Fairway Rollin' - Phil Mickelson Makes History at the PGA Championship

Episode Date: May 24, 2021

House and Hubbard celebrate Phil Mickelson's historic win at PGA Championship as the oldest to win the tournament at 50 years old. They break down how this win seemingly came out of nowhere for Mickelson and how the competition kept feeling the pressure. They also take a look at how good this win was for the game of golf. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's basketball season and we've got you covered. The Ringer NBA show breaks down the latest and greatest around the league five days a week. Check out the Ringer NBA show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, friends, and welcome to this all Phil Nicholson edition. A fairway rolling the golf podcast on the Ring of Podcast Network. I'm your starter Joe House, our PGA tour correspondent on the ground is Nathan Hubbard. He is right here on the zoomer staring back at me. History has been made, Nate Dogg, let's get into it.

There's hope for all of us house. Well, what do you mean? For humanity? For old guys? And if we know one thing about this year, they've taught us, these old guys have been teaching us since the turn of the season, the first event in Napa, California, Stuart Sink has been telling us you're never too old to win a golf tournament

and maybe there's an advantage to it and Phil has been teaching us nothing since that time except that he was a coffee spokesman playing the Champions Tour but he didn't give up and this is what happens. Lots to unpack there, right? And I think over the next couple weeks there will be some interesting

Big J journalism considerations around okay so Phil did it 50. Are we in an era now where guys can just win majors because of the combination of physical fitness, the equipment, whatever other sort of things. Food science. Yes. Yes. CBD, like all of the things that you might read. Right. Everything. HGH. You put it all together. Is there a new normal. Do we, you know, is, is, is, okay. I mean, look, on the internet last week, somebody sent around a picture of the traveling Wilburys that bit, that the supergroup. And, and all those guys were

in their 40s at the time. And, and they look like shit. Yeah, they did. And so it's just a reminder that, that humans continue to evolve. And that takes nothing away from Phil doing this. No, no, no. I mean, I, I do have to ask you, like, how does this rank relative to the two, you? other, really we should call them three other significant old guy performances that jumped to my mind in golf. And that is Watson when he just lost the U.S. or the British Open at the end. And then Nicholas and Tiger winning at Augusta in their 40s. Where does this one sit? So for me, it's Tiger number one, the 2019 Masters to me will be the all-time legendary comeback performance. And it was a comeback from so many different kinds of challenges,

from so many different kinds of obstacles that he overcame, the amount of time between majors for him. That to me will stand as the all-time because of the current era, who he beat, the level of competition in this era. So that's my number one. I have this today. as 2a and Jack is 2B. And I mean, Watson didn't win, so he doesn't go on the list. You got to win. He was a lot older. Yeah, I have Jack at 2B just because, like, you know,

it's the thinnest of dividing line. But if you're really, really, really, you know, trying to come up with a way to differentiate the two, the era was different. I would argue that this era right now is, is, you know, perhaps more competitive than what Jack was up against in 1986. Plus, just Jack's overall comfort and familiarity at Augusta, like the golf gods shown their light down.

Phil at this venue, like what in God's name? We spent so much time over the last two, three weeks, talking about the challenge of this venue. and by the way, it delivered. There were more backdoor top tens in this tournament than we've ever seen. I mean, the top 20 reads like all the guys you thought. Corey Connors, Sungay, Keegan, Charlie Hoffman, Patrick Reed, Fowler, Hello, Feenau, Sheffler, Zaltoris, Rom, Morikawa, Justin Rose, Abe, Ansor, Casey. I mean, all the guys we thought, but this was only ever a three-horse race.

It felt like, right, house? other than Phil, Louis, and Brooks was anybody really in this golf tournament ever? No, no. I never even really considered. They tried to show some Patrick Kentley for a little bit, and he missed every significant putt that might have tilted

his fortune. On the back nine, he had a little bit of a heater going on the front, and then he missed every single putt. We can't just blow right by Ricky Fowler. Ricky Fowler tied for third. Oh, no, we're going to come back. Amazing. 8th. Bogey on 18. Oh, I missed it. All right.

Yeah, bogey on 18, unfortunately. But Ricky played great this week. He gains shots around the green. He gains shots on approach. We were thrilled to see Ricky do this. Look, we got to start with the course and did it deliver what we thought. Coming into it, we said, this is going to be a second shot golf course, you know, even for as long as it is.

and putting may not be the thing that tilts it. Phil lost a stroke over a stroke putting today. He lost strokes putting yesterday, and he still won this tournament by two shots. So this was, in fact, a second shot golf course. It delivered. The wind was a factor. It didn't take over.

It didn't steal the scene, right? But, man, this course delivered, and now they got to think about how to bring some events back here, I think. I mean, that's 100% right. That's a number one takeaway. The golf course performed absolutely beautifully. The PGA of America and the setup, Kerry Haig continues to have,

you know, the architect, the setup touch of a golf god, of a golf legend, because these venues that they're going to, you know, Harding Park, Beth Page,

the way that the PGA championship, it's like, I don't want to do any, you know, speak any blasphemy. But to me, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's in the class of the U.S. Open now. And that's, that's a new, that's a new development. Yeah.

Especially with the length. It's, it's going to be hard for them to create the sort of traditional super thick rough there. But still, it's a studly course for studly players. And again, you just think about like, these are the four guys who tied for fourth. Shane Lowry, Patrick Harrington, Harry, Big Rig Higgs and Paul Casey. I mean, they were nowhere in this tournament.

Those were all backdoor finishes. Answer, who tied for eighth, shot seven under today. Some fucking how. That's the low round of the entire tournament. I mean, good Lord. He gained over five and a half strokes T to Green today. He just was awesome. It was fun to watch.

But none of those guys were really in this tournament. And so it became this sort of inexamine. march towards the Kepka-Mickelson showdown because he just felt like Louis Ousayson was going to do Louis Ousayson things, which he did coming down the back nine, of course. He wafted some shots right and into the water and kind of took himself out of it with a double on 13. Yeah, another second place finish in a major for Louis Ooste-Husty. Yeah.

And Brooks just, I mean, he hung in there, but he just didn't have it today. So let's do a little bit on Brooks. We have some nice markers over the last, what is it? It was August of 2020 that we went to bed Saturday night with Brooks talking shit about the entire field at the PGA championship at TPC Harding Park, you know, saying I see DJ on the leaderboard and I don't see anybody else. And then he came out Sunday and threw up all over himself. Since then, two different kinds of physical championships. challenges, two different injuries to overcome, but also incredible bounceback. Unbelievable performance in Phoenix wins the effing tournament and then injures himself

in a way that he himself said, I thought I tore my ACL and my MCL. And I do, do you, have we heard the story? What was he doing? I have no idea. We need, we need to, I mean, we do need to understand. I heard there might have been a jet ski involved. There are some kind of shenanigans involved. It was sort of a Florida man type injury.

Yeah, he has a Florida man type of injury. Exactly right. He's probably probably trying to dunk off a trampoline. But that also does whatever it is that he did messing around. It also speaks to who he is as a competitive golfer and as an athlete. That's for sure. I always feel like he thinks of himself as an athlete that belongs to a different sport. And he treats golf as the casual thing.

pursuit that it kind of deserves. Yeah. And he's like, I can kick everybody's ass at this. And I think that's why he doesn't seem to feel pressure like most of the other guys do. And I don't think, I'm glad you mentioned that. I don't think today was a function of pressure. I think he was exhausted. I think it's just the sheer weight of walking four rounds on this gigantic golf course and being

in contention, the combination of physical and mental exhaustion and what was was going on with his knees, just caught up with him. That's all, that's my, my view. That's the house theory. What's going to get lost is that he had a one shot lead after one. Yes, he did. And it really felt like after one, like, oh, here we go. And then he made a goddamn seven on number two.

It doesn't even seem possible. Just a mess of that hole. And we were off to this whip sawing back and forth between the two of them, where it was sort of like, you take it. No, you take it. And Phil didn't seem to have a lot of momentum in those first couple of holes until the hole out on five out of that side bunker.

That was amazing. It's amazing that we had Vern Lundquist on the call. It really did. Oh, my gracious. Right the ship. It did click some kind of competitive, whatever nerves Phil might have been. feeling through the first four.

And, and, and, you know, you made the point. It wasn't like he was, uh, crapping himself over the first four holes. It was, you know, back and forth, back and forth. There was giant, um, changes in, in the strokes as between those holes. You never see that, uh, in a major on a Sunday between the top two guys, which just adds to the, the, the legendary status of this thing. But I mean, and then, but then he followed the hole out with, with a bow. and I mean, through seven holes, he had one par and was, you know, he was even par.

Yeah. It was a pretty crazy start to a major that just really had the drama and tension locked in. It felt less fun. Yesterday was fun. And there was back and forth and there was a lot of it. Today was just like screws tightened and tense. And the crowd acted that way. And the players certainly through the first seven, eight,

holes were tense. I felt that way. I felt tense for, you know, not the entirety of the round. And I will say I was helped by the fact that the Wizards lost to the Sixers, but covered the eight points. So that was nice. But that, that I had already experienced in the first part of the day a little bit of that sports tension. So I was able to like, deal with this a little bit. Yeah. And, and even J.T. watching this thing on his couch tweeted like, am I nervous?

What is going on? But I mean, look, Brooks, Brooks, for just to speak to his performance, I mean, he came off the course with Amanda yesterday and complained, so it was the worst putting performance he'd ever delivered. The stats didn't really seem to show that, but they definitely showed that he was striping the ball. I mean, he gained almost two strokes on approach yesterday. Today, it just, he lost over a stroke on approach.

And the putting was even worse than yesterday. They lost almost two-thirds, just over two-thirds of a stroke putting. So he just, maybe it was energy. I also, look, this happened last year. He just sort of petered out in the fourth round on a day when you thought, geez, your head says Brooks, even if your heart says Phil. Well, and that's because, like, you know, the homie, Justin Ray is out there putting out stats that should before the round that show like since 2017, Brooks's score. in the majors is like 84 under and the next closest competitor

is 25 under and you know across the 20 majors that have been competed since then or whatever the number is. I just don't know how you would have predicted this coming in. I mean, we, we, Phil had not had a single finish inside the top 20 this entire year. Entering this week,

his strokes gained Tide Green was 176th and he was first this week. There just was no way. Look, we were right about the Euros, but I feel like we sort of backdoored that one. I mean, five of the 16-ish guys in the top 10 are European, but none of them were really in the hunt in any way, shape, or form. And some of the guys who we thought were going to hang in and really perform,

you know, didn't even make it to the weekend. So in a lot of ways, this was a big surprise. Even if taking out Phil, we would have totally believed the top 20 guys would have all been competing for the Wanamaker. Yeah, right. And any one of those names winning this thing wouldn't catch anybody by surprise other than Brooks because, and everybody recognized that Brooks was the ultimate wild card coming into this. And you wouldn't, you know, say, oh, yeah, go, go bite down hard and go bet two units on Brooks. You know, there's no reason to do that.

But you always countenance the possibility that Brooks is going to come out and kick ass because it's a major. And that's what Brooks does. and it's great to still have that, by the way, because, you know, look at all the names that missed the weekend and look at the names that that sucked. The guys that made the cut and then sucked. I mean, Rory Macaroy, not to be heard from.

Not to be heard from. At least he was even today. Bryson was five over today. Yeah, exactly. There was a moment where Gary Woodland was making a run this morning. He finished five over. Jordan Speath.

I think I saw him on the T-Ear. on number one and making a put on 18 to save par. And those are the only two shots I think I saw. Yeah, well, he had just a God, God, awful week of putting. It just was a very, very ugly week for Jordan where he had a lot of lipouts, a lot of... I mean, at the end of the day, his strokes gained putting aren't bad.

He only lost half a stroke. But that's because, you know, he could have swapped probably eight strokes if the putts had been falling the way that they usually do for Jordan Spieth he's much more in contingent. He's still hitting the ball great and he's going to be a real threat for the big ones coming in here.

The big events coming in. Yeah, I mean the crazy thing setting aside the history, setting aside all of the things, the accolades that we're going to see, all the superlatives, the Phil superlatives, they're going to come out this evening

and tomorrow putting in context how what an achievement this was we have this moment in golf right now where it literally is not a surprise that anyone of 30

guys 35 guys I mean Will Zalotoris another way I know he finished top 20 all he does is finish top 20 in in majors I mean he finished T8 T a top 10.

He and Tony and Schaeffler and Ricky all backdoored their way into T8 because they they just, they shot under par today. So if any one of those guys wins to the U.S. Open at Tori, will you be surprised? No. I mean, maybe Ricky a tiny bit because of where he's been, but, you know, we keep seeing these redemption stories, these out of feeling like out of nowhere kind of return to form in professional golf. I do want to say one thing about, about Rom and.

JT. They really did, they felt the pressure this week in different ways. JT was obviously non-factor. Rom just puts a lot of pressure on himself to win majors. And again, today he was four under. I played an incredible round. He just is having trouble stringing four together in these majors because he wants it so bad. We're going to have to keep watching him because that that head is becoming more and more of a factor. We've been talking about, you know, the more of this goes on, And like you say, with so many guys who are in the mix, it's harder for John Rom to win a major right now than if he was golfing with the same skill set 10 years ago.

There's just a higher level of competition. And the more this goes on, man, the more that hothead inside his skull is going to come out. See, I have a slightly different feel for Rom at the moment. I think he's still kind of in that baby moon period where his whole life is different as of whatever the date was in April. that his baby was born.

And just charting a new course as a person and then by extension professionally and that level of competition, I think it's like a tiny reset to factor that in. And I mean, I'm not in here making rom apologies, even though it sounds like I am. I just think the real interesting tale of the tape when it comes to John Rom will be Tori in a month or three weeks, right? because he has all that success there. He's super comfortable there. Whatever might be going on at home should be far enough in his rearview mirror

where he's got a routine that makes sense for him. There's no disruption or anything in his life. And him being out of sorts at Kiowa is kind of like one thing, right? Lots of guys were out of sorts. DJ was out of sorts. J.T. was out of sorts. Zander was out of shorts. out of sorts. Mark fucking Leashman was out of sorts. I mean, he was very

out of sorts. I got my clock cleaned on, on you know, most of the bets on the names that we liked, but very, very quick aside. Thank God. The books had no idea what to do with scoring at Kewa

and every one of the overs for you know, the total score, the what's the lowest round going to be? All that stuff came in. A number of guys that are going to finish under par.

The book had it at 34 and a half. I think how many ended up finishing under par? 16. So I went so heavy on all those. The cut line, they had the cut at three over. It came in at six over. So they saved you.

Thank God. Thank God. Because I mean, you know, the combination of the wind as the primary defense plus the venue, it did set up for that kind of a challenge. But it also created such variability, which is why we're talking about all these outstanding guys, miss the cut,

just flat out missed the cut. And then, you know, unexpected performances. Bryson looked like he might be figuring something out yesterday. I thought, I gave a long, hard look at his odds to win this golf tournament this morning because,

you know, we were texting. I mean, he was two under. Yeah, we were texting with Simmons last night. It's like, you know,

who out there has a 66 in them? Who out there can go grab this thing? And if anybody in the top, you know, 15 on the leaderboard coming in today, came out and shot a 66 or 67, they would have won. And it tells you that the wind switched a bit. Yes. Which is why these guys who went out early in Morikawa and ROM and Answer

were able to post, and even Patrick Harrington, Shane Lowry, were able to post the numbers that they did. Because when that wind shifted coming back, I mean, that back nine was brutal today. I think a marvelous testament to the venue, to the setup. Yeah, I mean, we started off. We said it at the beginning.

We got to get back to this place. It's so much fun, I think. Par was 37, and that's what Phil shot on the back, which was enough to win. That was it. I have a question for you. You know, we're not going to do any kind of major conversation at the end of a recap and and not have a tiger question. Okay.

Here's my tiger question for you. Yeah. A, we know he watched, so I'm not going to ask you, do you think he watched? He fucking watched, right? Of course he was. Yeah.

Do you think he was inspired enough? What do you think his reaction was watching Phil? I thought the same thing. If there's any way that he's physically able, you know where I'm going with this, right? Well, I mean, my question, I thought you were going to ask me, really in his heart of hearts was Tiger rooting for

Phil are rooting against him. Oh, that's a great question. I think four. I think four because they're, they're, uh, you know, they're OGs. The OGs root for each other,

don't you think? I feel like that's probably the case. And Tiger's probably more worried about Brooks passing him than he is about, about Phil getting his sixth. Yeah, there's no, nobody's going to ever put Phil in the same conversation as Tiger. And I think it's like,

I'm, my hope is, you know, the implications, the physical implications for Tiger and the reconstruction of his ankle are such that in the first place

he's able to resume walking with what he's walking as an athlete, then swinging a golf club as an athlete. It's been, we now have a unvarnished truth out there. We have it. We've seen it with our own two eyes.

You can go win majors. at age 50 and maybe beyond. And so what was the Tiger question that you wanted to ask? Do you think that this inspires him, will serve as inspiration for him, God willing and body willing, to get back out on the golf course and play professional competitive golf?

No. I don't. Wow. Okay. It doesn't mean that he's not inspired. It's just Tiger's always been so self-motivated And the difference between Phil and Tiger is that Tigers had 11 billion injuries. And Phil has kept himself relatively healthy, right? That's the thing he's always done very well, as much as everybody's made fun of his body relative to tigers.

Well, and he had the arthritis that he was able to overcome. Yeah, but mostly Phil has stayed healthy. And that is why he's standing there with the trophy. He's already on the jet. He's going to be back in California in a few hours with that damn trophy. It's a great point. Okay. Well, I, you know, I'm always looking for some tired truth.

I know, I'm always looking. I just want him to be able to swing off the first tee at Augusta as an honorary starter. Anything above that at this point when his, you know, right leg was below the knee was vaporized. I just want him to be able to be in and around the game because the game is so great right now. This win today was terrific for the game. Incredible for the game. Think about the run that the game of golf has been on since the, really the inception of COVID.

Once it became clear during the pandemic that one of the permitted activities was golf, the interest in golf and in people actually out on the golf course competing with their pals, taking up the game, and that curiosity and interest carrying through to the interest in the professional game. And now, you know, from all quarters that what I'm seeing on my own feeds, my timelines, my phone is people who are sports fans. And this is part of why I think, you know, Tiger was rooting for Phil. If you're a sports fan and you see Phil Mickelson, who's been in your sporting consciousness

for 35 years now. Think about that, right? Literally, since 19, you know, late, late 80s, early 90s, he's been in. in our general sporting consciousness to get another major under his belt. It's just, it's a great time to be a golf fan. We'll put it that way. It is.

I have two more things I just want to talk about with you. The first is, how did you feel about the coverage of this golf tournament overall? My one biggest complaint is that Phil, it's on Phil, not the coverage. It's that he didn't take the damn glasses off after he put in and called his wife and stuff.

So I don't even know, was he teary? Was he like super emotional? And the second thing I want to talk to about is the crowds and the fans. But how did you feel about coverage overall? I absolutely adored the ESPN coverage. I just could not get enough. I mean, I watched ESPN Plus. I did some feature groups.

I watched regular ESPN. And I thought that coverage was sensational. And, you know, I really feel like we're getting treated. to a version of televised golf that feels like it could have been here five years ago, but it's finally like catching up with what the sporting public is expecting. CBS needs a bit more energy. It just feels to me missing an injection. And I don't know if it's attributable to just the familiar voices or if it's, you know,

the play-through commercials and what they have to do with commercials. I wish there was a way they could come up with a solution to the commercials. But it was, look, CBS did a competent job, I would say, and there was nothing that was going to get in the way of the incredible moment. So it all delivered. For diehard golf fans, the watch every shot by every player cannot extend outside of the masters and the players championship soon enough. And today is the perfect example of that.

If you look at the guys who finished in the top 10, we didn't see shit from any of those guys. And I understand why you would have kept the laser trained on Brooks and Phil. That's the right call for the general TV. But the rest of us ought to be able to go see Abe answer torching a course with 7 under that nobody had any idea was even going to be possible today. Or Morikawa and Rom. making a big run back.

They have got to get us to that place where we can watch the players that we want, especially in the early days of a tournament like this, no matter who they are or where they're playing in the day. Yeah. I mean, I thought the overall presentation was great. We didn't miss any of the important stuff. But you're right.

Well, we also did not miss the fan jumping up on Phil's shoulders after his nine iron coming into 18, and we didn't miss a whole lot of raucousness in the crowd that felt somewhere between really great energetic and what a great scene, and God, there's a bunch of dumb idiots being dumb idiots right now. And I think it feels like sort of portends what this summer is going to be like as you start letting people out and letting them be fans again.

Like, I don't know about you, but in some social conversations, as we've come out of, you know, sort of lockdown, like it took me a little while to retrain myself, how to not be a total weirdo in conversation. We got some fans who are sort of retraining themselves

how to not be complete idiots out there. I think it's going to be a while before, you know, folks have, can calm down. But like the, the moment on the front when Phil, uh,

where the fan touched Phil's ball and the group that was surrounding. And everybody had to get their one liner in. Every single person, that was within earshot had to say something to fill. And I look, I get it, the pent up energy just to be like the, you know, complete, I don't know, ecstasy is overstating it, but like the enthusiasm of the moment. And just losing yourself in that. The energy of the crowd is a real thing.

We are chemically wired to be together. And it's happening out there with your favorite sports. everybody in golf has a front row seat. That's what's so cool about. It's like having floor seats at an NBA game if you just go out to the tournament. But man, some people do not know how to be cool in the moment. And the word I was looking for, and I thought of is exuberance, right? Like just the unfettered exuberance.

Just like, I want to be out. I want to be cheering. I want. And to have the stud of all studs, Phil Mickelson, you know, there is the focus of a tension. It just like is too good. It didn't feel like East Lake though, right? No, no, no, no. That's different. Which was spontaneous and euphoric, like you said, this, something about this one where like the crowds ran up and surrounded the green before Phil was even there. I mean, Brooks, they had to like, they needed a, like a big rig to come and open up a lane for him and Dottie to get through

there at the end. But that, that was like, uh, the opportunity was there for the, for the fans at at this venue today today to to come together in that way the tiger comeback thing is is so is so different right and that was such a unique moment and such a special moment uh it's such an organic moment this was just like and i have no idea why um you you yeah you had many hours to prepare for the possibility keewa folks pgia of america folks whoever's responsible get the ropes ready like get the ropes he's got to be walking up 18 and the odds are decent that he's going to have a lead of some sort.

Let's make sure that the guys can get up to the green. And if you're going to go out as a fan to a golf course and go to a tournament, like by all means, be euphoric. And maybe rain in the assholicness. Just a little bit. Not everybody needs to hear you on television. I think we're just going to have to hold our nose, Nate,

and just get a, I mean, we're doing the middle age guy thing. I think the kids are ready. to bust out, brother. Well, they're already busting out is what we're seeing. So it's going to be a wild summer. We've got, like you said, another major in under a month coming up. And this will be really the full time we've been able to look back and judge was moving the PGA to May great for all four majors. It's great for the PGA. I hope we can get the energy back up to get really excited for the U.S. Open. My sense is the fact that this thing's going to be in Phil Mickelson's hometown. Come on. What are you talking about? It's going to be insane. It's going to be nuts. It's going to be outrageous. East Coast prime time golf. Are you kidding me? The ratings are going to go through the roof. Yeah, it's going to be awesome. I'm knocking on wood. I mean, there's no reason. But I love this schedule right now. And I think we're just, you know, full full steam ahead, brother.

Yeah. Well, and speaking of fans, June 15th is the day that like California fully opens back. back up. So if you think it was wild in South Carolina and you think there was some dumb donkeys running around, maybe making it not great for everybody. Just wait until this US Open. It's going to be bonkers. Well, it's going to be bonkers. And congratulations to all of us for making it through here, getting to this moment and just a spectacular, unprecedented, literally unprecedented PGA championship. We kind of all deserve it, right? like cosmically, carmically, as golf fans. This is, you know, all of us, the whole world,

what we suffered through with the pandemic. Good for us. We made it. House, will this record be broken? Yes, yes. And maybe soon. Like, Stewart's think might break it. That's the thing, isn't it? It's so exciting and great for Phil's legacy.

And you get the sense that it's a very fragile record. It's great. He's the first. he'll always be the first. Nobody can never take away that he was the first 50-year-old to ever win a major. But for the reasons we chatted about at the beginning of the conversation, I think the combination of if you have the desire to do it, like if DJ could be motivated to give enough of a damn,

he's the type of athlete that for sure can compete for another 15 years. It's just a matter of will, the matter of interest, the inner fire to go do it. There are athletes on tour if their bodies will permit them that can absolutely. I think we might get like, you know, I mean, Watson was 59.

Yeah. And when he lost to sink. So the answer is 100% yes. Yes. And we should also say, he gave us no signs that this was coming. We were making jokes that were not really jokes. They were statements that he's more of a marketer,

you know, pushing coffee and other products. than he is a golfer. And he really put it as far up my backside as he could have with it with a two wood today. I mean, just he is still a golfer. This was a very, very unique and epic accomplishment. An epic accomplishment. I don't think we're going to do any better than that for an ending. We are off this coming week.

We're going to let the Charles Schwab challenge go ahead and go down. However, it's going to. And then we're back after Memorial. day, get rolling again because it's going to be just two short weeks in the run up to the U.S. Open. I mean, I love this schedule. You just mentioned it. I love it. We got to stretch out the hips, get them super loosey, Phil Mickelson style, because we got to get back at it. You said it, brother. All right, everybody, there you go. My birdie buddies, my parisaving pals by Eagle enthusiasts. Please enjoy this. It's going to be a great week to see all of the

historical moments and markers that come out of this. I might watch the replay myself tonight to enjoy it. Day, Doug, thank you very much. It was a great tournament, my brother. Thanks, House.