Fairway Rollin' - The PGA Championship Recap

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

House and Hubbard join up to discuss the ascent of Scottie Scheffler and the rarefied air he occupies in his still-young career. Plus, they have the tough Rory conversation, a long list of people who pissed off Nate this week, and much more! Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the brand new Zach Lowe show. That's right. I'm back to have the same in-depth NBA conversations you're used to. We're going to talk about the games. Yeah, the games, the X's and O's, the drama, the trades, the playoffs are coming up. And now you get to see every episode in full on video on Spotify and on my own YouTube channel. Episodes drop every Monday and Thursday with a collection of guests you're going to love. So make sure you follow and subscribe to the brand new Zach Lowe show.

on Spotify or wherever you watch or listen to your podcast. Let's go! Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf podcast, unlike any other. Oh, yes, my friends, we have done it. This is your PGA Championship Recap here on Faraway Rowling. A golf podcast on the Ringner Podcast Network. I am your starter, Joe House. By birdie buddies, my eagle enthusiast, my par, saving pals.

We have a champion. The shortest odds on the board paid off once again. I'm joined by my incomparable accomplice. Our PGA tore boots on the ground. Nathan Hubbard. It's a two ball. And off we go. Nate Dogg, do you feel like you're conforming?

I really enjoyed myself. I, this was, my, my driver's fully conforming, this major fully conformed for all of the covitzing in the beginning about what the leaderboard looked like slowly but surely the cream rose to the top. We actually had a moment today where it looked like John Rom might actually do it. But at the end of the day, Scotty was just superlatives house. Talk to me. Yeah, so let's just dive into the superlatives. We have, of course, from Justin Ray, now 15 PGA Tour wins for Scotty,

with three majors before the age of 29. He joins Jack and Tiger. Multiple Masters wins, multiple players championships and a player championship. He joins before the age of 29, once again, Jack and Tiger. So that's the company. That's who we're talking about.

That's the rarefied air that he, occupies. And I want to make sure, like for full context, let's go ahead and check in with our good friend Kyle Porter, who tells us that Scotty Sheffler's last four seasons, Nate Dogg. 82 starts across the four seasons. Forty-five top fives. Forty-five top fives and 82 starts. 18 wins. Three majors, two players, a gold medal. Should I ask you to guess how much many Miss Cutsi has? Three. Four. Great job. Great call.

$75 million in official PGA tour money, 141 weeks at world number one. We are witnessing a transcendent talent, and I'm very pleased to be here for it, Nate, Doug. I mean, we started this podcast, when you and I first started doing Fairway Rolling together, we talked at the season premiere about this guy, Scottie Shephler, who was coming off the corn fairy tour. And it's just been a joy to watch him

evolve. But I have to say, what we saw from him Saturday and Sunday was killer stuff. And it really stuck out to me because we didn't get killer stuff from some of the contenders who are great golfers with major championships under their belt. But they did not have the, you know, eye of the tiger in the way that Scottie did. And I am going to remember this major for the telecast for two times. One was Rom over a birdie putt on 12, having just birdied 10 and 11 today. And Scotty is, the wheels are off. He's pulling his drives left. I texted you. He looks incredibly vulnerable. And if this keeps going the way it is, ROM is in this thing. And as Rahm is putting, you hear noise in the background.

Rom misses his put as Scotty makes the birdie on 10 to steady himself, go on and shoot 300 on the back, well, 200 with a gimmie bogey on the last. And then, but really the tournament turned for me yesterday. When Bryson was there on 17 with a put, and he had to back off that par putt because there was noise coming across the lake from 14, where Scotty, who had played decently well, but had not grabbed this thing by the throat, grabbed this thing by the throat with that drive to inside three feet, the noise was so loud, Bryson backs off, misses the putt, makes bogey, and kind of fades out of contention in that moment. And those were just two, I'm looking you in the eyes, you can hear the work

that I'm doing, stab him right in the heart moments. And that's what we don't really, we really haven't seen that kind of killer since Tiger Woods. We haven't. That's a true story. And we've been struggling with whether or not we, it's acceptable to be using Tiger Woods as the reference point for this Scotty run. And we knew at various points over the beginning to this calendar year 2025 that there was a Scotty coming, but we had a hard time kind of pinpointing exactly when it would arrive. And lo and behold, we got it first in McKinney, Texas at the Craig Ranch cow pasture golf course. And then he validated. He took a week off. He did not play the signature event up in Philadelphia and instead prepared himself for this PG-H.

championship and arrive prepared. And withstood the challenges, including the mud balls on Thursday and Friday. And he had a lot to say about that somewhat out of character for him to give a long kind of explanation of something that's impacting him that's on it. He's not often that loquacious on like a Thursday. but he had some things to say about not being, not playing under preferred lie conditions on Thursday. And, you know, over the course of the tournament showed he kind of resilience.

Now, one thing I do want to mention, it was interesting, and it was a throwaway line by Dottie, but it goes right to the heart of some of the things we've talked about context-wise. Dottie said in between the ninth green and the walkover to the 10th T, that there was an attitude adjustment conversation. I don't remember exactly how she said it, but she observed, and she kind of chuckled at it. She kind of observed Ted Scott giving Scotty whatever he needed

in terms of a mental adjustment to the moment. And Scottie got up on 10 and striped the drive, striped the drive. Now this, again, I'll do it very quickly. this is the criticism that I've levied in the past against other extraordinary golfers that we enjoy who have friends on the bag or former guys that they played with, whatever, the difference between

that kind of relationship and the relationship that Ted Scott and Scotty have. I'll stop there. We don't need to do a full referendum on the caddy point, but I just wanted to make that observation. Yeah, and whether it was Ted or Scottie himself, one of the things that I really was surprised at, I guess, was how much fire we saw from Scotty this week. Yes. When he made that put on 18 on Saturday, the fuck yeah, baby. Even today, he had his first celebration and hug with Ted Scott and then slammed the hat to the turst.

And another F-bomb. And this was the problem with Scotty before he hooked up with Ted Scott was he actually ran a little hot, not unlike a few of his pursuers today historically have run hot. But it was that combination with Ted Scott, the sort of depth of exploration of his faith is, you know, the dedication that he has to his family that feel like balancing factors to that fire that burns inside him. It just, it can't go unnoticed that he was, like, it is rare for a guy to turn around around like he did. It was loose coming off nine. And for him to really be able to level himself, you started to feel the pressure for Scotty.

We talked about it coming in that quietly, Scotty has the wins and all of the superlatives that you just talked about it. You can frame him as in the woods and Nicholas conversation. because statistically he's been there. He's still 28. He's still got three majors. We've got a lot of guys who have more majors than Scotty Sheffler. One of the things I think we'll talk about today

is how you endure and how you keep that fire that we saw, how you keep it going. Nice to see you back, John Rom. Great job. Everything I wanted for me today, by the way. We'll come back to that. But it is just, it is,

there was a moment there where it could have been a, whoa. You remember he four putt on the green on 18 when he won his first masters? and okay, he got his second, but can he actually get some trophies in major championships outside of Augusta? And it just, that even keel demeanor, all of those things that make the between the ears part,

which so clearly was a problem for his closest pursuers this week in Bryson, in Rom, and yes, in Rory, who was a no-show, and through a bit of a temper tantrum, like a bit of a petulant child this week. I'm sure we'll get into that, too. I just thought all of the best parts of Scotty were on display today. And I don't think that you can say today he had anything close to his A game. He just didn't.

But he still was able to close the door, I think, because of what's between his ears. Yeah, I mean, he played good enough golf to finish one under. The missed put on 18 was the difference between shooting even par and shooting one under for the day. But under the conditions, it was an extraordinary one under or even or even. He shot, yeah, exactly. Yeah, he shot eating. Right. So.

Yeah, I know, but I'm saying if he hadn't missed the putt on 18 and that's, he's still, he's under part and it's a four, it's a three under back nine on a Sunday in which his peers fell back, right? So on that back nine on the back, the differentiator, what was the back nine? There is a temptation and let's go ahead and have the conversation. Speaking of the back nine of Scotty's performance on that back nine. And the way that John Rom kind of drove. off a cliff and I'm not going to succumb to this temptation. I'm not going to say that the reason

that John Rom drove off a cliff is because he doesn't have championship level reps, you know, on golf courses that are difficult enough for him to draw upon because he was, they're saying it on the golf channel right now. I mean, they are, they are, yeah, let Brandle is, Brandle is, he's saying that. We don't have to say. Because that's what you saw from Bryson on Saturday, too. I mean, he makes two birds. and then goes bogey double and he kind of pulls himself out of the tournament in a way. I mean, he did well today to get himself back into it and finish second, but he never really was in contention today. And Rahm does the same thing.

Bertie's on 10 and 11 hangs in there through the back. He's just missing putts. He feels great. Bogie double, double to finish. It's a conversation that's got to be had that is, I don't really want to pin it on live. Do you? No. Bryson has been competitive in five of the last six majors.

Bryson's giving us everything he can. Bryson's super quick. This is an easy aside for us. He doesn't have the golf clubs that he wants. He played two consecutive majors with golf clubs that he doesn't want to be playing with. His approach numbers are hot garbage. He said it before the tournament. I wanted to play with different golf clubs.

They weren't ready. So I didn't play with them. Yeah, he said, I got a couple tricks up my sleeve for the U.S. Open and it's equipment that I'm going to get. It's so much. He has so much. much effing talent. That's the point. This guy is out grinding. It's why we were positive about his prospects coming in here because if his approach numbers improved at all, then he's going to be around

the hoop. 47th off the T this week. 47th off the T or sorry, 47th on approach first off the T. So I mean, 25th around the green, 22nd, that is enough to go win this tournament. It's just about his approach play right now. And he hits some good approach shots, but we saw it at Augusta. We saw it here. It's just it is unbecoming of how great he is in all the other areas of his game. I will just mention he's not playing well when it gets tight. He's not. He didn't play well Sunday at Augusta. He did not play well when he got into contention yesterday and actually had the lead. He did not play well today. He didn't really play well Sunday of the U.S. Open at Pinehurst 21. He just got spotted three strokes by Rory. So there is a little bit of, I mean, he blamed a lot of the wind for the shot

on 17 on Saturday that went in the water. He was a little bit more deflecting of owning his mistakes, which by the way, John Rom-D did incredibly well this week. He was a different Rombo out there, a Zen Rambo, and that was- A happy Rambo. He was like laughing and smiling on that back. Here's the thing for Rom, and this is why I wanted to make sure that we cover. I do want to make a comment on the Bryson thing. Bryson birdied 14 and 15 yesterday and then a small mistake on 16 and a wrong club on 17 and he said that he had

perfect shots on 16 and 17. Do you believe him? No, he chose the wrong golf club on 17. There was an epic mistake to grab the equipment of yeah, of a nine iron. He hit a nine iron. He wasn't the wind. The win was a factor, but no, I think

that he made a bad decision. But the wrong point, I'm right with you, either one of the putts on 13 to par 3 that hit quite a bit of the hole. Unfortunate making par on 14. The put on 15, super makeable, super makeable birdie putt. Any of those, either one of those go in. And I think it's a slightly different end to the story. I think his last three holes are going to be overplayed because.

I think in that moment, then he knows he's down. Right. And he's got to go for it. So he goes for it on 17. And then, you know, okay, he pulled his drive on 18. Well, you're fucked if you're up there on the left. So even after. It was whatever time.

Like, you know. It was over. Exactly. And so he didn't come here to care about whether he was second to seventh. He came here to win. He's not playing for second or sixth, you know. He looked to me like he lost weight. He looked to me or he sounded to me like he was in a great mental space.

He understood the historical. importance of winning the PGA for a Spanish player. He knows his point in history. And what we were asking ourselves, listen, by Tuesday, I told you, hey, we got to watch his approach play numbers, right? It was great, great observation. Because in the major championships, that's what's been letting him down. And if his approach play is decent, he's going to be in this thing.

That's why he was 18 to 1 coming in. And he gave it a good go today. I mean, I think it's all there for ROM. It feels to me like he didn't like the year of poor play on the major stage. He cares. He's clearly done some things to his body. He's very clearly done some things to his mind. And it was awesome to have him back.

I was thrilled. It's such a good call. It's amazing to have him think now how rich our U.S. Open is going to be. Awesome. For sure, Scotty, killer maniac, can't wait to see it. Bryson with his new irons. We hope. Knock on wood. Whatever that is.

John Rom is in the conversation. Yes. Rory will figure out this new driver that he had to put into play on less than 24 hours notice. We hope. We hope. We hope. And then Zander, who was an afterthought in this event, but still, you know, every step further along the way in this season is a step towards his physical recovery and him getting the championship level reps once again. And so I wouldn't count him out in any way shape or form at Oakmont. Now we've got a big group of guys that can all win the major golf tournament.

F yes. F yes, Dave yes, Dave, dog. Yeah, and that's why I think the historical context for Scotty matters, because I don't think when Tiger was playing guys, there was just so much distance between Tiger and everybody else. And Tiger was great, and it should be celebrated and lauded. But if Scottie can break out, of this pack of like very worthy contenders who are great golfers in their own right, have their own things that they're awesome at, that's going to be put, that's what would put

him on a Mount Rushmore of golf is if he can go against these guys and actually collect enough of these trophies. That's what's going to be hard. That's why if you're sitting there Justin Thomas today and you came in playing this well and you missed the cut or your Victor hovelin still tinkering with your swing or you're Ludwig, you're not Ludwig, because Ludwig's young. But there's some guys who you can't lay, right, who are going to get passed over. They just are because these guys are a level above. And I think to your point, you know, there's a few of them who've missed a couple years of real crunch time reps. It shows maybe a little bit down the stretch, but it's not for lack of trying from here because I think they're all inspired to chase after Scotty.

and I saw changes to the way, at least the live competitors, Bryson and Rahm in particular, acquitted themselves this week. Well, how about this? We had our highest finish ever for Joaquin Neiman, a T8 in a major, inside the top 10 for a major. So we have a bunch of, you know. Back to our weekend. You could call whatever you want, you know, 68 on Sunday.

Yeah, we asked him, we asked him to show. show up for us. We were pretty disappointed on Thursday with the three over, and he did show up for us. So look, we love seeing good golfers play well. I will say, House, you know, there's something about the criticism that Quail Hollow took, and I don't really think you and I need to get into that debate at this point. It's sort of old news. But I will say the PGA generally, yeah, it's the easiest major or the least hard major in lots of ways. And so it needs to have its own identity. Does your game travel to the British Open and links golf. That's a completely separate thing that lots of guys, it just weeds out a lot of the middle tier golfers, right? It weeds out the Johnny Vegas's

and the Taylor Pendriths and Davis Riley was pretty impressive. But the guys who were hanging around the leaderboard that people were complaining about, British Open tends to weed that out. Augusta with the Greens and the course and the history weeds it out. U.S. Open with the difficulty weeds it out. So in the PGA, naturally these guys have a chance to to be more in the mix in the early days. But generally, and the reason that we like Carrie Hagan is set up is that over the course of four days, suddenly, middle of Saturday, it was Rom, Bryson, and Schaeffler all there at seven under for a minute.

And you went, holy shit, we got a horse race. You just have to be patient with the way it weeds itself out. And sometimes, once in a while, the Randos win. Rich Beam, come on down. Sometimes the Randos burn out, the way that Meadow did on 18 and JT. went on to win that tournament. That's part of the fun of this. And it's part of why I think having those PGA tour professionals in here give you that signal that on any given Sunday, maybe a guy, if he plays well for four days, can hang. It's the wonder of golf. But most of the time,

the way this tournament runs is you get what you got today, which is a little bit less separation because there's guys who can hang around in some ways that Davis Riley did after a triple today, right on the front and still hung around for a time. T2, but for the most part, you get a great down-the-stretch champion with the best guys playing. So we did get what we anticipated in terms of a final score at 11 under. We knew that for sure that this was going to be a different kind of experience than Valhalla last year. And even with the rain and so forth in the mud and, you know, we're playing it down, the guys were able to still score.

and for a minute it looked like, you know, a score in the 12 to 15 range was possible. But as always, you know, Sunday tightened up. And we did get some fun weather as opposed to annoying weather. The Thursday, Friday, we got some gusts that were confounding the guys. Just look to Bryson, just ask Bryson about Saturday. And that paid off. The one thing I'll say is, can we please just not go back to any venue where that's a regular PGA Tour stop.

That to me diminishes the overall unique aspect of the majors and takes away from the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, it should enjoy. It should, it should, it should have an esteemed place. And, you know, we, we've seen too many rounds at this, at this joint. Give us something that we haven't seen. I think that's it. And I, I, I still think it, it quits itself well down the stretch. I think the tough, you know, the par five, tenth, and then you got tough holes at 11 and 12, 13, 14, obviously the drivable turns the tournament a lot. You got a birdie 15.

And then it gets hard as hell. And down the Green Mile, that's what happened, right? I mean, Bryson and Rom were significantly over par through that Green Mile. Sheffler ended up underpar. That's the difference. So I think it's a course that's worthy, but we've seen it. And part of the fun of the truest last week was really getting to live. learn that course. That's right. And I just hope the PJ of America will do that. In particular,

while they've got a crew of people who know how to set up courses for tournaments, who know how to get a score where one guy gets the double digits and he wins, but the rest of the pack, yeah, we had 30 guys under par, but nobody other than the winner was better than six under. That's right. I think it might be time to go ahead and have the Rory conversation. Well, I'm going to let you start. Let me set it up because you're really angry. And I'm actually not. I'm not going to do a crazy rant. You're not? I'm not.

It's not going to be that crazy. One crazy rant a week for me. I had a crazy rant when Dallas won the NBA lottery. That was crazy. This is going to be a little more measured. Okay, but I think there's two issues that I want to hear your point of view on. Because the first is, hey, Tour, if you're going to get us involved in gambling and you're going to have it be a part of everything that we do around this sport, should you be telling us when

the second favorite swaps out his driver. There is the second issue, which is, is this a big deal that Rory's driver was maybe nonconforming? And should we look at even potentially the win at the Masters differently if he had a nonconforming driver? I think that's a short conversation, but it's a conversation that got really deep into golf Twitter, and some of it is because of the third issue, which is that Roy didn't talk to the media once. and including at the end of the day today,

he turned down all four opportunities. And even Amanda Ballionis, who is the nicest human being on the planet, took a shot at Rory when she thanked Bryson for coming on and made it very clear to the audience that he did not have to do that, but that he still came out and Romm himself came out

and did a conversation in ways they did not have to do it. Rory shirked all week, disappeared, and so, yeah, the festering conversation around whether there was something untoward about the driver situation happened. But tell me on those three issues, where you come down. Okay, let me start with the last point,

because that's the easiest to dispense with. And I believe it's well established how I feel about Rory McElroy, how I feel about his performance as a communicator, his performance on behalf of the tour, his performance as a top-notch world-class athlete. Having said all those things, that table is set. Roy's got some bitch in them.

Roy can be a little bit of a bitch sometimes, right? He can be a bitch. And this, to me, it happens to be one of those instances. Because I believe that he did not appear in front of the media because he was pissed. He knew that there was going to be disclosure about his driverhead being determined nonconforming. they told him, they asked him for comment in advance of the report coming out on Friday, significantly well enough in advance of that, including Thursday, because, you know, the timeline to, well, if Rory knew that they, why didn't he talk on Thursday, the report didn't come out to Friday?

Well, he didn't talk on Thursday because he knew the report was coming out. His prerogative, he could do whatever he wants with respect to the media. You know, the golf media thing is its own animal, and I don't want to continue to talk about that at all. I have two issues. The first issue is I don't understand the idea of random testing one-third of the field. The informing thesis for testing whether or not the driver faces are conforming, I believe somebody can help me understand it, but I believe at its core is to protect the field. And the best way to protect the field, in my humble opinion, would be to test the entire field. and test the entire field sufficiently well in advance for anybody whose driver face was found to be non-conforming

could make a change and deal with it and do something about it. I have seen some explanations for why the logistics are a challenge. And just for the purposes of context, the PGA of America asked the USGA. The USGA is the governing body that has the technology and the technology. the personnel to do this testing. The PGA of America asked the USGA. And I don't know whether or not each of the majors, which are their own governing entities, if each of them go to the USGA and ask for this on a routinized basis, it doesn't matter to me. If we are trying to protect the field, then why not test the entire field sufficiently in advance so that to the extent anybody's driver

face is found non-conforming, they can do something about it. Do you feel the same way about drug testing? In what context? Should, because they do random drug testing of sample of guys every week. Do you think they should test every guy every week? I'd be fine with that. I don't care. The drug testing to me is of no significance or import when it comes to professional golf.

They could take steroids, they can smoke pot. They can do cocaine. They can take whatever thing will cause their mind and body to slow down to a below 50 pulse. I don't care. I think the competition is hard enough that it doesn't matter. Each individual guy, you know, that part of it to me is of no import or significance. What matters to me in terms of the competition, the two things that these guys have is their basic physical health. and their equipment.

Those are the two elements of the competition. So I need to know who's healthy coming into a major, and I need to know that the guys aren't swapping stuff out. Like, it's fine. Lots and lots and lots of times we hear about equipment changes in advance where guys, I'm going to put a seven wood in. I'm going to put a nine wood in. We heard about a bunch of nine woods into the bags

where guys replaced different parts of their equipment as part of their strategy. I mean, Phil had two drivers in his bag for one of the, I don't think for a master's. But do you think they have an obligation to tell us that for gambling purposes? Of course. Of course they do. Even if I'm trying out, even if I'm trying to decide whether to hit a two iron or keep a wood in or driving iron or if I'm going with my mini driver or if I change the head,

you know, I'm trying out three drivers that week. And I just, it's every player's obligation to report what they've done and how it's different from the last time they played. I want the information to be available. I want to be able to find the information. What we have right now is a system where the body that's doing the testing insists on some type of confidentiality. That I don't understand. They have given a statement about why.

They say because we don't want the players answering any questions. That's fine. Because they find no ill-intent. They find no ill-intent. If a player cheats, then, yeah, you've got to face the music. and they'll get called out. But in this case, it happens so frequently. Right.

And it's kind of a no big deal. Right. What you're totally pissed about is that Rory drove the ball like you drive the ball this week. After leading the tour for the most part this year in off the tee. And it's the thing that we loved about him being here. And I'm the guy who picked him to win and looked like a dumbass because he was 34th off the T this week.

And just, you know, if Rory's going to win a golf, and by the way, he was 67th on approach. So it wasn't just the driver changed. Roy didn't play very well. That's the fact. Yeah, that's all true. You are saying that you think if you had known that he was swapping out for a different driverhead,

that it might have impacted his odds or the way that you would have bet Rory. Is that right? I don't think it would have impacted his odds at all, because it's impossible to assess what, whether or not there's an impact. And you'd have to have a lot more information about, has he tested this other driverhead? Has he,

you know, how many times has he hit the other driver head, the replacement driver head? You know, is there, what's the comfort level there? And I don't think it's necessary to have all of that information. I just need to know the basic fact.

You just want to know. He switched driver heads. That's it. That's fair. That sets the playing field. That makes it, that makes it. Okay.

Because what we can't have is what we had this week, which is he, He was, he leads the tour in strokes gained off the tea. He's number one. He was number two in strokes gained off the tea over the course of the truest championship. And then he showed up with a new driverhead on Thursday and was 85th on Thursday in strokes gained off the tea. So you tell me, causation, correlation, you tell me.

But that information at least lets people before they take money out of their pocket and pour it into a a sports book, you can at least say, okay, I understand a reason for why this happened. We were looking for reasons. You, me, and Justin Ray, how do you distinguish when you're looking at this week coming up? We had this conversation

one week ago at this time. We're trying to choose between Bryson and Scotty and Rory. You took Rory, I took Scottie, and Justin Ray took Bryson. We're splitting hairs because they're all incredible. The talent is there. One of these guys changed

the most important part of his effing equipment set up, and it happens to be the most important piece of effing equipment in his effing bag, and because he is the best effing driver of the effing golf ball on planet effing Earth. Is that relevant information? I feel like it is. Well, I'm glad that we're not doing any crazy rants today, but I will add a little bit of information. Those are just facts.

Those are just facts. Zander in his post-round press conference today insinuated that, Scotty had also failed and that he had swapped out his driver. I heard this rumor. All I'm going to say to it is this happens all the time. It does. Because guys fail the conforming test and also because they're searching for answers and they change the shaft.

They change the driverhead. So you're going to get a lot of detail. It puts a lot of burden on the player and maybe that's what they need to do. I just think I'm surprised. that this smokescreen is covering for the discussion of Rory won the Masters. Great. He won his fifth. He won the Grand Slam. Awesome. He went on the Tonight Show wearing the green jacket. Great. He showed up at Quail Hollow where he was supposed to win and went back to disappointing Rory in majors. You can forgive him. I'm ready to give him full cover. I give him full

cover for you are. I do. I mean, there are two things that took him out of his routine. He finished T7 up in Philadelphia, a golf course that he's never played professionally in stroke play. It wasn't the weight of the major. It wasn't Quail Hollow, the best mother-effing player on Earth at Quail Hollow. Again, a data point. All I'm sharing are data points. Who's better than him at Quill Hollow? You think it's pressure?

He's supposed to win. And once again, he showed up and did not play well. For two reasons. He swapped his driver head within 24 hours. and he, in the same 24-hour span, was told that there was going to be a report disclosing the fact that he had to swap driverheads and he didn't like it.

And so I would say that this performance was entirely attributable to those two disruptions to routine. That's all. My reason for picking, Rory, was because I thought that with the weight off his shoulders of the Grand Slam, all of that emotion and the demons and, like, Ghostbusters, you know, box, the Pandora's box that got opened on 18, that he was going to come in and play free.

And that Quail Hollow was in big trouble. And that Royal Port Rush later in the summer was in big trouble. And that pretty much every major from here, now it was just like foot down, we go. That pressure's off. And the best player who should have had nine at this point or seven at this point is going to go get him. I'm just saying if he is now relieved of all that pressure and psychologically in a different place. He showed up at Rory McElroy Country Club

and laid an egg. And if he's going to be rattled by a routine thing that happens to a third of the players in the field. That's you're filling in blanks here. How routine?

How often do players inside of a 24-hour span swap out, players at his level pretty frequent. Well, I mean, we don't have any information. This is my only,

my main complaint is you have to fill in blanks about routine because we don't know anything about routine because there's no disclosure about it. Okay. That's all. Well, we, we, it goes one of two ways than for you. It is either a mandate that people when they change out their equipment have to sort of, that has to be tracked week to week and they've got to detail exactly what's in the bag and is it different than what they played last week so that you know. That's the first thing. Whether or not the driver failed, you know, conform whether it had to be taken out of the bag because they hated the club and they wanted

something different, which is to say Bryson's going to have to report his clubs when he shows up next. But he did. He said at the beginning of the week, I don't have the irons that I want to play with. That's super helpful information. I bet him anyway, because he played pretty damn good with those clubs. But look, here's the thing. You and I don't know anything about how many times Scotty might have tested the replacement driver. This is the problem, right? If he could have been much better equipped to deal with it. Kind of. Yeah.

Yes. Yes. For sure. Come on, man. How are you going to get it? This is, I don't think it's, I don't think this is an extraordinary request. With the driver. No, no, no, no, no.

You don't need any of that information. You just every week, there is, there are ways to find out the basic composition of guys' bags. They're not, I don't think it, it, it, especially for majors, they're not enormous swapouts. And it is a routine part of, like, the composition of the bag is an item of curiosity. And many web places will go around and take pictures of guys' bags and say, look at this interesting compositions. You act like this is a Herculian task that I'm putting in front of the governing bodies.

I don't think it is. I think the detail becomes complicated and less helpful in the nuance of, did I swap it out because it failed a test or because I'm just, trying something different and when did I do it and all that. I think it becomes difficult. And I think I just, I'm just going to say it. Like, this was a super disappointing Rory performance. And I am now leaning forward to see if he bounces back from this and shows up at the U.S. Open and the British Open or if what we got at the Masters was, you know, the only way Rory's going to win a major is in that crazy, crazy drag his own ass across the line in a playoff and almost

choke it to death. And from here, we're back. to disappointing Rory McElroy at majors. Man, I'm not, I'm not, that's a bridge too far. Okay. Like I said, I'm willing to provide cover for him for this event. It was especially disappointing for him to not compete and not show the resilience to be able to deal with that adversity. Yes.

But what if the effing driver that he put in the thing felt like a snake? This is the problem, right? I mean, you and I have no way of knowing this. And with somebody, well, he'll eventually he'll talk. to the media again, and hopefully he will be forthcoming about how the thing felt in his hands and why he was 85th in Stroke's getting off the tea on Thursday. Okay. And as a part of that... Why it so impacted his mind state that he wasn't able to bounce back from that?

That's a fair enough kind of criticism, Nate. As a part of that conversation, in terms of ranking relative to his peers, he was best with the driver this week, other than around the green. So he was 67th on approach and 47th in putting. He didn't play good golf this week. And maybe it was all driven by the fact that he had to replace out his driver. Okay, I didn't realize you were that fragile. You looked pretty resilient to me and talked about how resilient you were in the press conference coming out of the master. So I, let's see. But yeah, my biggest beef is it festered because he didn't talk to the press about it. You can't, once it's out there, you got to make a statement. And if it is,

routine and no big deal, then say that. It's okay to be pissed. He doesn't have to say that. The stupid governing body should be saying it. And the stupid governing body should be saying it by saying, we test everybody a week before every major and the results are what they are and some guys have to swap out. That's not a controversy. Nobody's cheating. Pleading the fifth sounds guilty. It just does when you plead the fifth. I think you're guilty when you plead the fifth. It's a distraction that I see the gist of the observation we keep it confidential so the players don't have to answer questions. Well, that's only

like half helpful. How about have transparency? You own the questions. Here's our test. There are a lot of great stories came out. Here's what goes into it. Here's the science. Here's why it might fail. All that kind of stuff. The players shouldn't have to answer any questions.

There are no relevant questions to Rory. The only relevant question is, were you so in love with that driver that when you put in the other thing, it messed with you. That's the only like question I think that I want to answer out of it. Well, there was a question that we wanted answered from a lot of other guys this week about whether they were ready to go win a major. And a lot of them, a lot of them said resoundingly no this week, house.

Let's get to it. This is the Nate Dog list of losers. Let's go. I'm really pissed at you, Colin Morikawa. This is just, it's enough. already. T50 at a course in which, you know, you were 68th on approach and 63rd off the team. What are we doing? Like, what are these stats that you're, that you're racking up in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in the P2ndh. Those are not more a Kawa

like numbers. And we've been touting the fact that he would, trendline wise. And in terms of the metrics, like deep inside the numbers, there was a, a level of success that wasn't being reflected on, on, on the actual golf course. This week, he just sucked. I mean, yeah. And, you know, we were bullish on the idea that he had Joe Greenier on, did I say his name right? I mess his name up, I feel like, big Joe.

On the bag that there's a, you know, there's a helpful thing going on here, hopefully. It is. Joe Grenier's a really good caddy. Yeah, and he coax JT into a victory for Christ's sakes. But, you know, we tried to talk ourselves into Colin and we shouldn't have wasted our breath. And you also tried to talk me into Tom.

By the way, you did a very, good job this week. You were on Davis Riley. You had a good sense for a number of people who were going to show up and they did. And you gave out very good advice. So now I'm just- Danny McCarthy was my favorite. That was the one that I feel I'm proud of stuff. And we had some good birdie buddies sending us copies of tickets and stuff. Great job, guys. Yes. Again, great job. Tommy Fleetwood, terrible job. Why do you keep letting yourself get talked into majors with Tommy? All I wanted to do is a top 10 or a top 20. I mean, you know, we, we didn't say to anybody.

Well, you got a T-41. Okay. That's substandard, Tommy. Substandard. Just get out of here. Ludwig, something is wrong. Something is wrong. Three over on this show one week ago, I'd be more inclined to bet him to miss the cut

than to do anything in the PGA championship. I said it. The clip is out there, Nate, though. You did, and you meant it. There are some other guys who I was disappointed in just because I thought we were going to get better. I mean, Justin Thomas coming in. Like, I just, it's got to be better. Speeth, I'm looking at you too.

I'm going to be fair to Spieth. This is not his got to, this is not his kind of golf course. He's like, I love him at Port Rush. I'm telling you right now. I'm going to find the odds. In fact, I'll look right now while we're talking. I'm going to find the fan dual sportsbook and find his odds at Port Rush while we're doing. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. I like the little signs of life from Zander and Tony Fee now.

all that was good. Phil Mickelson, what are you doing? What are you doing? It sounds like he showed up Wednesday night, hit a few puts, and then went out and did it. I don't understand.

Do you understand it? What do you mean? He's a former PGA championship, so he has, they had a PGA championship dinner. He didn't go. You see the picture of the guys who showed up for it. What are you doing?

Why are we doing this? Why is there a PGA championship dinner? championship dinner. So Rich Beam has a reason to come back. But I don't get it. Yeah, I do too. I do too, which is why I think he should have a dinner. It's great.

But at least Sergio today had the self-awareness to say, if Luke Donald offered me a Ryder Cup pick right now, I wouldn't take it. Because I'm not playing a long enough. And I need to get my game. Yeah. And I need to get my game back to where it was before the Masters. All right. Fuck.

Yeah. Respect. Like he at least is being honest. about where he is and he's going to go work hard. And I'd love to see Sergio on the Ryder Cup team. But there's just some I don't give a shits that they're getting left behind. And when we talk about just to bring it back full circle, when we talk about where Scottie goes from here, three majors in the historical context, isn't that much, right?

He's behind Brooks Kepka. He's behind Rory McElroy. He's behind Phil Mickelson. He's behind. But right now, as you and I sit here, I mean, what is his? over under in your mind. Number of majors one right now. Scotty Sheffler, 28 years old, three majors. I'll set it at five and a half because I definitely think he can get to five and six and six is hard, but he can definitely get to six. So I'll set it at five and a half. Yeah. To me, it feels like,

it feels like seven or more for sure for this guy. I just think these have been, he first guy sent Sevy to win by this, his first three majors by this many strokes. I mean, he's doing some ass kicking and it is that killer instinct. I really believe that if Scotty wins fewer than eight, it's going to be disappointing. Not that like he has anything to hang his head about, but like I would be disappointed because he's super capable. Now, we're talking about a couple of guys who we would have said that about two years ago, John Rom, right, who feels like he's back on track, welcome back, understands the historical... Awesome to see it.

But there are things that can get in the way, right? Sergio was one of those. Patrick Reed was one of those. There's a bunch of guys coming off that tour who just seemed to lose the steam and lose the fire with success. I have to interject this because it was my favorite tweet of the entire week. Nelson Adcock,

at Nelson Adcock on May the 16th, about a billion dollars sitting outside the top 120. About a billion dollars. It is Cam Smith at T1.1. 22, Phil Mickelson, T-126, Kepka, T-128, DJT-1-44. I don't know if that's ultimately, where they all figure about a billion dollars sitting at the top 120, A-plus, man, a plus. It's great tweet, but it's gets at the essence of why Scotty is now the great hope

because he has the temperament and that fire that we saw in the green and the faith and the family that feels like it's going to drive him. Not to say John Rom doesn't have all those things, but there is no doubt, I think John Rom lost at least 18 months of his career because of its decision to go to live. It just looks like it. And whether it was dealing with the criticism,

whether it was he didn't play enough, whether it was he just got a lot of money and he didn't feel, you know, as driven. I'm happy to see him back. I'm just saying, I think Scotty, of all of those guys, has the chance to get further because of who he is as much as his game.

But we're only three in. So let's not start counting the chickens before they have fully hatched. This was a huge one for him, though, to get out of the, is this guy just Bubba Watson with two green jackets? No, this is not Bubba Watson with two green jackets with respect to Bubba Watson who had a great career. This is a potential on the Mount Rushmore face. Yeah. And with, again, with respect to Bubba, Scotty had already separated himself because back-to-back players, is not effing around.

Back-to-back players championships is, and the gold medal, the way that he won the gold medal, because John Rom, once again, let's remind everybody, that was his gold medal to win in Paris. He faded just like he did today.

It was a burning crash. I mean, speaking, talking about driving the damn truck off the cliff. It was a full-on burnout. And Scotty went and grabbed that gold medal. But, you know, that was John Rom's best performance in, in a competitive environment, you know,

post the decision to jump to live. He did finish inside the top 10 at the Open Championship. But, you know, I'm so thrilled to have him back. And maybe he can pose the formidable challenge because it really did seem like for a minute there where we were going to get the hand-to-hand combat coming down the stretch. He tasted it today.

He tasted it. He clearly wants it. Yeah, buddy. And I think it's going to be a fun summer because of it. I just think we now know who the dogs are. And we've got to stop trying to talk ourselves into the guys who aren't dogs. Because this is the era post-Tiger of a handful of, you said it as we came in. You said you had four guys who you thought could win. And you weren't too far off.

I mean, at this point, there's a few of the young guns, the Neiman's and the Obergs, who we got to see a little bit more of in these competitive situations. But there's a reason why it's going to be Scotty Bryson, Rom, Rory, there's a reason. I put Zander in there also. So I have five now. Yes, five. I put Zander in there.

Me too. Because he'll be healthy soon. I mean, he's probably already healthy. He just doesn't have the reps. And this was perfectly fine reps-wise to me. And it's wonderful to have that much uncertainty coming into these majors because what is happening is slowly but surely through the course of these four rounds, a couple of those guys are going to be going head-to-head.

And you love the Tiger era because it was. was a single person dominance. You got to love this era because you've got greatness and real fun challengers. It's like when the heavyweight division was awesome. Yes, agreed, agreed. I mean, I'm rooting for still yet Victor Holland to find it because I really do think that I'd be comfortable adding him to this group of contenders. Oberg right now looks like a one-trick pony to me because of just the performance at the Masters and it's such an outlier. I mean, obviously,

Tori was excellent and a reflection of caliber of play on a major championship venue style of golf course. But I want a little more... He's also in his second season. Yeah, I know. But he's not... He was in college a little while ago.

So, like, we can give him a little bit of grace. Yeah, but he's not 21 either, right? I mean, he's the same age of some guys that have accomplished some stuff. This was his sixth major. and here to four, he's missed the cut three times, he's got a second, a T-12, and a seventh. He's in the mix.

He's in the mix, yeah, that's all. I don't, I just don't think he's quite knocking on the door yet. And maybe there'll be some revelation about a piece of equipment or some other injury that nobody will reveal until the end of the season. But in any event, when we talk about growing the game, this tournament is that, Bryson running through the crowd, high-fiving everybody with his weird Ryan Day beard.

Where did that thing come from? Just at the last minute, he stuck that on his face this week. Scotty, they're all just their own characters. And now it just would be great to be able to tell that story more than four or five times a year. And I'm sure after Trump's very successful trip to the Middle East, I'm told, we're getting closer, house. Closer to what?

These things coming together. We're going to get to see this more than four times a year. We really are. Fingers crossed. I want to make sure that we give some shoutouts to some of other building block moneymakers. Nice to see Matt Fitzpatrick back on a major stage for a little bit. He got a little bit of TV time, a top 10 finish for Matt Fitzpatrick. Kegan Bradley showed up on a lot of folks dance cards this week.

And the captain really acquitted himself. Well, a final round. 72, but he was knocking on the door until the latter half of the back nine. He was on a little bit of a heater. Yeah. Greeted Scotty with a big hug at the end. Wonderful. Right before Bryson.

With Bryson, though. But look, this is a great observation by you. Bryson and Keegan were there, right? Yes. And Keegan gave a warm hug. How about Bryson giving the physical, like, manifestation? I am your teammate. I'm your teammate.

He also said, I'm proud of you, which was kind of a weird thing to say. but but like it was a really nice thing to say and bright brison's doing basically everything right at the moment you got to give him credit he's doing it all right i want to give shout out corey conners for some building block money making um looking down down the the list to see top 20 anybody else that you liked yeah i'm cori conners keeps collecting top 20s uh zaner even with the top 30 when he was clearly out of sorts with the final day 68 i like that I like Victor Hovlin inside the top 30. If you're looking for green shoots,

if you're looking for things that you want to sort of put your hat on, and we've got to give kudos to Alex Noren, his second start after being out with an injury. It made an amazing job. Yeah, you saw it coming today because he put in around the green was just unbelievable yesterday. But great performance by him. I will say Sam Burns is coming.

The game is back. We haven't seen it fully, but Sam Burns is coming. that Sam Burns call. And I think Ben Griffin with the T8, like we got to start paying attention. He won the tournament, team tournament in New Orleans, but that's a guy who you're going to find some interesting odds on every now and then because he's just not a big enough name,

but he's doing a little bit of what Eric Cole did a few seasons ago. He's just showing up and playing. And is he that guy? Probably not, but he's having that season. I don't want this to be the closing thought, but I did, while you were talking, go ahead and fire on Jordan Spee, 50 to 1. to win the Open Championship at Royal Port.

That a boy. 50 to one of the Fandall sports. We got a fire, got to have a little taste. Because I do think we haven't heard all that we're going to hear from Jordan yet this season. Closing thoughts, Nate Dogg? I mean, anything other than... I think golf Twitter's got to chill the fuck out on Thursday. It just has to because you're getting everything tied in a bunch and you just got to trust the process a little bit.

This was a great golf tournament that had great moments. and ended with real greatness on display. What Scottie did Saturday afternoon on the Back Nine and Sunday afternoon on the Back Nine, there are very few people who have ever played this game who can do it like he's doing it right now. So we've got to appreciate it and be grateful that we've got all of the other characters

in this cinematic universe right now. It makes me feel excited about the rest of the year because golf suddenly, after a couple years now, of it feeling like it was very dark. it feels very bright right now. It's better. I will say, I appreciate your glass. My glass, no, my glass is at equilibrium because I only, there was only like two hours of

must-see TV for this entire tournament. It was the run that Scotty went on, the latter half of Saturday. It was Bryson's run leading up to the Green Mile that coincided with Scottie getting hot. That hour was a good hour. And then the hour of John Rob and Scotty on Sunday being tied. Those are my two highlight hours. Otherwise, come on, make, let's get out of this.

I've seen enough Quill Hollow for a lifetime. Respectly, respectfully, respectfully. There we go. My Bernie buddies, my par-saving pals, my ego enthusiasts, we are back because the golf season does not stop. It is the Charles Schwab Challenge, better known as the Colonial. And we will see a lot of great players go from Quail Hollow directly there. Defending champion Davis Riley. there we go speaking of

coming right off of his outstanding PGA championship performance we'll go through that whole card we'll have some afterglow thoughts on Scotty Sheffler's dominance we'll see maybe Rory Rat McElroy will have spoken to the press between now and then

don't hold your breath but it is golf playing season if you're able to do so throw a peg in the ground in please let's head them straight out there