Fairway Rollin' - The PGA Season Concludes, and Dustin Johnson Is Victorious!

Episode Date: September 8, 2020

With the conclusion of the FedEx Cup in Atlanta, House and Nathan sit down to discuss Dustin Johnson's decisive victory and what it forecasts for the upcoming season (01:48). They also discuss the performances of Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, and the rest of the leaderboard, and how they might fare at the U.S. Open (19:47). Hosts: Joe House & Nathan Hubbard Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello friends and welcome to this golf podcast, unlike any other the FedEx Cup as a champion. This is the golf podcast on the Ringer podcast network known as Faraway. I am your starter, Joe House. It is Monday evening, Labor Day. We have our PGA tour correspondent on the ground, Nathan Hubbard on the line. and Nate and I are going to go through the scintillating, death

defying. I can't even bother. DJ1. It was great. Nate and I are going to get into it. The first tee is open. Let's stroll it over and throw a peg in the ground. Nate dog, what's happening, brother? California is 120

degrees. Everything's on fire including my chances of winning the Fairway Roland Doe jacket. F.U. Tony Fina out. F you, Kiz. F you, Bryson DeChambo.

God. Boy, oh boy. But top five, Tony was not top five this week. Top 20, Tony. Kiz lit our asses on fire. And just told us, you know, he took our good faith and turned it into something distasteful. But that's okay.

They showed Bryson twice. Both times he was hitting a ball into the water. Like they've turned him into such a clamor. They should just play kazoo music when they show him. Like they only now show him making mistakes and they laugh about it and then they go back to to the other golfers. It's such a disappointing Bryson finish to the season. Yeah, I don't know if they turned him into anything. I'm pretty sure Bryson played a role in this version that we've all been enjoying the last 13 weeks.

Here's Bryson on the 8th T. It's like, do, do, do, do, do, do, he's in the water. It's terrible. It is kind of funny. This place can be bomb and gouge. And so I thought that your forecast last week and putting him into the lineup was kind of shrewd. And then he completely let you down. It was a disappointment.

No jacket for me. No jacket for you or for me. I think I finished. We will talk about where we finish in the Fairway Rowan Do series at this event. We still have two events to go. So there is still a shot at glory. The U.S. Open and the Masters are still yet to come. And there will be Fandual contests for both of those.

But DJ has been on fire for a month now. I love some of the stats that came out immediately after today's outcome. How much money do you think DJ has won, Nathan, since August the 9th? I think it's $19 million. You know, that's an outstanding guess. It's 18. I think it was like 18.3, something like that. But yes. Are we the only people who are going to talk about the money today?

Because the telecast definitely did not want to talk about the money today. I think they recognize it's slightly unseemly to have, you know, of all the years, it's every year this event, this made for TV series and, and, for FedEx relentless promotion can feel a little awkward because it's the 30 like most successful guys on tour just really loading up their bank accounts now there are some nice stories Sebastian Munoz from Columbia I think finished top 10 and and for him not just the money but yet but including the money all the access and everything that the uh his making the top 30 in the first place carries along with it.

It's life-altering. And Scotty Sheffler finished great today. I think he had low round of the day. He had shot 65. He and Patrick Reed both shot 65. But, you know, there are some guys that we haven't seen. Brendan Todd, the Brendan Todd story remains as charming as it had been. Now, he shot 74 today.

Yeah, not with a 74 today. It was less charming for my fan duel team. But he did, you know, making it into that that top 30 and you know i i don't have the the money listing in front of me well yeah yeah i mean sheffler made two and a half yeah and he made a putt to make two and a half by the way to break out of a tie with morcawa uh munoz made one point one and uh billy horschold made three hundred ninety five thousand dollars and he didn't even really need to show up we never saw him once yeah billy i mean this is i'm disappointed we had a very good thesis for this week

with the Billy Horschell and Kisner and Webb and the correlation with the with the Georgia boys let us down and the whole with the whole thing just went flat. It was a great big wet fart of a correlation. So we'll just keep that in mind. Well, speaking of wet farts, and we made jokes about the fact they didn't talk about the money on the telecast,

but to be serious about this, DJ won $15 million, it's great. And in the post game live stream press conference, he made a joke where they asked him how he felt about it. And very lightheartedly, he said, I feel great. And my bank feels great too, right? So he did talk about the money, but it just felt like on the telecast that, you know, President Business was standing over Dan Hicks being like, do not talk about this, do not, do not talk about this. And the Twitter golf chatter got so loud about it that some intern ran into

the room on like the 17th hole and was like, we got to say something or they're going to think we completely sold out. And so at one point, he made a comment. I think Shafley was putting, had a 13, 14 footer on the last hole, and he mentioned that this was for half a million dollars. But if they're going to keep our attention, there's 30 guys this week, and we didn't see anything but the top guys coming down the stretch, which I get because it's a tournament. But there's a while where it wasn't very interesting this morning. And where some of the guys coming through at the end, we're making putts that we're going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars difference in their bank account. I mean, a T8 in this, Sebastian Munoz, you said, 1.1 million is what you make for winning on tour.

Usually, you know, a T8 is going to make you maybe less than 200 grand. So it matters, and I just wish they would lean into it. And then, hey, put a mic in front of DJ and say, lots going on in the world. How are you going to use this money in this platform for good? Let's, you know, we talk about the good things the tour does. Let's get those guys to talk about it. We just, it felt like they were trying to hand out $45 million in the dark. So this is exactly the tension with this event in this moment, in this extraordinary time that we're in, right? There is a bit of an identity crisis because of how, you know, the most compelling thing about this is, in fact, the money. The only thing that makes this interesting.

And I will confess, I watched very little golf over this weekend. And it was absolutely beautiful in the DMV in the Washington, D.C. area over the weekend. The humidity magically disappeared and I was out on the golf course my own self as much as possible. So I only sat down and watched really this afternoon. I poked in and out, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday just to see a little bit. But, you know, you see the leaderboard DJs just handling this business. And it's like, I don't need to like go commit three and a half hours to the telecast. And it's obvious that they were desperate, you know, to try and generate some narrative.

But like, you know, you can't manufacture drama. The only interesting drama to this event is the money. And it's a terrible time to be talking about rich white guys. There's like, you know, there isn't a lot of like natural storylines that emanate from professional golf that resonate with kind of the moment that we're in. But, you know, the competition today for about two and a half hours was interesting. Justin Thomas and Zanders Shafley both played really solid golf and made things. You know, if DJ had made one mistake on the back nine, it could have gotten really, really interesting. DJ just was not inclined to make any mistakes on the back nine today.

And so, you know, the only drama was really around second place. and that's all fine. But, you know, the tough thing is, on the one hand, we congratulate the tour. They got in 13 weeks, Nate. They did great. Honestly, against all eyes. They really, there were people calling for the tour to shut down, you know, sort of where we were a handful of events in and folks, you know, players and caddies were coming

down with the virus, but it turned out that the tour had a pretty good protocol in place to keep mostly everybody safe. And they successfully pulled off 13 weeks. You know, they didn't get to all the venues that the schedule called for. And so a lot of charities and a lot of communities didn't get the influx and infusion that the tour is capable of providing. But, you know, they have a schedule for next season, 50 events. And, you know, it looks like they're going to try and make up for that lost time. What do you think? Well, I agree with you on all those points. I just would have liked to see the tour not...

It was a little bit... It was borderline insulting to not talk about the money after it's hyped that way in so many places leading up to it. I think that the tour players want to and ought to be using their platform to contribute to the moment that we're in right now. And I think it's okay

you know, hey, LeBron James and a bunch of basketball players are making millions and millions of dollars right now in a bubble down in Orlando, and they are finding ways to make that money while also using their voices for social justice and change. I would have liked to at least let us own up to what this is and what's exciting and interesting about it. By the way, we're doing business development deals with every gambling site in the world as the PGA. We are. Right. And so the PGA is putting up odds and talking about. So there is a lot, here we are talking about picks every week, and I just would have liked for them to own it, but then own what comes with that. And what comes with that money and that platform is a responsibility to affect change and to use those resources for good. And I actually think you've got a group of guys on tour who, in their own way, do that. None, you know, more celebrated than Zach Johnson this week, who, you know, won the Payne Steward Award, which is basically the golf equivalent of man of the year. But this is a guy who has affected his community in tons of ways.

He and his wife and his children in all kinds of ways. Why not exempt Zach Johnson into the Tour championship? The guy who wins the Payne Stewart Award should automatically start at even par and get to play, just to bring to the forefront so much of the good that you pointed out the tour does. So that was my only disappointment today. I was not disappointed in the competition because for all those people out there, there, you tell me what you saw, but for all those people out there who've thrown darts at this is just a way to sort of hand out money, this was real competition with people who really wanted to

win. DJ has mattered to him clearly, and we know because Wayne Gretzky apparently told one of the golf reporters that DJ cared about that. But also Justin Thomas, you know, mentally came in with the lead last year and didn't handle it very well. And one of the things we should talk about today is JT, but for two puts, one inside two feet, one inside five feet, and then he brought out senior sloppy that right drive that he hits in the crunch time sometimes that screws him. He brought that out on 17. But for those three swings, he's in a playoff with DJ right now and anything can happen. So the golf was great.

I don't know how you felt. I liked the golf very much today. I was bored to tears by it. Yeah. Otherwise. I mean, like I said, the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Sunday. there really wasn't anything that really like, oh, I got to go sit down and catch this.

Do you care about who won strokes overall? Were you paying attention to that? Only because of the gambling aspect of it. So, and Zander won, right? It wasn't even close. Yeah, but if we could tweak this in one way, it feels like the winner should get 14 million of the FedEx Cup and there should be like a million dollar bonus for whoever has low strokes,

right? because I think Zander was what, 15 under and Schaeffler was 12 and then J.T. and DJ were at 11. So I don't know. I agree. There are all kinds of ways

to innovate with this. And there is a persistent and, you know, a reasonable criticism of the format. I think it will sort of be this way in perpetuity because,

you know, the tour does not want to give up on, you know, the stroke play format. And so, you know, I don't know what you do. Lots of folks have come up with suggestions, but I think it was fun. I just want to, I want to care about guys 25 through 30, you know, over the course of four days, as opposed to the top five who seemed to be, you know,

it's really the top four in Scotty Schaeffler, who were worthy of camera time unless they create some incentive structure that's a little bit different. That's right. And, you know, we're going to have to be content with that, I think, because I don't imagine tweaks. Like what you just mentioned in terms of tweaks makes a ton of sense. Giving the Payne Stewart Award winner an automatic sort of spot in it. And you can come up with, just make it a charitable thing. Take whatever money you want to associate that with and let it go to the charity of that player's choice.

That would be absolutely terrific. All right, Bertie buddies, quick break from this recap of the tour championship. We want to talk to you about Fandul and our Fandual lineups and how Nate and I did with our lineups in the Fairway, Rolling Doe, extravaganza brought to you by our good pals at Fandual. I honestly, Nathan, am relieved. I finished 1,063rd out of 2,000. 9,930, notwithstanding the very best efforts of Kevin Kisner to absolutely submarine my lineup.

It's humiliating to tell you that I did significantly worse and might as well have finished DFL in this competition because Bryce and Deschambo decided to treat this as a as a fun afternoon in Atlanta instead of a real business trip. And so did formerly top five Tony, now top 20 Tony. and Kiz, we overlapped, and Brendan Todd decided to shoot a 74 today. So I had Thomas and I had ROM. The rest of it, it didn't go so well. So in these things, I think you have to zig where other people zag. And so I went contrarian, and it really just definitively did not work out for me this weekhouse.

Well, you know who it did work out for, Nate. Poki, 777, 777, 7, 7,000, 5,000, $1,500 in his wallet, because he assembled a team featuring John Rom, Justin Thomas, Zander Shafley, Tyrell Hatton, Patrick Reed, Teryl Hatton was staring us in the face. How do we leave? And Scotty Schaeffler, our boy, who we talked about as the restart got going,

you were all over, Sheffler, and neither one of us had him in our lineups this week, Nate. Pokey Sevens, you got to tweet out us and let us know what your jacket size is. You haven't won it yet, but we're at least going to get a few made in your size. He's got to jump Mikey Las. Mikey Las won the PGA championship. Now, Poki 7, so we'll have to look at the leaderboard and see where those guys line up.

Two more events to go, though. We still have the U.S. Open in about 10 days. Redemption. And then the Masters, there's still an opportunity for somebody out there to take down the blue jacket as well of some of those great cash prizes and some ringer gear as well. I have another announcement for all of our pals. having to do with Fanduil that is absolutely sensational. Fan Duel and the Ringer are teaming up for football season. And we've got something new that we're all excited to talk about.

It is all season long the free Ringer mega contest on Fandual. You have heard of the super contest conducted by the folks out there in Las Vegas. Here's how it works. You pick five NFV. games against the spread. You pick one game as a double down. You get one point for every correct pick and if you're double down pick, you get two points. Fan duels adding up your score every week. You have to finish in the top 100 on the season long leaderboard. You get into playoffs and that's when the cash gets going. You compete for a share of $25,000. All you got to do is go into

this free contest, pick the five games that you like the best against the spread, and see how you do, Nate, what do you got? It's season one in the NFL. We're going to play football, it feels like. Who do you like this week? I don't understand how Seattle is only getting one against Atlanta, and I don't get how Tennessee is getting one and a half against Denver. It just doesn't make sense to me.

My lock of the week, I absolutely adore the Buffalo Bills, laying less than a full touchdown against the putrid New York Jets. So that's going to be my number one. The ringer mega contest is free every single week only on Fandle. You go to fandle.com slash mega contest to make your picks today. That is fandle.com slash mega contest. I want to do a little bit of, you know, it's a bit played out. But let's go ahead and sing some of DJ's praises because it's just been really insane,

an insane run. He is 45 under par in the playoffs. That's 16 strokes better than anybody else. He had a 54-hole lead in each of the last four events. Now, he only won two of those four, but it took Colin Moracawa at the PJ Championship and then John Rahman in the playoff last week were the two that DJ. The devil putt, the 66th.

footer. Yes, the 666. That's exactly right. And DJ puts into his his vault another three-win season and since 2008 the most wins on tour Dustin Johnson. 23 wins on tour since 2008 his rookie season. Does it give us revisionist history for the criticism

that we threw his way about losing the 50 for a whole lead at the PGA? No, he's got to go win a major. He's got to have the lead in a major and go win the major. If he wins at Wingfoot, and I'm sure the betting odds right now are preposterous. But if he wins at Wingfoot, that really validates the career, right? If he has Wingfoot and Oakmont, two U.S. Open majors, plus the Tour championship, plus the number of wins, that's,

That's a career. He said in the post game, he said this is the best golf he's ever played in his life. And concurrently, J.T. was giving an interview saying that he played with him at the memorial, and he's never seen DJ as lost as he was. He said he couldn't play. He couldn't putt. He was completely lost. And that really is the story of DJ, right? He's been in and out of clearly having the highest ceiling, I guess, of any guy other than Tiger who's on tour for these. past almost 10 years, but he just hasn't been able to either keep it as consistent as we'd like or in those really big heated moments, close it out in a major. When I, you know, sort of widen the aperture and look at the last four weeks, you go, well, first of all, it's golf. And so,

you know, he, again, he did shoot a good score at the PGA and Morcow just came and nipped him at the line, right? And same thing happened with Rom dropping the devil put on him. So you just have to put yourself in that position. Tiger would always talk about how many times Jack finished second, right? But for DJ, it's been about the consistency as opposed to these flashes and moments of greatness. And you have been talking about this now on this podcast for almost six weeks, saying, I can't wait to see DJ at Winged Foot. I can't wait to see it. I wish we could fast forward and see it because that's really all narratives are leading to that moment, which is if he can actually now, based on what he's done over the last month, and then we're

go, you know, win at Wingfoot. I mean, where does he rank in the all-timers? I mean, a legit discussion for top ten. You can start, you know, really making an argument for around, you know, the top ten. Not cracking the top five.

Speaking of narratives, one of the things that was reported during the telecast today, DJ has, and speaking of Wingfoot, never played Wingfoot. In his entire life, he and his brother are going up there apparently this Thursday for his first round. They're going out with one of the wizened caddies that have been there, you know, for decades. And they're going to go

around and try and learn something about the Greens. I mean, no time like the present, we're Thursday will be, you know, exactly two weeks out from the commencement of, no, one week out from the commencement of the year. Yeah. This coming Thursday will be one week away from the commencement of the U.S. Open. So in that respect, you hope the hot hand the DJ has can continue. On the other hand, you know, maybe I'm overthinking it, but all of the intrigue and mystery and, you know, legendary status of Wingfoot emanates from the incredible Tillinghast design and the way the greens over the years. Now there has been some restoration work done and, you know, the bunkers, a strategic placing, of the bunkers and so forth.

But like, it's the greens that are the thing up there. And I hope that they get enough of a look for it and look at it and a feel for it. What do you think? It's a good point. Here's the glass half full. So my brother, I think, is last man in the U.S. Open. Maybe Danny Lee is going to get in as the last guy. But otherwise, it's Mark Hubbard is into the U.S. Open.

Hooray. And I said, God, don't you wish you'd seen it? And he's like, look, every time I come out to LA, we play LACC. I take him to go play there. I'm not a member, but we've got some friends who are nice enough to have us on. LACC's hosting the Open in a couple years. And he's like, I'm not going to recognize it come U.S. Open Time, because it just changes so much. So the glass half full is, hey, DJ is going to get there now and see what the course actually

is in this moment. He knows he's got to put it in the fair way. He knows he's got to, you know, be prepared to sort of run. a ball up on a green that's completely dried out. But the most important detail that we're not going to know for a week is whether the USGA is going to respond to the way that the FedEx Cup courses set themselves up to give us a little bit better show. Because in past years, these courses have started to brown out. And the telecast has just been so-so to shitty, if we're being honest. One of the things we saw through these FedEx Cup playoffs, in particular at Olympia

last week, but even this week, was a setup that was tough and interesting but fair. And so how they set up Wingfoot is really going to be very, very interesting given how much chatter there's been about course set up since the restart. Pebble last year was set up pretty damn fair, I thought. You're right. It's hard to make Pebble be. because of the moisture and the weather, it's hard to completely dry that place out, right? It's hard to turn it into what we saw a couple years prior to that. You know, when Jordan won, when DJ won, when Brooks won,

you know, those were courses where, you know, it wasn't quite, speaking of Zach Johnson, it wasn't quite, they've lost the course, but it was pretty close. But for DJ, I think given, you know, his, if he's hit in fairways, The only question, he's now putting the ball so well that the only real question is going to be is distance control and whether, you know, he can, he can land those balls close to the hole. And I think a lot of that's going to depend on the condition of the green. So, you know, he'll be

out there next week, but the drying process is going to start probably shortly after he leaves. Well, we'll have to see, you know, how much of that they can do. Like the weather forecast, I think it's lush up there right now. Like, it's not, it's not dry. No. And, And, you know, if rain comes through, you know, just a couple times between now and next Thursday, they can only do so much. It isn't Augusta, right? They can't suck the water out. Listen to us, House.

We are talking about not the inevitability, but sort of a tiger-esque conversation about a guy who, if he goes on and wins the U.S. Open, we will not have seen a stretch like this of just consistent winning golf since Tiger. Tiger. Tiger is it. Period. 100%, which is sensational. I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled to have this.

Again, it's just an embarrassment of riches. Like we met, you know, 13 weeks of successful tour events. Really incredible play. Like Colin Warcawa and DJ and Bryson have been the story of the restart. Those are like great stories, like incredible play. and each one with its own particular, you know, charm. And you didn't even mention J.T., who coming into this week, you probably would have said was player of the year,

you know, pending the outcome of this. He's clearly DJ now, right? Yeah. You know, we didn't talk about John Rom, who, I mean, his game is like his temper. It's either completely on fire or not at all. And we saw all that. That's what was great about East Lake. I think we saw the bits of each player come out.

Morikawa is never going to smoke the field by 10 strokes, but he's always going to be there, right? Justin Thomas, like, I love the guy so much, and in the moments when he's not at his best, you're never sure exactly what it's going to be. If you told me he was going to be, he was going to lose 1.6 strokes putting this week, I would have told you, you got to be kidding me.

It's not JT, right? The rest of his stats look like he should have won this tournament. And in fact, I think as he's flying home right now, he's thinking, I should have won it. I had it. You know, I was only a couple strokes away. But it just, there's so many guys right now who are nipping at the heels of greatness.

It's a great time to be there. And that's before we even talk about rookie of the year. Who's your rookie of the year? Um, is Sheffler. I understand, um, and really don't have much quibble with anybody that would say Hovlin because Hovlin's the rookie with the win, but it was an opposite field event. And Hovlin has been wholly underwhelming since the restart, you know, really terrific

advanced metric scoring in a couple of different categories. But his Sundays have been so flaccid, like, you know, an opportunity to go out there and make a bark. And Sheffler now has a whole slew of top fives over the last six weeks, seven weeks. So Sheffler's my guy. What do you think? Yeah, I'm with you. He was first in shots game approach this week. Victor was second, but Victor was 29th in putting and lost almost six shots to the field. I mean, Victor's short game is what's in

the way of him really moving to the next level. I mean, like nobody fumbles a chip like Victor Hovlin, maybe my son with nachos on the couch. But other than that, Victor just has got to figure out the short game to get the next level. That 59 we saw from Scotty in the way that he played over the last couple of weeks really hammered at home for me, along with the fact that you and I talked about him during the restart pod. So we're going to ride our guy all the way through. Well, and, you know, that 59 and then the continued good performances have validated him being in the last group on Sunday of the only major that's been played in 2020 thus far. Do you feel like Webb Simpson should have played last week? Or do you think he lost a little

momentum coming in, or do you agree with his decision to stay out? I have to confess something. What's that? I think he's a lovely man. It's clear that he's a family man that he's dedicated. I really don't. Every single time that I try and buy into him a little bit, he lets me down. It's a very deflating experience.

Yeah. And he was, I went all in on him this week. And it honestly feels like that the 10th time in my life, life that I both, you know, wagered a little bit out of my own pocket, put him into fantasy lineups, put him into DFS. And he just, it's just a letdown. And so, you know, God bless Webb, good on you, great career, terrific play since the restart for the most part. And I have no idea whether the going home, you know, he has a whole bunch of kids. He may want to go home and be with his family. That's fine. He just came out and limp-dicked it around for four rounds. And,

he's going to collect, you know, whatever paycheck he gets for this, and that's fine. Congratulations. Well, the flip side is you picked Webb for your Fandul team, which is why you're upset, and I sympathize with you. I didn't make that mistake. I made other mistakes. But a great decision that you made was to pick Zander. And how do we think about Zander and that choice that you made and coming out of this restart?

He didn't get a win, but boy, was he good? Is that enough? Well, we know for him now. Now, if there's a golf tournament, a professional golf tournament at Eastlake in Atlanta, Georgia, Zander Schaftley, if he's in that tournament, he's got to be in your lineup. That's right. He is, he is incomparable. So since the FedEx Cup began in 2007, Nate, and this is from our homie, Justin Ray, the most rounds played at this venue without a score over par,

Zander Shafley has 16 of those rounds. The next closest to him, Rory Sabatini with four. We need Zander to win a golf tournament. I mean, even Daniel Berger won a golf tournament since the restart. Zander's got a win. He's too good to not win.

There was something weird today on the telecast where I think it was Dan Hicks asked Farity who'd had Zander and his dad on. It's like, what did you learn about Zander? Right? And Faraddy gave a super generic response like he didn't even remember doing the interview. But the last thing that he said before Zander Putt was he's a little unorthodox. And I don't know what that means, but what's unorthodox is playing such good golf like he has and not win in a golf tournament.

So I'd love to see him step up a bit. He wasn't disappointing this week. He was great. I think Zander threw every punch he had this week. I think he left it all out there. J.T. left some things out there this week that could have made this closer. Yeah, Xander's bogey on 13 changed the tournament for him.

Both he and DJ in the rough on the right, both of them chip up to the front. Both of them leave their chips short. DJ makes his put, Zander misses his, and Zander never really did get close enough to wear some score swapping could occur. But, you know, look, the interesting thing to me, and you mentioned it a couple of minutes ago,

we have like a serious, legit eight names that can absolutely flat out win the U.S. open. Like any one of those eight you would feel comfortable. I'll probably, you know, bet some amount on each one of the eight, and Zander is one of them. Did Rory show you anything this week that we haven't seen since the restart. It felt like same old Rory of late, which is

he goes super hot, gets us excited, and then he has a completely tepid second and third round, and then maybe his fourth round, he heats up a little bit to end up somewhere in the top 15. 64 on Thursday was exciting. I really thought the baby bump

was going to play out. But, look, who knows what this time at home, it's absolutely, we talked about it with Sobel last week, it's magical to have a newborn baby in the household and the connection that you have with your loved one and what's going on in that house. And who knows what that will do for his spirit, for his psychology, because it's not, 64 on Thursday

means the game is fine. The game is there. And he closed out with his 67 today. So he just had another extraordinary season. You know, 2020 was terrific for him, but who knows? Who knows whether or not he can string four together? It is remarkable that DJ has played this well. And we are not speaking about him unquestionably unparalleled as the greatest player in golf right now.

It just tells you how much talent there is in the game right now that after the U.S. Open, you and I might be like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's JT. here. Oh, Colin Morikawa is now the guy, right? Or Rom. I like, well, you know, I can't possibly leave out John Rom. He played really well this week and he had one 70, he shot 74 on Friday. That's it. And that was the difference in the week. That's it. You just can't shoot a 74. and, and his hot and cold is what gets in the way of him winning a tournament every now and then he has a round like that once in a while. And he'll bring it back with a 66 or a 64. But as he thinks about his goals from here. Again, he's a 25-year-old. Like, he's just, we keep forgetting how young he is.

He's 11 years younger than DJ. He's got a little bit more improving to make, and maybe he's going to be the greatest. But it's a great time to be following all these guys. And speaking of setting goals, we are about 60 hours away. And whenever folks, you know, listen to this podcast, even less from the start of the new season. Speaking of some upcoming new goals, Your body won't have fully processed your Labor Day dinner and it will be the new season time. That's a fact, depending on your constitution. We have 7 a.m. start Pacific time Thursday morning, the safe way open in Napa, California, Silverado.

Yes, of course, of course, of course. It's absolutely terrific. That is where Johnny Miller will be there. Johnny likes to come out and say hello to everybody. That has its own set of intrigue. its own set of storylines and some betting opportunities. And so, Nate, I propose that we reconvene this week and get another fairway rolling up. Hopefully, we'll be up Wednesday for everybody to hear some of our thoughts on the brand new upcoming PGA tour season.

And of course, we'll be talking about, you know, what else we've learned in the last 48 hours about what the best guys in the world are doing to get ready for the U.S. Open. So we have that to look forward to. Thanks for giving us some time Monday on a Monday night, Nate, dog. Bring on the super season. Let's do it.