Fairway Rollin' - Rory Goes Back-to-Back at Augusta!

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Welcome back to Fairway Rollin’! House and Hubbard break down an unforgettable 2026 Masters, where Rory McIlroy (-12) captures his second straight green jacket, becoming the first player since Tiger Woods (2001–02) to go back-to-back at Augusta. Plus, Scottie Scheffler’s strong (-11) showing, unpacking Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau's poor performances, and much more. 0:00 Welcome to Fairway Rollin'! 1:00 Rory McIlroy (-12) wins the 2026 Masters 14:05 Rory becomes first back-to-back winner since Tiger Woods (2001-02) 18:30 Takeaways from Scottie Scheffler's (-11) performance 21:40 The big names showed up at Augusta 28:35 What happened to Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau? 36:30 The Masters review: debutants, weather, scoring and coverage The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Producers: Tucker Tashjian and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf program, unlike any other. Oh, yes, my friends, we've done it. This is Farroway Rowland, a golf program on the Ringer Podcast Network and on Netflix. My birdie buddies, my par-saving pals, my eagle enthusiasts, what a master's. The Nate Dog and I are here to recap, of course, I'm your starter Joe Haust. The Nate Dog is our incomparable accomplice,

our PGA Tour boots on the ground, Nathan Hubbard. Our pegs are in the ground and we are going. Nate Dog, how's your Ha-Tongli? Oh, God. That's kind of the sneaky thing from this whole tournament, isn't it? I mean, you wouldn't know

because CBS decided not to show most of what happened today for some reason down the stretch. but really the only question that nobody's going to ask Scotty because nobody I think really wants to hear the answer is did How Tong Lee's like triple followed by a 10 mess with him as he was trying to make a somewhat valiant run down the stretch house? Somebody will ask him at some point and you do wonder now, Scotty did end up making Bertie on 15 from a place that was impossible. And our running live thread with ourselves and the pod father, the cousin Sal, the whole

peanut gallery, baby doll, all of our, all of our friends, the mental toughness that Scotty Sheper showed on 15 after that drive going so far askew and ascantz. and making birdie from where he made birdie, following that up with another birdie on 16 because that man wanted to go win the golf tournament, that man shot 11 under par on the weekend with no bogeys. Back to back rounds with no bogeys, 11 under par, Scotty Sheffler,

and did not win the golf tournament. I mean, and so it's did how Tongues 10 on 13 mess with Scotty and keep him from making Bertie there. And then the put on 17 that to me looked like that was going in. I mean, I agree. That's the golf gods. There's going to be a lot of what ifs that come out of this. Rory deserves his flowers.

He really persevered. But holy crap, like Scotty had a baby 10 days ago. He hadn't played in a month. He was coming in with his two worst finishes since 2024. And he finished solo second and almost ended up in a playoff. Yeah, we almost got the thing that in 2026 we've been asking for. It feels a little bit greedy to say, oh, can we please get the Scotty and Rory hand-to-hand combat? Yeah.

And yet we were this close. I mean, we were one drive over to the 10th fairway by Rory on 18. I mean, CBS did at least get a drone up to show us how far over into the tree. he was we didn't see any of the shots no we didn't at least see where the man was standing when he swung his golf club uh leave leave leave leave that alone but that that was let's not leave it alone what happened today i don't know this is you're right why are we not hearing from nance until 18 like no offense to andrew cal like i don't none of those guys feel as big in like they don't have a verne lungquist giving the

Setting the scene on 15, 16, you know, going off the T on 17. Like, all of a sudden, Nant shows up, but by then they've missed. We have no idea where the guy's T shots are on 15. We have no idea. Where did Rory's T shot go? I'm still not sure we saw it. On 18, the second shot, they have no idea between Cam Young and Rory, whose ball is where and what's happening.

We don't even see it. We don't get a real angle to understand what the shot's going to look like until this was a mess. And we are huge supporters of CBS and all kinds of ways. I can't believe we're talking about CBS first, but like it stung down the stretch because it took some of the drama that was so beautifully covered and prepared last year. And they had a lot of, I love the sort of box with tracer graphics that they had this year. They had a lot of interesting camera angles this year. But for whatever reason, whoever was in the truck making the call about what shots to go to, You know, if you don't have somebody in the woods or on the left and right side on 18,

when Rory and Cam are the only guys left on the course, what are we doing? Yeah. And really go back to the really the moment that Rory reasserted himself in this golf tournament was the T-shot on 12. 12. And that T-shot on 12 followed up by him making Bertie, that deserved the coverage that it got. But it should not have come at the exclusion. I was watching him play the entirety of that hole while. in the lower corner.

I'm waiting for a score to be posted for Scotty Sheffler, and nothing is changing. Scotty Sheffler was on the 13th hole for what felt like 27 and a half minutes. I don't know. I didn't get the stopwatch out. Because he was. But there was right. And why was that?

And what was going on? And why didn't we get coverage? I didn't even see his second shot to get to where he had his third shot, you know, approach. I think if you sort of approach it from best intentions, there was some complaining yesterday that we saw a random Brian Harmon shot and we saw some different golf shots. I mean, in some ways, they can never get it right because people either going to be pissed that they just stayed on the leaders and didn't show other things or they're going to be

pissed that, you know, they showed some random stuff. But in this case, the only guy who's going to come back and win that golf tournament is there's maybe two. At that point, it seemed like Rose was fumbling the bag. So, yes, he could have come up in Bertie 17 and 18. But it's really Cam Young if he makes him kind of run. But it's Scotty Schaeffler. And that is the hole that's happening.

And we're getting nothing from it. And Houtung is in the bushes. First of all, that's not just like a random golf shot. That's an insane shot that if you go back into the master's app right now, God love them. They've built it out beautifully for five days a year of use. If you go back in the master's app right now, you can see him quite literally bushwhacking almost all the way back up to the

Gustav Country Club behind it. I mean, it's crazy what's going on on 13. And none of it made the telecast. Well, we are coming in, as you can tell, my pretty buddy's hot because we're right in off of the broadcast. We enjoyed the green jacket. You know, I don't remember Tiger getting the winning the green jacket in, you know, back to back in the early 2000s. So it was fun to see Fred Ridley there with the jacket. Yeah, the chairman the chairman's the guy who puts on the green jacket on because it's not the proof. And I was like,

hey, right, we haven't seen this in however 25 years, whatever. Rory went wire to wire. And with the lead that he established after Friday, we were watching Saturday. We were watching everybody go low. It was the

historically lowest third round in the history of this master's golf tournament but it wasn't low for Roy shot overpar and you were texting into our thread that you thought it was a choke now I did not jump in

but I saved it for the show here I have a quick you can't choke on Saturday you can not keep up with the field but that wasn't a choke my man didn't have anything he was lost he missed left he missed right

he couldn't get off the tea and the fact that He only shot one over. Feels like a minor miracle. One of the things we should give credit to for sure, golf channel has, you know, live from has been magnificent all week. I mean, you know, it's been hilarious. But, you know, on his bag.

Yeah. But they covered Rory on the range. And there was a report from his range session. Exactly. He walked off the golf course. He went to the range. And there was a report. about how he got dialed, what clubs he chose to hit,

how he got himself situated, he moved on. It wasn't enormously long. By the way, we could also look in the Masters app at every swing that he hit. Great call. So you could also see where he was hitting the ball. Yes, that's right. Again, kudos to the Masters. That innovation is so underrated, the ability to capture what's going on in the range.

Go ahead. I was just because I think you're right in hindsight that Saturday wasn't a choke because he played beautifully on Thursday in lots of ways, gained shots in all categories. Friday he was 53rd off the T. And he was very fortunate to shoot the round that he did because he was so deft around the Greens. He was first around the Greens.

So the scrambling, it felt like a much better score than he probably deserved that day. And sure enough, he came into Saturday and was 53rd on approach and 40th and putting and everything was loose. Now, what I think is the story of Rory and the sort of head shaking that he was doing coming up 18 and even walking off 18 into the clubhouse is this is just what he does. And he's going to take you through the ringer.

He's going to put himself through the ringer. But you're right that that range session on Saturday night corrected it because today he was 15th on approach and eighth off the tee. He didn't put great. He was 43rd. That three putt was just nasty for double on four. But like I just, I think. I think there are still those seeds of resilience, even in this story.

And you're exactly right. It was not a choke. It was probably a sort of recalibration of what was actually happening with his play. And today, you know, it was toughness. I mean, there's no way to say it. He was down three. I love that.

And I mean, I don't know about you, House. I mean, were you surprised that we didn't get stronger runs after you saw the score that Rahm was put up after you saw the score that Hovland was putting up in the morning, a few others. As Hatton started to make a run in front of these guys, now I get that he had a whole out eagle, but I sort of had a sense that somebody in those last three groups was going to find a way to post a 65, 66, and it just didn't really materialize, did it? Well, Tiro Hatton did shoot 66, and it was Scotty's 68.

That could have been a 67. I mean, that ball not tippling over into the cup. up on 17. That put on 17 was a perfect putt and the fact that it stopped. That's just, you know, the golf gods. But the opportunity was there. The disappointment, if you can say that, was Justin Rose, who stood on the T-box on the 11th T with the two-stroke lead and immediately went bogey-boge. So, you know, something happened with him. I also think Rory secretly was really benefited by the fact that both Burns and Cam Young ended up shooting one over. Neither of the things that were right in front of him were people pressing, right? So yes, he said he was scoreboard watching

all day. And there was a moment where you thought, well, maybe Rose is going to do this, but I, I don't know, he was a little too much playing the character and trying to ride the momentum wave for me. It felt a little bit, just a tiny bit contrived to me, house. He still had his chances. I mean, with, you know, all of it. You go through and do the forensics of the second nine for Rose. He had, yeah, opportunity after opportunity. The same for Cam Young. I would just say this was the seasoning of Cam Young, which is just magnificent.

I mean, this is what we signed up for and what we honestly kind of expected, right? Like I had Cam Young for a top five was one of the things I gave out for this tournament. That was a big fat winner. And, you know, this is, he just had makeable putts that he didn't make. And that, it's great to see. Like, you know, absolutely validates exactly where he is, validates him as the players champion. He validates him going, you know, hand-to-hand combat.

He's lined up. He and Roy started with the same score when they teed off on one today. And Roy got him. And Roy just has the benefit of experience. Yeah, I mean, three bogies and four holes to close the front nine was tough. And then you got to make birdies on the back at Augusta on Sunday. And so I am with you that I think this was a learning experience. I don't come away being like, oh, Cam can't or he didn't.

I think he showed himself that this was a pretty tough pressure-packed situation with the crowd undeniably pulling for Rory. And did he acquit himself beautifully? No. But like he hit good shots under pressure. sure, and he just, there are a couple of puts that I think he probably wants back. Yeah, I want to pat us on the back because in the conversation with our good buddy, Justin Ray, in our conversation on Tuesday, you know, throughout the appearances that we made

various shows last week, we talked about the possibility of Roy defending. And we wondered aloud, did last year's win, how. a liberating effect on him? Is he going to come in playing as though, you know, he, this is all gravy. It's all house money, not Joe House money, not enough Joe House money, but all House money. And the swagger being restored in his game because he has ascended to what he believes is his rightful place and rightful station among the all-time greats. And does that then propel him into this repeat position. We said it out loud during the course of the week. I hope folks listened. I hope folks, you know, turn that into some action. But I think we were rewarded, Nate, dog.

We were rewarded with this version of Rory. We were. And I think it's worth just now that we understand what he did to prepare, it's super relevant because it is now a blueprint for how to take the air out of the balloon of the pressure and responsibility that comes on a defending champion. Now, it sounds like you need a private jet that can fly from Jupiter and drop Poppy off at school and take you to Augusta and back in a day. But it sounded like Rory spent the better part of three weeks up there preparing and chipping. And as he said on Friday night, I didn't play these last three tournaments on the tour of Alspar, San Antonio, Houston, because I don't like them. And he said it directly.

Or Brian Rollap. I know. But why would I not just go and chip and putt and hit shots? And that, I think, was the difference. Because even Paul McGeeley on live from Thursday and Friday, Paul who, you know, we're constantly reminded knows Rory better than anyone. And I think it's because he does. But Paul was foreshadowing a fading of Rory's energy. Paul did not seem to fully believe in Rory on Thursday and Friday.

I think he saw the stats and knew that there were some holes in that armor and knew just the pressure and just obligations that Rory had had. But in hindsight now, him showing up at the ANWA, him showing up at the drive put ship, him showing up at the par three contest, doing the hosting of the champions dinner, of course. It feels like maybe that was easier because he had spent so much time up there prepping. Did that, does that resonate with you? Sure does. It's a great point. And the question marks surrounding Rory coming into this, we hadn't seen him play golf, healthy golf, because when he came into the players, there was this injury concern.

Now, it seemed like whatever the injury situation was, was in the rearview mirror during the players, because he was able to drive the ball well. His swing speed was where you would want it to be at the players. Sure. It didn't look like, say, Morikawa today, who was. Poor guy. An amazing round. Let's give out the flowers to that guy. T7. I mean, what a great putting job, but holy moly. Limping around a 68.

Yeah. Lumping around the golf. He had trouble getting the ball out of the cup on 16. He really was struggling. But, I mean, we were right. Stay away from my guess. But holy crap, what a top 10. What a top 10. I mean, the cousin Sal gave that out last week. Great, amazing job. I mean, we said the talent, like, going into the players, he was our pick. everybody's pick to go do something great at the players column or Kawa. And he keeps having great, you know, outcomes at the Masters.

He can definitely win the Masters. He can. Beware the sick golfer. I do think this one, I don't know if he heard a lot of the online chatter after the players or whatever, but he certainly earned my respect. Like, he didn't WD, and I think in most cases you might have, right? But for him to hang in there, make those five birdies in a row and, and, and, uh, and finish with a 31 on the back when your literal back is not working was pretty impressive.

I want to go back to Scotty. Do you feel like we said enough nice things? Because I really feel like we're there. We got this. We got Scottie back. He was gone for a little while. We were worried. We were trying to make up excuses for where he'd gone off to the standard that he set for his own, you know, accomplishments ball striking wise and off the tee. He wasn't meeting that, that standard. We got him back this weekend, Nate, Doug. Well, we did. And it teaches us a few lessons,

which is that time off does not matter for Scotty Schaeffler. I think we saw a little bit of rust from a few players who had some time off. And we can talk about that when we get there. But Scotty, just at the end of the day, is going to go and do what he needs to do to prepare. also means that the floor for this guy is higher than almost any other floor that we've ever seen. And he just is going to, you know, it looks to me like a T-25 is about the worst he's going to do and that he doesn't stay in that quote-unquote basement, an incredibly impressive high above-water basement for very long before he brings it back.

And I love it because, first of all, when Rory hit it in the trees right, we were basically, I think, a plug bunker shot from sky. Scottie making that playoff and I don't know. I mean, I would have put all of House's money on Scottie to win in that playoff. Right. That's not very much, but yes. At that point, like all of a sudden it was very, very real that Scottie, and it just didn't feel like Scottie made the run that he could have today.

Yes, he shot a 68, but I felt like that was a 65. And same thing with yesterday where he had that great run yesterday, but even still, he left a lot out there. No, no, no. Awful question. He didn't want to talk about it, but that was a 63 disguised as a 65. So true. And today's 68 should have been 67 with the put on 17.

And he got Houtonged. I mean, you know, how tongue, whooped them, whooped them. Yeah. And so there we go. At Augusta from now on, we're not going to mess around. What we saw at the first round where you and I text each other and we're like, God, we just overthought it. It's like, it's Rory and Scotty and just don't, you know, don't massively overthink it.

I feel pretty good about the guys that we flag down. down the leaderboard and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about them. But it does, it does just remind us that these guys now are able to prepare in ways that even 10 years ago the guys weren't able to. They've got more financial resources to help them get up and back in the way that Rory did. They've got more access on and on and on. So let's let's not overthink it and remember who the horses for courses are. And because those are the guys. If you just go, if you just look at 1 through 12, the guys who auto qualified today, it's pretty much a who's who of who plays Augusta great. Yeah, and seriously, let's just do the names because we talked about them during the week.

And then if we're going to use that inside the top 15 as your line of demarcation, Patrick Reed, yes, Brooks Kepka. Welcome back. Amazing. I can't remember who said it, but somebody said, I think might have been Trevor. Kepka's going to get a win this year. I absolutely positively agree with that. Hedecki, hi, Hedekie, of course. Jordan Speeith, T-12. Why not? With a nice, tidy four-under today.

Yeah, and a putter that he just feels like it was not working for him. He actually said when he walked off the course that that was the best. He hit it better than when he won in 2015. Now, I don't know if that's Jordan, but I think he maybe is ascendant. I mean, there's some guys who are ascended. I mean, still negative strokes gaining in all the week, putty-wise. But yeah. Right.

I mean, and same problem with Kepka, right? Kepka 11th T to Green. You know, Spieth, Spieth was eighth T to Green. Like those guys' games are coming up, but Spieth was 50th and putting and, you know, Kepka's still 33rd. So if they figure those things out,

it is very clear that the ball striking is there. And it's interesting in both their cases relative to Rory, isn't it? Because Brooks just got passed in total majors. He sure did. And Rory is now the king of the generation. And we know from the, the reset a few years ago when he and the Netflix show was great at telling us this.

When he looked up and realized that Brooks Kepka had passed him with more majors, it really forced a reckoning that that is why I think Rory McElroy has won majors each of the last two years at the Masters. And then for Jordan, I mean, we're heading into the PGA, which could complete the Grand Slam. And he could be now the seventh guy to do this in history. you know, is he going to be the favorite? No, but is he somebody that we have to take seriously? He's talking like it, and he has not always talked over the last five years in a way that would lead us to have any confidence in him. It's been so long that he's been healthy and confident enough in his own game for him to start showing that confidence to us. And this is part of why everybody fell in love with Jordan Speath.

He just wears it all on every fiber of his being. It's all outside. You can just watch him and know exactly where his head is at. Not unlike Rory. Listen to him. Yeah, that's exactly right. So a welcome return. Zander with the backdoor top 10 with a four under today.

I don't know whether to be mad at that or not. I mean, I'm mad at it. Okay. We expected more. Second on approach for the week. And the putter and the short game just wasn't there. And so the good news is always bid Zander top 10. at the Masters. He still is best score in the history of the Masters without a win. And you got to

believe it's going to come one of these days. But the game just didn't quite round in the way that it necessarily needed to. I mean, he only missed the playoff by four shots. I mean, those you could have found on the green very easily from Zandri. Hit the ball great this week. It's a great point. A couple wild cards. Let's go ahead and welcome back Max Homa. You want to welcome Max back? Well, I'm happy for Max because this was the first place that he, if you remember a few years ago, he actually had a great master's performance and felt like after so much frustration that he had finally sort of started to figure out how to show up in these majors. And so I think this is one of those horses for courses kind of things that we got to remember we pay attention to.

Max has still got a lot to do, but to get the game back to where, you know, he knows it can be. but a pretty productive week for Max Homa, no doubt. The most noteworthy live performance, notwithstanding what Sergio did on the T-box at number two, was T-Rle Hatton. Did you see what Sergio did on the T-box at number two? Broke his driver today. Oh, yeah, no, no, it was ugly.

I saw... I'd be fine. I saw a man, Jeff Yang, giving him a warning. I saw it, yeah, it was a... Be fine if he didn't. play next year. I'd be fine with that. I mean, you're going to take out Bobby Mack for what he did on Thursday and Friday? He took himself out. I mean, again, I'll just get this off my chest right away.

I don't want to hear anymore about the potential advantage that left-handers have because Akshay and Robert McIntyre puked all over themselves. They came in, you know, both in fine form and showed no acumen. This is the second straight year with McIntyre at this place. I don't, I don't, maybe he'll figure it out. It won't be on my dime. I'm not talking about him anymore at the Masters. I hadn't, we didn't get any feedback on what happened with Akshay.

He shot a 44 on the back on Friday to miss the cut. Yeah. And I, and I don't know what the hell happened. I couldn't tell if he was hurt. He couldn't hit the golf ball. I don't know. So we'll see over the course of the week. What comes of that?

Did you see anything? I see that he's 24 and he needs more reps and this course bites people. That's what it looked like to me. Okay. That's fine. But Tyrell Hatton, you asked me, should we talk about him? I did. And I was like, what could we do?

Like there was no evidence. He had a top 10 on a live event. Otherwise, he was in the 30s and 40s in live events. He started off his live year in February with a good performance. But otherwise, over like the last six weeks or so, there was nothing to tell us that he was in any kind of form. But and there really isn't anything in his master's history that says, oh, you have to keep it because, you know, he'll channel it.

He had like fine finishes at the masters, but not anything was like, this guy absolutely loves Augustin National. Well, I think, I think that's right. But I mean, he'd had a T9 there, right? Yeah, yeah, that's good. The reason that I brought him up to you was because he had, played really well in the majors, all four majors last year, right? T-14 here last year. Yeah, he was T-60 at the PGA, but had a chance to win that U.S.

Open finished T-4, T-16 at the open. Like, he just was showing up. And it felt like one of those guys who fit the Sam Burns, Russell Henley, Teryl Hatton, frame of if it's going to be wide open. And there are reasons to think that Rory and Scotty aren't going to have their best performance. who else could shoot through. And those were, you know, he was one of those guys who it felt like could be sort of lying in wait. Well, since his, you know, fellow top of the world performers, John Rom and Bryson D. Shambo couldn't be bothered to show up for this golf tournament.

He was the one, the bright shining star. I don't know how to handle this. I don't know what we're supposed to do going forward because this is, I'm going to say data golf, but not. not for the purposes of anything other than as a reference. This is not me disparaging their methodology, the way that they approach things. They had John Rom coming into this week as the second ranked player in the world, according to their ranking system. And he did have a decent enough major season last year, John Rom, including, you know,

his best finish. He was on the back nine at Quill Hollow, the PGA Championship, with a chance of putting some pressure on Scotty. But he was a complete no-show. There was absolutely nothing about his golf game that suggested that he's in a class that's anywhere near these guys that acquitted themselves so well.

Not in the class of these guys. Yeah, I mean, he made seven birdies today when it was all said and done. And so, you know, in playing with Sergio and so I, a good pairing, let's just put that way. And I think, but I think you're right. I mean, it was that round on Thursday that just was not a single bird he made, shot a 78. And he was out of the tournament at that point.

And I don't know, I mean, House, I really don't know what to make of it because Bryson has shown us before that he's showing up and delivering. And then, you know, we all start to believe and get on the bandwagon. And he showed up and started talking about 3D printing his eye. and how he'd made stuff and it had tinkered and not one person asked him why, at least not that made the transcripts that I saw, asked him why he was in tears on that green and whether he, when he had last one on live and whether things were going okay now, there just was no discussion of that. He just got back into sort of strangely aloof talking about weird shit, Bryson, and immediately on Thursday it was over. So I don't know how to evaluate.

these guys. As you said, Brandl just came in with a sledgehammer on those guys. Do you agree? Are these guys playing in a joke of an environment that is not preparing them for majors? It's hard to say for sure because Bryson was very good in the majors last year. And Rom was competent. We don't want competent out of Rom. I mean, Rahm and Bryson are two different cases, two different guys, two different animals, clearly fueled by different things with different kinds of ambitions. And the one note that I'll strike with Bryson is that he was at Augusta National on Saturday for the ANWA. And he did personally support the young lady Astros Talley, who had the lead on the second nine and fell apart. He has a relationship with her. And he went to her and gave a

note of empathy and support after she fell apart. So this is part of what went into the thinking about, Bryson prepared to go ahead and kick ass. And it's like he's always weird. When is he not weird? So him talking about the weird shit with the clubs and everything is like, oh, this is, it's But why are we tinkering after we? Yeah, I guess it's. Because he's always tinkering.

That's all. I mean, I, but then it came out. There's no golf game whatsoever. I mean, just just absolutely. The bunker. Yeah, the bunker on 11 on Thursday was just, it just was a disaster. And he doubled his way out of the golf tournament on a. by not being able to get out of that bunker either on Friday.

He was inside the cutline on Friday. Yeah. It's just taking tons, tons of sand. And I don't know. I mean, the memes were amazing. It was like outrageous stuff that I enjoyed so much from the internet. But yeah. And again, I don't want to fully bury those guys because there's,

there's Tyrell Hatton. So then you go, all right, Rom, what's your motivation? Because Rory McElroy, I think just put the flag in the moon as the best European player of all time. I think he did. We agree. And and Ram, who is this great student of history and really cares about the history of the game and appreciates it and is in seems to be inspired by it in all kinds of ways except competitively motivated to go kick Rory McElroy's ass. And even after this this conversation this week about the DP World Tour, you know, back and forth where Rory and

Rose have clearly stood by the world tour here. You'd think that might even fuel some of that energy in Rom. And so it makes it just- Well, Ron came in like in a conciliatory mode with with respect to that. He said, you know, we're working on this. We're collaborating. He didn't, he wasn't- But somewhere he's heard the guys inject their thoughts for the press. And if you're any kind of dude, you're going to be like, hey, fuck that guy. I'm going to go kick his fucking ass. And so I just waiting for Rom, who I think of as that bull, who I think of as like a- tough competitor who grabbed that masters away from Brooks Kepka, who I think of as a tough dude competitor.

Right. That was like I got huge respect for him. So I just don't know what to make of it other than something about these past couple years getting comfortable with life, getting whatever the preparation. It just, I feel like we've lost that. John Romch should have won a major in the last three years. He should have. We're in agreement.

And, you know, I'll even point. to, I thought he played pretty goddamn good at the Ryder Cup. And that also is a kind of a referendum on where those guys, you know, playing on Live might be. You know, Bryson played pretty, pretty good for the U.S. side. Anyhow, I don't know. I think going forward, we will acknowledge Bracin and Rom and Tyrol Hatton. And I guess who, I'm forgetting him.

Phil Mickelson's choice for number one in the world last year, who won, you know, a bunch of times on Live, who didn't play in his master's. Waki Neiman, yes. I was going to say Yaco, but I couldn't remember. Right. He'll be. But here we are.

We're forgetting the guy who's supposedly the neck, this is the problem with what's happened on that side of the ledger here. And now with Scotty and Rory trading these last couple years, and seeing what Patrick Reed and Brooks have done since they left. Yeah. And the level of competition and the courses and the form that their game was in, Patrick Reed, for a while, I thought he was going to hit our first round leader bet potentially. But there is something happening here. And we don't want to make too much of it again because, you know, we thought that this time off for Scotty was going to be a big deal and he showed up in plate.

So guys are allowed to have bad days. And those dudes definitely had bad Thursdays that just gave them the worst taste in their mouth that they could not get through for the rest of the week. But something's not right. And these are guys who ought to be more competitive at the top of that leaderboard. When you look at those first, again, the places one through T12 on that master's leaderboard are the guys in the world who matter right now and except for those two. And they got to take a hard look in the mirror, figure out how they're going to solve that for the remaining three majors.

Yeah. I wonder about Erotic. It really does drive up the intrigue as we approach that place because, you know, We'll want to get in deep. It's not a gigantic ballpark, right? It's not out there for big ballers. The way that going into the U.S. Open, we thought Rom. Rom did finish top 10.

Bryson missed the cut at Oakmont. But I'm just thinking about that northeast, you know, the Philadelphia golf, that Pennsylvania golf kind of. It'll be different than Shinnecock for sure. Yes, exactly right. Other glass half full. Who do you want to give flowers to? The low debutante, I think, was shared amongst three guys.

So I'll give flowers to them. I think Goderup, Sam Stevens, and Michael Brennan all tied at two under for the golf tournament. Am I right about that? Goddard up definitely two under. Michael Brennan, definitely two under. Sam Stevens, all two under. I don't know what you get for that. We did not have an amateur make the cut.

The low am that I, I mean, it wasn't really going on limb. He was the favorite low. was Ethan Fang, I believe. I mean, none of those guys were even in Butler Cabin, so who cares? You know, they did. Fair enough. Yeah, I mean, Mason How's the one to watch, I think. But they didn't show out here.

There's nice sort of tradition and, you know, gentlemanly back and forth and a little bit of taking somebody under their wing and all that stuff. But for the most part, like, I think you're right. I mean, Bridgman was four over today. But other than that, like he, I think, held. his own with some of those first timers. I'm pretty impressed with what Goddraub did. I'm pretty impressed with what Stevens did and what Bridgman did.

I think those were pretty good navigations around, uh, around obviously a, a course that, that was tough. I do want to ask you about that course, though, House. I mean, there was a lot of talk coming in and I'm very glad and appreciative that, that you're, uh, bet bet on the course, uh, over under bet cash. It was closer than it should have been, though, wasn't it? And they had a chance this week.

They had a chance with the weather to do something. And they didn't really do it in terms of making the course super difficult. The flip side is, you know, the gap between first and T12 is only seven shots. So there was a clustering of most of the best players in the tournament. How do you feel about the way that they ultimately decided to make the play ability of the golf course. Yeah, and let's separate these two ideas. The fact that the winning score, um, I thought it was going to be, you know, not as good as 14 under. That was the bet that I put out there. That was the bet that I made and that bet, um, arrived home, uh, safely, although it was,

you know, in doubt. I thought Rory was going to get to 14 under. Yeah. Um, going into 15. When he was standing in the T-box on 15, I was, I was like, uh, this is, he can birdie both 15 and 16 because that pin on 16 was a super birdie pin. Yeah. Instead of. Thank God for his adrenaline. Right. Right. By the way, that's the last thing.

Go ahead. Please. I know. I know what you're going to say. This is more CBS. Deserved. There's Rory in the Tiger Chip spot from 2005 and nobody says a thing. Not a goddamn thing.

And not only that, the mother effing ball rolled in just the same way that Tiger's Nike ball rolled and got very, very, very. very close. Nobody makes that comparison. You know who would have done that? Vern. Vern. Vern would have done. Or if Nancy's on the mic, Nancy was in the, I promise you, he was in Butler Cabin going, well, that's the same spot. And nobody said it. And that's just a huge miss. If you're going to pass to these guys and have different people narrate these parts of the course, they've got to be versed. They've got to see that moment and speak to it. Yeah, exactly right. But, um, in,

piss me off. Well, because it's our moment. You know, it's as we're as golf sickos, you know, the whole world is now with their eyes on in our, in our space. And if it doesn't acquit itself, it doesn't cover itself in glory, a very glorious winner in Rory back to back, you know, top of the charts, Scotty making his charge, America's sporting interest is on the masters. We wanted to come off, you know, perfect.

We want everybody to say, yeah, golf is back. Golf is the best. We like the, you know, the whole thing. Let's talk about, you know, the combination of the incredible weather that they had down there. It was hot. And then the, I mean, I made a joke yesterday about how low everybody was going. And I was slightly annoyed about how low everybody was going. Yeah.

In Saturdays round. You call it the Mitsubishi Electric. Yeah, the TPC up there in Duluth, TPC Sugarloaf. The complaint, the gentle complaint is this. They have complete capacity to rev that sucker up and show us a challenge that we hadn't seen in recent memory because the weather was impacting how the golf horse was capable of being played. the last four, five, six editions. We saw it Thursday afternoon a little bit, right?

Yeah, yes, yes, yes, because it blew, we got some breezy. And balls were flying off the back and going in the water on 15, that kind of thing. It felt like maybe, oh, that's why we got geared up for Friday. And then, whew. The greens were soft all week. And Scotty said it himself, Scottie shot 74 on Friday, and he said it was the soft greens. The soft greens got me. And the question is, you know, strategically, what kind of competition?

Because this is this is the gentle complaint. They could, they could really separate some guys. They're like, we want to see the guys with at the highest skill level, the highest, you know, execution level, go out there in the face of a challenge where pins are in unique places. and, you know, the greens are slightly red. Now, it is clear from the color of the greens that they were, they were, you know, Houtong himself said that they were baked. They look like the color of whatever was coming out of his intestines earlier in the week. Poor Houton.

But, you know, by the time we got to today, they were not luscious green. I had some people reaching out like, why are these greens the gray? It's like, well, there's an explanation for it. Yeah, I guess, I mean, I'll go further, which is if those greens were firmer on Sunday and on the weekend, but on Sunday in particular, I don't think Rory's shot on 15 holds. I think Rory doubles. Oh, that, I mean, you and I are in violent agreement. You know, there was some thought like, are we going to give him credit? Like, I can't remember.

Somebody sent me a note was Rory, you know, did he, did he? benefited by not being able to go for that green in two because he had to punch out. And right, he damn near dumped that thing in the water. Just the way we saw him dump it in the water on 13 last year, that wedge on 15. You said it. A yard, I think, is a difference between that thing rolling all the way back into the water. Yeah, he got lucky because he hit it so poorly, it didn't have the spin to bring it back. But I think under different conditions, it just wouldn't have held there.

So that's an example of the sort of. of the precision that could have been demanded on this course and where we could have potentially seen more like a seven, six, eight, nine under winner instead of where we ended up. That said, it's sort of hard to throw stones when you just look at the leaderboard and you go, yeah, over the last since 22, like guys have been between 10 and 12 under, like this is not, you know, this is a pretty par for the course ending. And we got a very, we got a ton of drama. This was super enjoyable.

The only reason I'm, well, I'm not buzzing more is because I'm still hung over from 2025. Well, in the experience of today's second nine, we had five guys with a legit chance to win. I mean, Justin Rose could have won the golf tournament. Rory did win the golf tournament. Scotty Schaeffler was right there. Cam Young was really right there right alongside Rory. And then if you want to say hadn't in the house at the 10,9th, that he put up there.

I feel like that's kind of fair to include him on this list of potential, you know, with the drama. That's the, you know, I think everybody is pleased with, you know, the drama that we got on a second night on Sunday afternoon. Rory had a lead, right? Yeah. Rose had a lead. Like they sort of passed it around.

So it was a, I think it would have been fun as a golf sicko to see them flex the muscle. They ended up not doing it. And I can't argue with the outcome. Some year I would like to see them do that. If they're not going to do it this year, though, House, I think that gives you a pretty good indication of whether they want to turn it into, you know, they've lost the course. A war of attrition kind of thing, right?

Like, Saturday was the day for it. You know, moving day, let's really, you know, separate these guys. And instead, we brought a whole bunch of guys into the mix. And, you know, maybe that was strategic. anything else that we haven't covered Nate Dogg. I mean, this is us just going through the notes and downloading

the notebook, the text threads. We will be back on Tuesday. What else are we missing here? I think you got it. I mean, I don't, a little bit of disappointment out of Matt Fitzpatrick, a little bit of disappointment out of Tommy Fleetwood this week.

Shane Lowry, Plutte, he hit eject. Well, he yesterday was a crazy day for him after in the hole in one. He was in good position. Yeah, there were some guys who just didn't step up today. But as always, we learn from how these things pan out. And this was an incredible masters. And I think I want to make sure we don't lose sight of it just because last year was so great. Back to back years, these are as strong and interesting and as exciting as we could possibly get. And as soon as you saw that shot tracer, for all my beef with CBS, when you guys actually use the damn shot tracer and it works, even though you didn't show us,

where the ball ended up. As soon as you saw the tracer, you knew, oh, my gosh, he could still lose the Masters. He could still lose the Masters on the 72nd hole. It was staring us in the face. It was a blast house. I'm glad we can't publish our text threads. What a way to kick off the major season. We have Scotty and Rory at the top of the board the way the golf gods intended.

My birdie buddies, my eagle enthusiast, my par saving pals. That's it for this bastard. masters. It really lived up to everything we could have hoped for. We're back on Tuesday because we have a signature event down at the Hilton Head, RBC Heritage, really a sneaky, terrific tournament and, you know, a great way for the guys to catch their breath. Limited field, Nate Dogg and I will be there to break it all down. And we also, of course, we'll have some more of the afterglow from this, this 2026 Masters because, you know, the Rory Vicketts. tour just keeps all rolling along.

If you're able, it's getting warm. It's warm everywhere. It's warm enough for everybody to get a peg in the ground. I don't have to talk about geography. Throw a peg in the ground. Please channel your inner, not Rory, don't smash one slice right off of the thing. Or maybe channel his drive on 17.

It was magnificent. His drive on 17 and Alzheimer. Let's hit him straight out there. Must be 21 years older, older and present. in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or 1-800-M-E-R-E-S-E-S-E-T. Call 188-78-9-77-7-77 or visit ccpG.org slash chat in Connect.

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