Fairway Rollin' - Masters Course Observations and Food Recap With Dave Chang

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Dave Chang joins House and Hubbard in Augusta after walking the course on Wednesday. They start by recapping everything they’ve eaten so far, then discuss their course observations and what they saw from certain golfers. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Guest: Dave Chang Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, humanoids. This is David Chewaker here with a very exciting announcement. Your favorite wrestling podcast feed, The Ring of Wrestling show, is now going daily. And you can hang out with me and Kaz on Mondays and Thursdays for the Masked Man Show. And you can join me, Peter Rosenberg, alongside Stack Guy Greg and Dip every Tuesday with cheap heat. And on Fridays, I'll welcome a friend or special guest from the world of wrestling. Now, on Wednesdays, we have a very special new show called Wednesday Worldwide that you're going to want to check out. Paperview reaction, one-of-a-kind interviews, fantasy booking, talking about bagels. That's what we do here on the Ring of Wrestling show.

Follow the show now on Spotify. And do us a favor. Give us five stars. And do us another favor and stay major. Hello, friends, and welcome to this master's edition of a podcast unlike any other. This, my friends, is indeed Faraway Rolling, a golf podcast on the Rick. our podcast network. I am your starter. Joe House, my birdie buddies, my eagle enthusiasts. The moment is upon us. We are less than 12 hours away from balls in the air.

Your beloved Fairway Rowland investigators were on site today. Of course, I'm joined by my incomparable accomplice, Nathan Hubbard, our PJ-Tor correspondent, boots on the ground. and special guest here on Fairway Rowland, a dude who really needs no introduction, but part of the foursome this week down here trying to navigate this massive situation, Chef David Chang, Chef, how are you?

I am full. Yeah, well, my birdie buddies, it's a three ball. We want to give you a good solid 30, 35 minutes of our reactions, our reviews, what we saw with our own two eyes, what we ate with both hands and all the mouths that were able to be fed. The first T's wide open, we are underway. All right, fellas, we're trying to give everybody a little bit of a review of the day. And this set the stage. We were able to walk the course a little bit. We were able to watch some players play. But let's start with how we ate our day. We are here as beloved

guests of our beloved patron saints, Fandul, and that increased the eating options for us. That took, you know, of course, the wonderful options available to all patrons, and we certainly sampled that fair, but we also had access to some other fair. And, you know, each year

the hospitality, It changes, it improves. I think it only goes in one direction, and that is up. Chef Chang, you had not been in this particular hospitality. This is your first experience with it. You were on the Bill Simmons podcast yesterday extolling the virtues of the entire master's operation. How did this place size up in your estimation? Yeah, it wasn't revealed to me the last time I was here, and there was a lot of eating.

I want to make sure that we're going to. to consume some chicken sandwiches with pimento cheese. I didn't get into the egg salad that we're going to get into from Nathan, who somehow wolfed down after nine slices of pizza. Yeah. So we were in a place that had pizza today. And I didn't know that there were such a thing. And it was delicious.

But starting off, Nathan, I had some breakfast. We tried some, just to warm up the stomach. For all the brewery of New Orleans theme. Yeah, very New Orleans theme. And very, you know, good. Really good. Sure. Then came some oysters.

Then you were very particular about it. East Coast and West Coast. They had, they said there were like six varieties, but I think there was only just East Coast and West Coast, and we consumed many. How many did you have? Actually, I want to just say this.

I thought unequivocally Joe House was going to crush in the calorie consumption. But no, dead wrong. No, no, no, no. It was Nathan by a landslide. Landslide. And this really is, a tale of the tape, a very good reflection of what kind of,

we both hold ourselves out as eaters of some estimable talent. Nathan is kind of your daytime eater, and I'm kind of your nighttime eater. And I think the last like 24 hours kind of bear that out. I mean, how you ate a pork chop and an entire breakfast, at Waffle House last night at midnight. It was smothered pork chops and it was more than one pork chop. You also ate the sausage gravy biscuit.

It was awesome. And toast, eggs and hash browns. Well done. Then we came home and Shang made us chicken wings. He did. And chicken tender. Chicken tenders and chicken wings. And ranch sauce.

But house ate 85% of it. Yeah. I ate a lot of the tendies, but I didn't eat any of the wings. The wings were awesome. Full bags. Two bags of frozen. and wings and tenders consumed last night. So then we did breakfast, New Orleans breakfast.

Then we did, we went straight from New Orleans breakfast to the pizza place, right? A shrimp cocktail as well, po-boys and a muffalada. Then it went into... Your po-boy comment stands, man. Yeah, I know, I listen, I love po-boys, but I feel like I just haven't been to the right place with the right ratio. So don't stone me. You know, why don't you make one? No.

You have a... No. No. All right. Because it just doesn't move. me. Oh, well, there you go. There's the answer. Well, the pizza moved me. Literally.

How many? It is still moving me and through me. We won't talk about. And then, and then we had an exiled sandwich, but we had a good look at the course today. Hold on, hold on. Before we get at golf, it's important to note. How many slices did you have, Joe House? Three, one of each pie. I had two. We had, we actually had four pies. I only had, I only had. I only had. I only, I only, I only had three. Yeah. Nine slices. It's a hell of them. So all in, these are smaller slices. Yeah. It was 12 slices across four pizzas. It adds up to probably an extra large pie for a normal, you know, serve, like you got an extra large pie from whatever pizzerie you're normally eating

from. That's the size, just for reference. Yes. Just crushed it. And then almost right after. It was very close in time, proximity wise. Egg salad sandwich. He did it. He did it. He did Yeah. We went right through the staff. God bless, you know, a wonderful Wednesday, Wednesday, a very underrated day to be at the Masters. You know, I, people asked me, I was on earlier this week with East Coast bias boys. They haven't been down. They said, what's your strategy? What's your game plan? What I, what I described to them is, I really love coming down Tuesday. Yes. And having some time potentially on the golf course Tuesday, definitely Wednesday. And just having the quiet of the entire grounds.

You know, there is an excitement. There is an enthusiasm for the whole thing, but it's quiet and you can walk around. We were very lucky today, Nathan. We walked some places we have never been. We walked up that side of five. Yes. Saw all of the bamboo.

We saw the rando palm tree. There's a random palm tree that I've never seen before my life. It seems like it's a new place, new thing, right? I asked you, have you ever seen a palm tree before? never seen the palm tree on the course it didn't make a lot of sense well um we deliberately visited two places we wanted to see the green on four to see what kind of um changes have been made and we deliberately went over to 13 yeah so we could observe with our own two eyes what that shoot looks like and where you you can only get so close you know in in in terms of 13 but you can

definitely pick up on the way the ground moves um as T-balls might be flying in. If you're not able to draw the ball, if there's a straight T-ball, you can definitely see the bend to the fairway and what that means in terms of a lie above your feet. They've added 35 yards, and it really is a tunnel now that they're hitting out of,

and it now looks like the loneliest place in golf, doesn't it, where you go from that huge crowd behind the 12th T, you cross the bridge, there are no fans over there, you put out on 12, and now there's a long walk back to that T-shot on 13. And looking at it today

for the first time, I realized over those trees, you can actually see a fairway from Augusta Country Club, right? The next door club. That's one of the things that happened. Above the trees, which is just a reminder of the bowl

that you're sitting in when you're watching this thing. But the changes on 13, there's been a lot of chatter about them. People saying, well, this is going to, this is going to keep people from going for it. It's going to require it to be a three-shot hole.

but what we saw today really brings it to life. It is not possible to hit that second shot with a ball anywhere but above your feet if you're a righty. I agree with this. And at best you're going to be hitting a four or five iron, maybe, but some guys are going to have to take a hybrid, I think, to hit in. And so it's turned itself into, I think, the most important hole on the course because now, coming down the stretch, somebody in the lead is going to have to play conservative. and may, if their iron shot isn't great, take par instead of birdie, and somebody chasing is going to be forced to actually go for a shot where the odds of success are definitely less than 50-50 with the creek there. So it changes the tournament in a bunch of great ways, I think.

Yeah, I totally agree. I can't wait to see tomorrow. We have the benefit, and the weather looks like it's going to hold out for most of the day. So opening round Thursday, we definitely need to get over there and do our best to capture a few groups coming through so we can just see the strategy because my expectation what I'm anticipating is virtually every guy in every group you know assuming that they're not you know the the emeritus guys that we catch um playing it as a three shot hole the emeritus guys are definitely playing it as a three shot hole yeah you're going to have to hit a draw to even have a chance i think chang you got that shot in the bag um if I, no, I don't.

Just be honest, I don't. You're not that far away, though. It's a, it's a, it's a very, very important change. And coupled with the fact that Fred Ridley in the press conference today put a bullet through the argument about the ball change and basically welcomed it. So, I mean, they are very concerned about distance. And you can see why they're concerned about distance because they had to spend a, fuck ton of money to go buy the property just to back that course up 35 that whole up 30.

I mean, I don't think the money part of it is a big consideration. But it does, it does. I mean, they are out of real estate there. Yeah. And there's not a whole lot that can be done about it from here. I want to talk a little bit about some of the groups that we saw, some of the players that we saw. We were very lucky to get to that fourth green in time. Right as Patrick Reed and Dustin Johnson were practicing on three. And we observed them practicing on the green on three and we knew that okay look the the the tebox was filling up with fans behind four so we had absolutely front row seats we literally there was not one person between us and the back of the green on four and the pin for this practice round today was back of the

green Dave chang you got to see Dustin Johnson and Patrick reed like so close that they they could you could have given them a recipe for their champions dinner if either of them ever wins again I was honestly I was pretty stoked to see Dustin Johnson hit a shot just like everybody else two times he had the yanks and he flubbed the chip he did flub a chip now that so uh DJ yes he was long and left with both of his T balls he hit two Patrick Reed only hit one T ball his ball hit the green but because of where that pin was it wouldn't hold it bounce off the back uh which was a treat because we got to see what Patrick Reed is incredible so there there you go much better short game than Jay.

It did see, like in the glimpse that we caught, you were, I was reminded, I'll speak for myself. The thing that sets Patrick Reed apart that you must keep in mind at all times is his

around the green prowess. The tight lie wedge short game spin. Yes. Unbelievable. He dropped a couple right there and put him almost in the hole and DJ was given himself 20 footers. DJ was not in the same

circle of friendship, let's say. It was weird to see them for the first time in a year because there's two things that I noticed. One, and this is hard to say out loud, but Patrick Reed looks really good. I agree. Chang, what did you think? I don't follow golf nearly as much as you, but the fact that you guys are, he looks good.

I was like, okay, looks good. Physically, he looks good. He must have looked really bad because he didn't look that good. He had a little bit of weight fluctuation over time. He expands and detracts. sometimes Patrick Reed. But he looks contracted and in shape. And on the flip side, DJed look like he had a couple hundred million dollar tool shed that he was carrying around. He looked like he's relaxed. He looks like a guy with some young boys is what he looked like to me. Like he might be

driving kids to practices and, you know, sitting in the car while he doesn't look like a guy that's out grinding. Exactly. Gray's in the beard. I don't know. I've never seen him in person, only in TV on person. And TV seems very felt in shape. Yeah. He's not out of shame. No, no, no. He's not by any stretch. He's somewhere between in shape and thick with two Cs. We've been very lucky now because we can

compare literally almost to the year. We stood behind the green on 10 on Friday of the Masters last year when Dustin Johnson's approach carried the green and rolled between Nathan Hubbard's feet. So he had to come play a shot from the pine straw

where again, we were, we were we could have said hello. We could have had a nice conversation. We didn't want to interrupt him to Masters. The thing that Nathan and I noted, he was not in the same kind of shape this year as he was. Because when he, he was like.

The live checks have cashed. I mean, when we saw him on that Friday of the Masters, homie was cut. It was the V shape that you expect of an athlete. Yeah. We weren't surprised that he was married to Paulina that day. We were not.

Today we were like, Well, I don't wear horizontal stripes. Somebody should tell DJ to also not wear horizontal stripes. Maybe that was his Wednesday script round purpose, right? And he'll come out, lean, mean, and ready for action tomorrow. They did have the logos on. Yes, they both had the logos on. They both had the Four Aces logos on.

Bryson, by the way, put out a new logo today. Oh. It looks like the Transformers, but not cool. I would say I can't wait to see it except for I can definitely wait to see it. I'm not in a hurry to see it. So we also posted up a little bit near 16 green 17T so we could see some guys come through. And we observed in particular, Sahithagala and the homie, Max Homa. They both hit nice balls into 16.

They were kind enough. The crowds, you know, exhorts everybody to the players to skip. They both obliged with a skip. They both made it on the green with the skip. Big cheers all around. They came up to the 17th. and we were trying to get a sense of like, like we wanted vibes.

We were really trying to get some vibes out of them. They had a nice bit of camaraderie going between the two of them. It's clear. I mean, they can't have known each other for very long, right, Nate? Correct. But what, did you sense vibes?

Well, I was, I was trying to set you up because, you know, we, we thought that there might be because it is, is a, again, it's a practice day.

It's a lighter atmosphere all around. Say hello. When and right. So Max hit his T-ball. He didn't seem thrilled by it. It was a fade right. Fade right. It didn't seem like an intentional fade, right?

It was not an intentional fade right. It didn't sound good coming off. Yeah. Yeah. And he seemed to be very locked in today into the practice round because he then followed that up by driving. dropping a couple balls in the fairway.

He gave us a modest greeting, but he seemed to be fairly focused on the task at hand and not particularly thrilled with the way that practice round was going. So what I want to do is give a little nod to the podfather, because what I wonder, and I wonder this aloud, is he knew he was playing in the par three competition. He only played nine holes, Max Lomwell. He played the back nine.

And I wonder if what we observed in the, you know, 15 minutes that we had with him was a reflection of him thinking like transition wise, you know, being pulled in a couple different directions because what we saw within, you know, maybe an hour later

was him holding his little baby girl and being interviewed with Jordan Speeth, boy, pardon me, pardon me, pardon me. And being interviewed with Jordan Speeth and Justin Thomas who we played the par three with. Yes. And making a joke. Yeah, right. But that, it's like a lot of stuff

going on. And this is the nod of the podfather, right? Like the pod father doesn't like it when he sees the kids and the wives and the distraction and stuff, right, they? Yeah. And he saw Max holding Cam and said, I'm not sure I like this. So, uh, Max is going to be an interesting one. We've talked about this a couple times. This is a very, very, very important tournament for Max Hohama, not to win. He does not need to win this tournament. He might. He's certainly going to be, he's playing well enough to be in contention, but he has got to play well in a major for the first time in his career. And he looks today like he's trying to get himself into that zone, but that there is a lot more that's in the way of that when you're now a top 10 player recognized by everybody, wanted on TV with the kid, there was a lot. You are correct. Yeah. So I guess takeaways from the day in terms of how you might, you know, balance either a D.

FFS lineup, there's still time to finalize your wagering card, your D, your fantasy lineup, however you want to play some of this. For sure. Now, we talked about with Justin Ray why a case for Patrick Reed had a certain element to it. Dave Chang, we were very, we were very super lucky this afternoon to have a conversation with a member of the club. And, you know, we were just sort of talking through some of the anecdotes and, and, and, and, and so forth. And the member made an observation that's not that dissimilar from things we've

been talking about on this very podcast, which is it seems to us, and it seemed to this member as well, that Patrick Reed is fueled by an environment in which maybe not every single person watching him is rooting for him, right? If you have seen Ghostbusters 2 where the monster gets stronger because of the Hayden, New York City, if this is just too weird of an analogy, basically what was like said. He's feeding off all the hate towards himself. Hate fuel. He's stronger. Very Korean of him. Oh, is that right? Han. Yeah, they called the Han. The Han. I sort of became a fan. Maybe the only fan, Patrick Reed. Well, the Han is strong

in that one. The Han is definitely stronger. And of all of the live players, there's a couple of other observations from today speaking of live players. Brooks Kevka looked good out there. Brooks kept because the guns, he brought the gun show, two tickets. And they, he's swinging with ease. He looks somewhat focused. Jenna certainly was excited to be back on television. It appeared to me. I don't know about you. This might be a little undercurrent. I mean, I keep having these, these conversations with different people about, you know, it was reported that, that Island Shipnock actually, you know, breathed this into the ether sphere that. you know of any particular any player on live the one with the most potential for for you know

exploring a return to the pga tour brooks kepka's name is the name that that shipnuck mentioned and there's just been this this ongoing conversation around brooks and jenna and and sort of the life in front of the camera that they seem to enjoy and that the c w may not be delivering that to them in the way that they might like because they definitely were a prominent feature in the par three contest yes jena was very put together for this i listen i don't want to speculate here the biggest live news we heard this week is a very very strong rumor that greg norman is soon to be out we did hear that rumor and and it was a credible source a highly credible source that norman is soon to be out and that a lot of what's happened really over the last 24 hours,

starting with the Champions Dinner, which although the photo from that showed some clear lines of delineation with a bunch of the live guys stacked up on the right and some of the more sort of riot or dyes for the tour on the left, that it was fairly copacetic, that there wasn't a lot of tension. Faldo said on TV that it seemed to be more calm and cool. And so there is this reconciliation talk that's,

seems to be happening. There's no way it can happen with Norman there. And Brooks is a part of this, right? Both Brooks and DJ this week sort of went out of their way to talk about how their buddies with Rory and they talk to him a lot. And it's impossible, I think, for you to be in an acrimonious relationship with Rory Rory McElroy as a whole as an entity and expect that you're going to come back together with Liv. Sorry, with the PGA tour. So it does, I mean, change seems to be somewhat afoot. It's not going to happen in a month. But I think it's going to happen. sooner than we think because again, some of these players want to see this come back together. And that was really at the end of the day, the tenor of Fred Ridley's press conference today.

Interesting. Okay. Well, reconciliation. I mean, I think ultimately we support it. The thing that we're most excited to see that's about to punch us right in the face is the very best golfers at the world all together, all at once, competing when the stakes are at their very possible highest. One happy turn of events, I'm knocking on wood, I don't want to jinx it. It seems like some, a lot of golf will be played tomorrow.

Yes. And Friday, it seems like a lot of golf will be played. That the weather is not going to be as dramatically impactful these two days. Now, Saturday is still not looking great. And what impact that has on Sunday and, you know, whether I don't I'm not rooting for a Monday finish no way I don't think anybody is including the media

members and and other people who have tea times on Monday that they won in the lottery but the the course is in better shape year over year at this moment in time yes we saw them putting water on 16 as we walked off today so interesting so they've got it they've got more control over it than they did last year when those scoring numbers were pretty low as people were able to come in high and soft into those greens yes chef chang so tomorrow we have a strategy where we'll post up on a couple holes we want to watch groups come through who are you most excited to see tomorrow still i'm a tiger super fan yeah and i want him to make the cut and i want the impossible thing to happen that he actually is in contention which clearly really probably isn't going to happen but i can

root for that yeah why not I mean, there's a record at stake in terms of consecutive cuts made. So that's a plenty of incentive for him. And, you know, the circumstantial evidence suggests that he is physically much better shape than he had been at this time last year. But that's not really the measure. The measure is since playing RIV even. I, he's, I like that the expectations have been appropriately lowered at this point. It's going to probably mean that he plays well this week.

I think he's definitely making the cut. Chef Chang, I do want to ask you this because a prominent golf publication quoted you as saying that Augusta National is like the best run company you've ever seen in the world. You saw a lot more of the inner workings of its logistics and operations today. Anything change your mind or you're thinking about that? No, I'm buying as much stock in this as I can. Yeah, it's the best.

Nothing even comes close. And so we did not go hard on the sandwiches today because we did so much on the pizza and the breakfast and the Waffle House and everything else. Is tomorrow, do I have both of your unconditional, like, pledges that tomorrow's what we're going to do the sandwiches? At least half a dozen sandwiches. He's calling a half a dozen sandwiches. That's exactly right.

A minimum number of six. If we were able to get the chicken, for sure, got to get a chicken biscuit in the morning. We're going to get a barbecue. We're going to. Getting at eggs allergy. There's six. There's at least six. Yeah.

Yeah. And now that you have sufficiently perused the house that we're staying in to know the available supplies, what is your current thinking on the late night eat thing that you're going to whip up for a night tonight? I think we're definitely going to eat some more chicken tenders and chicken wings. Oh, we have more. And some more pasta that maybe a house may not want to eat, but I definitely now know, after seeing Nathan eat some pizza. He's a pasta man for sure.

He's a carb guy. He clearly can handle the carbs. Carve loader. Can I add one thing? I thought it was super interesting today when we're watching because I never seen or heard of this before. How come more people don't go to the practice rounds to analyze what the hell is happening per golfer? Because you don't get that information. Yeah.

You really don't, right? No. So your analysis today, I was like, this should happen. We saw Rory making every single one of his butts. He was mad at house because he was. wasn't paying attention. I saw him going in. You were yelling at me. Here's my, here's the only reason that I hate to poke holes in it, but I, I don't want to, I don't give a shit about Roy Mack, Roy making putts on Wednesday. Okay, okay. I really don't. Okay. But last year,

we saw Xander Schauffley missing puts on Wednesday. Yeah, but and we bailed out. Zander is Zander and Rory is Rory. I want Rory's hot putter. He was making 15 footers. It was awesome. I mean, that, that's why you were calling it to my attention. I was just like, look at this. I know. So it was like Steph Curry going on a complete heater from three. And that's the thing. That's the swag. That's Roar. Yes.

If Rory gets hot with the putter and we, we know. What are you? You're just afraid to let the good energy in. I'm not going to do it. I won't. Not on Wednesday. Do the people that make the odds,

are they here watching practice rounds or any tournaments? No. Definitely not. It's why you have to come to a golf tournament and watch because you know it when you see it. This is information asymmetry. That doesn't happen often. Yes. It's why the golf tournament.

betting markets have some opportunities in them. We enjoy it very much here. Definitely listen to these guys. We're going to try. We'll try our hardest. I will say one last thing. So ultimately in terms of where you're wagering dance cards

and your DFS might be, headed in the green arrow up for Patrick Reed. What about Max Homer? Where do you want to put that? Where's the arrow? Is it a flat arrow or is a teeny tiny down arrow? What did you see?

I'm too afraid to. jinks that I want him to do so well. He felt like he was in the clench. I didn't, I mean, he didn't have a free brain for the, for the time that we watched. That's the right way to say it. It didn't feel like he was clear-brained. Yeah. Sahith felt great to me. Yeah. And he hit a low stinger on 17 that was awesome right up to the top of the hill. But you could also see him putting at new spots. This is a new thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He does not know this course. No, no. And that is one of the differences also worth noting as our part of our wrap up here. DJ Patrick Reed out on the golf course with their caddies and they have the little rubber fake holes.

And they put them down on every green in the four places where the pins will be as they compete the tournament. We watched poor Max and poor Sahith and their caddies. You know, maybe they got a piece of pine straw. I don't know what they got. They were just wagging balls all over 16. You could, they were in the general vicinity of where those holes are going to be, but there was a marked difference between the two past champions.

The green jacket wearers. Yes. And, and the relative newcomers. I know Max has played the Masters before, but relative newcomers. Yeah. To the scene.

I'm on Brooks Kevka now. I'm here to officially announce. Yeah. The physical, um, just the, the, the overall.

ease with which he's moving. And, you know, the kinetic movement was, was pleasing to the eye. So a little bit of investment. This is a last minute addition to the card. Little investment in Kepka, probably a top 20. That's about the direction I'm going to go with it, Nate. I don't mind it. As always, these are the days to come to Augusta.

If you haven't done it, you got to come. It is absolutely adult Disneyland. As we're walking off, they're raking the pine straw back into every single perfect shape. it just was beautiful. The food options are only getting better. The prices are staying the same. But if you come, come for Tuesday and Wednesday because it really is probably the most special part of the week.

And when you get the closest access to the golfers and you learn more about the course than you ever will Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. There you go, Bertie, buddies. It's not going to get any better than that. You still have plenty of time. This show will be up this evening to check out the fandul.com and Fandul Sportsbook app. and get on there and check out the ringer specials that we have all lined up for you. Patrick Reed, 72 to 1.

Come on, Patrick! You got this! The sports guy has a couple of opinions, apparently. Check out those specials on the Fanduals sports book. There's a whole page of them. Patrick, you think people don't like you. I like you. You have one fan in the gallery.

It's me. It's the Podfather. Oh, no. My eagle enthusiast, my birdie buddies. We'll be back tomorrow, I think, with some reaction to, on the Bill Simmons podcast, this esteemed foursome, back with some observations on how Thursday went, what our menu looked like, the success of each of us we've pledged each have six sandwiches. So we'll have some reports for you.