was the end of the tournament for HV3.

So I feel bad for him. And there's fans and cameras inside of our reporters and caddies, and he lost his ball. I'm like always amazed by that. Because like when we played last week, I lost a ball and I couldn't figure it out because I knew exactly where it was. And we're all just, you know,

looking for five minutes and we finally found it. And he had like 10,000 people basically doing that. But this course, nobody's doing well today. I felt cheated because the identity of this tournament is different from the U.S. Open. They try with the PGA Championship to let the guys go out there and grab birdies and win the title by pushing hard on the pedal. This was a war of attrition.

This was just hang in there. This was a test of survival. and that's very much kind of a U.S. Open thing. The incredible thing, speaking of DJ, DJ shot four rounds in the 60s and still finished second, which shows you how impressive Brooks was on those first two days. And that lead that he created the first two days was the lead. It was the thing that propelled him to the victory.

I'm interested in your take on where sort of Kepka, You asked me yesterday about, you know, this sort of swag idea. I'm interested, you know, from your objective view. Some people want to call this a Kepka era. I'm not sure I'm ready to go there. What's your take? Come on. Yeah.

That's where I am. You forgot to mention DJ at 369 this tournament. So it's always hilarious. I'm looking at the leaderboard. So going backwards, 7-1. 72, 74, 72, 71, 71, 61, 69, 74. Because the score, man, somebody shot at 76. Well, four guys climbed up way high who played early.

So got in the house. Gary Woodland got in the house. Coocher got in the house. Rory played this morning. They all got in the house with underround PARs. And then, you know, they all finished inside the top 10 because of that difference in the wind. But the thing is, looking at the leaderboard. you know like canley shot a 71 yeah so somebody had to shoot like basically a 64 or 65 to be to either pay like if DJ had done it he wins obviously but one today nobody was doing that so he's by two strokes on the final day that's pretty nuts also credit to the lead he built we've seen the guy look good for 18 months 20 months 24 months everybody gets all excited yeah with the difference is the difference is for four

majors because we have to your point it's a good point we had that time with our boy jason day where he went out and won at whistling straits and then won like seven tournaments in 18 months we had that time with justin thomas he had like five wins in in a short period of time but nobody had the only only rory had the majors um you know as as part of the the defining resume you you know, the young guy who might be Tiger's kind of successor. So that's interesting thing. Phil had a stretch. To me, the four majors is obviously separates it a little from the other times.

We've seen this 18 to 24 month run thing for me. Because I've basically given up on the Ryder Cup because we just get our pants pulled down just about we actually won in Europe. We don't win in Europe. We win in the U.S. and don't win in Europe. And that may continue forever. but, you know, it is not like a home-and-home thing. Yeah, but there's still, the percentages are higher for them than us,

like the last 20 years, I feel like. Yeah, you're right, for sure. When we're in Europe, I just feel like we don't have kind of the guy in Montgomery type of our foul though, like our dude that when we'd go, I want to care about the Ryder Cup again. As you said, like it feels like we win here and they win there, and sometimes we'll even lose here. But, you know, that was the one, obviously the mouse, you know.

It's a little more inconsistent. I would love to put America on his back guy. I'm glad you mentioned that because the interesting thing with Kepka, and I think the parallel to Tiger in a certain respect is this, Kepka has made it abundantly clear that all he cares about are the majors. Like, he doesn't even. And, you know, the tour championship is worth 10 million bucks, and he had a chance at winning that last fall. The PGA, I mean, the players championship down in Panovedra, that purse is now like two and a quarter million bucks or something.

He only cares about the majors. Like, he doesn't even show up for those lucrative, you know, prestigious other kinds of tournaments. And forget about like a regular PGA event. He's now won seven times on tour for those seven times or, uh, or, are majors. And he's got a WGC in there also. And he had the iconic quote, breaking it down before the tournament,

by the way, about major, it's less people. It's like, so it basically only have to beat 10 people. It's like, what? How do you say this?

And then he wins the freaking thing. Quickly in the Ryder Cup, your math was a little off. I think, I think this is how you want to remember the Ryder Cup, because you love America and you love golf. Unfortunately, I'm looking at going backwards from me,

Europe, USA, Europe, Europe, Europe, USA, Europe, Europe, USA, Europe. You're right. All I can remember is Hazelty. We only won three times since 1995. We need British Kepka. Put a fucking cape on. You're the new captain America. Well, we need to know it because Patrick Reed is no, Fat Pat is out.

He hasn't played good in about a year. He hasn't played good since the Masters. Yeah. And I do think that this is a nice time for American. golf right now. Does feel like we have a lot of that you'd be really worried about in a rider cup. Well, I mean, it's

Sergio and Polter, but both those guys are about to sort of reach the point where Sergio's played well enough this year in everything except for the majors that he would, he's still obviously going to be on the team. And Polter's actually been pretty good too. So both of those guys will be on Fleetwood? Fleetwood?

Fleetwood for sure. Yeah. I mean, he's going to be a stalwart member of the Euro team going forward. You expect Rory will be there as well. But, you know, the qualification, it's in 2020. So, you know, it's still some time to see if somebody comes out of the woodwork a little bit here. I do regret, you know, go ahead.

Can I give something to Fleetwood? Go ahead. I think he has about $700 of my money at this point. As you know, because you being Sal always talk about our bets. And now it's getting embarrassing. Like, this is, you know, that's like a 46-inch HDTV kind of new Samsung type of thing, right? 700 bucks? Yeah.

I don't know. It sounds like, look, it sounds like I don't have it. Like, I'll be fine, but it's just, it hurts my feelings. At some point, I'm going to stop betting on you, Tommy Flewitt. And also, John Romm, I don't, did he even make the cut? What happened? No, he missed a cut. He got shot by a sniper.

shot 75, the highlight of his PGA championship is playing with DJ on Friday. And in the course of shooting his 75, he was caught in a camera. He walked over to the woods after chopping out to take a piss. And DJ was behind him. And the camera angle caught DJ getting ready for his shot with, with Romm over there with his thumb in his hand, taking a whizzer. Well, he also had my dick in his hand because he pulled it and I lost $200. hours.

Yeah. Thank you, John Rob. More than one, Dick. The truly heartbreaking thing with Fleetwood is I had him in a tournament matchup against Day, which I loved.

He was getting plus odds against Jason Day. And he was beating Day's pants off the entire tournament coming into today. And Tommy started off the day even par. And Day was out there,

you know, one over, two over. So Day was like going to be around four over. All Tommy Fleetwood had to do. to help me cash this bet was finished like three over, but he couldn't do it.

He had to hit, you know, he had hit eject. He was eight over. The thing that was, but, but the confounding thing with Fleetwood is he, over the course of the season,

has been a bad player on Saturdays, and then shown up on Sundays and kind of burn the house down. In fact, that's been going on for about 12 months now. So he had a not great round yesterday. So I thought, okay, good. He got his bad round out of the way.

I think he was two over or three over yesterday. He got his bad round out of the way. And the other thing with him that hurts both of our feelings is he is a U.S. open kind of guy. And this tournament played like a U.S. Open. It also was like conditions that should have been something that he could handle today. He's a European guy that plays in these crazy windy conditions. But something happened.

I don't know what happened. He missed a birdie put, an easy birdie putt on one. That hurt my feelings. And then it hurt my feelings because, first of the first of all, about they put them with right little signature pairing what was Kepka

Tiger it was Kepka Tiger the last three major winners that was deliberate that was the pairing for Thursday Friday FYI FYI of the people

do pairings don't put Tiger with awesome people on Friday if he's if he's kind if we need him to shoot like a 70 you know

put him with like two schmucks so we're going to be intimidated to play with him and let Tiger gain some confidence to his kidneys out basically is Tiger can't get it going.

It's true. We have to protect Tiger. Don't put him with Brooks Kepka. I don't like that. Or maybe he needs to make a special request. He looked rusty. He just didn't look ready for professional golf on that stage. I mean,

I know the schedule didn't permit it, but it would have been great for him to have played one of the regular PGA tour events between the time that he won the Masters and this event because he just did not have enough game for this. Why didn't the schedule not permit it? I kept hearing that. Why? Because the Pige was able to play a tournament. Well, I mean, you know, it took him two weeks in the first place to recover from having won the Masters.

Like, I bet he didn't get a full night's sleep for two whole weeks. And he was busy showing up at his restaurant in the green jacket and stuff. I mean, and so I think there was a lot of. But House, you just, you just spelled it out right there. Act like you've been there before, Tagger. doing. He's old. No, no, no.

You have three more majors, Tiger. You got to catch Nicholas. Like, don't fuck around. We don't know how many majors you have in you. You're heading into your mid-40s. He wins the Masters. Does this victory tour for two weeks. It was like he forgot they moved to PGA to May.

I didn't like it. All right. All right. You're allowed. I can't hold that against you. Well, he knows now. How many majors? Wait, how many majors?

this tiger going to play over the next to win like 16? I think that's a good number. Yeah, 16 to 18. Something like that. Yeah. So he just threw it away because he's fucking going to his restaurant wearing his green jacket. Jesus.

What's he doing? All right. Well, the U.S. Open is at Pebble Beach. It is in less than a month. So hopefully he'll have some opportunity to practice between now and then. Thanks for coming on, buddy. Has. Thank you for having me.

Tommy, it's up in the air. I'll have an announcement next week. Okay. We look forward to it. Thanks, Sass. All right, thanks. Thanks as always to the podfather. We're going to get on with my man, Verno.

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It's time to get rolling to destinationcoller.com to book your golf package today. at destination coaler.com. All right, now on the line, The Man, the Myth, the Legend, Chris Vernon, yo, Verno, how are we feeling? How are we doing? How are we feeling?

Well, you know, I tweeted this out after the tournament. Brooks Kepka is Living Proof House that looks are not everything. You have to be awesome at golf also. And I'm so glad that something is finally going the way of guys that look like Kepka. I feel like they get no breaks in life. Yeah.

I mean, it is bizarre now for him to have the six wins and four of them be majors. And, you know, when you see the quote, sometimes you roll your eyes, like, when he says he's bored or he's just not as locked in when he's playing, like, other events and that legacy is determined by major wins. But at some point, there's absolutely no argument against what he does.

I mean, he feels like the kind of guy that would be winning anytime he wants to, right? He wants to win the majors. And so he goes and wins the majors. And it stands to reason if he wanted to win the Byron Nelson, he'd probably go win the Byron Nelson. Or if he wanted to win the Arnold Palmer invitation or the players, you know, maybe that's a little too simple. but it's hard to argue against when he says he cares so much about the majors and then he wins them all. So it's a great point and I asked Bill Simmons about this. There is some, you know, commentary among the golf analyst community.

Do we call this the Brooks era? And Simmons quickly said absolutely not. And I understand his point. He said, you know, we've seen this before where guys get hot for 18 to 24 months and win a whole bunch of events. the thing that distinguishes Brooks is, you know, the tournaments he's winning are the majors, but he is so dismissive of the rest of competitive golf. Even tournaments that bad are that have great big purses like the Tour Championship, he could have, he had a chance to win that 10 million bucks last year.

In August, you know, instead, you know, Tiger went out there and won it and let Justin Rose sneak in the back door, which is something. that Justin Rose is very comfortable with, that son of a gun. And then, you know, the players championship is now over $2 million the purse. And we found out afterwards

that he had been on his diet and everything. But still, if he had really taken it seriously, the players championship, he knew where that was going to be on the schedule. And he could have easily gotten off of his diet thing and gotten himself into shape to be ready to go kick ass at the players

if he wanted. instead he got everything lined up and cycled up and run you know in in a in a direct line to go try and win the masters and then he went out and shot 65 or 66 on on Thursday of the masters like son of a bitch that brooks kefka this is what he does did you really just say cycled up well you know a hey look he could have been I'm talking about being he could be on a bike he could have been on a bike you know what I mean Verno look when you have your diet on a certain cycle

when you're keeping it you know what that means it has a lot of meanings it has a lot of potential meanings a lot of potential meanings Verno anyway comparing him to home run hitters

this morning on the golf channel well it's hard not to you know as far as he hits the ball were you surprised at all in any way, shape, or form that the first place and second place finishers of this golf tournament were Brooks Kepka and Dustin Johnson in view of the reputation of this golf course? I was not surprised that those were the two that finished at the very top.

I was surprised that Brooks won it by going 70 and 74 on the last two days. I mean, that just speaks to how totally absurd. he had to have been on the first two days. I mean, he won this tournament being plus four in the last two rounds. But he was all by virtue of just being crazy. So if you would have told me Kepka goes 70-74 Saturday, Sunday, if you just told me that before the weekend, and you did not tell me what he went in day one and day two, there's no amount of money I would have bet that he would not win the tournament.

None. he's not going 70, 70. He's not going plus four on the last two days in winning this tournament. Right? Because what's the lowest you could possibly be? Well, the answer is the lowest ever. He literally posted the lowest 36th

whole score ever, and he needed all of it. It's the way it had to be. Now, by distinction, and you got to give it up to DJ, all four rounds for DJ under par, And he finished the weekend 69 69. And that could have been, you know, a winning ticket. Now, the disappointing thing, and I'm interested in your take on this,

the disappointing thing is he really had an opportunity to put some pressure on Kepka by simply finishing out whole 16, 17, and 18 at even par. If he finished at even par, there would have been a playoff at 8 under. Now, DJ didn't know that. And, you know, the way he was playing, it was absolutely right for him to want to keep the pedal down. But he flew the green on 16 and then missed a put, a very makeable putt. And then he hit a kind of a sloppy slider off the T on 17. And his chip didn't get up the hill far enough.

And that was really it. But here's the thing I'm interested in your take on. I wonder, I continue to harbor this skepticism that relates to his brother as his caddy. Because the tournament was the balance of the tournament, the fate of the tournament was in DJ's hands, standing on the green on number 16. And he and his brother read the putt and Doddy Pepper said on the television broadcast, this putt moves a lot. little bit left to right and DJ line it up dead center and he put that ball dead center and it moved to the right just like Doddy Pepper said it was going to and you know we watched his brother help him line up the putt DJ went behind the hole his brother stood there they did

the thing with the feet where you feel you know which way it's tilting and they both got it wrong and as a result the tournament you know uh went the other direction now DJ has a runner up in all four of the majors. My question is, do you agree with this skepticism around the idea of his brother as his caddy? A little bit of the skepticism, but in the end, I'm not going to blame the caddy for him missing something. Number one. Number two, you don't know the tradeoff, right? It's kind of like I liken it to sometimes with basketball coaches, we say this guy's not

great at X's and O's. This guy's not great with X's and O's. But what we don't understand is how great he is with players and knowing how to talk to players and getting the most out of them. And so there might be, right, it could have the reverse effect. There might be the, yes, there might be a better guy at reading punts and doing some of the minutia and maybe even some of the important thing that caddies do. On the other hand, he might actually bring, you know, right, the tradeoff might be that when, And that could go the wrong way on Dustin Johnson. When a round might get away from him or a frustration might come,

that he has the ability to know him on a personal level better than others until the tradeoff might not actually be worth it, right? Yes, you might find somebody that can read that butt, but you might not find somebody that on, you know, whatever hole, you know, you now hit it into the rough and they calm me down. And if they just get up and down, you've got this or whatever else, and somebody that you really trust and listens to on that level, I do think that's very, very important.

And it's something we can't really know. Yeah, it's a great point. That's the problem that I'm having with DJ is he's still only one, one major championship. And for all the talent in the world and the number of times that he's been number one in the world in the last couple years, including right up until the conclusion of this tournament when Brooks Keppka grabbed it back from him again. At some point, for DJ, something's got to change with him to go out and start grabbing a handful of these majors to put his legacy commensurate

with his talent because he continues to go through the record books, you know, the number of years in which he's won a tournament. It's only like him and Tiger and Jack, consecutive years with a win on tour. It's a very short list. He is way up there in terms of that measure. And, you know, he is by all indications at the peak of his powers physically. I mean, he was driving the ball absolutely beautifully today.

And I just wonder if there is anything you look at, the the total DJ picture that's holding him back. What, what can he change to make him go out instead of collecting second places? He's now had been finished second in the Masters and the PGA Championship. And we're headed to Pebble Beach. And he has a great, great record and a super familiar feel there, except for the one, you know, eject that he had with the U.S. that he should have won.

I don't remember, I'm not going to get the year off the top of my head. But he kicked out through three rounds and then shot close. to 80 in the fourth round. That's the only bad taste he might have in his mouth with Pebble. But look, it's a place that he's played very well at. You know, at some point, he needs to go start grabbing one or two of these, okay? Okay, so what could he do? And the answer is have someone kidnapped Brooks Keppel.

Because, listen, House, six under, if Brooks Kepp kid does not exist, six under should have won this tournament. And it would have won by four, hey, it would have won by four strokes. I know. That's right. No, I mean, I don't know. I get it. He absolutely should have some wins. I mean, you're talking about the masters.

If you go through the last four years, it's, well, second this year. And then last year, he had a tied for 10th, the year before he missed it. And then he was tied for fourth, tied for six. U.S. Open, third last year, year before he was cut. the year before he won it, and then in 2015, he tied for second. He's played very bad in the British. Like, he's never even in the Mitch. He had the tie, he tied for second in 2011, and he got cut.

It was cut last year, and he was tied for 54th the year before. And then I guess he had the top 10 the year before. He was tied for ninth. PGA, until this year, hadn't had a top 10 in the last three years. So this was, what do you get? I guess he just had a tied, or he just had second outright. His last year, 27th, tied for 27th the year before, tied for 13th, the year before, cut.

So, I mean, these are, like, there's some of these majors where he's been cut, let's see, up until this year, if you just take the last three years, he's been cut from three of them, and he didn't play in one of the, and one of the masters. Right. Yeah, no, you're right. when you've got that many tournament wins. He's all, you know what he is?

He is the inverse. Maybe this is why they're such good friend. He's the inverse of Kepka. I know. This is what I'm getting at. Yeah, Kepka doesn't have the tournament win, but he's got the major win. That's right.

DJ's got all these tournament wins, but he doesn't have the major win. I know it. Well, we'll just keep eye in it. I mean, I want DJ to be great. I want him to be, superlative. I want him because I want a dog fight. I feel like you want him to, I feel like you want him to more than he does. Do you think he really gives a shit that he got second? Yes, I honestly do.

I think he would, well, for about a half hour there, he thought he could win the golf tournament. From, from, from Hulls 14, you know, from actually 13 up to that bogey on 16, I think he, he knew. He knew he was putting on pressure. They had the scoreboards everywhere. York loves DJ. Did you hear how many DJ chants there were? Oh, my goodness. Including the fans watching Kepka go boogie, boogie, boogie, boogie. All you call. Kepka confess, he heard him. They're all yelling DJ, DJ. Hey, did you hear the guy on 17? You know, after he had missed that putt, and so he's got to put this on the part three, and he's got to make the, he missed a short one,

he's got to hit another short one. And right before he, right before he's about to but the guy goes, miss it! I mean, New York. Never changed. Never changed New York. I want to do a thing.

I want to give out some winners and losers with you. There's going to be more losers than winners. We have to comment on the F-boys. The F-boys came out today and threw up an all-time colossal stink bomb. I'm talking about Ricky Fowler, Tommy Fleetwood, and Tony Fee now where a combined, let me see if I can do the math real quick here. I know Fleetwood was plus eight and phenow was plus nine. Where did my boy?

That's plus 17. Where did my boy Fowler? Here he is. He's plus seven. So we had seven, eight, and nine. That's plus 24 out of three guys that continue to be in this conversation of, you know, best to not win a major. One of these guys is going to break through at one of these events.

and yet here we are, you know, Fleetwood was in the mix. I mean, he was even part now. He was 12 strokes behind Kepka, but the right thing to do on a Sunday is to come out, and he's done this before, try and burn the house down. Fowler, you know, I don't know what to say about, you know, Ricky and whether or not it's going to come together for him.

It is still, he still has a lot of time as a guy who just turned 30. And, you know, Fienow, he still only has that one win. and it was an opposite field win on tour, you know, with all the talent that he has, you know, at some point we need to start seeing something that looks like competitive golf

out of all three of these guys in a major. What do you think? Fina dropped 38 spots today. Louis Oothusin, dropped 38 spots today. My best buddy, Harold Varner. I mean, once the ball got lost in the ship, I was like, oh, no.

I mean, you never see a lost ball ever. That's, you know, loses a ball. We talked to that about this with Bill Simmons. And, you know, when you have all those people there with eyes on it, it is, it really takes something extraordinary. But he was on a portion of the course where he wasn't like standing around a packed gallery necessarily. And he did something that I'm so accustomed to my own self. The hustle gets grabbed by the high hay.

I'm in the high hay and all I want to do is chip out, but the club gets grabbed and then the ball's dead left and nobody saw a goddamn thing. Hey, I hope everybody understands why I love Harold so much because he has it. He had a smile on his face the entire time. Sometimes you just got to take your lumps, but there is nothing more human than what we had to watch him go through. We have literally all been there where. and then for God's sake

they tell him he's got a club link right do you see him like pull out his driver and I'm like bro you could give him a car link it doesn't matter you gotta drop it in that crap again yeah right exactly

all right but no back to it so he dropped 34 spots but now as you mentioned Fleetwood 32 I mean so these guys that's a that's obviously a tremendous amount of money that they lost, but very surprised that all of them.

I certainly would not have expected all of them. And then if we do the flipside house, look, man, we got to get mega credit to speak. There we go. And mega credit to Rory, to Rory. Both of them. You're right. You were right.

Very good today. Very good today. Yeah, that was going to be my, I was going to ask you for your winners. Those are my winners as well. Rory had the benefit of getting out in the morning. And if you look at all these guys around him that all finished tied for eighth, you have four guys that all finished tied for eighth who shot under par because they had

the golf course before the wind really got going in the afternoon. When the gusts, you know, the gusts in the afternoon were in that like pretty steady 20 mile an hour. I think these guys might have had had a little bit quieter. he had Gary Woodland shot 68, Coutcher shot 69, Rory shot 69, Shane Lowry shot 69, and every one of these guys, look how many spots they moved up. Gary Woodland moved up 31 spots, Cocher moved up 18, Rory moved up 18, and Shane Lowry moved up 18, and they all got the benefit of getting that golf course when it was getable and shooting under par. All credit to them, another top 10 for Rory. So we continue to want to be disappointed in Rory on Sundays, and especially at majors. The only event that he's played in in calendar year 2019 that he is not finishing the top 10 is the Masters. I mean, he is kicking ass this year. No, he was fantastic.

Those two guys are big winners. And then obviously, listen, I got the same losers as you. And the female thing, you know, it feels like he is the guy that goes out. And if he catches the birdie, now we're on and we're rocking. Like if it's going great, it's going super great. And he's just going to keep on, you know, every, he's just going to keep on hitting pin. Whereas if it goes bad, it just falls apart. He was fine through the first nine holes.

He was right there. Yeah. You get out of the, he was plus one on the front side. They were showing him on, we saw a lot of them. They showed a lot of them on TV. Yeah. No, he's plus one. And then when it, then like the same way he gets on the birdie train, he gets on the bogey train.

He went. This is the back nine. Boogie, boogie, bogey, double bogey, bogey, par, bogey. He ends up plus eight on the bat nine. I mean, that's a 43. That's, that's very relatable. That's what I made 43. I was like, hey, I like 43.

I'll take that right now. Put it in the scorecard. That's not good for a professional. Let's end this on a positive note. You mentioned Spieth. Let's go ahead and give Jordan Speeth some credit. Now, the incredible thing for Spieth to me, and I'll have a chance to look at some of the analytics

after we're done taping this, but I know that he led the field in putting this week. He putted incredible. I mean, he putted so good. I wonder how much above, you know, how many strokes above everybody else that he earned. But this golf course, this was the only possible way for Jordan Speath to be competitive on this golf course was the putt lights out. And God bless he went out and did it. I mean, that was an incredible putting performance this week.

Well, and to your original point that you said with Bill Simmons when you were asking about the Kepka era. Yeah. I was all in on the speed is now the guy, right? Like after that run he went, after that run he went on, it felt like this stuff is going to be his to lose until the collapse at the Masters. Right. And it looked like he was,

and it looked like, by the way, it looked like he was going to run away with that one a few years back. And so it looked like, okay, we've got our new guy. This is a guy that's going to be able to dominate. this is the guy that you're going to have to watch out for every time. There's a guy to beat. And it just, like, it hasn't been the same in the last couple of years. And now, you know, look, he had a really good run.

He played well at the Masters, and certainly he showed up. That is a hard course to even be a round par on today. I mean, he's plus one. He's plus one for the day. Justin Johnson was minus one and you look up and down that scoreboard and there's not a lot of minus signs next to anybody's name.

No, not not that top crew. And the other thing is, you know what? Destroyed him this year. And this is what I was banking on because I looked at all of his like fourth round matchups, fourth round score, top five, top ten.

And I went and looked it up. Bro, you could not trust this dude in the final round. He has been a design. An absolute disaster in final rounds this year. And so he obviously showed, you know, that every once in a while, there are these times. You know, he's best.

You know, whatever his apex is is as good as anybody. He just hasn't reached it all that often. Well, he said that he found something at his home course at the Byron Nelson event. And, you know, he didn't finish anywhere that would major feelings. think that he found something you think it was just more Jordan Spieth you know power of the positive thinking trying to talk it into into existence but you know um that 71 that he had today in like sort of different kind of environment different kind of it's probably like translate into like a 64 or something you know what I mean like for the well the other the quality of golf that he had to play

exactly the quality of golf for him was like the equivalent of a 64 and I mean I just love of like you look at this as we go into the U.S. Open. Kepka, DJ, Speeth, Rory. One, two, three with Kepka, DJ, Spieth, and then Rory in that top 10. I mean, it's still juicy. It's still juicy, Bruno. Well, and then here's the thing.

This is what we got to remember. Tiger not making the cut was depressing. But what we needed, we needed something like this. There's some people that are going to say, oh, you know, Kepka winning again, and he was up so big that it's, didn't make it all that fun. Listen, any individual sport, what you need, whether it is Tiger, whether it's

anybody else. And obviously Tiger is the biggest draw and gets the biggest amount of fans rooting for his success and will do the best in ratings and on and on and on. But any individual sport, and that's tennis, that's, you know, Olympic sprinting or boxing or whatever else, you've got to have dominant figures, right? and somebody that's like the guy to be. And so in the absence of him being there, it is great that you look at that leaderboard

and you see the top three be Kepka Johnson's feet. What you don't want is that being like Johnny McGee and everybody going, what? Like, oh, what a great story it is. Johnny McGee, you know, out of nowhere, you know, wins the PGA. And everybody's like, oh, cool, Johnny McGee want. Like, if you can't have Tiger there, give me this leaderboard.

Yeah. And I'm right there with you. So it sets up perfect. I mean, we get to do this all over again. It's not even a full month before the U.S. Open gets going. I think it's like June 13, 14. That's less than 30 days away, Burneau. So no rest for the foot for DeWary.

My buddy texts me the openers. Right. The minute he held up the Watermaker trophy, let me see if I can pull this up. my buddy texted me kebka 6 to 1 DJs 8 to 1 tiger 10 to 1 for the u.s open wow wow those are terrible prices those are horrendous pride i don't want any part of any of it well hey i goofed with them because you know why sent me that because i text them and i said kemka is going to be minus 500 to win the u.s. I mean seriously you're going to have to buy eyes to get kebka i think six to one's pretty good it's incredible well we didn't we didn't win any money and our our picks didn't come through this week

although we did acknowledge the possibility of brooks kepp kirk just coming out and kicking that so i mean it wasn't exactly uh uh groundbreaking analysis that led anybody to that conclusion this week oh uh can i go ahead can i go ahead and give a a giant boo to uh my boy zander shaw like yeah that was hey hey how about how about this one before today standard softway top 15 I got this on lock he finished 16th I mean

heartbroken you know and it was it was all on the back nine you know it got him look how he finished do you do you want me to tell you he shot 40 on the back by by going

bogey bogey bogey bogey I mean it's like he knew you had money on him I don't know what to tell you he knew he'll be back he'll be back though yeah X-Man will be back. He's a big game hunter.

I mean, this golf course just got him. It's okay. Hey, listen, this golf course got the golfers and it got us because one of my friends texted me and said, oh, no, your boy house. And I said, what? And he said, I heard him on a pod say no hole in one right when that Lucas Burdard banged it in. I mean, you want to talk about it.

Hey, how unlucky can we be? Seriously. They played that with that number eight under 200. It wasn't my fault. Still, it's a 30 mile per hour win and he's hitting a six down here. They put the pin. They put the pin in a favorable spot. This is, we're going to finish.

I just, you know, we're basically going to get, get to watch two U.S. opens in a row because this thing did not play like a PGA championship in any way, shape, or form. Five guys. finish under par, all kinds of guys blowing up on a Sunday. This had USGA written all over it. But we're just going to watch two U.S. opens.

Yeah, last ball down. I said when I was watching on Thursday, I'd shoot 150. I'm not kidding. Yeah. I would not shoot 100. I would not have shot 150. There's no way.

I would be over. I'm right there with you. It's just, I mean, Once I saw Harold's ball, no, once I saw Harold Barner's ball go in that, those weeds that were almost as tall as him,

I said it, there's no way. I'm just standing in there cursing for an hour. That's one of those ones where you have to negotiate with your buddies. Can I just drop it out here? Can I just drop it? I'll take the strokes.

Just let me drop it. I can't drop it back in this thing. that's how we have to do it, Berdo. You know how it is. If somebody told me that was the rule, no. Club link, drop it back in there, I would fight them. That's right. I quit.

That's fine. Here's the money. I quit. Anyway, all right, Berneau. We'll get it together for the U.S. Open. Pebble Beach is on the horizon. My favorite week of the year, the U.S. Open, it ends on Father's Day, Sunday. I have a member's guests that I play in every year.

during that week. It's just the all-time best. We will be in good form for it. Have you ever played Pebble Beach? I still have not played it. Nope. I'm going to catch that one at some point along the way. I was out in Monterey last summer, end of last summer, but we didn't get on the Pebble. They were playing the U.S. amateur when I was out there. Gotcha. I wanted to know what you shot. Oh, I think it's, you can score on it.

I don't think when they make it up for regular folks, they don't beat them up. You know, they don't beat you out. Yeah, right. I think they let you go out and, you know, they don't kill you. So, well, maybe we'll have to do that one together. We'll come up with a trip. I'm sure our paths of Calloway would love for us to take some McAlloy equipment out there and go kill it. Speaking my language.

All right, Al-huh. All right, Berno. Talk to you soon. See you, buddy.