Fairway Rollin' - The Ryder Cup Went How We Expected the Ryder Cup to Go | Shackhouse (Ep. 79)

Episode Date: September 30, 2018

Geoff Shackelford and Joe House recap an uneventful 2018 Ryder Cup including NBC’s coverage of the event (1:00), Europe’s domination (9:11), and the controversy around Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth (31:51). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody, today on Shackhouse. We are going to talk about the Ryder Cup 2018 from France. Of course, today's show, as always, is brought to you by our friends at Callaway, makers of Odyssey Putter, so that were used by eight players at this very special event played in France this week. It was the number one putter brand, and it was something that both sides could agree on because they didn't agree on a whole lot else. Let's go to the Shack House. House, Bonjour.

What a special week here. France, for me, I hope you as a fan enjoyed watching this as much as we did attending the event here at LaGolf National. I had a wonderful time with the rider cup, Shaq. I'm very happy to not be sleeping on the couch anymore. Oh, yeah. Since Thursday night, Friday night, last night, I slept on the couch so that I could roll over and turn the TV on without, you know, waking up my loved ones. and I caught quite a bit of the early morning broadcasts over the three days. And, you know, quite a few commercials along the way there, Jack.

Yes, everything I tweeted was replied with, I wouldn't know they were a commercial, or I wouldn't know there was no shot tracer. It was a very unhappy group of viewers and message received. message received here in France. Let's just start with that. We'll get to the performances and this chronic chronic US

underperformance in Europe. But you know, for the group of us who woke up early in the morning, we were not well served by the television broadcast. The reward of waking up at

three in the morning on Friday morning was a relentless overload on the golf channel of what felt like two commercials to every golf shot. I mean, especially with the four ball

early in the morning like that, how hard is it to catch the golf? And yet we were getting what felt like four minutes of golf and four minutes of commercial. The ratio was completely out of whack. Now, maybe the idea was to set the bar so low that over the course of the handful of the next few days,

you know, NBC would look better by comparison. But it was right off the bat, a bad taste in people's mouths. We missed out on shot tracer. I don't know what the production package was between Golf Channel and NBC, but not nearly enough pro tracer on a golf course that U.S. viewers are not familiar with, where, you know, tracking, because of the course, set up with the water and the rough.

You needed to see where the ball was in flight. It wasn't enough to see a T and then and see it land. So underwhelming TV coverage, I have to say, this week. Yeah, it's disappointing to hear. I got a lot of that same feedback, and this is such an important event for NBC and Golf Channel. But, you know, the contract was signed at a point where, before some things have changed in golf television,

and I hope they see the feedback. Because what bums me is knowing how much effort they put into the broadcast, the tech people and the production side and the announcers, and then every tweet that Golf Channel puts out that the writers that us here at the venue put out was replied by American viewers with comments about the telecast. And that's not what the people behind the scenes or behind the Ryder Cup want. and it's a very odd event to televise, as you know, like Sunday singles. There's so much going on.

But I think that in the four ball and force and play, they need to rethink how they front load the broadcasts with commercials for so that you don't have a lot of breaks when the matches are concluding. Something has to be done there. And then obviously we're in a world now where I think the real beauty of the Ryder Cup that gets missed on television, and the people who come to the event swoon over it. When you see a match and you get invested in a match and you see the little stuff that goes on

and the body language, the dynamics, the wags, the entourages, all the little things that are fun to study in match play, you lose when you're trying to cover multiple matches at once. and that's where in the modern world of streaming and being able to lock in on one feed, it would be really cool for a viewer to have, you know, the telecast on, but then have that iPad on or that other feed where you can just kind of, you see a matchup and you say, I got to just go a full deep dive on this one. Because that's, I mean, House, for me, you can imagine the fun part when I can get a bib here, they give us these humiliating awful bibs to go inside the ropes. That's the fun of it, is picking up all the little stuff going on in the dynamic of a match.

Well, here's the thing, and your point is very well taken on the opportunity to stream. It feels like, you know, it is the 21st century. It is 2018. We do have all these OTT venues, and, you know, the tours themselves are really pushing that. how come the Ryder Cup isn't available that way? And in point, here's the case study. The match, it became pretty apparent. There was about an hour where the U.S. had a genuine chance to flip the script.

The singles match, that was the most important singles match, the fulcrum match, was DJ and Poulter. And you really had the feeling that that was going to be important starting around like the 12th hole or so. So to your point, I'm fine with having the big broadcast up. I would have liked to have been streaming that. The broadcast missed the T-Balls on 17. And what we got instead was Poulter in the Fairway and DJ in the rough. Now, I needed to see that. That was the match.

That was the entire sort of outcome of the day was dependent on how that Sigel's match was going to go. And DJ hitting that T-ball in the left rough, I needed to see it. Yeah, and normally I would say, well, that's a boring hole. Who cares? But getting the ball in that fairway was so key. I mean, we saw it in the ROM Tiger match.

Right, exactly. Hit that just bomb of a team shot. He had a gap wedge into the 481-yard hole. And Tiger was just in the rough, and the rough here was absurd. And that was ultimately, like you saw that, and you knew that it was not looking good for Tiger. And you're right. If you could have had that on a separate screen, it would be a lot more. fun and I think that's just something they're going to have to work through. It's, it's,

um, we've gotten spoiled by Amen Corner Live and, uh, I, I, I hope they figured out because, uh, of course, when it's played over here, it's, it's so much of it's in the middle of the night for the states and that, that's kind of a bummer. But, um, yeah, anyway, so. Big picture, you know, this is quibbling on the margins, really around this event, but, and I fully expect the Whistling Straits event, you know, will be giving us multiple angles. And, you know, we'll be giving us multiple angles, multiple options, it'll be... Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. No, well, you know, I mean, well, I don't mean that as a demeaning thing to my superiors at NBC,

but when these people sign contracts, it's very tricky to go back in. We've seen this over and over again in golf and in other sports, where they are reluctant to go back in and rework these contracts to address changing technology and changing viewer tape. and for whatever, you know, various reasons. And I think the good news here is that the partnership with NBC and the PGA of America on the Ryder Cup is very strong. And I think they, even though they know they have had a great formula that built this event into something, they're also, at least the people I know, are very in tune with what people are saying on social media and what their reaction is.

and I think in hindsight they will they will take a hard look at a lot of these things how about that take a memo if that's true look at the Twitter and take a memo because if you want to know what the people are saying about the coverage it is it is unanimous there was not a divergence of opinion of the quality of the coverage but so go ahead you you well you said something about you know how the u.s so they got within a point today briefly on the board and how they really, you felt like they were making a little bit of a run. And I know people are just going to, they're going to absolutely pounce on some things that were done and understandably so.

But I think that, I want to highlight that point you made because I think it speaks to, in defense of all these players who are put into this position in the Ryder Cup, how quickly, I mean, we look at a 17 and a half, 10 and a half score, and that looks like a route, and it is on paper. But these matches at a couple of different points could have gone a lot of different ways. The Europeans could have taken the very first session of four balls three to one. They lost the three to one. Okay, the second Friday afternoon forces was a disaster for the United States of epic proportions. It only took 60 holes for the Europeans to dust them off and sweep them, and they won eight straight matches.

But the beauty of this event is that even with that disaster, recession, even with some questionable choices, we still, as the United States, had a chance in this thing, and a couple little things go a few different ways, and the last day snowballs in a different direction. And so I say that because there's going to be the usual criticism of the captain, even though he never hits a shot, and over the picks, and some of it is very warranted, I think. But I just think, I hope people keep that in mind that the swings in this event are really sensitive, that things can go a lot of different directions quickly. And when you're the home team and you have the home, of course, knowledge that this team had and you have the fans behind you, that's a big intangible. So that's interesting that you think that there is going to be criticism directed at Furek.

and you know what? You know what? I'm not, I'm feeling, my guts telling me it's going to be Phil Mickelson directed. Why? All right. Well, let's let's start back at how. Jim Fierrick is a captain, Tiger Woods is a future captain. Steve Stricker is penciled in for 2020. Phil's penciled in for 2024. All of these things are task force related. This task force they formed after the Glenn Eagles, um, rider cup, which by the

the way, they didn't lose at Clint Ingalls as badly as they lost here today. FYI. And so the driving force behind that task course was Phil Mickelson. And whether you want to, whether it's fair or not, I don't know. It's just my sense is that he is going to be viewed as sort of a fall guy because he was locked in as a captain's pick on this team. And now we look at this golf course. We look at the way he played and he did have a couple of moments.

in the second half of the year. But ultimately, he was a little bit inconsistent, and you take LaGolf National, and you knew what it was going to be, and he was not somebody who was going to be a productive member of this team. Then you put him out in foursums the first day. Now, that's on Captain Furich,

the fact that Phil didn't start off in the foreball, which is a more forgiving format for somebody who maybe isn't hitting it perfectly, but who may throw in three or four birdies and contribute, that is on the captain. But I think there's just going to be a view that Phil Mickelson drove a little too much of the bus in terms of shaping where we are. And he went 0 and 2.

And that's where I'm going with that. Okay, well, that makes sense to me. I will say, I mean, every point is crucial. and so conceding two points right away, you know, based on the fact that Phil's not in form, you can't walk into an event like this down O2 on European soil. But, you know, it wasn't as we arrived here, as you arrived last Saturday, you know, a foregone conclusion in terms of the form, Phil did show some glimpses over the course of the playoffs. I mean, he had a terrible tour championship, but that was, you know, possibly explained by his head being and something else and wanting to, you know, which is to say preparing for this event.

And so as soon as it became apparent, he wasn't going to really compete down in Atlanta. He just, you know, kind of checked the boxes in terms of getting around four rounds so he could get that check. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, though, that was a golf course with rough-lined fairways. and so we came here and, you know, the setup was, it was absurd house, really. I'll be blind. So let me give you the reason I call it absurd. I'm sitting here in the press center right now in the radio booths overlooking my fine peers from the European sector,

who let out some just comically loud roars today for their guys. But this is the kind of setup that the United States used to force into the Ryder Cup to mess with the Seveys and the Woosnums and the Liles of the world. And now here they are doing it to us. And I mean, some of this rough was the kind of stuff where you could injure yourself. It was so artificially jacked up on fertilizer and nonsense. And they listed on the sheet, basically the wild cut at, like, like three and a half inches, which was laughable. It was like eight, seven to eight inches.

Total, I mean, I looked for a ball. There was a lot of lost ball searching out there. So I just find the irony in this group loving these tactics to engineer a victory when it was something that, you know, two decades ago, they loathed about America. So, but my point is, hey, they did it. We knew that's what they were going to do. And the U.S. ultimately had a team that, yeah, I mean, House,

I don't know what you think of this current thing in baseball, the launch angle obsession. But this is a little like what's going on in baseball, where launch angle of hitting the ball is more important than playing some small ball and just kind of core values of what the game is about and trying to score runs. and golf in the United States and the PGA tours become kind of about launch angle. How far can you bomb it down

and gouge it out? And the Europeans knew that and they presented a course that basically put a stop to that. Well, it had a premium on and demanded accuracy. It did. In terms of driving accuracy off the T,

our very best player coming into this event was Ricky Fowler. That's right. He was 52nd in that statistic. But none of this was new news to the U.S. team. No, no. You know, here's the thing.

I only let that sort of, I do think conceptually just the challenge of a course in this year, you know, with a combination of water and rough is not something that the U.S. guys see really. ever. So that was overly engineered. I'm with you. But look at the scores today. 16 of the 24 guys shot even or better. And look at this. Tony Fienow shot six under through

14 holes. So did it. By the way. What an amazing wind of just drum Tommy Fleetwood who just golfing Jesus could do no wrong for two days. And Fienow just absolutely smokes him.

That's so awesome. I'm so happy for him. What an amazing career. moment that he'll always have. That's the validation of Tony on this team. Sure is. Birdie machine and he performed I loved his attitude. I love the

intangibles that we watched of him. He was everything that they'd hoped for. Absolutely. That's exactly right. I mean, the only loss he took was combined with who. With Brooks I believe on, that would have been a Saturday morning, I believe they lost.

In four ball, okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, but they had a great comeback the first day. I mean, he was obviously, his back swing on the first tee was so short. That first tee situation was intense house, man. The combination of everything that was going on, the 6,900 seats above you, and then the frickin' fairway, they rolled the left side all week, so you have that. Not only is this just a hard tee shot to hit,

then they actually made the fairway kind of gimmicky down the line. the left side. So you had this, this, I mean, it was great viewing. It's totally chinty and over the top. But this, this moment where they're then, they're hitting what seems like a good tee shot, but then we've got to watch it until it stops before it rolls in the water. It was, I'll tell you, these guys, they will, it will make them all a lot stronger having gone through that first tee shot. I can tell you that. Yeah, well. Anyway, go on. And, and we're talking about sort of the course setup and how it, you know, seemed to favor the Europeans. And I, undoubtedly the course setup had the Americans uncomfortable, right?

That was pretty apparent. The number of times guys found the water off of, on the par three's was pretty incredible. It was intense, wasn't it? We were here in the press center talking. I went out a lot to that swarm. This little theater they had of the first hole and the second hole was just incredible. And it was astonishing how many balls in the three days. from both sides, but the U.S. in particular

hit some shots into the water on that second hole that were just astoundingly bad. They were not close. And then there were a couple shots well over the green. And I think that was a case house where the Europeans' local knowledge gained from playing the French Open was huge because they vary the yardages distinctly on that hole

in the French Open. And they did basically, they just took the playbook from that and it went from about 2.14 to I think, I don't want to quote the shortest yardage, but it was pretty far down there. And they adjusted a little bit better on that than our guys. But House, where the local knowledge was huge was on the greens. These greens are, they're so flat. And you just are, if you saw our guys, I put it in a story I wrote for Golf Week, Butch Harmon was on the Sky broadcast and we could listen to that. And he was harping on this, that the Americans just did not know the greens.

And they kept overreating puts. And the Europeans read these greens better because they're so flat, you look at them, you think, well, there's got to be some break. And there just wasn't. And our guys, our guys, that's where not playing this course a lot, I think, heard him. More than the rough, by the way. Yeah, I agree with you. And I'm so glad you made this point because I wanted to be sure that we gave proper credit to Justin Thomas.

Wow. The one American rider cupper who came over and played in the French Open. Right. Now, in the press conference after, he downplayed that being an advantage. He's a good teammate. That's good for him. But also good for him. They're coming over here.

The golf gods, if nothing else, the golf gods rewarded him for. Well, there wasn't the golf gods. He genuinely gave a damn. He came across and competed in it. And this is on balance, like the criticism that I think goes into the U.S. approach, mainly when it's competed in Europe, right? You take the U.S. out of its comfort zone and it doesn't on balance perform well. That's the proper criticism and a fairly leveled criticism. And to Justin Thomas's credit, he went out of his way to build his schedule around playing in the French Open.

He had a top 10, and then he performed the best of any U.S. player. And on that putting point, the thing that he may not acknowledge, but it's obviously the case is the speed is different. They play the greens slower in Europe on balance. And this is the thing I love the most about his hand-to-hand combat with Rory today. You know who doesn't put well on these greens? Rory. Rory had the goal to curse it somebody yesterday who called him out for his bad putting.

The number of times he had the opportunity in that matchup against Justin Thomas to seize the match. And a handful of times Justin Thomas was giving him the line. I know. And J.T., God bless him, was putting the ball and burning edges. I mean, the number of putts that JT had that touched the hole that didn't fall in, I mean, you know, it felt like a dozen. I know that wasn't the number. But Rory just missed the hole all together.

Well, how many of Rory's puts? I mean, maybe it's just me, but I would say just as many that burned the cup for Justin Thomas, just as many of those for Rory, the minute it was off the blade. On television, you could tell. It was not even getting close. That is not good when you know it's coming off. to blame that. And I'll say this, J.T. was extremely gracious and the U.S. team was very gracious about Rory. We hate to see the match end this way. And J.T. said it was kind of heavy way,

a little fight between us. No, no, no, no, no, no. Rory stood on the T on 18 after J.T. bombed one right down the middle and took his three wood and peanut it into the face of the bunker. And, you know, he, you know, he, paid the penalty for that. The match was on the line. It was the first match of the day. The match that was going to set the tone. We're on the 18th hole. You have the club of choice, and

you don't get to walk up and complain about the lie when you hit the ball into the bunker, buddy. So, you know, I, the, the, uh, now it feels like a full trend with Rory where he has,

this 2018 season, the number of times he had the opportunity to really shine, to go grab something, starting with the masters. It's just underwhelming. And what if this is the Rory identity? I mean, you know, he was in the, he was in the, he walked alongside Tiger. And all Tiger did on Sunday was beat him by, you know, six strokes.

Yeah. He's somebody who needs a break. I don't know what exactly the issue is besides the putting. He's clearly listened to way too many people on the putting. He's gone the bro. method on the caddy. I think that's questionable. But I just from from talking to the folks who kind of covered the FedEx Cup and he's just been a little chippier than normal with the press guys, he's, he's one of the very best in the world when it comes to, as you know, giving great answers

and putting in the press time. He's just rubbed people as being, again, like many, one of many players, maybe a little burned out, maybe ready for a little break. But there are definitely questions of maybe he's just made a lot of money, and he's gotten to a point, and he's kind of cruising. So we'll see, but it was not a great Rider Cup for him. He was two and two, and Chiorborn Bjorn Olison basically carried him the second half of their match. And great, by the way, sensational day for him, besides that match with Rory, just absolutely dusting Jordan Spieth, who was the overwhelming favorite in that match. So good for him.

I want to talk about Spieth, but I want to finish the thought on Rory, which is, you know, he is, I'm overly critical of him. I keep doing it because I just want so much more out of him. He's got the talent to be better. He's got the disposition to be better. And he's just not better. And it frustrates me, which is why the criticism. He's clearly a sweet dude. Like he gives great interviews when he's contemplative.

He's thoughtful. Far be it from me, to your last point, to ever. Steve Elkington and give him credit for anything. But didn't he say this 10 months ago or a year ago? Rory has made a lot of money and had a lot of success. And, you know, questioning the fire seems like it's fair enough. But look, Jordan Speed, has he won a singles competition in either the Rider Cup or the President's Cup?

Yeah, he's 0 and 6. It's unbelievable. Combined President's Cup and Rider Cup in singles. Unbelievable. who would think, especially after the way he played House with Justin Thomas the first two days. I kind of felt like I watched a little of his match in person. I felt like he was a little bit spent. The energy that he put into those matches with Justin Thomas, I felt like he hit a wall.

But who knows, maybe I don't want to give Olison a knock here. I mean, he deserves some credit too. He just played great, too. But that is quite a trend for Jordan Speed, who I consider, I still look at as a great match play golfer. I'm with you. He is a great match play golfer. His record in the WGC is pretty good, I think, right? It is. It is. I mean, if there's somebody

I'm going to take and want out there in singles, it's just so far on these team matches, he's got that part of his team match play is dreadful. Well, we can't talk about Jordan Speath and not talk about Patrick Reed and the split up and the position that put the U.S.

team in. Oh, let's save that until after a break. Wonderful. Because, you know, he was He was using an Odyssey putter this week, House. Patrick Reed. Yeah, how about that? What do you know? But, hey, it was a great week here in France,

and the ChromeSoft was in action as well. Sergio Garcia and Alex Noren, members of the victorious team, although they did lose one match together, which I had thought they were going to definitely win. But they ended up being important parts of the team. Amazing House. Everybody on the European team scored a point. That's pretty wild.

That's a deep team. But anyway, the Callaway Chromesoft was in action here in France during the Ryder Cup. And of course, as you know, it is the ball that changed the ball. Well, you know, both Sergio and Alex Noren played pretty well today with their Chrome softs. I want to give a quick shout out to our friends at Bombas. Thanks to two years of research and development, we are talking about these glorious Bombas socks, multiple improvements in design, performance, and content. They are the most comfortable socks in the history of feet, Shaq.

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A Monday? Yeah, yeah. It's a wonderful charity event up in New York. I get to play Ykegle. Very nice. Historic. Nice. Yeah, yeah. Donald Ross with a little Tilly. Nice work. And a little core Crenshaw renovation. Absolutely. Enjoy. A wonderful big brother, big sister charity event. We're going to raise some money.

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Do it today. So House, you mentioned Patrick Reed. We, you know, this Rider Cup was very light on controversy, light on wag drama. We had some questions about whether Paulina Gretzky was in the house. But we were rescued briefly today on that front, on the First World Drama front, by Justine Reed, who can't confirm whether she took to her Twitter account or not. I'm trying, I'm trying not to laugh. She can't really say, she doesn't know that she took to Twitter. It's her official account.

Her husband follows it. And she got into with some members of the media about criticism of her. man. Now, I have a little trouble with this since I know for a fact that at one point during her husband's struggles on the course as he was walking from a green to a D, she barked out and get your head in the game. So, you know, if a jury were to take all the evidence into account, I'm fairly certain this little pushback by her is her. And so that added a little fun. But wow, What a dismal rider cup for him until some very nice play today in the singles where he beat Terrell Hatton. What was it?

Three in one? Excuse me, three and two. I believe it was. He beat him soundly. I mean, look, he shot, where is the score? Five under through 16 holes. So he was having a day. Now, I'm going to leave it to the internet sluice to figure out whether or not that was really Justine out there.

It was sharp-tonged, and I'm certain even if it wasn't her, whoever it was doing the authoring was channeling her inner mama bear, because she was going hard in defense of Patrick. But what about this decision to split up, read, and speak? We didn't have a show on Thursday to talk about this. It caught me by surprise. And furthering the surprise was the combination of Reed with Tiger. It just felt like an awkward pairing right out of the shoot. What now having over the three days, what's the story? What have you heard?

Yeah, well, we all here don't get much access to the players. and so we don't really get to dive into that. But I think the obvious question is not that they tried it, but that they wheeled them back out there again in the foreball on Saturday morning. And it was a mistake. It didn't go well. And Patrick was just hitting it all over the map. But I think more importantly, in hindsight, when you look at the formats here,

I have no problem with the tiger re-paring, but why wasn't that done in the alternate shot and the foursomes on Friday afternoon? If you knew Tiger was only going 18 holes that first day, which was clearly the plan, that seems to me a better format, again, on paper for those two. In hindsight, now we saw how Patrick was driving the ball. But why they weren't put in that, and then the Webb Bubba, Phil Bryson, and not put in the four ball in the morning, which is a format that, again, on paper, is likely to be more successful for those teams. And I think that's where you have to question

Captain Furik less about who he put together, but more of which sessions they chose for them. Yeah, so the Phil, and we'll just quickly... Because the one that before I forget, I'm all for getting everybody in the action on day one. a lot of people don't like that. If there's somebody you know who's thinking it up, you just don't play them until the singles.

Unfortunately, we've seen that that just puts that person in a terrible position when they do finally play the singles after sitting for two days. And also, you know, this isn't, I understand, I don't want to get into an AYSO soccer kind of analogy here, but this is an exhibition. Everybody who got here basically earned it in some way, either on points or through a captain's pick. And you do have an obligation to, yes, you have an obligation to try to win,

but you also have an obligation to be respectful to these guys and not embarrass somebody by pinpointing him and saying, well, he stinks. I'm not going to play him until the final day. You play to win, but you also have to keep some amount of respect for them and their career and their personality and their image and their place and having made it to the Ryder Cup, I think. Well, the only player that it feels like Furek could have made such a decision about was Bubba, you know, where he could have said, look, Bubba, you don't seem to be informed.

There was Twitter speculation that Bubba was sick all week. I don't know whether or not that was folks being funny or whether or not. He seemed fine. Yeah, okay. But, you know, he was dreadful in Foress on Thursday. they did have a good combination. Now, I give all credit to Webb. Webb really flipped the script in terms of his international competition resume,

and he was super hot. He would have been great in four ball. I wish he'd played four ball both Thursday and Friday. The thing with Phil, that just feels, Phil has a terrible record at foursomes, and if you know you have to play them once on Friday or Saturday, to your point, It feels like he should be out there in four ball so that his playing partner,

Phil and Fienau was a combination that people observed could happen. And Tony's ability to go out and shoot a bunch of birdies all at once would have been nice. And I still am not sure what the idea was putting, I guess maybe it was just a comfort thing of Ricky has to be with DJ because Ricky's not going to be with JT if JT is going to play with Speed. and just sort of comfort-wise, you can't put Ricky and Feeneau together, I guess? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, and that's the kind of thing we don't really know.

They just gave us none of their views on how that works. But clearly, what they thought would work and didn't. And the Europeans where they threw us some curveballs with like a Ron Rose pairing and a few others, their elasticity, as Paul Casey called it, just seems to be more natural. They seem to be able to do it. Well, it did.

The Tiger Patrick Reed combo did make sense in terms of two players who kind of stand on an island. The problem with it, and even the planning, I think, makes sense because we know that Tiger and Patrick have a great relationship. It was reported on quite a bit of a great. Well, just in terms of a rapport,

a rapport, right? Yeah, they have a rapport. Reed liked having Tiger as his captain at Hazeltine, and that was reported on. So the idea of Reed and Tiger made sense. What we didn't know was that Tiger was going to win the event leading up to the Ryder Cup and arrive in France, exhausted.

Like beyond exhausted. And, you know, never. We talked about this on the preview show on Tuesday. Wonder allowed what kind of effect the combination of just winning and the, really, the world's attention returned to him. and the demands of that attention. He wasn't able to simply drop off the planet and get himself ready for this thing. And he was clearly, now you physically watched these press conferences

and I got to see one of the live things where he was standing out on the course. He couldn't get the words out of his mouth. No, no. He's slurring words. Now, I don't know if that's because he is, you know, just standing on his feet asleep, or maybe he's taking something to help him

kind of get through the time to be awake and then because the body clock is completely wrecked for coming over when they did and just the crush of energy and the energy sapping effect

of him winning on Sunday it was apparent that really starting with a day one performance. He wasn't we're going to have Chris Tiger. No, no. And I think really, when you look back on it, the mistake was probably on Tuesday that he was out here playing. I was a little surprised. I really thought he would take Tuesday off.

They flew in Monday. They got in midday. They checked in at the Waldorf Astoria. He's checked in loosely. They got their rooms, and a lot of them just relaxed and some hung out in town there and whatever. but I think is pretty clear seeing how he barely was awake in both the interview with Todd Lewis on the golf channel and then in the press conference here where it was painful almost listening to him that he was just completely shot and that he didn't get that recovery time and I know he has to have regretted playing that first playoff event now

and he's put himself in a spot where he you know his back probably is sore and there you know he was doing some stretching out on the course trying to keep it mobile and and I don't think that's related to a surgery by the way I think that's just wearing tear of of anybody in their 40s playing a lot of golf who's had back issues it could be anything sleeping in different beds the whole thing flying across the ocean with a nine hour time or six hour for where he is his sleep the night after winning the press conference the the tour championship was on a plane. Right. Right. And we know how that's great that is. So, yeah, mismanagement for sure on, I think, when it comes to Tiger. And to his credit, he loves the Ryder Cup and he wants to be out there in the practice rounds.

He doesn't know the course. He wants to be part of the team. And it would have become a news story had he not played on Tuesday. I know. On Thursday. But I think anybody with common sense would say, wait a second. He just played a bunch of 90 degrees. days. Right. Just won a tournament for the first time. Yes. In a long time. And this year has been

incredible, but also draining. And I think, I think, you know, Jim Furek probably could have just come right out and said, I've actually made him stay at the hotel. I want him to relax. I want him to catch up on, you know, emails and get some sleep and hang out. And he could have, he's diplomatic, enough eloquent enough to, I think, have pulled that off. But they didn't do it. And I hope I worry a little bit, you know, to be honest, about the way he was slurring words and the way he looked and his cadence was so unlike the way he normally speaks. And I just hope he, I hope he gets to take a nice, big, long nap. And that nobody calls him for several days and lets him go and enjoy his his beautiful children and his beautiful yacht and the riches he's earned and to leave him

alone and let him get rejuvenated. And because, you know, as somebody who's had some addiction issues, he is prone to, you know, the potential for relapse. And so it's time to leave Tiger alone. We've really enjoyed the run. Now go have a nice vacation. Yeah. this is let's just just go yeah i i hope it's just exhaustion um that that's what makes the

the most sense now look shack i do want to uh try and have some some superlatives here uh and well we we haven't been kind enough to europe yet no well and and yeah and well i'm gonna say one more bad thing about europe before we get to saying nice things about them the only thing that we won i would say this week was uniforms i mean oh oh oh oh oh Six and five. How can it be that in France, just a short drive away from Paris, France, one of the iconic style capitals of the world that they put those dudes out in on Saturday what looked like bowling league uniforms and then today in romper room uniforms.

Well, at least today they were in the sort of the European Union colors, but burnt orange. Excuse me, excuse me, Cumul or Kamel or I don't know what that. It's KU-M-M-E-L. I had to look it up. They should have called it duffel because it looked like, you know, orange duffel bags. It's the brand color of their clothing suppliers. So they basically allowed their Saturday uniforms to be a giant plug for the supplier, whose name I will not share because I don't want to give them the attention for having subjected us to a color that I thought.

only people in Austin, Texas for. It wasn't even, it wasn't simply the color. It also seemed to be the cut. Like, the clothes were not flattering. The dudes were not looking, you know, the Euros can be a pretty fit bunch. They look bad in their, their clothes.

The only U.S. style thing that was curious to me is Tiger and Rain pants. Why was Tiger wearing rainpants the whole week? I don't know. It was, it was cool out there, but, you know, once you were out in the sun a while, it warmed up. I don't know what he loved about those rain pants. Maybe he's just over the white pant thing too.

Because they did, they rode the, they rode the white pants hard. They looked fine. They looked good. And they were well proportioned. No, they looked great. That's RLX,

Ralfler and Polo Golf. They did a great job. Like it was, you know, red, white and blue. I mean, just stick to the, your bread and butter. Can't mess it up.

You're going to be fine. No lavender sweaters. No tributes to the American colonial flag from 1797. Right. Right. Right. Cup trophy sweaters.

We've had some tragic uniforms. They've been terrible. Our guys looked great. I thought they looked really solid. The big fashion statement was the pinstripe pants, which were glorious yesterday. Yeah, but that was kind of like the perfect sort of little, little, subtle, and then Tiger went with a fun-ed-up. Polo shirt. I thought that was bold.

The blue collar on the white shirt. It was, they looked like a good American team. Handsome. And, yeah, yeah. And, of course, you know, inside the ropes, the wags had their outfits. And then, of course, the friends and family all had uniforms, too. I mean, they had, oh, God, they have, you know, you have your nieces, your masseuses, your ex-wives. I mean, everybody was out inside the ropes.

It was unbelievable family, mother, dad, grandma. It was intense how many people got inside the ropes from the friends of family. And I do wonder if that is getting out of control, not from the gallery point of view, but from the player point of view that this is like a whole family trip thing. I do wonder, I don't think we'd ever get a straight answer from any of them. But what kind of effect all that has on them? Obviously, some of those people, it's very meaningful to have them there. But you do have to wonder at a point. Well, you know, you mentioned Paulina earlier.

DJ went one and four this week. One and four. Yeah, I don't think it was helpful having Pollyne here. I don't know where there was. She was out watching today, by the way, followed her man, and he made a valiant effort to fend off Ian Poulter, who will be getting another Ferrari to

commemorate this win. A guy's unbelievable. Well, let's say nice things about the European team. First of all, all of Bjorn's picks. I mean, you know, he knows what he's doing. They have a recipe. They have a formula. You have to give it up.

I mean, the four guys all performed great. There was lots of eyebrow raising around, especially Sergio. Oh, me? I'm guilty. Guilty is charged here. And, you know, how about this? He now leads the entire world in the history of the Ryder Cup. Nobody scored more points than Sergio because of his three and one this week. I mean, that is, that guy is just built for this event.

and that's a Hall of Fame resume. Maybe he was already in the Hall of Fame before achieving this lofty height. I don't know if one master's, the Masters and the players, is that enough to get a guy in the Hall of Fame these days? Yes, it is. And then obviously a great Rider Cup record.

Well, that's it. It was great. Now it's all the time. Yeah, and you know, he's so Sergio's got, yeah, he's definitely got the makings of a career. You know, how's being here, this was my first European Rider Cup. Oh, cool.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and so seeing what these gentlemen did, it's so impressive to see how well they played. But when you see how much it means, the volume of the ovations in the media center from the jocks and effers here before me, but the pressure that these guys are under when they're here to win this here, to bring this cup back,

and to see the way they're playing. perform. Tommy Flewwood first time. Sergio, who's been through this a million times. Paul Casey, who's kind of come and gone. All of these clutch performances, I'm just so impressed knowing what this event means to this group of people here, how well they played under pressure. I just can't say enough about how clutch they are, because they could very easily spit the bit here. You know, the pressure was on them. Golf course, they know. and everything on the line with an event that means so much to people here. And, you know, they reap a lot of rewards from success in the Ryder Cup here and good for them.

But to be as clutch as they were was truly awesome. It's a great point. And I think from a macro level, it's how we draw a distinction between the U.S. team and the U.S. team's performance in Europe in the Router Cup. you know, versus how the U.S. team performs at the U.S. venues. The U.S. you know, tends to be much more competitive because the guys are not out of their comfort zones. And what the Europeans have done very well, in addition to, you know, just sort of the core DNA element of those guys caring about, you know, the Ryder Cup more when it's competed in Europe. They just have an ability, use the word elasticity earlier. And they all rely on the old heads.

We couldn't rely on our old heads. Our old heads went 0. Tiger and Phil are our old heads. And they have a bad record in Europe. They've never won on European soil. How about a combined 43 losses in the Ryder Cup between those two? Well, and Phil, the all-time biggest loser in the Ryder Cup. So the question I have, though, is, is I like our young guys.

I think they should take over the task force. They should turn it over to the young guys now. Justin Thomas, Jordan Speeth. Yeah, right. Fienal. I mean, you know, I think we have a pipeline of some new blood coming up here. Even Patrick Reed, like, I think Patrick was a victim of circumstances, this same route.

Hey, sometimes your game just goes on you. I mean, you know, people forget that sometimes. As good as these guys are, hey, it happens. We've had a lot of rider cups where people have come into this and either had no game or lost it really quickly here. It's golf. It's not other sports where it takes a lot to lose it. In golf, it doesn't take much.

Now, the counter argument to that, and Europe seems to be well- equipped to take on any kind of new blood that U.S. can bring to the four is the combination of Tommy Fleetwood, who's a young fella. Torborn Olison's, you know, pretty young. I don't know if, you know, you know, he's just one of these guys that we'll see the way we see. Yeah, you never know. Yeah. I mean, he could be Peters.

Could be a one time. Yeah. Could be Thomas Peters. It could be Peter Hansen. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, they don't have what feels like the same kind of young, pipeline in Europe

that we have here. At some point, Ian Poulter is not going to be able to play the Rider Cup anymore. And the same is true of Casey and the same is true of Sergio. And when those guys roll off, who's coming up? Because, you know, I'm out on Rory until we see something

from him that's going to be sort of narrative changing about his ability to deal with pressure. Because I just felt like he wilted all season long. He did not look good when the pressure was on this 2018. season. I agree.

Who's there for Europe? Make some big changes, but... Yeah, yeah. I mean, Rom and Fleetwood are, you know, your leading contenders. That's pretty good. Yeah, and then you throw in Molinari, who's clearly in his prime and set for a great run here.

But gosh, you know, Europe, it really is amazing, you know, how they can just kind of get so much out of these all guys. The one mystery of this match, I guess he must have just... Yeah, and this is where Europe is impressive. You knew from the preview show that I thought Alex Noren was going to be incredible in these matches. He only ended up playing twice, and that really shocked me, given his record here, but clearly he had shown something in the practice rounds to the guys that they didn't like.

And Thomas Bjorn had the strength to keep him on the bench, even though he's one of their best players in theory. I thought he played three times. Didn't he? I haven't been one-in-one for the matches here on my little sheet, but maybe I... I thought he and Sergio won on Thursday and then lost yesterday in Webb and Bubba. Yeah, that doesn't mean... Yeah, he should be won in...

He should have been two-and-one. He should be two-and-one because he did win that match against Bryson while they were... Poor Bryson had to find a T-marker for the 18th hole. It had already been lifted. They did have nice T-markers here, House. I did have my eye on them. I was like, I bet you did. That's a good one.

All right. So he went two and one. But still, I thought he'd play every match myself. But that's Europe for you. They just, they're able to sit people. And it just seems like with us, we had, we had analytics or something telling us we had to play these certain lineups. But I just can't believe with all the planning that the U.S. had that they went with not the couplings, but with the placement in the formats that they did.

And that's ultimately where, if I'm going to question Jim Ferrick, it's going to be in that. Not in the couplings, because they have their reason for those. And sometimes we just don't know what those reasons are, and it doesn't matter. Well, and especially when the single most important, and I don't think that this is hindsight. This isn't backseat driving.

You and I talked about it Tuesday, and it was pretty apparent to the entire golf world. This golf course requires accuracy off the T. And that was not our team strength. Now, I don't second guess, you know, the way that we pull our team together. But there was on Twitter, you know, a little bit of, you know, what God,

wouldn't Kevin Kisner have been great in this kind of a setting? You know, I even saw Zander, you know, being mentioned as somebody that would have been preferable than the team we ended up with. But, you know, that analytic driving the ball off the T, what was the thing, you know, Phil did his best. He hit iron on that par five and I'll be goddamned if he didn't hit it in the water. What a fitting end, huh? What a fitting end.

Wow. Well, spinning a fitting end, huh? Yes, a fitting end. because it has been a sensational Rar Cup, but I think we've picked it apart enough, don't you think? Yes, yes, we've done it all. It's a fitting end to the season. I'm sure we'll be back at some point based on events.

Well, there's this head-to-head competition that may or may not happen between Phil and Tiger. I'm honestly worried about it from both the perspective of Phil and Tiger. Yeah, I know. Well, the good news is they both are due for a vacation, and they'll come back revitalize. But in the meantime house, You know what, starting October 14th.

What's that? Calloway Live. Vince Gill is the first guest, Vince Gill of the Eagles. Wrap your head around that. Not only will I wrap my head around it, I watched him. He's awesome. It was awesome. I enjoyed the concert.

Vince Gil was great. I went. I saw Vince Gill with the Eagles over the summer. I'm spectacular. Oh, good. Oh, that's good to hear because it seemed, I got to tell you. It's a little hard for me to picture that. But I'm glad to hear that.

He felt very natural, I'm telling you. It was awesome. Well, it's a fun run of Calloway Live coming up starting October 14th and our friend Rob Light, CAA Music Head. Oh, yeah. Augusta member. One of the nicest guys in Hollywood in music, great big, mega golf fan has been on the Tiger Woods Foundation board for a long time as well. And he will be on Calloway Live as well. just one of the great people in the music business.

Just a real mention, a cool guy, and loves, loves golf, knows everything that's going on, reads everything. And so I'm anxious to hear Harry Arnett's conversation on Calloway Live with Rob Light. Well, those Calloway Live, those are two great guests, and that's going to be much better than watching any of this new beginning of the PGA tour season.

I think that starts this week. It's just ridiculous. Absolutely. But, Jack, you and I are due for a break from the Shack. It's part of the Riga Podcast Network. It's been a lot of fun chatting with you this year. It's been an amazing, amazing season in 2018. Thanks, House.

Great season. Thank you, Shaq. Great times.