Fairway Rollin' - Redemption for Sergio García (Ep. 33)

Episode Date: April 10, 2017

Geoff Shackelford and Joe House discuss Sergio García's big win at Augusta (03:00), Justin Rose's putting performance (15:00), the sudden-death playoff format (17:30), and the Masters television broadcast by CBS (34:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. Greetings from Augusta, Georgia. We're going to talk all things, Masters. But first, this absolutely spectacular master's special wrap-up edition of Shack House. Recorded Sunday night after Sergio Garcia's thrilling win is brought to you by Callaway Golf. Makers of the number one irons and golf, you know, he didn't win House, but Thomas Peters put on an amazing show playing those Apex Utility Irons. Actually, he had the Pro 16 Iron Street through 9 and he hits a two iron still. Gosh, he's good.

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Download the Seatheek app and enter promo code House today. Make Seekek your go-to ticket source for all things, PGA and beyond. And now let's go to the Shack House. Hi, House. Greetings from the podcast soundproof room here in the beautiful press building at Augusta. the national. I am about 40, 50 feet from the interview room. I just sat in Sergio Garcia's awesome post round interview. How about that, Masters? It was a beauty, huh? Yeah, we're going to have lots to talk about, but first I have to ask you, are you crying? Is there a tear on your face? I mean, this is your last night in the pod center, your last full day and the beautiful, and we're just going

to call it the press palace. It's not appropriate to call it anything else. I mean, how are you feeling? How are your emotions? Yeah, it's pretty sad. It's, It's pretty sad to have this work environment and to leave it behind for what awaits down the road. It is such an amazing place. Yeah, welcome back to reality. Yeah, it's going to be pretty bleak. So, they, of course, they're already wanting to know what they can do to make it better, which is amazing. And I made notes, and we will.

And it's phenomenal. But this place is amazing that way. And it just, when you're here at the golf course for 16 and a half hours, I have to say, It's very nice to be surrounded by Wood and Georgia Peach ice cream sandwiches. And this year, having the waiters and waitresses was really way, way uncomfortable for a lot of the press. I'll be frank. But they were awesome people, awesome week. And so it makes our job fun.

But when we have a great tournament, the buzz in the room, it doesn't matter what we're working in. If we have Bolivian Wormwood or whatever they do for us, it really all still kind of. comes down to the people who cover the tournament and the press, love a great finish. And it was so fun today. Listening to the Roars in the Press Center, there are Roars in the Press Center. There is cheering. And why not? I mean, when you have the players we had and you had the scenarios we had going in and it was

starting to look a little like, which of these great scenarios is going to happen? You know, the golf course is there for the taking. And then eventually it kind of crystallized. And we got two guys who you really think are people who should win the Masters going at it. And I think that's all we could we could all really care about and dream up. And we got a great show, didn't we? So it felt like to me the big theme, as I had a little bit of time here to think about it this Sunday evening, the big theme to me is Sergio redeemed.

Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is we have known him for so long, and yet he's still a pretty young guy. He's still in his, what is he, 37? 36 or 37. You're going to ask me those kinds of hard questions. No, I'm not really. He's not even 40 yet. Let's just put it that way, right?

He's not quite in the twilight of his career, but because we've known him for 20 years now, it feels like, you know, there's a standing narrative that applies to Sergio. And some of that started coming out immediately after his drive on. 10 and then the second shot that found the bottom of a bush. All the Twitterati were out, you know, coming out of the woodwork. Here we go with the Sergio collapse. And that narrative he put right on its butt through the balance of the back nine, which was an incredible testament to his perseverance this week. A lot of folks keep talking about him being engaged and having found his true love

and what is stabilizing and centering kind of impact. that has had on him, but he, to his tremendous credit, did not falter. He took advantage of every opportunity that was presented to him, even under the bleakest of circumstances. So, you know, he hit obviously 13 was an incredible moment, not just, not just because of the recovery, but because there were two different elements to the relief that he took. And, you know, there was some question did the ball move pine needles all that kind of stuff um but you know he he hit a shot uh with his second shot that put him in exactly perfect shape to save par and it just felt like look if he saves par here and rose does not get up and down for birdie this this might be game on again

yeah no at that point well we were all there were there were there were the usual groans and the and and the here we go again we've been through this before uh and it did have that that vibe and that was a That was an incredible moment. You know, I was watching that on the Amen Corner live coverage, which was far superior to what CBS was doing on the 13th hole because on the T-shots, you had the pro tracer. And he's taken that line off 13 all week, which is so fascinating in the press conference house. Of course, you know, Sergio, like he said, we've known him forever.

You were right. He's 37. We've known him. And he's boyish looking still in a way, even though his stubble is kind of turning gray. And we know him for this hard draw he hits. And he, in the press conference, his chances of winning here, in his view, really actually got worse because as he's gotten older, he's shifted to a fade. So 13, he plays this crazy cut, tries to play it over the pines.

And on A Man Corner, you can see the tracer. Of course, CBS takes a rain check on that. And by the way, as I did a little research, actually, I ran into somebody. and I asked the question. It may not all be CBS's fault. Maybe the club rules, but I don't know. I'm still going to look into that. So we saw that.

Let me derail you for just one second, because we do want to talk about, I do want to talk about the broadcast. So let's just set aside the fact. What you're referencing is the fact that the CBS broadcast did not have any protracer whatsoever. Correct. And it had the effect of making the shot on 13,

us consuming the broadcast by way of just regular old broadcast TV. had to suffer through CBS fighting the ball on the broadcast, as opposed to you watching it on Amen Corner. You know immediately. Anyway, once it landed. Yeah, once it landed, the tracer showed you. And Grant Boone and Billy Ray Brown, the announcers knew right then. CBS was a little behind on that because they didn't have the tracer and the cameraman

had to locate the ball. And they did. So, yeah, so that and then the drop, the ball did move. when he went and pulled a little pie needle behind it, whether you want to call it a move or an oscillate. The committee decided an oscillate. I sent an email to Steve Ethan, who's in charge of the press, and they tested it.

They had clearly looked at it. They knew people were talking about it. And then he goes and makes par. And then I think the other thing on that hole that was fascinating, Justin Rose putted. And again, on Amen Corner Live, Billy Ray Brown was questioning that call, and I was too, because earlier in the day, House, what I do before the final round is I go out on the golf course and I kind of have a little path I take so I can see every pin on the course, but I don't really walk all 18 holes in order. And so when I was on 13, Brennan Steele was somewhere between Rose, where Rose was and John Rom, who chipped in earlier, and Brandon Steele put it in the creek.

And it was so fast. And so Billy Ray was questioning Rose putting. He hit an unbelievable put. and then he missed the comebacker. So that switched to go from Rose looking like four, Sergio looking like at least six, to both of them making five, I think was really the turning point in the round

that had to give Sergio that feeling of, I can do this. And it was fascinating, Two House in the press conference after he talked about, he just wasn't nervous today. He felt good driving the course. He just felt something. Of course, we had to,

somebody had asked the Sevi question. He said, you know, maybe Sevi was there with me. But there was, he said, there was something different, something unusual in the way he just had that inner calmness. And thank God. I mean, House, 74 starts in majors before he got his first major win, the most of any player in the history of the game. So let's do this.

Let's do some historical context. That's the perfect lead in. That's right. the most by quite a bit. I believe he also has the most top tens in the majors. 22, I think. Yeah. Yep.

And that put him at the top of the list as well in that category, didn't it? That's a lot of top tens. Yeah. A lot of success in the majors. Yeah. He also had, he's the first player to earn his first major win at 37 or older since O'Mara, which was in 98. And yeah, it's just, yeah,

In fact, Tom Kite had 19, so his 22 had passed Tom Kite in the top 10 ranking. Phil had 17. Phil Mickelson had 17 before he got his, or when he got his first win. And he also joined some very esteemed company in winning the low AM and winning the tournament, right? That's right. Only four or five guys. I know Tiger is one, Crenshaw is one. Nicholas is one.

I don't remember who they were there. Yeah, very good. That's a great one. And then, of course, he just overcame. So his issues with Augusta were he shifted to a fade. He's had a lot of issues with the plays. In more recent years, one of them was the way they grow the fairway. In fact, didn't we talk about this on the pop-up or on the preview?

The way they grow the fairways towards the T's as a digger of the, the ball. As somebody who goes down, hard out, and takes a big divot, he, of course, only Sergio could take that as not Augustine National trying to slow down the roll of the ball. He took, the old Sergio took that personally, that that was them, you know, trying to mess with him. Of course, it wasn't. It's them trying to slow the ball down. So he's had all these different things he's kind of had to overcome here. Although, as he said afterwards, the patrons, the fans have been amazing to him here always. And again, today, and he even said, you know, it's just a place here in the Open

Championship. He doesn't get the hecklers. So that's the one positive he had, certainly on his side. And I just wrote a piece about the golf course, kind of an assessment for the week. And House, like all the other great winners, he had won three putt for the week. And here's somebody who's not a great putter. One three putt on these greens is so good. It is so astounding.

That was the real turn of events. want to talk more about the golf course because really as always, it's always appropriate. And for whatever reason, it always delivers this way. The golf course was the star of the show. And we'll be able to talk a little bit about the setup today. I loved where the pin was on 17, for instance. And I loved, you know, how accessible the course was for guys that had control of the game. But it also punished guys today who did not have control of a game, guys like Jordan

Speeth, maybe, who was, you know, gun out there with his guns blazing. But I did want to take a quick second to pick up on this three putt thing. So only one for Sergio. Shockingly, the part, the thing that really catapulted him into contention with Rose, was Rose missing a bunch of makeable putts that we don't normally see Rose miss. His miss on two was a bad miss. His miss on 11, where he could have gone up by three shots was not a great miss.

Yeah. His miss on 13 was shocking. You know, he had a bunch of really short misses that were like out of character for what we, I think, kind of came to expect. Rose properly has earned the sort of respect and mantle being something of a closer. He was the one that showed the nervousness around those short putts in a way that I think we came to kind of came to expect out of Sergio. and then Sergio's made putt on 13, I think was the thing that really charged him. It was a supercharged moment because his approach on 14,

I had three goosebumps moments on the second nine. See how you got that right? Yeah, very nice. You're getting your terminology just in time for the week to end. Yeah, perfect. Not the week's over, I got it right. Sergio's approach on 14 was a goose bump moment because it was like, holy S word.

I'm not going to drop it on a Sunday night. Yeah. This is game on. And then he validated that with his performance really on the entirety of 15. But when that putt rolled in on 15, that was a stand-up moment. I was up on my feet. And then we had Rose roll in that putt on 16, which was such a ballbuster. It was fantastic.

Another get-up moment, another goose bump moment. So by the I'm telling you, we're doing the show. I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted right now from the emotion of the day. I'm exhausted from the weekend. And I'm exhausted by the outstanding play of those two guys down the stretch. But that's great. That's what we want in the Masters.

We want it to be that kind of emotional up and down melodrama and the beauty of the place and the demons that the guys are dealing with. And I think this one will really held up well over time because of the fact that it could have been one. of those sort of last person not to crash situations. And I'm happy that it emerged as these two, or that two players emerged, because a lot of us thought it could be kind of a four-way playoff situation there with those last four and that they would duel. And so I like that these two kind of pulled ahead of the pack. And it's just, I guess the only thing that would be unsatisfying is I hate sudden death playoffs. I wish they had an aggregate playoff. Of course,

common sense would tell you they should play 11, 12, and 13, but that's not going to happen because it gets dark down there faster on that part of the course. But other than that, which I now kind of regret not asking the chairman on Wednesday at his press conference if they still are open to an aggregate playoff. They're not. They're the only major now that doesn't do a three-hole playoff. I like sudden death. Really?

Never change, Masters. Never change. Okay. This year it worked because those two are playing. playing together and it was just a continuation, but somebody finishes an hour before and I don't know. It's just, it just seems odd that you do this whole thing and then you decide it by one bad drive by Justin Rose, Kossom. All the playoffs of the recent vintage have been mono and Mono, Cabrera, Scott, Bubba and Louis. That's, that's the brilliance of the way the

playoff is playing at the Masters. And we want an outcome Sunday night. We don't, you know, Now, I know the aggregate could be finished, but, you know, we were bumping up against the end of daylight as it approaches the evening. So, you know, you don't want to risk that. The sudden death crew makes it a little bit more likely that you'll be able to get it over with. Well, that it does. And there were many people who had secured tea times in the lottery in the press center who were starting to look at the sunset time. And those two were slow. By the way, they were almost two holes behind at one point.

That was not good. That was, that was poor. Well, no, we're not going to put them on the clock, right? We're watching the broadcast. We're enjoying the broadcast. The drama was high. I have a very quick follow-up on something you mentioned in terms of the support that you detected Sergio had. He has, in some weird way, gone from heel to fan favorite.

And I want to get your experience of that inside the press center. How did you generally find, well, both inside and outside? How did you find people's support for Sergio? Oh, everybody in the press center. wanted him to win, I think, because it's, they root for the story. They don't really root for the person. And it's an amazing. I think everybody here, the people who've been doing this a while, did not want to write another Sergio Garcia-Bluid story.

And that's why you heard groans when he, when he hit the T shot on 13 and then the shot on 10. And it was sort of the Here We Go Again thing. It's, it's a depressing story to write when somebody's that good. when you think about his career, there was one little window there for about six months where he basically shut it down and needed to get away. But his consistency is really kind of breathtaking. The consistency of his ball striking and just his game in general and through some times where the putting was really poor. And I think that's something where you also have empathy for the player and want to see him do well. and then you throw, of course, you throw in at 70, 60, it would have been 70th birthday.

Sergio seems like somebody who should do well here. He gets the text from Jose Maria Olathabal on Wednesday night who's supporting him and wants to share his locker with him when he wins a green jacket because his locker is currently, it's just him. And, you know, little stuff like that where you just feel like it's, The Masters, it seems like, last year it didn't happen, but so often the stars align. And this is one of those moments that, you know, maybe his win won't resonate with the sports world because his name's been around, but he's kind of been close. But to the golf world, I think it's an incredibly satisfying outcome to see him win and not have to see him be the best player.

doesn't want a major mentioned anymore. I think that's a, that's a wonderful thing to move on. Yeah, it's enough of that. Yeah, I will tell you, it was incredibly satisfying for me at 30 to 1. That was a pretty satisfying. Did you know, I did? Oh, I did. Oh, nice.

So he covered your, so you had both rows. Because you, did you take my pick? Okay. I did. I did. You know, by the time I got around to submitting to allocating a little capital, the news of DJ's withdrawal. We didn't know his withdrawal because I put these in Wednesday afternoon.

But the injury had me walk away from, yeah, that was it. I didn't touch DJ. And we'll talk about a little bit more of your pick and how successful that was and some of my successes as well. But I'm interested. You just mentioned something, you know, Sergio is no longer wearing the mantle of best player to have not won a major. it's an interesting question. Who do you think is that guy now? Well, I look at it based on record,

and I think Lee Westwood then fits that description, just because of, again, how many times he's been in contention in majors, how talented he is. Which telecast was it today? I've listened to a lot of them. But they threw out that Lee Westwood actually has, if you go by the Colin Montgomery standard, has a case to be a Hall of Famer without a major.

So I think he's the one. Well, that's weird. Yeah. I have not, not Lee Westwood because the only major that he seems to play well in consistently is the Masters. You know, he's kind of all over the place. Consistently. Yes, he's had some moments on the others.

Right, of course, of course, including the Open, the Open Championship he's had moments. But to me, it was a hard question. I was thinking about this a little bit before we jumped on here. It's a bunch of young guys. Like, I think the best player to not have won a major, at the moment, is Hideki Matsuyama, who had a great round, a great final round today. And then in close, you know, follow-up is none other than Mr. Orange Pants, of course. And then, you know, two debutants are also crazy.

But I don't see how you could talk about best players at the moment without including Thomas Peters and John Rom. especially with the performances. Rom fell down a little bit today, but he was used to learning the golf course, and Peters was incandescent twice. He was incandescent on Thursday and incandescent again today. But both of those guys feel like they have majors in their near future. But Ricky and Matsuyama, to me,

are kind of the two best at this stage of not one. Well, a lot of people want to mention Ricky, and I just think it's the sample size is, again, not great enough. Maybe it's trending in that direction, but I don't think it's great enough to put him on the level of some of the people who've played so many majors and had opportunities. And I don't even like to pick on them that much because that means they're really good that they contended in majors. They just aren't, they just sometimes they weren't lucky and sometimes they weren't great.

Justin Rose was somebody who was kicked around that way a little bit until, really won at Marion. And I think this loss is going to be really tough for him because you know why I liked him coming into the event. He had really built the whole year around this and to get this close and to not make some of those putts that you mentioned. It's interesting to put on 18, he was shocked at. And I'm a little – that's the only one that – you mentioned many of them. And these greens are so tough that that's the only one that bothered me and that it's

surprised him that he missed it because this morning, about 400 hours ago on Morning Drive, I was on with Trevor Immelman, and we talked about the last two holes, and we talked specifically about that hole location, knowing it would be there. And Trevor said, we know players through the years misread that put. They think it's going to break left. It doesn't. And there was Justin Rose, 12 hours later, or whatever it was, watching that putt, just shocked that it did not break left down the down the hills so that was the only one that i was i was really truly mystified by that he had but again of course it's the last hall of a major and he's just going to react anyway because it was so close from his vantage point it may have also just been from his vantage point

he thought it was a perfect but and it wasn't so well on on broadcast tv it looked like it was going to fall in the most curious thing to me and i don't there's probably a better word than curious for this is that Rose lost a tournament on 17. He hit the ball in the bunker, his approach shot in the bunker. And I don't know if that was a club selection issue or a contact issue, but he was killing the golf ball all week long. I mean, his ball striking was the thing. You mentioned him building to this tournament.

His ball striking is his strength. That was part of the beautiful thing of watching he and Sergio go head to head. Two tremendous drivers of the ball. Two tremendous ball strikers. It was a joy to watch, but his driver betrayed him by a hair on 17, and then whatever the thing was that caused him to be short. It looked like he took a little bit of a wrong line also in ending up in that bunker. But that's the same bunker that DJ was in last year,

and DJ bogied away his chance to kind of forcing himself into a playoff with Danny Willett. So, you know, if you're in that last handful of groups and you're in that bunch of conquer on 17, you know, it's going to be tough. Now, he did also miss a put. You know, Rose had a put to make par on 17 there. Yeah. That would have probably closed the door. But, you know, it was, to me, the tournament was lost on 17 as opposed to the putt on 18. No, I think that's a great point. He definitely started hitting the ball a little bit shorter after that, that wince on 15, where CBS started to show the replay of the wince and then and never got to it and then went to some random footage

and then commercial. They did show when they came back. It was kind of one of many moments they had that weren't so hot. But House, the thing that was interesting on that shot and the bunker shot, I had just talked to a couple of players. And one of the things they said this year, the bunkers actually were real hazards. And so they made them a little fluffier.

Now, it may have been partly the wind, but it sure looked to me like very rarely did you see a ball get a great lie in the sand. And I think that was maybe the club fighting back a little bit because the bunkers had gotten so pristine. So I think the bunker shot was good. It was just it's one of those you just don't want to put it past the hole because that put at three or four feet is much more wicked than the 10 foot or uphill. And so once again, 17, it was a little different hole location but played a huge part. and I assume that's the one that he'll kick himself on. But the 18th T shot in the playoffs is going to really hurt him too.

Because that was, boy, he did not hit many shots like that all week that I saw. No, that's true. That was just a flat out miss. Before we leave those two, I just wanted, because for my story, I just have some stats in front of me. I just wanted to throw out for the people who are already thinking about next year. But once again, and this was the point of my piece. for golf week. I covered a lot of things about the course. But once again, yes, it was nice to hit the ball a long way. But it still came down to greens and regulation, hitting a lot of

greens and not three putting, that gray lag putting. Because Sergio and Rose both hit 54 of 72 greens, they were tied for second. Only Paul Casey was better. It also played a really nice final round. But interestingly, neither Sergio or Rose was that great in proximity. They were solid. but Rose was 18th and Sergio 28th, solid, but nothing special. And so it really came down to that lag putting and hitting a lot of those greens. And so that's just something to keep an eye on. And historically, those are the stats that iron play is forgotten there. It is not really appreciated how important it is because people see so much on putting and distance.

So just something to fill of food for thought for next year. That's a great lead-in for this observation that I wanted to make, which is when you look at this leaderboard, it is very different from what we've been seeing on leaderboards in tournaments leading up to this moment, different in one distinct way, which is there's a lot of old dudes on this leaderboard. I mean, by old, I don't mean age-wise,

a lot of guys with a buttload of experience under their belts. You know, obviously Garcia and Rose, Charles Schwartzel, alone and third. Coocher and fourth tied with up-and-comer Peters, who we love and you anticipated could be incandescent. But then you have Paul Casey, another guy that you liked at the beginning of this week, Roy McElroy, Adam Scott, Ryan Moore, Hideki Matsuyama. I mean, this is a killer list of guys that have been around the hole, around the hoop, you know, for quite a while. And then Ricky and Jordan, you know, both fell off today. It seemed like the combination of those two together might have done them.

service is Fowler shot plus four and Jordan's shot plus three. But Kimer, Stricker, Pat Perez, Fred Cupples. I mean, what are we talking about? Lee Westwood, that's an amazing list of guys with just, you know, the combined number of rounds at the masters of that list of top 20 guys. I mean, I don't know if it's a thousand, but it wouldn't shock me if it was or if it exceeded a thousand. Well, I think, well, obviously, we know local knowledge is such a big part of it.

One of the interesting things, though, how is it about the first two days of the wind, I think it neutralized a little bit of the bomber's advantage. And that brought some of the older guys in. And then, again, you just have a golf course that requires so much patience, and there are so many intricacies and trying to read the greens, trying to deal with these whole locations and the pressure of the place and playing in front of these huge galleries. So it's not a surprise.

History has shown that it does reward those old guys. guys. And so, and I think we also just have to be careful on so much of this hype of the young players. And I mean, here everybody was, Karen Krause in New York Times asked Sergio if he was at all motivated by all the John Rom hype talk, which I thought was a great question, because you have to wonder if somebody like him who has played so well in so many majors and played Augusta so much is rolling his eyes a little bit at all these people declaring him a likely winner. when it's his first time there, and there's so much about the place here that you have to learn. And he didn't really say that.

He just said he was happy for all the attention he got and for Spain and all that good stuff. But I have to think that somewhere deep down, it was a little bit of a nice little jolt to see all that. No, no doubt, no doubt. It was a wonderful experience watching both him and Peters. I really enjoyed watching those debutante, as it will. And again, I'm going to give myself a little pet on the back. I did have Peters, a little action on Peters's top debutante, six to one odds. Really? Nice.

I didn't touch, I didn't touch Rom. Rom's odds were too low. Hey, friends, let's take a quick moment to hear a word from our good pals at Callaway Golf, the fastest growing golf ball brand since 2013. Another Masters is in the books, and this year was once again filled with. incredible play. We saw our good pal, Thomas Peters, rolling in birdies all week long, including a hot streak here this Sunday. Holes number 12, 13, 14, 15. Thomas Peters rolling in birdies with a beautiful chrome soft golf ball. It is long. It is incredibly soft,

and it is unbelievably easy to control. Golfers everywhere have been changing their ball to play it. Now through June, friends, Callaway will customize your Chromesoft for free. If I might make a suggestion, why don't you put something nice on your ball like Shackhouse? Chrome Soft is the ball that changed the ball. All right, so let's talk about this broadcast. Let's lay out a few of the issues we have. So we have CBS on the weekend. We had ESPN the first two days.

And then as we've talked about on this show, and you know, I'm a big fan of masters.com coverage, which is using a lot of CBS production, but is only available online and on their apps and on Apple TVs and devices like that for the first time this year. So, House, where would you like to start with the broadcast today? Well, this might surprise you. Okay. I'm going to be a lot more generous about the broadcast than you might have anticipated. And the reason for that is because of something we've talked about on each of the two previous pods about this Masters week, which is the real emphasis that the Masters has put on its over-the-top product, the online product, the streamable product. Right.

And all the advantages that it seems to have heaped up. on to that product and left the broadcast TV folks to sort of fend for themselves. In many respects, the broadcast TV broadcast is the exact same one we've been watching for 20 years, which I think is kind of, you know, at this stage of the game, we've seen so much of the pro tracer technology and the whole overlay and you can watch balls fly. We mentioned earlier on 13, how disconcerting it was that the broadcast didn't capture where Sergio's ball went right away. But you observed, you caught it immediately. And anybody that was watching the AMN Corner broadcast on Masters.com was able to enjoy it right away.

And the same is true of the Apple streamable and whatever the DirecTV, A& Corner broadcast was as well. It seems to have been a deliberate decision by the Masters, the folks that run the Masters, to have, you know, saved the really cherished forward. thinking innovative tech content for its own purposes and benefit and left the broadcast TV folks defend for themselves. That's my observation. I don't know if it's true or not. And what I learn on my way down here for the show is that we should probably not be too hard on CBS because they may be dealing with some rules and regulations from the club. And so I think that it's really imperative going forward if for some reason they are prohibited from using.

certain things on the broadcast, the main broadcast, that are being used on this supplemental coverage, that has to change. It's just, you know, CBS, I get it. It's a big picture story they're telling. What happened, though, this year House is that they didn't tell the full story. They're usually very good at that. You know, we can have our quibbles with certain things they do, but usually nothing ever gets by them. And what really concerns me this year is that, that some things got by them. And I'll give you an example. And I was very personally adamant about this one.

Saturday, Jordan Speeth, I'm watching him on Amen Corner Live, and you hear the discussion where he just blurts out. I mean, absolutely an unbelievable moment. What would Arnie do, Mike? And you could tell by the tone, they had been having a disagreement about him going for the green and two on the pine straw, playing with Phil Mickelson, Mr. Pineshraw going for the green on 13, and he throws this line out, and he admits after the round, he's glowing when we're asking him about this after the roundhouse. He's loving this story.

And a couple of people, of course, said, look, I don't want to be cynical, but he did that because he knew the mics were on. Oh, baloney. He's worried. He's dealing with his caddy. It's a wee situation, as we know. So anyway, he broached out this great line. Grant Boone on A Man Corner Live incorporates it into the call, epic shot going for the green and two, carries a creek. And CBS never shows the shot with the audio.

And I went into the digital people's office here. And I said, hey, you do know about this conversation. And they were running around and they didn't. And so they tweeted in, of course, it went nuts on social. and partly because Speeth had shown such enjoyment. He was excited that we heard, that he had heard, said that. He did not intend for it to be heard in some ploy.

So my point is, this moment had Speedth gone on to win the tournament, would have been the signature moment of the tournament, and CBS did not show it. And so then it didn't make SportsCenter House. It didn't make live from on the golf channel. And so their job is to, tell the full story. And they didn't in that case. And that's really, really

bad. And then it happened again today. I mean, they finally at one point acknowledged the situation with Sergio where Amen Corner Live, again, had a great shot where you see him pull the needle out from the ball. And the ball kind of either oscillates or actually moves. And Grant Boone saw that in real time, live,

and of course he prefaced it, you know, I don't want to jump to a conclusion, but that may need to be reviewed. And it took forever for CBS to even acknowledge that that was going on. I got a comment from Steve Ethan of the club who confirmed they had reviewed it and determined that was the case that it wasn't a penalty. So that's what worries me as much as the tech bells and whistles that they are missing

some of the storytelling elements. And I think that it's not all their fault because there is a luxury with Amen Corner Live and the 15th, 16th whole coverage that allows for kind of a, an unfettered coverage, whereas Lance Barrow and the CBS team have commercial breaks. They got drive-chip and putt promos to get in. They have this and that. And so that still is a different issue. Well, I would like to submit a gentle plea that there be some kind of, you know,

program master sitting on top who is, you know, capable of monitoring and maintaining what's going on with the broadcast. Well, the club has that here. They have that here. The only question was, was that whoever's doing that watching Amen Corner Live too? Well, that's the point, though, right? And I also, my gentle plea and request, it's a little bit startling to watch golf and not have any pro tracer whatsoever. Yeah, no. It's unacceptable.

We know generally how the T-balls are going to behave on these holes. And because we're so familiar with the course. Yes. And the TV broadcast does a good job of a. immediately giving us a read on the direction of the ball. But it requires us to listen to the announcers telling us because we can't see it with our own eyes. All we can do is see the swing and then see the ball land

and it'll either land in the fairway or not. And the only way we have any sense of where it might be going is by the announcers. So please, the technology exists. They demonstrate, they use it to beautiful effect on masters.com. It wasn't just pretty letting you know right at the moment stuff with the T shot. The best thing they'd then go back and they'd compare the two players, T-balls and the apex and the ball speed and all that. And it wouldn't prolong it.

They didn't drag it out. It was just that. You know, even the thing you pointed out during the week, you know, there were a couple instances where they showed where T-balls landed and then from those places where players made Burdies where players made bogeys. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. We don't have to have that throughout the broadcast on Sunday, but it would be neat to see that a couple times. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So it was amazing technology. It was amazing how consistently it worked. Funny enough, House, it only went out for about two groups on Saturday. And it turns out, apparently Rory McElroy unplugged it. I don't know if the thing on 11T was making a noise he didn't like. But he actually left the tea, went and unplugged it, hit his tea shot, and I had to go plug something back in. So someday we'll find out what that was about from him. It wasn't because I don't think it was because he didn't want his data shared.

He likes that. He's into all that. So I'm sure it was just making a buzzing noise or something. But anyway, it was captivating to watch. It was more informative. It was a little bit ahead of the broadcast. And so it's going to be very interesting. The good news is House, we kind of have a template now.

We see what golf and the future on TV can look like if it's done this way. And the numbers and the passion for it certainly suggests people are really into it. And they've just done something, I think. I mean, they've been doing this for a few years, but I really feel like they took it up a few notches this year with this. And also social media, getting highlights out really well. Well, that's why, you know, when I told them about the Jordan situation, they, you know, got right on it and they did a great job. And because that was just the kind of thing you want social media for. That's right.

So that was sensational. I'm excited to see, speaking of this innovation and forward thinking, what Fox has in store for the U.S. Open. And that's our next major. We're not going to leave this beautiful, magical week at Augusta, though, without first patting ourselves on the back a little bit, Jack. Well, yeah, we didn't mention a few of these people. I think so. I mean, Peters, I cooled on because of the course management at the match play, and I do believe that his course management still has room to improve,

but he's clearly an amazing talent, and this was a place you just had to know would be great for him. So I hope we had some people who got something out of maybe in their pools with him. I love your friend. I didn't know you made that six to one wager. That's a wonderful one. What else did you, what else you want to patch yourself on the back about?

Well, look, you gave out Paul Casey, which was wonderful. He was making a hard charge today. So you hope so that some folks had him in the pool also. I just want to talk about a couple of things that I put out. And I put these out Wednesday afternoon.

And look, as always, future performance is not indicative of future results. So everybody to, you know, proceed with all due caution. But this is the second consecutive. master's that I've given out the winner.

The winner has been given out. And not only did I give out the winner, but Shaq gave out Rose as his pick for the week on Monday. So, you know, a couple, just a little couple pets on the back. Yeah. But I had the two things that I'm a little proud of, my really dumb make the cut parlay, six-way parlay of Rory, Jordan Speath, Ricky, Sergio, Bill Haas, and Soren Kiltzen paid out. A nice 11 to 5. I offer that to all of the consumers of the shack house.

Two full units on that six-way parlay paid out 11 to 5. That's kind of delicious. I mean, come on, you know. That's a nice way to get into the weekend. That double in your money right out of the box. And then the only other thing, you know, I had a couple. I gave out some top tens, both rows obviously hit and Coucha also hit. I had a top 20.

The only one that's top 20 is because Kelton had a bad day today. Yeah. Russell Henley landed in there. But, you know, we had both, I had Rose and Sergio as my long shot plays at the week because, you know, the strategy always is try, we'll start looking at 25 to 1 and then try and find guys that feel like they're in form. They've shown you something coming into the Masters. And so I'm, I'm happy about that. That's a strategy for the Masters. And we, you know, for one, every once in a while, we get them right. And it's nice when it happens. Now, I think how sweet, we also have to discuss something that I noticed in the telecast that was, this is really a profound moment in really in the modern history of the game. I think it's safe to say we can declare the white belt is dead. Now, John Ron Moore won. He did not have a good attired day. I got to be honest.

The what do you have, the green hat with the red shirt and the white belt. He was a Christmas thing. Sergio. Sergio, on the other hand, same company, Adidas, looked great. I thought I liked that. I liked his outfit, the dark green. I did too.

I liked, I thought both Rose and Sergio were dressed like guys who you're going to put a green jacket on. I cannot say the same for one guy. And I tweeted it out. Yeah, I mean. Oh, yeah, but no white belt. No white belt, but. It's true.

It's true. But like at what point in his career, that between the hat and the pants, he's never going to put on a green jacket dressed like that. No, because we know. We know history has allowed a few people to win the green jacket without less than stellar outfits that match the color scheme of the club and the jacket. You know, Ben Crenshaw had that blue and white Hawaiian shirt and 95. But more often than not, don't you think a player should dress a super? that they're going to be pairing it with the jacket. And I thought, Sergio.

Yeah, Sergio did it. Rose did it. I didn't feel it with Jordan Speed today. I don't know what he was going for there today. Well, it was the same color scheme as when he won two years ago. Except no, he had white pants then. So he also, no white belt today, which was nice. But Ricky, wow, that was an unusual bit of scripting there.

It just didn't happen for me. and I don't think for a lot of people. Peters went all black. I thought that was... Yeah, I like that. It works. That's safe, you know, with the jacket. He has the game for all black. He has the game for all black.

He's 6'5. I mean, that's how you do it. So I think that we learned a valuable lesson, though. It was Casey, Rom, and Jason Duffner, the last man on the planet who should be wearing a white belt. Wow, his gut is growing. And the white belt just really brings it out. And then, you know, there is. is the other trend. I texted Marty Hackle, the fashion director

at Golf Digit, because he's a white belt hater. And I said, Marty, I think it's dead. I think, I mean, every guy who had even a off color belt went another way. But you and Marty wrote back, they all look like they work at an auto parts store. I don't think he's a fan

of the new striped, phase shirt thing. So that was, because this is a big fashion week. You know, you get these people work very hard to get these guys looking right for the, so they feel good when they're out there at the Masters and that they're going to wear something that pairs with the jacket. And so we got to, we have to note these things. And I'm sorry, but it appears the white is, white is it goner.

Well, I know that I have taken out of my rotation. I know that. Yes, yes, I'm very pleased to hear that. That was a nice revelation. You age shamed me into it. Let's wrap this up with a little shack house housekeeping. We've got Contest House. Remind me here.

So we have our epic driver review that's closed out on iTunes now by the time people are listening to this show. So we're going to announce that winner on the Twitter this week. Definitely. Thanks everybody for all the submissions. There were some awesome reviews in there. And then we also have our Odyssey putter giveaway, which is also wrapping, right? Yeah, it's going to, I think until, tomorrow morning, but by the time folks hear this, it will have been wrapped. And you're supposed

to submit in the Callaway community in their giveaway page, the year that Arnie won his third masters. Right. If you got that right, we're going to select from randomly, or select randomly, however, whatever the proper contest speak is for that. There's going to be a random winner out of that. Okay, great. Well, we sure thank everybody for putting in all those great reviews. I thank everybody for the the shack house shoutouts here they were they were whispered a little bit more house at augusta because you don't really want to yell things here that's proper yeah that's wise yeah i mean uh stewart haggistad the midaminer that's who i was going to mention to you uh he had a group of buddies that got a little loud up the clubhouse and of course everybody cringes and waits

for the guards to come out of the one work uh so thanks everybody for those shack house uh shoutouts uh they were a little louder in the merchandise center house because you could be as as you want on there. Nice. So thanks to all those, the great people who said hello and said all the nice things about the show. We really appreciate it. It's always neat when the people at the, excuse me, the patrons at the Augusta National. Oh, man, I'm, my jargon house, just as I'm getting used to it, it's all over for another year.

And I'm very sad about that because it is my favorite tournament in the United States and in the world. and it lived up to the billing this year. It's really sweet when it does. And it makes you feel good about the game. We've got a few little issues to work out. But when the game is at its best at Augusta, it's still a lot of fun to watch. And hopefully a big audience of non-golfers tuned in, too.

So another great master's in the books. We look forward to reconnecting with everybody in a couple of weeks. We'll take a little bit of break. Let Shaq sleep for three or four days. We'll announce winners of the Twitter of the putter and driver, on the Twitter and reconnect soon with yet another. Check out. Hey, everybody.

One last word to close out the show from Odyssey Golf, the number one putter and golf and the number one putter on tour. You know all about the microhinge. It's the latest and greatest innovation from the number one putter and golf. This insert is engineered to promote immediate top spin on the ball, reducing skid and improving accuracy on the greens for all golfers. The new microhinge insert is a new way to roll. Get out to your local golf shop and experience it for yourself.

I love it. I got in a bag and I got a new putter cover for it that is coming home with me from Augusta, Georgia. We hope you enjoyed another magical week at Augusta. Thanks so much for listening to the Shagos.