Fairway Rollin' - Story Lines to Watch at the Open With Jason Sobel

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

The Action Network’s Jason Sobel joins House and Hubbard to discuss the story lines they’re looking out for at the Open. They talk about Rory being the favorite, Tiger watch, the rise of Xander Schauffele, sleeper picks, and much more. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Guest: Jason Sobel Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Are you tuning in to the Challenge USA on CBS? Well, tune in to me, Tyson Apostle, as I break down each and every episode with my co-host, Amelia Weddemeier. I'm also a contestant on the show, which gives you all the insider scoop. Amelia, how stoked are you to do this? Tyson, I'm freaking excited. I cannot wait to sit my butt down every single week to watch the show, then come here and recap it with you on The Ringer Reality TV podcast. Hello friends and welcome to this golf podcast, unlike any other. Oh, yes, my friends, we've done it.

It is the fourth and final major of the season. This is Fairway Roan. The golf podcast on the Ringer podcast Network. I am your starter. Joe House, my birdie buddies, my eagle enthusiasts, my par saving pal. What a time to be alive. This historic moment, the 150th Open Championship, the British Open is this week in case you haven't heard.

It's at St. Andrews, in case you haven't heard, we are beginning this week, as is our way, with all of the biggest and best stories. I'm very happy that alongside myself and our PGA tour correspondent on the ground, Nathan Hubbard, we have here to celebrate with us as a champion of the Fairway Rowland podcast. Somebody that I know I won't have to disinvite because he's going to jump in and try and grab the spotlight for his own rogue media operation. Jason Sobel from the Action Network. Welcome back, buddy.

I never try to steal anything from you, House. Thanks so much for having me, guys. I am home this week. I'm not at the Open Championship. did the last two editions of the open at St. Andrews. I was there on the grounds. And I'm telling you guys, up to this moment, I was like, ah, it's okay. I can miss an open. FOMO. It's, I have so serious FOMO right now. I just, I need to be there. I'm like going to jump through my TV screen right now and somehow teleport myself there. I feel awful. We do see all of, you know,

our golf media pals over there. They're playing. golf at all of the venerable, venerated places. The weather looks amazing. The guys are, people are out at 10 o'clock at night. Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas are walking around on, on, you know,

Saturday night with wedges and putters. And you just take a look and say, wow, what a scene. 240,000, what do they call them in the UK? Do they call them spectators? They're not patrons.

Yes, spectators works. Spectators. Just an amazing convening. And how about this moment in professional competitive men's golf, where there has been a storyline that has kind of grabbed the narrative over the last three months. Few of those guys from the 50 foe are on site, on scene. Saw Phil Mickelson dressed in all black and wearing shorts, getting ready to miss another cut.

Sobel, we'll begin with the interesting sort of moment that we're at in golf. And then we'll jump into all of the detail as it relates to the Open Championship in our early leanings and storylines for the week. You've been writing serially, as is your way, about the twist and turns with 54. Most recently, what seems to have developed is at least some significant portion of the 54, the Kushner Tour operatives, wanting to have the opportunity to play whatever events all across the world are available to them. And you wrote about this a bit.

What is your sense of sort of what the temperature is at the moment? Okay. So first of all, House, how about the, I don't know if it's irony. I don't know if it's coincidence. But the fact that we can literally call this the great. greatest celebration in the game's history, the 150th anniversary of the oldest golf tournament in the entire world at the most venerable venue that we have in our game at perhaps the most crucial moment in the game's history where there is a fractured separation of the

game at the professional level. I mean, the fact that all of this is happening and taking place right now is pretty remarkable. Again, I don't know if that's the definition of irony or not, but it certainly seems like it. And so, yeah, a lot of these live golfers are in the field. I know a lot of people, you know, were very interested in the fact that Greg Norman was essentially disinvited from playing the celebration of champions, even though he is an open championship winner. They told him, you know what, Greg, you don't have to come and don't come to the dinner either.

And yet there are plenty of live golfers who are in the field this week. interesting times. This is probably going to be also the last time, certainly this year that we'll see all of the games best players in the same place altogether. It could be. I have no idea how this is going to play out. I don't think it's going to be this way,

but quite frankly, this might be the last time, I don't know, ever, or for a long time that we see all of the games best players in the same place altogether, which is just strange. I mean, this is sort of like the perfect, storm of everything coming together, everything, the massive tectonic shift that's taking place in professional golf right now alongside this massive celebration of the game's storied history, all together at once. It's really, really just sort of eye-opening, I think.

Well, so, well, so the guy who seems to be honoring that more than anything is one Eldrick Tiger Woods. And this was so important to him that he skips. the U.S. Open. He is seeming to take in every single moment, not quite the same way as when Jack walked across the bridge and did that famous wave. But we're hearing a lot of percolating rumors about the future of Tiger. What are you hearing here? What is the key storyline to focus on around Tiger this week? Are we just appreciating him? Is he anything more than let's bet him to make the cut because that's what you do unless you're a goddamn communist. Tell us about Tiger this week. So look, I like Tiger this week. The one thing that I keep pointing to is when he limped off

the 18th Green Augusta National three months ago after somewhat miraculously making the cut at the master's not having played in what, a year and a half, he was asked about the future of his schedule. And he said, look, I don't know about the PGA championship next month, wound up playing that week, made the cut with Drew because he was hurting so much at Southern Hills. He said, I don't know about the U.S. Open, wound up not playing because he was still injured and said, yes, absolutely, I will be at the 150th Open Championship. Guys, that tells me two things about Tiger. One is his perspective and his sense of history and how much he wants to honor the game and be there at this moment. The other thing is, look, Tiger shows up to win golf tournaments.

He said that for the last 25 years. We shouldn't be surprised when he said, that again this week. And as we record here on Monday afternoon, Tiger hasn't spoken yet this week to the media. But I assume that he's going to say the same thing. Look, I have experience, I have knowledge. I know how to get my ball around this golf course. I know where to, where to hit it, where to miss it. And so I would, I think Tigers had to circle on his calendar for a long time. I think he's going to have a solid week again, Nate. I'm with you. He makes the cut this week. I think it's a conservative, like a top 30 kind of play. If you really want to get aggressive, maybe a top 20.

I don't necessarily think he's going to be there on the back nine Sunday afternoon, but I don't think it's going to be a bad week for him either. I think that everything he's been working towards over the last couple of months, last couple of years is for this moment this week. Two questions to follow up there. Is he going to make a comment about Live this week? And do you make anything of the he may retire after this week, nonsense that? we're hearing. So I assume that when he has a press conference, he's going to be asked many

questions about Liv. So I don't think it's necessarily going to be a statement. It's not like, you know, Tiger's going to come out and say, hey, everyone gather around. I want to talk about live right now. But he's going to be asked about it. He's essentially going to say the same thing he's been saying, which is, look, we got into this to play in competitive events, to play, to play for our legacy, to play for history. That's not what Liv is about. He said, you know, he doesn't necessarily he's not into it whatsoever. Look, I understand it for guys, like a Lee Westwood,

like an Ian Polter, who their time is come and gone for winning a major championship for being top 10 players in the world. And so you take a bunch of cash, and we can sit here and argue whether, you know, it's right to take the cash and where it's coming from

and all those kind of things. But I kind of, I at least understand it from their perspective. Not everybody's Tiger Woods. Not everybody's got a billion bucks in the bank and go, hey, you know what, I don't need the money. I'm just going to keep playing competitive golf and banging my head against the wall,

as Graham McDowell has said recently about playing PGA tour golf every week. As far as the retirement stuff, I think that's just rumor. I think that's just speculating people thinking he's going to walk across the bridge, do the jacks and go off into the sunset. If you listen to Tiger, and Tiger, for the first 20 years of his career, Tiger would quite honestly lie to us all the time. I remember one day. I mean, this is, you know, just a brief epitome of what Tiger would say to the media.

But I walked around with him at Monterey Peninsula Country Club. This is 2012, 13. He was playing the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. And he went out there and he had like 39 puts for the day. And afterwards, I said, Tiger, how would you assess your putting? Just open-ended question. I'd say, Tiger, boy, you punted like crap today. What was wrong?

It was, how would you assess your putting? And he looked me in the eye and said, oh, I put it great. I just couldn't find the hole, you know, I really liked my struggle. No, you didn't. I can tell how frustrated you were. So Tiger would often just sort of, you know, I don't know if it was a thing where he just like going back to his hotel room at the end of the night and putting on the TV and calling up the internet and reading some stories, go, ha, ha, ha, they think I really liked it.

It's how he kept his edge, right? I mean, he just had to keep convincing himself that he was fine. I think that's part of it. But in any case, over the last couple years, I think, has been very honest with us. He's been very open with us. And if you've listened to Tiger over the last few months when we've seen him speaking publicly, he said, look, you know, I'm not going to play a full schedule, and we've seen that. I am going to try to play the events that mean the most to me every year. This obviously is one of them. There's no reason to believe that he's going to go

hang it up after this. He believes that he's only going to get stronger and get better. I mean, if he can go play an open championship right now, if he can make the cut in the Masters this year, guess what next year he's only going to be healthier you think he's only going to play better and that's what's going through tiger's mind right now and again i have no reason to believe that this will be sort of a a celebration of his career and he's going to ride out into this this whatsoever and we've been watching him um over these past handful of days we watched him at the j p mcmannis proam last week he didn't look awesome in terms of like the physical comfort that he was displayed playing and he was all bundled up.

You know, the weather clearly had a little bit of a chill in the air. But he was still, even, you know, as the weather got warmer and he moved over to St. Andrews after playing Bally Bunyan in Southern Ireland last week, there is

still a noticeable I don't know the right way to characterize it. The diminishment in his overall, the way he walks and the way his body moves, And yet, you know, he's still, we watched him Drive the Green on 18 on social media. You know, the swing looks absolutely fine.

So I don't, in terms of the performance aspect of it, I'm knocking on wood. I don't have any concerns. I do want to dive in a little bit more, JS, on one aspect of what we were just covering with Nate, which is you, so far, it seems that Tiger has been. content to really let Rory McElroy take the lead as being kind of the spokesperson for the tour, the person that has been the most out there, the most committed. He's the most prominent golfer, the most accomplished golfer, to have taken on the live concept and just offered a bunch of aggressive thoughts around it.

Tiger's been a bit more muted. and you so his his press conference is tomorrow we're taping this like we said on Monday after you could drop a bomb this that's this is what I'm getting that I want to ask I want to ask Jason why why do you think that Tiger might continue to tow the line and not go in and say look this is this is legacy this is history this is what I believe in you can go do this other thing you can go do the live thing to me that just means that you're a competitor that's not interested in history or legacy or any of the the the greats that have come before you why wouldn't he go in that direction do you think so i think you said what he's going to say i mean i i think

we're going to hear from tiger exactly what he's been saying this entire time i spoke with rory back roy at length probably about 45 minute conversation a few weeks ago and it was one of those with the flexes today house he's a he's a he's a major round with tyer round with tyer We got 25 minutes with Rory. Holy shit. He's a champion golf media person. He is a fucking pro. This is after Rory shot 62 in the first round of the travelers.

He finished all his media stuff. I kind of walked over. We started chatting. It was myself and Mark Kandizaro, great writer from New York. And we just sat there like, you know, shooting the shit with them for 45 minutes. It was one of those since it's been in the news so much over the past year, it was one of these off-the-record conversation. that nobody ever said off the record, but you know it's off the record.

What I can tell you from that is that, first of all, Rory's just unbelievably intelligent and educated about everything that's going on. I mean, from talking about, like, the PGA Tour's 501 C3 status or C6 status and tournament C3 status and what it means and why they're handcuffed a little bit.

I mean, he has learned as much as any PGA tour executive about what it all means and speaks very intelligently about it. The other part of this that I don't think Rory would mind me saying is that he speaks with Tiger. He said just about every other day. And he said, Tiger is very involved with a lot of this stuff. Tiger knows exactly what's going on. Tiger is pushing for the PGA tour to do certain things.

And I would venture to say from what Rory told me that Tiger has more influence on what's going on in the game of professional golf and what's going on in the PGA tour right now than I think any of us really. realize. So why doesn't he just fucking deep six Norman this week? He might. I'm not sure what else he can say, though. I mean, he's going to say, look, it's silly, hitting giggle golf. You want to go out there and take me to go play golf that doesn't matter? Go ahead. I built this and you're disrespecting me. That's how I got into it. You're disrespecting me. You're disrespecting Jack. Anyway, a nice way of saying it is the way that House framed it. But I think the most underrated storyline is what he's going to say at this press conference. Good point.

Or not. Maybe it'll be what Jason says, right? Well, exactly. If he says nothing, it's also a story. He has the gravitas. And so Tiger, I don't think Tiger's going to come out and say, screw Greg Norman, screw the live, those guys are dead to me. I'm never speaking with Phil Mickelson again.

No, it's not that. But it's going to be very much. He's thinking it. Look, he might be. Essentially, everything we've heard from Rory McElroy and Justin Thomas, who are two of Tigers' closest confidants in professional golf right now, they're essentially echoing what Tiger would think. So anything Tiger says is going to mirror what J.T. and Rory have said over the last few months.

So we saw Shane Bacon on the tweeters put out there this fantasy notion of the Thursday, Friday pairings including Tiger with Phil pairing up Tiger Woods with Phil

Mickelson you know taking on potentially right on the nose this legacy thing I can't imagine the RNA

would do that unless Tiger Woods went to them and asked them please put Phil in my group but I don't it doesn't seem

like that's that's in the cards but there is a sort of of it's a very very sweet concept right yeah

there's no chance of that. By the way, I've had players this morning. I'm not there. I've had players texting me who are in the field asking when the T-Times are going to be out. And if I knew, I'm like, you're there. I'm not even there. How do I know what you do times? I assume it would be out pretty soon after we're done here on the pod.

But no, I think that Tiger was, again, look, there's people like to think that these things just sort of, you know, happen by, you know, like a computer spits out pairings. And they go, okay, that's what we'll do. Look, I don't know that the RNA is specifically going to Tiger Woods and saying, who would you like to play with this week? But I do believe that there's some thought going into it as far as we're not going to screw you tight. We're not going to put you in a bad situation where, you know, you're sort of anti-live

and Phil's kind of wearing the full black these days and going full villain. And we're going to put you guys together just for the scene of it. And the other part of this, too, is guys, I don't know how you feel about this. playing partners is something, or groupings is something we talk about to fill the time from Monday through Wednesday evening. And by time they get to Thursday, especially at a major championship,

it's not like these guys are going out there having a sandwich and hanging out together and making a few bets on the golf course. They're playing their own game. They just happen to be playing near a few other players that are in the tournament too. But I just don't think it matters a whole lot. But no, Tiger will be with, oh man,

I tried to play this game. Yeah, who would you guess? I played this game with Colt Nose. We were sitting there at Augustin and we said, okay, it was like something like a hundred bucks if you get one of his playing partners, 500 if you get them both dead on. And we both missed it, but we're in like the right,

like I think I had like Cameron Smith and Joaquin Neiman or something like that. Like kind of, you know, just guys that you look at and go, yeah, they're good players. They're not putting Tiger with scrubs, but they're also not guys that are like going to cause a scene. It's not live players. is not anything like that.

Let's say, I will go Tiger with some former champ. How about Tiger with Zach Johnson and Louis Oost, Louis is a live guy. Zach certainly makes sense as a rider capper.

How about Hendrick Stenson? Yeah. Stenson's got too. He's like one step away from live, it feels like. Yeah, he is. He's also, I mean, you're not putting both rider cup. Tyrone with Zach John Mark Leashman. How's that?

All the time Leash has done is compete. What about who's the oldest, um, open, you know, former open championship winner in this field? That, that would be,

wouldn't that make some sense? Yeah, that feels like they're putting Tiger out to pasture. Like you put them with Calc and Aaron Clark and it's like, here, Tiger, you know, have fun playing two rounds with a couple of the old guys.

Like, no, Tiger wants to be in the mix. with like guys who are good and guys were actually competing in this thing. Put him with J.T. I love they put him with Schaffler. Yeah.

Yeah. A bunch of world former number ones. It's like a top 25 type of guy. They also, and I don't know how much the open thinks about this, I think the Masters was thinking about it, but I don't know if the RNA is thinking like, hey, we have a chance for like growing our audience and our rights holders worldwide.

Let's put them like Hedeke-Mott. Osiyama would be a really good one. We're like, let's grow the Asian market with the Deke playing with Tiger and we're going to do huge ratings numbers in that part of the world. Jazz, Jan Wananod or whatever. So hey, look, incredible flexes, just incredible flexes from Sobel today. We are talking about a couple of guys in Phil and Tiger who are not going to win this golf tournament. You have a piece out today on your thoughts on who can actually win this golf tournament. and I want to get into that, but I want to start with the Scottish Open. And I want to ask you two questions, which are really the only two that are relevant coming out of it,

other than did you enjoy the Jordan Speefe experience once again? I think the two questions are, first and foremost, holy shit, Zander, has he been uncorked? And do we really have to think about Zander now as a guy who can go finally get it done and win the major? because for so long it was, there was this moment where it felt like maybe golf was about to pass him by and the window was going to, not completely, that's an exaggeration, but he just wasn't winning the big ones. And he's won two pretty big boy field tournaments now, and he's looked terrific. Is he uncorked? And then the second piece is, generally speaking, do we learn anything from the Scottish Open?

Was this a place that is an accurate sort of representation of what we're going to see next week? should we take anything from the guys who played well, should we take anything from the numerous guys who missed the cut? All right, so two things here. I'll start with the second one. Yes and no. I want to see some guys in like relative form, you know. Justin Thomas shooting 10 over through two rounds has been way off of T.

Withdrew from the travelers with a back injury. Didn't hear him speaking about injury, but like something's wrong with JT right now and I'm staying away. away from. That said, am I all in on guys just because they were top five last week? No, not necessarily. I just, I want to see some kind of form post four decent scores at the Scottish Open. I think this is going to be a wildly different tournament. And guys, we've seen Mother Nature blow through the players championship where we got four seasons in five days. And then each of the first three majors, it was, it was sunny, it was rainy, it was windy, it was calm, it was hot, it was cold,

at all three of them this week. The one where we want weather, it's going to be like 70 degrees and the wind's going to blow 15 miles an hour. I mean, it's going to mean nothing. It's a big nothing from Mother Nature. Sneaky low scores, right? They are going to tear up this golf tournament.

I think something 20 under par or better is going to win this if we don't indeed get some 30 to 40 mile an hour winds. Sounds like the barbassol. I mean, we're covered at the barbassol, baby. Yeah. So, Nate, we saw it last week.

Six under won that golf tournament last week. I point to Matt Fitzpatrick, who's a guy that, I mean, the narrative firmly on Matt Fitzpatrick that when it's a tough golf course, when Pars are a good score, he's going to play well. He shot three under for four rounds and finished, what, fifth or something like that. You know, he played really well. At a place where you guys shoot 21, 22 under, where someone's going to shoot 63 this week, we might see somebody match Brandon Grace's record of a 62 at the open championship.

championship. We might see fun this week. I mean, really, guys, they were just talking on TV about three or four driveable par fours this week. Guys are going to be hitting the par fives and two. I mean, if your putter gets hot and you're doing that, you're going to post a really low score on this golf course. And so coming over from the Scottish Open, like, yes, I want to see guys in form, but it's not necessarily a definitive correlation from one to the next. I think it's going to be a completely different type of scoring event. As far as Xander, yeah, look, he's on court. He's on a heater right now. The game of golf and the analyzation in golf is so fickle these days because one guy can win two events and all of a sudden he's the hottest golfer on the planet.

That's just how it hurts. If you're an NFL team, you win two games in a row. It doesn't make you the hottest team in the NFL. It just means you won two games. In golf, it's completely different. You're beating everybody else. And so it doesn't happen that often. And we all of a sudden go from, oh man, Scotty Sheffler is a world beater. He's the best player in the world to, hey, maybe it's Rory to, wow, Xander's the best in the world right now. Yeah, those were two shaky closes down the stretch from him, to be fair. Yeah.

I agree with that. Look, you win, you win. I take nothing away from Zander. I will point this out. I think a lot of people are going to go in the other direction. They're going to say, look, it's really hard to go back to back to back. It's even harder to go back to back and keep winning and keep riding that wave. Right.

I was say the last time I said that was before the Masters thinking, look, ball of average that says, Scotty Sheppler is not going to win for a 12th time in a row or whatever stupid number it was at that point. It just can't happen. He's got to run out of gas at some point. And he goes and wins the Masters. So that's almost the, I don't know, what do you, like the reverse psychology on picking Xander properly this week.

Well, I don't have any problem with picking Xander top 10, top five. I'll probably play him both of those ways. and obviously you're going to have to lay juice if you want to play them top 20. The only, you know, reason that you might want to draw a distinction between him and Schephler in terms of catching guys on a heater and the lesson learned with Scotty is like Xander's wins have been super bundled. Like this is a very tight window that he's had all of this winning occur in.

And I, my only concern was Zander is just fatigue. Like I was out there today. Yeah, that's all. And really not even Thursday, Friday, as the tournament goes on, would be the concern. Hey, hey, my eagle enthusiasts. Let's get down with some good times with our friends at Fandul. Step up to the T and take a swing at betting the PGA tour on the Fandul sportsbook.

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Call 1-88-88-989-77-7-77 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. 18777-7-0 stop in Louisiana, 1-8-8-Hope-NY or text Hope NY, 467-369 in New York. The Tennessee red line is 1-800-9-9-9-7-8-9. 1,800, 522, 4,700 in Wyoming, or visit www. www.1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. Let's talk about St. Andrews. So the defense, it seems, because it was reported that it was 82 degrees over the weekend.

So the defense of the golf course will be firm and fast. That seems like if the wind does, you know, moderate in that 15 mile an hour, maybe it gets up to 25 just because of where it sits. You know, that's just cold. That's just the day that ends in a Y, that you get that, that kind of breeze. But you don't think that the combination of the firm and fast plus just the basic, you know, major pressure will have a dampening effect on the scores. You think Sobel that the guys will go out. I certainly, is subscribed to the notion that low rounds are possible,

but somebody stringing together, you know, uh, 466s or something, or, you know, 366s and a 65. Um, you think that's potentially in the cards? There will be at least one national or international golf writer

who writes a column on Sunday evening titled, is St. Andrews outdated. Yeah. Guys are just going to tear. It's, it's not that hard of a golf course. I hate to say it, but luck is going to play a massive part in this week's event. You're going to bomb it out there.

The ball's never going to stop. If you hit one into the face of a little pot bunker, all of a sudden you're making a six or seven somewhere because you've got to go out sideways, then you've got to get yourself back into shape. Whereas the ball bounds past the pot bunker, goes another 75 yards down the fairway, and you've got to wedge in on a par five. I mean, it's just getting lucky breaks and getting good balances. I know people don't want to hear that.

I know people, especially in the betting world, are going to say, no, I'm looking at the metrics, I'm looking at strokes gained, I'm looking at T to Green, I'm looking at form, I'm looking at all these things. And trust me, I'm looking at all those things as well. But at some point, someone's going to walk off the golf course. Justin Thomas was talking about it before the Scottish Open last week, where he was asked about his fairly poor record at the Open Championship.

And he said, look, I've been on the wrong side of the draw a few times. I'm not making excuses, but I've had a bad draw a few times. And then there are other times I just got unlucky. I didn't feel like I played that badly. It's just like ball winds up in a bad spot and I can't make a birdie. Instead of making a birdie, I make a bogey. And so you're going to see guys at the end of this week who go, man, I just, I didn't go to a bunker all week.

Tiger back in 2000, didn't hit into a bunker on this golf course. He wins. You know, if Tiger's drives wind up in bunkers, two or three times every round, that week. Does he win the 2000 Open Championship? Maybe still. Maybe not. It maybe gets screwed. It's in the face of a bunker and all of a sudden he's got to go out sideways. Like I said, you know, he doesn't win that golf tournament. So they're going to be guys on Sunday go, yeah, yeah, didn't hit into a bunker. It was pretty easy this week. Played great. Then there are other guys going to be shaking their heads, maybe even Friday afternoon after missing the cut

going, I did nothing wrong and just got screwed every single time I hit the ball and it went the wrong spot and that's why I'm not playing the weekend. Well, there can only be one champion golfer of the year and it certainly takes some luck, but it also takes an enormous amount of skill. As you know, you are currently on a podcast with a man who has at least three rooms in his house built out as a shrine to one Rory McElroy. I read your piece today and you led with the man with whom you had a 45-minute conversation, So my friend, make your case for Rory. Every single narrative, Nate, this week is pointing in the direction of Rory Macquarie.

It feels so much like last year's U.S. Open, where we're all sitting there looking at John Rohn saying, I know it's a short number. He's the favorite this week, but he's definitely going to win, right? And so I'm looking at Rory this week thinking the same thing. I get it. It's been eight years since he's won a major. He's got all the scar tissue built up from, you know, all the. close calls. He's been top 10 at the first three majors this year. He's finished the top 20 and

seven straight starts. He's in form. He's sort of carrying this, not the weight of the PGA tour, but sort of being the most vocal leader in the game right now, both on and off the golf course. You know, he's hanging out with Tiger Woods playing practice rounds. Everything about Rory is screaming. This is a guy that's going to go out and win. And I'll give you one more. And I know you read the peace date, but for those who have it, here's a little history. lesson for you. The 50th Masters happened to me, 1986. If you don't know what happened that year, spoiler alert, Jack Nicholas won that one, his six three or green jacket at the age of 46. The 100th U.S. Open, big celebration. Back in 2000, they went to Pebble Beach. Some guy named

Tiger Woods won by 15 shots. The greatest anniversary celebrations in the history of the game have been won by absolute legends. I can't see a guy coming out of left field, a guy who's 80 to one this week and going, oh, wow, he won the Open. That's nice. It's nice. I think it's a big name. And Rory's the guy for me. Unfortunately, obviously, I am joining you. I've already bet Rory, I have him at 11 to 1. I have him at 10. I'm going to keep doing it. House, over the last couple of weeks since the odds, at least in my book, have been up for the open, every time I start looking down there and going, oh, you know what, that's a nice

number on him. I train myself. And this is a lot of willpower, because I don't usually do this. I go, wait, yeah, it's a great number on Robert McIntyre. I think he's a really good player. Bobby Mac. I'm going to put on Bobby Mac. And I'm throwing it on Rory. Rory's going to win. Listen to you fucking guys. Put it out and put it all over the tape.

I'm basically going to have outwrites on one guy this week. It's really the way it's going to be second or third. Oh, no. Here's the other aspect to this. If we're really going heavy with this karma stuff, the last time this tournament was at St. Andrews, Rory was supposed to come defend it. Instead, he made the poor decision to go have a kickabout with his buddies, and he ruined his ankle. He was the defending Open Championship

champion going into 2015. He hurt his ankle. He has not won a major. Since then, we are finally back at the Open Championship, the opportunity for redemption on the biggest stage at the biggest moment is staring us right in the face. Now, the only thing that scares me, honestly, with Rory. The only thing. The only thing that scares you. Matthew Fitzpatrick was the so on the nose pick for the U.S. Open. Like we sat, we went through as like, oh my God, there's no way. he was you know he's he's a tough course guy he's you know he really showed out at the pga championship yeah and then what he did at brookline can he possibly go for full circle with his first major at the same place that he won he's going to stay with the same family and you know all all that stuff is like

that's too odd than those that's corny ass BS there's no way that's going to have and now here we are once again what's rory back and rowing god damn it i think i have to I mean, we have to go in this direction, Nate, dog. What are we going to do? Let me just, since you two are so in the bag, I got to carry you out to the trash, both of you. Who are we off this week? I'll tell you one guy,

I loved that conversation between Rahm and Tiger, where Tiger was asking him about his swing. But the only intelligible part that you could make out was Ram saying, when I was hitting it good last year. And for me, that spooked me. I just, there's something that's not quite right about Rom, to your earlier point about JT. There's something he's still working through and grinding on.

I keep waiting from to break through. I mean, he won the U.S. Open over a year ago. And outside of Mexico, which was not a real win, that's really the last real win he's had. He's due, but I just feel a little nervous about him. Is there anybody else that we're definitely off this week, Sobel? I think it's really tough. Rom's definitely a guy that's not really on my radar this week. J.T. is the other guy. I mentioned him before potential back issues. And I get it when you,

when you withdraw from the travelers the week after the U.S. Open, there's like, yeah, okay, he's quote unquote injured. Yeah, sure. But then he was a tweet all weekend about, hey, I can't move and I've got to listen to some good podcasts. Any recommendations. Right. He was serious. That's a whole thing. And that was only a few weeks ago. It's a little colder there. It's not really cold, but still you got to bundle up a little bit with a bad back. That doesn't seem good. So J.T. is a guy that them off. There are a couple of guys who haven't played well recently that I kind of like this week for a few reasons. Victor Halvin is one who's, he's been terrible. He hasn't finished the top of 20 to stroke play events since March. I don't know what's some blow up holes.

But you look at what what's wrong with his game. He's like, I have the numbers in my piece this week, but he's like 28th strokes gained off the T's 10th and strokes gained on approach shots. He's 20th and strokes gained putting. He is dead last in strokes gain. He's dead last in strokes gain. around the greens. And that's just as usual. It's fascinating to me that a guy can be a top 10 player in the world and be so bad at one very aspect of the game.

That said, he's not chipping through sticky Bermuda this week. You know, he's not trying to like wedge something out of thick bent grass like you would in the northeast here in the United States. You know, you can basically take a putter from off the green everywhere and never even play a wedge shot. So I think Victor Hovland, who hasn't been playing well, maybe has a chance. And guys, you're going to tell me I'm crazy for this.

And I don't even know if I like it. I'm trying to talk myself into it, maybe for like a completely contrarian DFS play. But doesn't it feel like the kind of course where if Bryson is somewhat healthy, he just hits about four to seven yards on every drive, doesn't ever have to hit a seven iron or an eight iron and can just kind of like drive and wedge and putt his way around this golf course? It all just comes down to the putting. I honestly

don't hate Bryson this week. We kind of use the U.S. No, but here's the thing. We use the U.S. injured. Yeah. This is precisely the point. To me, the U.S. Open was the marker. We get to see him. He hit the, the, the, the, by far the longest T-ball on 18 as we sat on 18 for many hours and drank so much ranch water. Anyway, Bryson had by

far the longest drive of the day. And really the U.S. open exercise for me at least was the true test of is he back in terms of the health component. Now, there's certainly still some rust to his game,

but I don't disagree with Sobel in the sense that he's going to be very comfortable with whatever club he chooses off of every single team. and if he just wants to hit, you know, 16 drivers, because there's only two part threes. If he wants to hit 16 drivers, he can do it.

And if he thinks he's going to have wedge, if he thinks his wedge game is dialed in, and then it'll be for him a putting contest. I'm curious as to why we have made it this far in without talking about the defending open champion, the last year's out of nowhere winner, the guy who really blew up all of the historical trend lines for this thing.

And that's Colin Orkawa, when we're talking about guys that are not in very good form. You know why? Because he's just a guy. He's just a guy. Is he just a guy? Listen, he's spending all of his time talking about watching JT's shot shape at the players and how he needs all nine shots to be able to do it. He's not just a guy.

But he has not been himself of late. And he's talking about. other guys' games in ways we haven't heard. Sobold, tell me, what is going on with Marikawa? So, yeah, clearly hasn't been his best this year. He's been good, not great, obviously. Look, he got everybody off the scent last year. He'd never played in Winkst, went to the Scottish Open, finished in 71st place. There was nobody on him for the Open Championship. Guys said, like, yeah, I don't know how to like hit my irons on this kind of turf. All right, one of the best Iron players in the world doesn't know how to hit his irons.

Yeah. Seems to neutralize his strength. I don't like him. And he goes out in wins, of course. So I, but I still kind of worry about is there still some of that? Like, did he figure it all out last year? Did he get lucky for four days? I don't want to say lucky.

Did he just, they kind of clicked for him for four days. And he gets back there this year and it's like, wait, how do you play Lynx golf again? So I'm still not completely sold on Colin Morcowah as a link's golfer. And I'll throw in one more guy who this year really reminds me. of Colin Morikawa last year. And that's another fade for me this week, but I'm a little worried about it. A lot of people are going to be on Will's Allotaurus this week just based on the fact that he seems to show up for every major championship and play his best golf. He's due for a brick. You're right. He's due for a brick. No form overseas whatsoever. He's never been a guy that we've

seen at a links course and go, wow, he's really got the game for this. Now, can he pull off of Colin him or Cowan and do exactly what Colin did last year saying, I don't know how to play length golf. I haven't done much of it and haven't had any success and all of a sudden figure it out for four days. Sure, he's talented enough, but he's a fade for me for those reasons. He's never won a golf tournament. Come on. He's not winning the 150th in St. Andrews. I will say this. I had, I watched a lot of his round deliberately because I am, you know, sizing up my relationship with, I mean, he's been nothing but rewarding for us. Yes. All season long. He's been. He's been, an absolutely terrific play at every major.

And I couldn't recall having seen him play any kind of link style golf. And I watched him try and hit a five iron out of the Fescue. And the Lai actually looked great in the first round. Of course the Fescue grabbed the hazel. He looked like us. I mean, it snapped it. He pulled down. It was closed club base.

He didn't look like us. Well, he hit it 120 yards into the Fescue again. I mean, best you to best you, that's what I do. Yeah, okay, fair enough. And then he hit it on the green and I got very close to making the putt to save par. He didn't, but in any event, the thing that I wonder about as it relates to Willie Z in the context of this Moracawa conversation, Kalamorikawa got to play was Royal St. Lithon last year under the under conditions that literally looked like he was playing in San Diego. They had no weather whatsoever.

There was no. And so he just had a very comfortable, you could have picked that golf course up and dropped it in any temperate climate. That's why he had talking about the low and high shots this week because he didn't have to use them last year. You know, the Morikawa, yes. But will he see? What if what if the weather turns out as the early week forecast is suggesting where it's not a factor? Do you have any concerns about his ability? to make birdies and bunches at this play.

He certainly drives the ball accurately, and his putter comes alive in a hot way when it's major time. He's got the hot putter. He's got the HP when it's major time. Putted the great at the U.S. Open last month. I get it. I watched it. I was there. I still do not trust Will Zellon Torres. To win a major tip.

It looks terrible. Look, that doesn't mean he's not going to win. He's good enough where he can put below average. and still win a golf tournament. It's going to happen at some point, but I don't necessarily trust it. He's going to know. He did have a put to force a playoff.

Yes. It was in his hands. He had the putter and he had the ball and he hit the shot. The shot, the drive was awesome and the approach was awesome. And he had the putt to force the playoff and he missed the putt. I understand it. It wasn't that bad of a read, but I understand. Yes.

He's going to spend all fall with Faxon or somebody. And he's going to figure out how to put. He's going to come back in January and be dangerous. as hell. I just don't trust it right now. I've seen it too much in person. It's not good enough. Okay. Sobel. So we've hit on a bunch of the big names, a little bit of outliers, guys to fade. Give us one of your favorite under the radar guys as we size up this week and, you know, somebody that is not going to make any headlines. And then it's Thursday. You're like, holy shit, look at the 64 by that guy. Okay. Depends on how far under the radar we want to go. Like some people are like under

the right, like I watch it all the time. I love when, you know, it's people on Twitter, people on TV, go, I got a sleeper pick this week. I don't know. Sam Burns is my big. Yeah. That's right. So it depends out under the radar we want to go. I love Tommy Fleawood this week. I won't call him under the radar, but I love him this week. I think he finished his inside the top five. I'll probably have him third. I'm going to work on my ranking later today. I'll have it out probably tomorrow. Top 50 ranking that I do for every major championship. I'll probably go, it'll definitely be Rory one. There'll be a big space between one and two. Speed two and Tommy Fleetwood number three. Again, not too far under the radar. You want some total under the radar guys. Robert McIntyre is a guy who

has finished sixth and eighth. He's a Scottish guy. He, I think he's the guy that really kind gets up for these major championships. He needs something big on the line to go play his best golf and he's done it already. Thomas Dietrich, I don't know what they got in Belgium where all of a sudden, every couple of years, they come up with a guy who hits at Miles, who looks like he's going to be a superstar. I never do a story, going to dinner with Nicholas Colsarts, where I did a story on him, I thought he was going to be like the next number one player in the world. I was convinced that Colsarts was an absolute star. Great dude, got injured, got sick for a while. I'm really sick.

And he's like outside the top 700 in the world. Thomas Peters has been actually really good this year. I like him. Top Tree is a guy that two top 20s and his last three starts. Again, for a top 10, top 20 play, I like him. I'll keep going down the list. I'll just shout out a few guys here. Jordan Smith, who might have been under the radar until last week.

And then we saw us hole in one. Yeah. He's three times on TV. And now he's not under the radar anymore. Maybe a couple of these live guys. guys, Justin Harding, Scott Vincent, Lori Cantor. Just sort of random guys that, hey, they've been playing well. I get it.

They're live guys. And a lot of people are going to kind of just stay away from live guys just because. I don't mind a few of those guys this week. And then how about as up right now, the last player in the field happens to be the guy that should have, could have won the Travelers Championship. Sahithi Gala, we've looked at him all. I've been talking about him for six months now. Like he's really good.

He's going to be one of the favorites at a major champion. You've been on him from the Pepper Dyn days. The guy is really good. I said after the traveler as well, so much forever getting a good number on Thigala ever again. He has opened up at 150 to 1. Again, I don't think he's going to win. But if you look at some of the other guys who are 150 to 1 this week, Phil Mickelson, Padrick Harrington, Brian Harmon, Siwu Kim, Eric Van Royan, I would hammer Thigala in a matchup against any of those guys.

Yeah, we're hunting matchups. that's the best way to play Sahee's, right? Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Well, you're on the radio all week long, as is your way. Tell everybody, it's Sirius XM. It's the PGA Tour channel. What are the times?

I have no idea. Whenever they walk. Do Ryan Seacrest of golf? So many jobs, he doesn't even know what's happening. You're on today, I know. On today. We've got the usual show hitting the green. Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

two to four Eastern time. Two to four. I'm hosting. They wrote me in to host the post game show. I believe three to five p.m. Eastern time this weekend, Saturday and Sunday. Edbrand, the big gun to host a post game show or either that or like nobody else said I'd work on the weekend. We got a piece up on Action Network. Yeah, I got stuff on that.

And your rankings will be up at Golf Bet, part of the Action Network, right? This is one of 17 different podcasts I'll do this week. This is my favorite one that I get to do with you. Thank you for saying that. Our celebrated champion. All right. Well, look, I think we hit it all. We're rooting for some kind of weather change.

At least I am. I would like a change in the weather forecast because I would prefer this to not be a birdie fest. But under whatever conditions this thing sets up, lines up for, we all love Rory. And it's just the way it's going to be. this week. I mean, you know, we're just going to have to write it out that way. There we go. My birdie buddies, my eagle enthusiasts, my part saving pals, our thanks, uh, as always to our buddy Jason Sobel. Thanks to the Nate dog. Thanks to our producer, Isaiah Blakely. We're back. Uh, Wednesday. Of course, it's big time, big time major week.

We're going to be with our big time data analytics friend Justin Ray. That's Wednesday. In the meantime, please, why not sneak out? The days are long. We'll get an afternoon round in and let's hit them straight out there.