Fairway Rollin' - PGA Championship Recap: Justin Thomas’s Player of the Year Potential, Rory McIlroy’s Injury, and CBS/TNT’s Broadcast Troubles (Ep. 46)

Episode Date: August 14, 2017

The Ringer’s Joe House and Geoff Shackelford discuss Justin Thomas’s triumph in the PGA Championship (3:00), the players’ dislike for Quail Hollow Club (11:30), how Thomas’s win affects the Player of the Year race (20:30), the possible connection between Rory McIlroy’s equipment change and his latest injury (23:35), Charlotte as a great golf city (29:40), and CBS/TNT’s technical difficulties (34:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Shock House after a fantastic PGA championship. It was looking a little bleak there. Let's be honest. But House, you've got a word from our friends of Calaway before we get this zany show underway where we're going to talk about everything PGA, Charlotte, Rory, Justin Thomas, our winner, all sorts of good. Oh, and our good friends at CBS are going to love this show. House, take it away. The number one irons in golf, baby. The PGA championship wrap up episode. episode is brought to you by Calloway, the number one irons in golf. When Calloway came out with the all-black apex irons last year, golfers everywhere, including this dude, I'm pointing at myself right now. Yeah, you. We all went crazy over the sleek, all-black look. They are back.

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H-O-U-S-E. Make Seek your go-to ticket source for all things, PGA and beyond. And now let's get over to the Shack-Haw. Brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. House, how about that final round PGA? It was looking bleak. It was scary. Saturday was one of the worst things I've ever watched.

But they came through with a thriller. How about that, Justin Thomas? Well, Shaq, a war of attrition on Saturday, and it's set up a Sunday. Is anybody going to go grab this thing by the balls? And lo and behold, it was our boy J.T. he was up to the moment. His first victory of any sort

on mainland United States of America and Charlotte feels like the right kind of venue for him and for what he did. Oh, it did. Yeah. And, you know, I remember when I wrote him up in the golf week, tend to watch, and even though he was playing horribly coming in, it was one of those things where you thought,

well, okay, maybe the Bermuda grass, the warm weather, my dad's a pro, Jordan's just won the open. and something's going to click to kind of motivate them and put them over the edge. And what a sensational final round of play. I mean, there were so many guys who got into contention, thankfully. It was really feeling like one of those.

It was going to be sort of the car race where the last car standing one. And it was nice to have somebody go out and win it on that golf course and the PGA to finally give them a break and give them a chance to attack the golf course in some spots. although his key birdies on the back nine to me were 13 and 17 and one was a chip in and one was

on a hole just an improbable hole of birdie 17 but a beautiful t-shot and I love it when somebody goes out and wins it like that and it's just it is a great story I mean third generation member of the PGA dad granddad were

both PGA members which those people love that there and they should this doesn't happen very often I'll have to look I think Davis Love was, yeah, there's dead nobody since Davis Love, whose dad was a BGA Pro. Anyway, I loved it and thought it was great to see some fun people like Patrick Reed and Louis Oostezen and then Molinari, all of them hanging around and kind of get their shot in there. That's what we help for in a major, right? A little spreading the wealth for a while. That's exactly it. And I have

two things to say. One, I want to pick a, not a pick a fight, but pick a bone. What am I supposed to pick. You included JT and your 10 to watch. Yeah. That didn't come up in our conversation on Monday. And you know, I, you know I was allocating capital. Well, I mean, he stunk it up again at Firestone. So it wasn't really a reason to mention him. I mean, I, I, uh, I felt like it was just one of those things you had to include him as a top player. And, and, uh, but now, I wasn't feeling anything after the last three weeks. Well, the, you know, he fit the odds profile that I like. you know he was like in the 30s or maybe all the way up to 40 as Monday, Tuesday rolled around. Anyway, I won't get too mad at you.

No, no, no. You're within your rights. Well, I was looking at some live odds today because I had a play rolling along with Hedecki. And Hadecki leaked oil yesterday. And then he came out today and I thought, maybe, you know, but he started to drop in the club. When Hedecki hits iron shots and let's go with one hand, you just, you don't need the pro tracer. You can just say to yourself, son of a bitch, come on, Hedecki. And there was a lot of dropping that club over his shoulder.

It's painful to watch. It really is. And then he really didn't put very well on the weekend. That didn't help either after really putting beautifully the first two rounds. I really thought he was going to run away with it myself. Well, the moment I thought all the way up until the 10th hole, the T shot that Justin Thomas hit into the trees that had every possibility of going further left or even if it was going to be spit back out to the right, could have gone into

rough stuff, could have gone into the bunker. Instead, that T-ball ended up in the fairway. Yeah. And he hit on and made a birdie and stole, you know, victory from the jaws of defeat. And I thought in that moment, I need to go check the live odds and see if I want to jump on JT. I didn't do it because the odds weren't looking that good. I mean, just in terms of a return. but, you know, that kind of magic, when you see a magic moment like that from a guy in the last handful of groups, that's a good reason to think that something's about to happen. Yeah, and then the pot that hung on the lip for, according to our crack production supervisor today who's working on a game of Thrones Day, which is a holiday, I believe, in the Ringer universe,

isn't a fact? That's a fact. He informed, wait, what did you get, Isaac? I counted 11.5 seconds. Some people said 12. 11 and a half seconds. Yes. I saw some 12s. I saw some 13s on the Twitter. It was close. But it wasn't, it wasn't. I've seen much more egregious, believe me. So it wasn't one that was worth stirring up the Hornets Nest of Rules Geeks. But in fact, I didn't really see too many of them speak up because it was it was hard to decipher when he started. But when you saw that, that was pretty wild to see that.

Of course, his body language, you know, you know where he stands on something pretty quickly, which is why I enjoy watching him. Some people don't like that in a player and they want him to be stoic or not be whiny, but or something. I don't know. I love that when they kind of wear their hard on the sleeve. I'm with you. And that is the thing that I think is a trait that has folks sort of waver about the sort of suitability, his psychological profile. And the same is true of John Rom, and I think the same is true now of Thomas Peters. Do they have that makeup?

Got players who aren't afraid to show a little emotion kind of immediately in reaction to a shot where they're wearing it right out there. Yeah, but as you know, there's a difference between wearing it on your sleeve and kind of being flustered that you didn't hit the shot you wanted. And then what we're seeing with Rom and Peters is just this all-out rage. And, you know, Rom walking down the fairway, bending the driver like the. The Incredible Hulk and Peter's just slamming stuff. I mean, that's, that stuff's not, that does not end well.

You need to, you need to throttle that back a little bit. Sure. And over the course of the season, JT. had his moments. I mean, I watched him a fair amount at the players, and he got pretty frustrated at the players this year. Oh, yeah, no, and he's very streaky. He's a streaky player, and that's what he does. And when it, when it goes bad, he gets, he gets mad. But if your streaks lead to you winning four times in a season and a PGA championship,

then, you know, go for it. Yeah. And once again, I'm very happy that we have a major champion that went out and seized it. I mean, he opened the week with a 73 on Thursday and then ran off a 66, a 69, and a 68. Yeah. That is getting the job done, Jeff Shackleford. Well, it is, especially because the golf course had them on such a defensive approach to the game. And I really didn't care for it. players really didn't care for it.

And so it was a relief that today they hadn't been so beaten down by it that they couldn't perform. I mean, everybody that was on that leaderboard had one or two shots that were really thrilling, exciting, got the roars going, made you think they had a chance and kind of highlight real stuff. But the way they set it up with the Greens 14 or so on the Stim meter, probably even faster after they caught them. I mean, they were insane.

And this is a golf course that the play. players have always loved. And they've just gradually started to learn to not like it. And it was telling in the comments and the way, I mean, just let's go back to Friday afternoon. We have to talk about the guys, the happy Gilmoreing, the tea shop by Rod Pampling. Now, I don't know if you were passed out on the couch from your Los Angeles trip at that point from having eaten so much food, projectile vomiting, maybe. I don't know. No, no, no, no. Dude, I'm a professional. Come on now. By the way, what happened to this? You were coming here to experience this culinary renaissance in Los Angeles.

And then I'm seeing you, you know, Rosco's and stuff in your face with, with, we hit the classics. There's plenty of time for, you know, culinary, whatever. We just hit a bunch of the classics. It was just a quick tour. It was great. I know. I know.

No, no. I'm glad it was a good trip. I'm glad you, the apple pan scored the way we hoped it would score with you. and that the father's office maintain their attitude, which is, you know, it's got a little of a soup Nazi thing, but it's worth it for the burger, right? I guess so. Yeah.

Anyway. So Friday, you were passed out. Yeah. So we get, this was something that, and I don't want to get, I don't think Rod Pampling should be in trouble or anything, or Danny Willits should be fined for hitting an iron off tea because they, they were stinking it up and they wanted to finish. But when you saw players in a major championship, on a golf course,

it was in immaculate condition. where they had house the most beautiful entrance drive. You and your entrance drives. It's such an important thing to you. Well, I'm building a case here. I'm building a case. They come in. They have nobody they have to deal with.

They go right to the locker room. They get great food in the clubhouse, big spread, beautiful practice facility. Everything about this experience is perfection. And so to see players not praising the course, giving you the coded, the coded, well, it's a golf course, you know, and things like that, and caddies coming over to Benjrier, which happened to me a couple times, you throw all that together,

and then you see what happened on Friday afternoon where these guys were rushing to just, I know players don't want to come back the next morning, but to do it in a major like that, when they know their cameras and everything, said a lot about how they felt about the place. And, oh, and I left out, by the way, Charlotte, great town,

unbelievably nice people. The volunteers there were just incredibly cool and nice. And so all these ingredients told me, oh my gosh, these guys really hate the golf course because usually they can look past some things when it's an immaculate condition. So I thought that Friday afternoon thing, everybody thought it was kind of fun and funny and it kind of was, but it also spoke to how they felt about the place. And then Jordan and Rory's comments after Saturday's rounds, pointing out that the holes were on knobs. And there were just a lot of things that went on there that were not necessary.

but the man in charge, Johnny Harris, he clearly had his say and he likes things to look like Augusta and to be fast and to be tricked up. And boy, it was just, that's dangerous because when you do those things with course setups and you try to control everything, it can really backfire and you can get a goofy golf finish. So that's another reason why Sunday's conclusion was kind of a relief as much as anything. Absolutely. So I have two things I want to pick your brain on a little bit. I found it not ironic, but we complained a little bit about trying to get a major challenge into the major mix this year. I mean, the masters, you set aside the masters because Augusta is always Augusta, Immaculate stands alone. But from the other three venues that the major championships were competed at, we were a little bit disappointed that Aaron Hills, we didn't see the true teeth of Aaron Hills.

Yeah. And then it was 80 degree, you know, sun tan weather in the UK. Well. So, you know, the guys went out and had a great performance. And Jordan, you know, it sprinkled a little on Jordan on the back nine. I saw that. But otherwise, you know, all the teeth, all the defense at Burkdale resides in the wind coming off the Irish Sea. And it just didn't come together other than, you know, a portion of the Friday round. So here's my take. And this is why I'm walking. all the way up to this. This was a golf course that wasn't ready to host a major in terms of the

layout, right? They rushed to add length. They rushed to change the design. And the design elements plus the green speeds were kind of irreconcilable. And that's what I think we saw in all of its ugly glory on Saturday. Right. You couldn't put the pins in the places that the Saturday Pins were and sort of honor whatever the design intent is. Yeah. That's my question to you. Yeah. The problem is the design intent was that I saw and what the players were unhappy about

with the Greens is the intent seemed to be to prevent birdies. The newness of the project, I think, was problematic in that you kind of wonder, looking at some of the contours on some of the new stuff, if they just didn't really think it through. The people who do the work, Tom Fasio and Tom Marzoff, aren't really K. capable of truly great architecture anyway. So it doesn't surprise me that they kind of bungled it. Zinger! Oh, yeah.

Now, Tom Arzoss, a guy who just completely bungled the work at Riviera and not good at what he does. And this was his project, and it's a shame. It's just so many golf courses. They approach it cynically, House. They don't build things where you want to see a player succeed. It's this sort of discrete way of trying to prevent birdies. And then you couple that with where the setup, they kept putting these holes on spots. I mean, Jordan Speath had a couple of putts Saturday that snapped so hard at the hole.

Right. And the one thing I've learned watching the PGA Tour guys is when they watch a hole location, they don't want to see the ball take that hard left turn at the hole. They don't mind a hard hole location. But then it gets to a form of trickery when you're putting them on spots where you see that. And that's what got the guys mad. The conditioning of the golf course, Keith Wood, the superintendent's the genius. I mean, it was considering how little time they've had since this kind of last-minute renovation,

which was very unusual for the PGA of America to allow a course to modify that close to the tournament. He did an amazing job. The greens were, the turf itself was on. I mean, you walked on it. It was freakishly good. So there was no issue with turf grass. It's just that it's 7,600 yards. They're walking back to T's all day.

They hate that now, which I love. They used to not mind that, but now the guys hate that. So there are all these little elements that just screamed out to them like, ah, this is chinty. And plus, House, you got to remember, they've been playing this course now for quite a while in the Wachovia and then the Wells Fargo. So they liked it at one time. Yeah, they were fond of it, right?

Yeah. Here's the thing I want to say to put a bow on this discussion about the course. It reemphasizes the brilliance of J.T. How he was the proper winner this week because he shot 69 yesterday, which was the day that guys were really kind of distinguishing themselves. Yeah, it was a fiasco, yeah. It was a quiet 69, but 34 on the back is pretty effing good. Yeah.

Well, and the other thing that was, he noted it after the round. He clearly was feeling some amazing adrenaline. He was nervous, and he was able to use that to his advantage. He talked about just blowing it as far down 16 as he could and took advantage of the fact that he was pretty amped up. But the fact that he was able to kind of control that, that also was encouraging because I think that's why there was that sense that it wasn't over until it's over because he has shown that he gets so amped up.

He's so determined to win and play well. And that swing is so, so powerful. And just the slightest little twitch can go wrong. So kudos to him for controlling that and keeping that in check. We have a bunch of stuff to cover still. But let's take a quick break in here from our friends at Hello Fresh. All right, big thanks to today's sponsor, Hello Fresh, the meal kit delivery service that makes cooking more fun. So you can focus on the whole experience, not just the final plate.

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Hellofresh.com, enter Shack House 30 when you subscribe. And of course, House. Yeah. Besides your Hello Fresh, you've got to have some Chrome Soft in your life, as you know. And our friends at Calloway are the people who made the ball that changed the ball. We know every golfer is looking for that ball that's long, incredibly soft, and unbelievably easy to control. And that's why everybody, everywhere, is changing to Chrome Soft and seeing their games reach new heights.

So change your ball, change your game, get some Chrome Soft in your life. get some Truvice in your life. It's a ball to change a ball. Now, House, we had some croissos off down the stretch. There were a lot of other guys who played well. But what this did do, I think, is kind of crystallize the player of the year race as we go into the FedEx Cup playoffs. We have one more week. We really don't care that much about the playoffs.

What we do care about this week, though, House, is, by the way, keep an eye on some of the scores. There's some pretty interesting names whose tour card is about to expire if they don't play well this week. and get in those playoffs. Well, look, I just want to do a quick hit. You know, we had our good pal, our mutual friend Nathan Hubbard, whose brother, homeless hubs, Mark Hubbard, is one of those guys down at Sedgfield, duking it out. And, you know, check out ringer.com, Nathan's entry in there.

His story about quick hit on relegation, if you're interested in seeing what these guys are doing, their careers are on the line, Shaq. Yeah, no, it's a high-pressure week, and I don't envy them. But it sneaks up on you, too. I mean, we laugh about the wrap around calendar and schedule and all that, but here it is. Beef Johnson, Smiley Kaufman, Ben Crane. There are all these people you'll go down the list. You'll go, wow, he's got to pick it up this week or else he's head to the web.com playoffs and then suddenly in big trouble.

So anyway, that's the other side of the tour. Interesting to watch for us, not so fun for them and their friends and family, and we sympathize with their nerves. But I think from the point of view of player of the year, Justin Thomas now has really kind of a staff. himself as this is going to be the year remembered for his his incredible play. I think, although Jordan Spee's Open Championship win is so powerful that it may resonate in a lot of different ways. And it clearly resonated with him. I don't know if he saw his warm-ups this weekend at Quail Hollow. He definitely had not fully recovered from that win. And I mean that in a way that it's just such a special win that I think he's just still enjoying that. And I,

I don't think he really ever quite got locked in at Coil Hollow, and then he, I don't know if he found the golf course to his liking either. And, of course, he said the PGA is going to be the hardest one for him to win, which was our belief in talking about this grand slam quest. This is the interesting thing, right? This is why the schedule change is so welcome, at least to me, spacing out these majors. We can't have, you know, it's been barely two and a half weeks since the Open Championship. It has, but, you know, it'll be a different dynamic too in May with the PG. between the Masters and U.S. Open, that'll be a, I think that's going to be a sneaky, tight little set of big events. Well, it's going to get in the way of spring break for those guys.

Discovery Land Company has some nice places and other environments where they can go and Snapchat away. So anyhow, a rough week for him. Well, I say rough. He was laughing, having a good old time on the range the last two days. So he's very pleased with where things are. And he's shot of 70 today. Yeah. And then he had his hat on backward to greet Justin after the round.

And I think he had a few cold ones and was, he had a nice smile in his face. So nobody needs to worry about Jordan. Now, Rory McElroy on the other hand, that's a bleak picture, I think, in terms of the rest of the year. I mean, for him to be coming out and saying he's ready to shut it down, he's thinking of one of his people told Derek Lawrence, of the Daily Mail, you know, maybe Federer's a model, you know, take five months away. Oh boy. That sounds like somebody who's just not in a good place with his health and his game and thinks he needs to say goodbye for a little while to get healthy. Yeah. So we're not going to talk about him for player of the year. I guess I don't want to at this point continue to kind of jump on Rory.

The only thing that I kind of object to in terms of the season that he had and the injury that he encountered, his calendar ended up very, very full in terms of an ambitious set of things he wanted to accomplish. He had on his calendar that he was going to get married. And I guess he had on his calorie that he was going to change equipment. And with both of those big kind of life moments, at least for a golfer, on the agenda, the agenda didn't really contemplate an opportunity for him to recover from an injury that he suffered at the beginning of the season. And I would have liked it.

This is just me being selfish because I want the best players to play all the time because that produces the best competition. And I still think Ricky, talent-wise, is if not the very best player. He's one B to Jordan maybe or one C with the best. if you want to include DJ. But the equipment change is, I think I'm going to look back on that and it's going to leave a bad taste of my mouth because it looks like it influenced the rest of his season here that he pressed down hard and tried to play in these events. Now, he had a brief moment at the Open Championship that kind of looked like, okay, well,

maybe he's not suffering any kind of injury, you know, maybe he's past the injury bug and he's going to really compete for this championship. and, you know, he had a couple moments there, but he wasn't really able to put the pedal down on Saturday the way a bunch of guys did at the Open Championship and score and get himself all the way up to the board. And then Sunday he wasn't really ever threatening to win. And now, you know, the comments about not being able to really practice,

I'm trying to reconcile the equipment change at the peculiar time that he did it. He went all in with Taylor Made, you know, at that moment of the season. and whether he was playing tournaments to kind of justify that commitment that he made to the possible detriment of the rest of his season and maybe his health. Yeah, no, and that's the ultimate problem. And it only bothers me. I don't care what clubs he plays. It bothers me that he hasn't learned from history that so many players who've made

these switches in a half-hazard way have had it backfire on him. And he had seemed to be going about it the right way. It was forced on him with Nike leaving the business. but then he had worked out a set and more importantly a putter. As we can see, he can hit a lot of different drivers well. But the putter was key. And really the irons too, his numbers on irons were pretty lousy in this recent run of events where he has seemingly been healthy.

And so the fact that he hasn't learned from history, the fact that Lydia Coe hasn't learned from history or she's just disappeared this year. I mean, this has just gone on and on. And this is where, you know, sometimes you wonder, these players need an agent that's got a little bit more seasoning and wisdom that that sees the big picture, but a lot of them don't. They just, they see a big dollar sign and they are big dollar signs. They're big dollars, Jeff. Yeah, and they pounced. So I get that. I understand that. But anyway, we've, we've pounced on him enough. Yeah. House, what else you want to

know about this PGA and Charlotte? I mean, it was a, it was a, it ended up being a very good week, thankfully, and thankfully, finished on Sunday night. And it was a perfect ending. I want to touch on two other names before we move past player of the year, just to get your take. If either Brooks Kepko or DJ get hot over the course of these playoffs, the FedEx Cup playoffs, and one of those two guys wins the championship at Eastlake, how do you think they stack up with JT? Well, I tend to lean towards the major winner. So, you know, Brooks won U.S. Open, and U.S. Open is always a big one in the player of the year discussion to me. Not that any major is less important than the other. But ultimately I think that's what will be the separator.

And he played well in other majors. Yeah, in fact, he leads the entire. I was just going to be the low in the majors this year? Yeah, yeah. He is like he should. Yeah. And so I always love that stat, by the way. Only 13 guys made the cut at all four.

And he leads the field at 21 under. Look at you doing homework for the show. Very nice. Yeah, every once in a while. Yeah, he's 21 under for the year in the majors. Pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. I've always thought there should be a trophy for that or an award.

To me, that's a more interesting award than even Player of the Year. Just that sort of cumulative play in the majors is fascinating to me. Yeah, I agree with you. But it speaks to a certain consistency and overall quality of game. It's very impressive. But yeah, so we'll see. We'll see what happens in the playoffs. I don't know.

You've got another six weeks here. Yeah, my sense is there are a lot of guys who have been going out pretty hard. So they're going to want a week off to get a little bit. rejuvenated. And I think, though, that with the news that came out of the PGA last week, that it was moving to May and that they're going to probably shorten the playoffs by a week and end by Labor Day in 2019, I think that will, even though the players now have to go through this year and next year, I think that will probably almost in a way motivate them or get them excited to kind of get not be, well, really, a lot of guys sit out events and the way they acted

during the playoffs has not been a good look and has been part of the problem with this concept. So I think knowing that that's at the end, they'll behave a little bit better and perform better. Yeah, let's talk about Charlotte because you were down there from Monday all the way up to Saturday. Yeah, I'm back here in L.A. now for the U.S. Amateur kicks off here tomorrow. First time since 1976 in Los Angeles, so we're very excited about that. Well, those of us, a few of us are. I don't think there'll be many people out there. But it's a prestigious trophy, if you know the history of the game.

And it's pretty cool that it's here. Yeah, Charlotte was fantastic. Wow, do those people love their golf house? I mean, did you see, could you believe those crowds on Thursday? It was awesome. I sent you a text like, check, are you alive? Because, you know, they were pressed up. This is the thing what we wanted out of the U.S. Open experience, right?

You want to see the crowds. You want to see the people, that emotion that carries the players, that buoys the players. that buoys the players. Today, as JT walked up 18, there was a JT chant going on. I mean, that makes it feel live, right? Yeah, really knowledgeable fans, great, great people. They put in some serious time. The on-site setup was, I thought, a little mediocre in terms of the,

well, it was awful in terms of the food offerings, actually, and the front nine didn't have enough, so there were some people with having some bad experiences. And they didn't complain at all. It was amazing. I was impressed. I was listening to a few of the people, coming up and

saying something and they were being very nice about it, but they were out there early too, passionate and love their local guys, but they were respectful to all players. A few too many baba buoys on the telecast, but you know, we'll deal with that.

But yeah, no, Charlotte was great. You know, Quill Hollow, it's going to host more events. It's got a 2024 President's Cup. It's likely to get another PGA and a Ryder Cup, and it's likely to redesigned again. Sure.

I think the fourth hole. The bulldozer might be, you know, what Justin Thomas is driving out tonight with the Watermaker, I think the, the, the, the, the Mack truck with the bulldozers is going to be coming by him on the way to blow that little baby up. That was their new hole that the Fazio team concocted. And, you know what, the green was, it was bad, but it was more that they just, they just should have played it as short as possible in that. might have helped. I don't know. But great people. We had a lot of nice Shackhouse fans.

I went to a fun event that Cricket hosted at the Selwyn Pub. Nice. Oh, let's hear a little bit about some food, some Charlotte food. Were you able to get into any North Carolina barbecue? I was not. Our Friday night barbecue got canceled. I did have some fine, fine Southern takes, though, on things. So I have a couple of places for you when you go down there. But yeah, we had a nice Friday barbecue place planned, the Golf Week gang, and the weather killed us. So that was a bummer. But yeah, I've got a fantastic place house, the Asbury and the base of this great old hotel downtown, the Dunhill Hotel, and just really, really unique take on food. And the vibe in there, the downtown is a lot of fun. Of course,

there was a Panthers game on Thursday night, excuse me, Wednesday night that lent a little bit of a little bit of fun to the proceedings. The bright Royal Blue or the Panther Blue comes out and a cool scene. So a lot of fun. And there will be more tournaments in Charlotte. Yeah, no doubt. I mean, the people wrapped hard for Charlotte. I wanted to do a real quick aside.

You mentioned Shack House, the Shackhouse fans live and in Charlotte. Yeah. We did not forget, pals. We have a couple of beautiful putters to give away. We have our crack Shackhouse staff busy tabulating the results. Shaq and I will put it out on the Ringer everywhere. We're going to put it on the Ringer. media, my social media, Jeff Scheldon media, to make sure that the winners are announced.

We have a beautiful red O-Works putter and a beautiful back-in-black-o-works as well. So keep an eye out on the social media for your name to see if you won. Which reminds me, House, we might as well share this important message right now before we get to the part we've buried at the end of the show, the broadcast. Hey, when you're the number one putter in golf, every weekend is big. And it was a good weekend for The Odyssey. Didn't win the PGA championship, but it got awfully close with Kevin Kisner rolling in the ball all over the place. Yeah, 49 worldwide wins this year.

I think number 50 is going to happen in the playoffs. So as you noted, though, we are going to be giving away one of those new O-Works, red or black putters after Tyler does the computations. Thank you, Tyler. And they are beautiful. They've got all sorts of cool head shapes and, of course, the microhedge insert and helps you jar a few putts. And they are now in stores. They've been released to the public. So go check them out.

from Odyssey, the number one punt in golf. House. Jack. We hate to do this. We had such high hopes. Amanda Ballionis was awesome. She brought energy. She brought us last week's show,

all sorts of great little tidbits. The technology did happen. So did a lot of commercial breaks. Yeah. Wow. That was a doozy. So I have a fun little message that was shared with me.

There are benefits to the fact that the Turner produced app for the PGA of America stunk and kept crashing. They had the mic stay open a little bit hot sometimes when they either... Oh. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Especially coming back from commercial when I was listening.

I was using the app yesterday as I was trying to get back here to L.A. So I was in the airport. And I heard several times some fun hot mic conversations. And let's just say I just got a message on Twitter that a friend. and listener of the show was listening to the end of the telecast on the app. He's a young person. So he's a cord cutter. He's streaming.

And our friend, Jim Nance, who was on the show recently. He is our friend. He was a great guest last year. Still a great interview if people want to go back and listen. So this person message and said, the mic was left open at the end of the broadcast. And he was, Jim was giving congratulations to the crew there in the booth on 18. or neck and the whole friends and big thank yous to the guys for for working the long day. And then the direct quote was, I just wish you guys didn't have to juggle so many commercials,

but you did it wonderfully. So even Jim recognized it was it was really a discombobulated mess. And I thought they were frontloading the telecast today. So we'd get kind of a commercial free last 45 minutes to an hour and we just didn't. And it really is it really hurts. What's fascinating is how it hurts the PG. championship's perception as a major. That is the takeaway.

This is the big challenge for this TV partnership. We have, in stark contrast, what we're able to observe. And there's four of these tournaments every year. So you have to match up. You have to be ready to stand up. And when the other guys are doing programming and have the game plan for the order in which and the sequence in which and the timing in which the commercials are going to be pushed out.

And then you subject us after we've enjoyed very much what the other guys have done. You subject us to a treatment that makes me feel like I'm watching. I'm not going to name any names, but a regular run-of-the-meal kind of tournament maybe in March. I'm hungry. You've been eating too much. I'm hungry. run of the Mule tournament in mid-March or something. Yeah.

You know, we notice, everybody noticed, the whole Twitter notices, every golf fan notices, everybody watching on TV, we all notice. Yeah. And it's not good. It's not good, Shaq. No, it's not. And then, you know, obviously the T and the app experience has the same four ads or three ads that Geico ad.

And there were, you know, and it's nothing against those companies, but you just, somebody has to realize when you, when you run them that often and then your app crashes and you have to sit through the ad again, which is something that's been going on for, I think, at least a decade with this production. It's brutal. And it really infuriates people. And it's, again, another reason why thankfully Justin Thomas kind of clutched up.

We came through. We had a great, clean, strong finish. And a lot of guys played really great to the end. You know, Good Story. And Chris Stroud, our former Shackhouse guest, Kevin Kisner played great right up to the end. could have could have hold out that shot on 18. By the way, I was a little surprised at all the celebration with Kisner still down on 17

with a chance to go Bertie Birdie Birdie to tie. I was a little surprised at some of the premature celebration, but, you know, those last two holes are kind of tough. So I understand Bertie Bertie's probably not very realistic. But anyway, but to the point, a lot of guys clutched up, Hadecki, you know, put on a good show for most of the tournament. and Ricky made a nice charge there at the end. And so they kind of rescued it.

But I still think that what people need to realize is that we have two more years of this. And then the contract will switch to a new contract. It'll be with CBS or NBC or who knows in two years where it'll be. But they're going to open that up. And CBS and T&T have a great contract right now for them. And they've refused to, as I understand it, renegotiate it to maybe cut down on these breaks. or go to limited commercial interruptions. And I think ultimately that's going to be the big thing to watch with this May tournament switch.

I believe my theory is that the PGA of America will go to presenting partners and have just three sponsors and limited commercials and that next contract. And that will really help the championship feel like a major because right now it feels like a normal tour event the way it's presented to us in terms of the flow of the telecast. and the look of it and all that. I know, I agree. And the Twitter outrage was, oh, man, it was unprecedented this week.

It was proper. We're going to run away, but I want to give a quick shout out to our boy, Patrick Reed, because you reminded me, speaking of guys that we've had on the podcast, we, a beautiful 67 today. Now, five guys shot 67. That was the low round of the day.

But that's Pat's best finish in a major in his life. So welcome. to the major scene, Patrick Reed. Yeah, I think a little overdue in the minds of a lot of people because he's so talented, but a great finish. I really thought he was going to kind of be one of the ones that forced his way into a playoff there at the end. But that 18th hole is so hard.

It was hard. And then ultimately, Thomas kind of put it away with that birdie on 17. But, yeah, again, another guy with a great charge on Sunday and good for him. And maybe he'll build on that and have a good playoffs and make the President's Cup team, because we know he likes his match play. and we know people want to see them in that. So it should be an interesting kind of post-mortem on this PGA where people come off from it in the year.

But I think all in all, a great year in the majors, and we'll have a little bit fun here with some of the events in the fall. But a sensational, really, actually, now that I think about it, major season in that we had very distinct stories and storylines, and we got some of the young guys to get the monkey off their back, and we want that. I don't want that kind of dreaded Will he ever win a major thing,

which just drives me nuts as you know, House, that we even mention anybody under the age of 30 as a best player never to have won a major. I just think it's, I think it's lame, but that's just me. It's not fair. We're not going to do that. We're not going to do that. We're going to end on high note. We're going to end on high note check.

So on that, chipper note, is there anything else you want to cover? Anything else? Did you leave anything behind here in Los Angeles? I did leave my laptop cord in Bill Simmons. office. So if you're over at Ringerhead, headquarters, you can send that to me. I left, I left my dignity. I left my diet.

I left, I probably should have had heart pills. I didn't work that anyway. I'll bring that next time. But no, this was, it was an awesome trip to L.A. and an awesome PGA championship. Yes, I agree. House, absolutely a great PGA championship.

Great week, great season. And I'm thrilled that we could share it together. But that means I'm not making this sound like we're done with Shackhouse. We've got more Shackhouses on the schedule. Of course. Yeah, yeah, because everybody needs a little bit of Shackhouse.