Fairway Rollin' - Recapping Scottie Scheffler’s Impressive Masters Victory

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

House and Hubbard start by recapping Scottie Scheffler’s incredible performance in Augusta and his wins in four of his past six golf tournaments (1:58). Then they talk about some other story lines such as Tiger’s gutsy performance, Rory’s incredible Sunday, and much more (10:50). Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, this is Justin Barrier. I'm Rob Mahoney. And I'm Big Wasa, aka Wazzy Lambray. And we are the host of Group Chat on the Ringer NBA show. Hey, did you guys know The Ringer NBA show, The Now has shows six times a week. On Sundays, you can find me chopping it up with some of my favorite people from the NBA world on weekends with Waz. On Mondays, on Mondays, you could listen to with Logan Murdoch and Roger Bell on real ones. And on Tuesdays, Jay Kyle Mann and Jonathan Sharks discuss up-and-coming talent in the NBA.

on Upside High. Wednesdays, you can listen to Justin, Rob, and myself on group chat. And on Fridays, check out the answer with Chris Ryan and Sirius So. So go ahead and follow the Ringer NBA show on Spotify. We promise you'll never run out of content. Hello, friends, and welcome to this podcast. Unlike any other, my friends, this is the Masters Recap here on Fairway, Ro. My friends, welcome.

brilliant Scotty Sheffler validation of number one in the world. I'm your starter, Joe House. This is the Fairway, Roland Golf podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I am joined by my PGA tour correspondent on the ground, my accomplice. We walk the grounds together. Nate Dog, have your legs recovered from all that walking? Well, they got a little shaky once it appeared that Schaeffler might seven putt. and we might have a playoff with Rory.

But House, for all the drama that was built up here, for everything that the television and media and all of us tried to do, this son of bitch was over Friday afternoon, wasn't it? I mean, this guy is unflappable. It was over. Unflappable. He couldn't be flapped.

We tried to flap them. Everybody tried to flap him. He wasn't here for it. He was having no flaps, Nate, dog. I mean, it is. such a wonderful tribute to the tournament in its own way. The equivalent of Scotty Schaeffler bowing to the course as Hideki's caddy did last year, Hidecki's catty's going to be more famous than Hideki, by the way.

But was Schaeffler finally allowing himself to be a human being and not be just in the moment and focused and four put on 18, right? There's something sort of cute and sweet and human about that, which is exactly who Scotty Schaeffler is. cute and sweet and human and amazing at golf. But this thing was over Friday night in hindsight because as we discussed, this guy cannot be mentally pushed away. And look, Cam Smith is going to win a Masters, I think, especially based on his comments after the round. We saw a little shaking us on 18 at the players.

We saw shaking us on 12 at the Masters. You will forgive him because everybody in the world has had shaking. there including the beloved Tiger Woods, including the beloved Jordan Spieth, and on and on and on. But part of getting through this golf tournament is not making mistakes. And when it pinched very briefly to one today,

he didn't make mistakes. He kept after two holes, suddenly it looked like it was a tournament, and one hole later it was a three-shot lead, and it never got close. He taught us back at the Ryder Cup, what kind of competitor he is. We're talking about Scotty Sheffler here.

That matchup with John Rom essentially put the world on notice of what kind of, I don't know how to put it. Hutzpah balls. He just, he steps up to the challenge, is ready for the challenge.

But he's not agro, is he? He's not stare you down. No. He's not angry. He doesn't have that sort of fiery thing. He just is going to play his game and he's going to beat you. He's one of those quiet assassin fellas.

Look, he came off the, he came off the corn fairy tour and he'd kicked everybody's ass that year. And we talked about him at the onset of this pod, you and I did, about somebody who was someone to look forward to in that season. And we knew that he could be special, but there's lots of guys who could be special, who don't pan out. out like this. And there's lots of guys who win a tournament and then it breaks him. Charles Schwartzel. We saw him have a wonderful renaissance this week. And all he talked about in the interviews was how he goes and plays Bears Club and he shoots 10 under. And then he gets out on the course. He shoots two over through two holes and he's mentally spent. But this guy just needed for the win to happen.

and it just unleashed a streak. I mean, when have we seen this? Four of the last six, but not just four of six. He beat fields on courses. He beat the best fields on some of the best and most diverse courses that we've seen. I mean, this has been an unbelievable display of golf. And you layer in one of those four, six wins was match play.

Like, it wasn't even stroke play. You don't care. No. Like, are we putting the team? in the ground. Are we hitting the ball? Is there a green and a fairway and a T-box? Okay, let's go. Yeah. And, you know, to your point, to your observation, he is the first since Ian Wuznum to have attained the world number one and then immediately won the Masters thereafter. Tiger won it many times as a world number one. But, you know, the first time comparison is with Wuznum.

and it just doesn't seem to matter in terms of a heater. You said, you know, we haven't seen this. The only comparison we can genuinely draw is to Tiger, and we recognize how preposterous that is, except for this is a Tiger-level heater that he is on, and it's magnificent. I mean, the diversity of the ways of winning, the different pressures,

and the ability to draw on different parts of the game to save on 17. Now, I know he put himself in a position to not really feel enormous pressure to save on 17, but still, he, it was a beautiful execution. I mean, you know, he played it right in terms of a sensible punchout from the right side, Pine Straw area to a number, and then he hit his number, and then he put it into tap-in range with his approach. And one of the things, and I want to sort of keep an eye on this as the season goes on,

he has a professional caddy. He has a team. He has a teammate. He has a guy that was on the bag for two Masters wins. Obviously, invaluable. Now three, right? Think about that. But House, guess how many people have won three Masters,

including two different players within those three wins? Is it just Ted Scott? Well, it's Ted Scott. It's Stevie Williams, who had Tiger, for three and Adam Scott for one. Oh, Stevie was on Adam Scott's bag. Right. And then it's Nathaniel Ironman. Avery for Arnold Palmer.

It's Willie Peterson for Jack Nicholas and Willie Pappy Strokes, who won for Henry Picard, Claude Harmon, Ben Hogan twice, Jackie Burke. So, I mean, those are all old-school. This guy shepherded this man around the course and he's made a difference in the same way that it feels like the rest of his life is so grounded and centered that he does not get moved. I mean, when I sit here and tell you Bubba Watson,

you can tell me the thing that Bubba Watson is amazing at. He's amazing at shot shaping, right? And, you know, literally the most intriguing shot of the entire tournament this year in its masters out of the woods on 18. Right. But where I'm going with this, Adam Scott, we can say ball striking. Like, Jack, what's Scotty Schaeffler great at? Everything.

Right. Everything. It's between the years, this kid. Yeah. And I think that's, I think that's why he won this golf tournament. I mean, the 18 yesterday was where he could have lost this. Because that could have so easily been a moment where he gets flustered. And instead of hitting a great shot once he takes the relief out of the, you know, out of the magnolia or whatever bush he hit into, he takes his two strokes.

He could have easily, you know, chunk that or overcooked it and made six or seven there and come into today with Cam Smith staring him down. Cam Smith makes two bar, you know, suddenly you could see him massively under the gun and falling apart. Instead, it keeps his cool. He makes a stress-free, what feels like a stress-free bogey. And in the post-game conference, he just sounded super comfortable. He was completely unfazed by that moment. The way he handled it, kept it from being. a moment of panic. It came out today. He took a couple punches. And then, you know, to be honest,

Cam Smith didn't totally keep the pedal down. And he just stayed unflappable. It's just so fascinating how many guys have it on the talent side, but they don't have it between the ears. And that probably is the right transition point to talk about Rory McElroy, who gave us today. one of the best final rounds in the history of the masters gave us what will honestly be the moment of this master's between his hole out from the bunker followed by Morikawa's hole out from the bunker

and the enthusiasm and excitement that they both had for each other it was just a wonderful moment and for fuck's sake can we do it when it matters no we cannot No, Nathan, we cannot. Ever? Is it over? Did today not make you believe that he can win? Well, we'll get to Rory in a second.

But for me, I just wanted to make a quick interjection. The shot of the tournament was Tiger's Bertie Putt on 16 on Thursday. Yes, which we saw. On Thursday, just because like the storyline of this tournament, it's 1A, 1B. and we can quibble whether Tiger is 1A or 1B on the storyline. But his return. Tiger's 1A. The way that the entire Masters community,

it was so wonderful to have everybody back out and have the proper Masters community there. And what we experienced on Thursday were every T-box standing ovation, every green standing ovation. And what that did to propel him forward and we observed. Now, I'll tell you,

you know, one of the things we talked about and watched was him being in such physical distress and looking like a broken dude. He did look like he was moving a little bit better as the week went on. Yes.

But what an experiment, right? This ended up being for him. I wonder if we will see him play any golf other than majors this year. I don't know. I don't care. I just love seeing him play. Yeah.

I'm so thrilled to see him play, right? Well, why would he? I mean, yeah. We came off the course Thursday, and what we cautioned everyone against was this was one of the most heroic rounds of golf he has ever played. I mean, right up there with the final round and then the playoff round at Torrey Pines when he won the U.S. Open on a broken leg. Don't underestimate what we just saw because off the cameras as the media was building up, Tigers back, Tiger's back. You saw a man who was struggling and fighting.

That, to me, was actually the story this week. And we know he wasn't going to win the tournament, right? So the fact that he got through this is one of the biggest accomplishments in golf, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, think about all the guys. Bryson missed the cut. Brooks missed the cut, right? I mean, all these guys. Jordan missed the goddamn cut.

Zander missed the cut. And a guy with no back, you know, I don't even think he's got vertebrae left. I think he just has a pole back there. I think he's just got a pole from his hip to his foot at this point. Yeah, that's right. I mean, the guy, you know, forget his finishing position. He beat Homa for crying out loud. He beat McKenzie Hughes.

He beat Danny Burger. He beat Terrell Hatton. I mean. Yeah, able-bodied young men. He beat Adam Scott. Look, this was a heroic effort that I don't think anybody who wasn't watching him the first day could fully appreciate how bad it was. And yes, you know, by the end of it, everyone was, you know, Amanda was talking about what an inspiration was, and she's right, you know.

But it's about the uncanny and sort of unhinged, to be honest, drive of a human being who wants to be out there so badly that he would put himself through this pain. It just was incredible. And he deserves all the flowers for just getting through four rounds. I mean, I don't know, how do your hammies? How do your quads feel? walked around that damn place for two and a half days. I was literally sore on Saturday morning when I woke up. I had to stretch.

I mean, you know, now we're older than Tiger. So at least I am. You're right there at the same age just about. But, you know, I had to go through my calisthenics to get there. Look, he told us he's going to show up at St. Andrews to be sure. And he's going to do whatever he can to get to the PGA. How, if we see him four times a year, I feel like you and I should still high five and be so grateful for it. Well, we have to go back to Rory.

I took us away from Rory just because you properly identified, you know, the highlight of today truly was both of Rory McElroy and Colin Morikawa making Bernie on the 18th Green. Yeah. But, you know, you're asking, what are we going to do about Rory here? And, you know, 73, 73, 71, 64. It's so good. It's so good. We knew it was coming.

He's the best. It was the easiest bet in the world, but we wouldn't have bet on this number. And he did come off the course and say, look, that's the most fun I've ever had on a golf course. And eight under, I mean, a 64, tied for lowest round on Sunday ever at the Masters. That's something.

And you just get the sense that, okay, he's not going to be Tiger. He may not even be Phil and win multiple ones once it breaks through. But he might be more like Sergio and he's going to have his moment. There'll be a couple more yet. I'm not ready to ride off Rory.

We love Rory. And I just want to make it absolutely clear because Brad Faxon just told me to fuck off on Twitter. Why? We adore Warren because I tweeted that nobody is better that there isn't a human being on Earth that is better when he has zero chance to win. I think it was

a, I think he was being fun and he's a Rory supporter as we are here. You're the biggest truther ever. I am a Rory Truther. But it is still the case that there is no human being on earth that I would want to be out there

with zero chance to win the golf tournament and just go out there and go low. And all the expectation was that he would top five. I mean, I had bet Morikawa outright against Rory and it had to head matchup before the tournament started. Last night when the matchups came out, I bet Rory.

Yes, of course. No doubt. No doubt. Rory was favored. You knew what was going to happen. I laid the juice. It's like, I got to, I mean, I got to hedge this bet because I know exactly what's going to happen now.

And that's exactly what. We know Rory. We love Rory. Yes. That's exactly what happened. So it's not shade at all. It just speaks to the pressure that is involved in this sport. And that, that wonderful human moment on 18, where they both are cheering for each other

and like they're not really they're not really playing against each other right everybody plays the same course nobody else you know hits a ball over a net at you with a different topspin no ref makes a bad call there's nothing it's just you and the ground and can you do it and for some reason by the way just like justin thomas's first round this week yeah when rory tees off he's overhyped and he's got to find a way to land the plane in the first round and going to win one of these things. Guess who else does Justin Thomas, who did almost the same thing today,

he faded a little bit through 12 and 13 with some bogeys, but there was a moment where it looked like he was making a run too. And what he told us so honestly, and I love JT for this, was I woke up Thursday, and I didn't want to do my job. I didn't feel good. I didn't want to be here.

I didn't want to do it. And I think everybody feels that way. I want to do one last sort of parting thought on Rory. we just have to come up with a way. I don't know how we are going to do it. In the way that the entire Masters crowd, the community, everybody assembled on those grounds at Augusta National on Thursday,

willed Tiger to one under bar on that Thursday. We have to come up with a way to replicate that. For Rory Moore. Rory Morikow. Look, they willed Sergio to do it. They'll will on. On a Thursday. Like every stat that we are going to see,

Justin Ray comes on every one of these majors. and says the problem with Rory is he sucks in the first round. Yes. If he could just shoot par in a first round. I mean, he's an extraordinary number of strokes above par on Thursdays, and that is what's keeping him from winning another major. We need the tiger crowds on Thursday surrounding Rory.

That's what we need. If you and I have to go to every one of these tournaments, Nate, Doug, and follow Rory and root him on, I'll do it. Yeah, I mean, I guess. Just on Thursday. Twist my arm. Just Thursday. Then we can go home.

But we need to go get away, come up with a way for Roy to get under par on a Thursday. Now, look, I want to make this same observation around JT because you just shared an insight that is worth repeating, which is our conversation. So we did shows every day last week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And the show early in the week, we were talking about and speculating about what's Tiger capable of included some observation around the toll that... Press conference, baby. Well, just J.T. participating in Tiger's world. Right.

What kind of toll that took on him? And then it manifested on Thursday. You just said it. He said in the press conference. He wasn't after that round ready to go to work on Thursday. And we mused between ourselves with Bill Simmons. Is there a possibility that all of this time and that he's devoted to propping up tiger to getting tiger to this place is having a detrimental

effect on him. And I will believe that that's the case until, you know, somebody proves it proves the contrary. I mean, it just was apparent, right, watching all of the energy that went into. He flew there the week before. He participated on Sunday doing the practice rounds. The crowds were unbelievable for the for the practice rounds Monday and Tuesday. It's on the tear thread with Tiger and Freddie. Right. So all of that. But the thing that I'll say,

and this is a thing, again, I'm maybe making too much of this, but I really do, it's a working thesis here. Okay. I don't love Roy McElroy's caddy. I'm ready for Roy McElroy to get a professional caddy on the bag again.

I know he's with his boy. I know he's comfortable, but we're trying to win majors. I absolutely, by contradistinction, adore who Justin Thomas has on the bag. And Justin Thomas went out and shot at 76 on Thursday and then bounced back with the 67 on Friday. And I honestly credit JT 1A and Bones 1B because that's a professional dude who's there both for the, you know, obviously all the technical aspects of, you know, helping them on the bag. But really the psychologist, a guy. who's been, you know, who's been on, on experience-wise,

triple the number of majors that the Thomas, that JT's played in, maybe not triple, but at least double, right? He's been on some majors. And that's a guy who you want in your corner. So let me then ask you, based on that point, how do you feel about DJ's brother on the bag, and how do you feel about Xander's buddy on the back?

Zander's a cross-off for me. I'm keeping him out of everything until we see some kind of noticeable shift. Hugely disappointing week from Xander Shafley. No doubt about it. And we don't have an explanation. You know, we didn't have anything coming in that was telling us, oh, he's, you know, suffering from this niggling injury or, you know, he's not feeling. This is a guy. This is a guy who's going to lose out if he doesn't figure it out because he's now got Schephler and Zalotaurus and Morikawa and Smith and still McElroy.

Roy. And by the way, every now and then Connors and Sung J.M. And and and, who are going to outperform him if he doesn't figure out how to get this to the next level. He's an unbelievable talent. This is one of those guys who what got you here isn't going to get you there. Great lesson in business. Great lesson in golf. He's going to have to make some changes to elevate it to the next level. DJ has enough talent, right? But it's Zander who doesn't. We're not picking on his buddy. No. It's just it's a team thing. It's an approach. You just made that the most salient point. This is a business decision. Right. Let's figure this out. It's too good to not be, you know, to be around the rim this much and not have the ball go in the hoop.

DJ, you know, we talked about this on our, on our pods with Bill. He was telling us that he wasn't all the way there. He was telling us, you know, I don't quite have it. I'm on the ascent. I'm getting better. It's starting to feel better. But that was code for, I don't have four. days of this. I'm going to make a few mistakes. Another top 12, you know, top 15, he finished tied for 12. Right. I mean, he could do it in his sleep, right? That's exactly right. And I don't, you know, I think his brother, that's a different thing. I do too. Brothers are. Yeah, let me tell you, his one who's caddied for his brother. Good point. How about that? I can tell you that the psychologist element is, is helpful and important. But I also wouldn't trust me to help him

think through which club to pull in this situation and to help him think about like how to get around the course, which Ted definitely did for Sheffler this week, which Bones definitely helped Thomas do this week. We just didn't quite get the execution from JT in the moment, but he would have been in this tournament. Forget his final score. I mean, okay, great. He shot even par today. He had an opportunity to shoot six or seven today. He was playing that well. I just think he makes the turn. He looks at the big board on nine going over to 10 and goes, you know, Scotty's at 10 under. I'm at 3. Like, it's over. And his concentration starts to slip in the same way that shot that, that Scotty four putts 18, like it's going to happen.

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I am so thrilled to look at this leaderboard and have the experience, um, once again of that glorious, glorious mix of old old vets around this track to, two, you know, winners. Schwartzel one here, Willett, one here, both those guys top 15. Um, Lee, Lee Westwood has performed, you know, top 15 for, for, for Westwood.

would the defending champion Hadeki Matsuyama top 15 with an injury with it right yeah I mean he had to withdraw from every tournament in the lead up to this how do you think tiger felt with a completely splintered leg that's made up of I don't know what's it made of like flour baking soda at this point yeah watching Paul Casey withdraw for injury look we don't have to talk about Paul Casey on this podcast. Watching Louis Oostazen in his group withdrawal for injury, do you think he looks sideways

and was like, what? That hurt my feelings. Did your, the Louis Ousayson withdrawal hurt my feelings? Did your hands fall off? I have no leg. I also have no vertebrae. Louis was out of sorts, and we watched it because we tracked, we watched so much of that tiger round.

We walked that Tiger Thursday round. And Louis, the funniest thing is we speculated, we talked through the potential impact on that group of just the tiger, you know, um, uh, reappearing on the scene and who's going to be flustered by it. Joaquin Neiman absolutely murdered Thursday and Friday. Foot and mouth. He was fine with it.

Neiman wasn't the, you know, he wasn't the issue. He, he shot at 77 on Saturday, but that was like, it was a winner 77. I mean, he's chilean. He handled Thursday and Friday extraordinarily well. It also wasn't as insane. Like if he'd been playing, I guess at Phoenix, maybe it would have been different. But that's no excuse. I was super wrong.

I mad respect for Neiman. You and me both. And I share your sentiment. Louis, though, come on, man. Withdrawing from an injury from the group that Tiger Woods is in when he's got a wheelbarrow dragging him up the seventh. I mean, come on, man. He had to get back to the farm. What can you say?

Well, some of the guys, let's talk about the guys that did not let us down first. Yes. Colum Warcawa. Thank you. Did not let us down. Top five for Colin. High five. Cream of some young guys. Pays off, baby. Sheffler wins.

Morikawa 5th and the third part of that was Willie Zee, who's right there to tie for six, baby. Morikawa and Zalotaurus with 67s on the Sunday at the Masters. We were right to drop Victor from that poo platter because Victor was close, but he just, it just wasn't quite there. Yeah, well, and his pink pants got in the way. I don't really have the problem with the color of the pants if they were just handsome slacks. How do you feel about JT's pants? And joggers with a stripe down him. JT's, you know, in a different place.

He's been so fit, you know, kit-wise all the way up to this moment that I feel like he's built up a little room for... Okay, so you weren't a fan, but you're not going to blow him up for the yellow hands. That's right. That's exactly. All right, fine. No, the yellow is fine. Like, that would have looked marvelous with the green jacket. That was a deliberate play, right?

That's an accent. I'm in a yellow shirt right now. You can see me. It's a handsome yellow shirt. Well, it is. So the young guys. We love the performance of Morikawa, Zalotaurus, validating what everybody observes, which is he's going to win this golf tournament at some point in the future.

If he can learn how to put. Well, he's just very comfortable, right? He's not, he's not cowed by it. He loves it. he eats it up. It's clearly, you know, his mind's eye loves the way that he sees the shots around this golf course. And so it'll just be, you know, right time, right place for Willie Z. I think. Yeah. We're talking about ball strikers. The top ball strikers are at the top of this leaderboard. Justin Thomas, Colin Morikawa, Rory McElroy, Scotty Schaeffler, Cameron Smith, Will Zellatouris,

Corey Connors. It's all here. There's not there's not much that doesn't belong on this leaderboard if you're going to say i'm surprised you're surprised at schwartzell and willet maybe you're a little surprised at at shane lowry i oh we we we liked his prospects coming in the wind and everything was good for yeah yeah that's right we talked about his um sort of of uh formidability in in in a bad weather kind of formidability Anyway, we talked about his response to bad weather. We liked his odds as we sat and looked at the forecast. And he'd been in good form.

And we watched him in Florida be in good form throughout the Florida swing. And a guy with a major under his belt. I do want to give a quick shout out. I was getting in the timeline a lot of feedback from the Australian community saying that we didn't focus on Cam Smith. And all I can say is friends. we did. I know we put out a lot of content last week. And I don't fair if you didn't listen to it all. Every single person to listen to all those hours that we blathered on.

But we gave Cam Smith. I think it was Wednesday. Yes. When we came off the golf course after the practice round, like a full like eight to ten minute. You specifically said, this guy may win the tournament. We got to spend some time on him. And by the way, we came off Thursday and said, we think this guy could absolutely win the golf tournament. and he absolutely could up. I mean, it's an interesting thing with Cam.

Again, there have been a few moments over the last month in which he's squeezed a little bit when it's been key. But he was the perfect guy to be chasing Scotty today. I totally agree with that. I really believed after the second hole, when it got down to one, he birdied the first two, Scottie just made pars. You thought, game on, here we go.

and on a very birdieable part three in which you saw lots of birdies today, you know, he just didn't execute. And it changed the complexion of the tournament when Scotty, Scottie chipped in. Absolutely true.

I will say, it is not even really, to my mind, a knock on cam for him to knock it in the water on 12. He birdied 11, got to go out, stood in the tee box, And, you know, he said it was the worst swing of the week.

He had the perfect club. He had his number. He felt comfortably. He just put a bad swing. Go at it. That's golf. That happens. The thing that I'm more sort of concerned about with him, just in terms of his long-term prospects, his miss, once he gets out of sorts is a snipe left.

Yeah. You know, he comes over it a tiny bit. Yes. And it's a little bit of a hooded thing that goes up and he gets himself in trouble. He did it last summer. I think it was at concession. Was that it? Yeah, it was concession.

Right. Where he had the lead, the outright lead. He was looking great. He was moving along. Then or to solve it. Yeah. So, but that's, that's a miss that, that I'm sure he and his team have, you know,

identified and something that they can work on. Great problems to have. Yeah. Tremendous. All, all, uh, kudos, all credit to Camp Smith. Huge Camp Smith fans here at Fairway, Roland. Yeah. Worth,

worth quickly shouting out Cam Chambers. who's going to get an invite here back next year, having finished in the top 12. Top 10 does that, right? That's how good is that? Cam Champ. Good to see. He's the one who's on that board here.

You're like, wow. Oh, okay. I don't remember seeing a single shot out of Cam Champ in all four rounds. I watched him on the featured groups app for a while, and he was absolutely bombing the ball off the tee. But other than that, I didn't see, yeah, we just saw nothing of him. here he is sitting there. So shout out Cam Champ. It's the same way we're like, wait, Higgs made the Masters. What?

And not only that, Higgs, Higgs top 15. I know. Hopefully, Champ acquits himself as well as Higgs did this year. Well, we're set up, like all of the faves, you ran through the names. Matthew Fitzpatrick, a lot of people were on him, a top 15 finish. How do you feel about ROM today? I mean, what I noticed... You got to talk about them. Yeah. I mean, look, I watched almost the whole. round and the thing for me that stuck out above all else was he and tiger were talking the

entire time and tiger was demonstrably sort of gesturing and pointing and what tiger was giving him the dissertation and he's been begging for it he'd been begging for it and asking for it from tiger and john hung back and walked the slower pace with him and i think he got a clinic today and he shot, you know, beautiful, four under. And he played incredible today. And I just think Rom got some lessons in how to play this course. That said, he's got to figure out the putter, man. It's been too long now for us to just say it's a period in time and, you know,

these things ebb and flow and yada, yeah, yeah, there's all these guys at the top who maybe have an off week, but they don't have an off season. And don't forget, the last time John Rom won a golf tournament was the U.S. Open. The last time Justin Thomas won a golf tournament was the players. And we're now at a point where, hey, Cam Smith's won twice. Sheffler's won four of six. Like, you got to get on the party train where eventually the party train leaves without you. So these guys have some work to do.

He's still a young gun. I mean, that's the thing, right? No doubt. No doubt. And they will. They're going to figure it out. But they got to step back and go, and they will. Of course, they're going to do this. But we got, you know, three quarters of the season, two thirds of the season left.

For these guys to win a major, what we learned today is they have to get another level better. Nate, we're basically like five weeks out for the PGA championship, four and a half weeks out. Tell me who's going to win the PGA championship. We're at Southern Hills, Tulsa, Oklahoma, who's winning the PGA championship. Tiger Woods! Well, he's definitely playing it. Phil Mickelson, not playing it. Well, I won't say anything definite about Tiger, right?

Everything that we get is a wonderful reward. Hopefully his recovery from this golf tournament goes great. And his team, and they all learned a bunch. You know, they collected a bunch of data points from Tigers' experience in this golf tournament. And hopefully he just, you know, they'll be ready to roll come Tulsa. House, you know, 60 days ago, we would have told. you that Scotty Sheffler had no chance because he hadn't won and he just hangs around the hoop doesn't go. So what I think this tells us is that more than ever, you have to measure where

people are in the moment. Coming into this golf tournament, the two best golfers in 2022 were Scotty Sheffler and Cam Smith and they were in the final group and really at the end of the day, it was only those two guys who today had a chance to win the golf tournament. Rory's fun performance aside, he didn't have a chance to win and that's probably why he played so well. So for us, what's fun is we get to watch the next couple weeks of golf and make an assessment the week of about who's playing well. Because when we scroll down the leaderboard, I can keep going about six or seven scrolls and keep looking at people who have a chance to win that PGA tournament. It's going to be about with all of these amazing guys playing extraordinarily next level golf, who is on a heater. Can Sheffler continue?

Or is there somebody else who over the next three, four weeks is going to step up and be the guy heading into the PJ championship? Because we don't know today who's going to win that thing in the same way we did not know, Super Bowl Saturday, that it was going to be Scotty Schaeffler who is the clear and, you know, absolutely uncontested number one player in the world. Uncontested number one player in the world. So the tournaments between now and the PGA championship are the, the classic RBC up at Hilton Head, Harbortown Links, which is always fun. It feels like a great breather.

We love the traveling troop that goes right here from Augusta up to Hilton Head, short drive. And then we have the fun team thing at the Zurich. Cam Smith defending champ. Indeed, along with with power of Mark Leishman. Then we're in Mexico. There is an event here in Washington, D.C. The Wells Fargo is here.

because it's traditionally at Quail Hollow, but they are preparing Quail Hollow for the President's Cup this fall. So we've relocated the Wells Fargo here in the D.C. area. Then the Byron Nelson, and who knows how many folks will post for that. You're going to have a lot of guys take some weeks off here. Yeah, that's exactly how this is lining up. And, you know, Tiger won't be missing anything if he uses all of this time over the next five weeks to get himself in shape. And then we're in in Tulsa, Southern Hills for the PGA championship. So I need a nice bathouse.

A little bit of a breather. It's good for you. It's good for me. It's good for all the birdie buddies out there. My parisaving pals, what a masters. A lot of things. And we're looking forward. We're going to do it our own selves tonight to seeing all of the sort of breakdown,

the reactions. We'll have a wonderful time over the next 24, 48 hours with these storylines and so forth. We have something to savor until the next major. and the next major is right around the corner. So Nate Dogg, as is always the case. Thank you so much for coming on. Our producer, Isaiah Blake, we thank you, buddy, for all the hustle this week. Unbelievable job, man.

We kept you rolling on the ones and the twos. And parisaving pals, thanks for joining us. We are off for about a week and then we'll come back and talk about the Zurich. We'll get you ready for the Zurich and have a little reaction to the Harbour Town, golf league's tournament. Hope everybody enjoyed the Masters. We certainly did. Thanks to Fandall, thanks to our buddy, the podfather.

We had a great time down there in Augusta, Georgia. We shall be back in a week. And hopefully there was strong ROI across the board for all of you, my Eagle enthusiasts. We'll talk to you in a week.