Fairway Rollin' - Tiger Falls Short to an Unflappable Francesco Molinari | ShackHouse (Ep. 72)

Episode Date: July 22, 2018

Geoff Shackelford and Joe House look back on an exhaustingly entertaining weekend at the Open Championship (02:00), the most pivotal moments in Tiger Woods's and Francesco Molinari's final rounds (07:30), the delightful pace of play and demanding course conditions of Carnoustie (24:30), Xander Schauffele's toddler problem (33:30), and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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perfect fitting shirts, visit propercloth.com slash shack-house. And use gift code Shackhouse, get $20 off your first customer shirt today. Now, Shaq, let's get into the Shagghouse. House, greetings one more time from beautiful Carnusty. We had an incredible, incredible week here. How are you doing?

Did you enjoy what you saw? television. I am exhausted, Shaq. I felt like I was literally, you know, engaged in a physical contest of some sort of my own self. At my advanced age now, it's easy for me. You know, once the adrenaline gets pumping and I don't have anywhere to put it, I don't know what to do with myself. So, you know, there might have been a few jumping jacks, a couple high knee raises here in the living room. It's all I could do to get, you know, to keep from jumping up to the top of the ceiling because the leaderboard about halfway through this thing, Shaq, amazing. Amazing. It was like every great name in golf, you know, except for Dustin Johnson and Justin

Thomas and Sergio Garcia. But what a leaderboard, my man. Yeah, it was just spectacular. You know, we've kind of telegraphed that there was the hope that we'd get this kind of tournament. I think this is sort of what we thought we'd get with Tiger Back. And it just was that perfect. Really, you had every generation of the last 25 years covered. And it was just spectacular on every front. The golf course played so beautifully. It brought out so many styles.

The debate at the beginning of the week about how to attack it really was unusual for a major championship these days. and it just all panned out so beautifully. But I'll be honest, I really thought Jordan Speath was going to take this and run away with, not runaway, but run away by modern standards with this kind of a stack leaderboard and win by three. Wow. Obviously, yeah, just, I mean, the way he was going and his mojo, it just seemed like that's where it was headed. And obviously. I'm so surprised to hear that.

I will tell you, I woke up this morning. saw some of the early broadcast, saw the guys on the range, saw what Jordan Speeth was wearing, and I sent a text. Wait, wait, you're the one. I'm telling you right now, I said it texted whatever time, nine something East Coast to the West Coast where I liked to make my wager. And the West Coast wasn't awake yet, so they couldn't receive the wager I wanted to make.

I wanted to know what odds I could get for the field against Jordan Speath. At the time I was looking at it, It was, you know, two to one, right? You had to pay 200 to win 100 to take the field against Jordan Speeat. By the time they're around got going and he had a little trouble there, it got all the way down to nearly even odds. I didn't do it. But I've just had a different sentiment altogether, a different feeling.

I'm making fun of this outfit. No, it wasn't all-fashioned based. I just thought, based on the Jordan Speeth that we've seen so far this season, that we'd observe the very best. I thought that he'd exhausted all that he had in terms of maximizing his game. And I just thought he was, that was,

he couldn't keep it up through the balance of this round. Because he's just not all the way back to the full, Jordan Speeith, you know, superpowers. So that was, my angle was somebody other than Speath. I thought going into last night, I thought Rory McElroy was going to come out and burn the place down.

And he had a little bit of an indifferent front nine, but was in the mix on the back. 33 on the back. And what an incredible week for him. I mean, you know, I've openly talked down his chances on a firm fast course. And then today,

the wind was howling. I mean, it was so tough out there. Now, the wind, a couple of the players pointed out that the wind was, yes,

it was tough, but the angle was better than whatever light little breezes we'd had earlier in the week because most of the holes, it was either dead into you or dead down. And for these guys, that's really, frankly, easier for them. But it was still so windy. The ball, the fairways were so hard.

And it is so stressful trying to land balls on these fairways. Way more stressful and difficult than controlling your ball and landing it on the greens. And so for him to excel on this kind of. setup that he has openly said he doesn't really care for and doesn't know how to play. I just think is so impressive that he battled the way he did and played the way he did. And by the way, he also did a couple of interesting things strategically this week. You know, he admitted he was going to probably subscribe to the aggressive approach and he quickly backed off that.

And then I think the other thing that was fascinating, he, I didn't watch the way. enough of him in person, but I think he pretty much got rid of the green reading book. He kind of went the Luke Skywalker and turned off the thing of Majiggy and just went by feel out there and look what he did. And this is what But Charman's criticism was that he's robotic on the greens. And so this could be just a big, big week for him that sets him up for a big year with the PGA and the Ryder Cup looming. So good for him.

It is amazingly his first runner up in amazing. major. He's had tons of top top fives and obviously the wins that he has. I was just surprised to see that. I saw that stat. I'm interested in a few things that you just touched on. First of all, we should tell folks, you were physically outside. You were on the grounds

following the Molinari Tiger Woods group today, right? Right, right. So I picked away at the media lunch today and the chicken wrapped in bacon. Not as good as it sounds.

They also had the mystery lamb, I think, that was left over from yesterday, and then they threw a new sauce on it. So I had a little launch. We had a fun chat with Rick Riley and Alan Shipnuck and Bob Herrick. And it was, we were doing some interesting prognosticating. And yeah, then I went out and picked up the Woods Molinari Group at the 6th. And it was so, so fond me, it's the perk of the job to have the inside the ropes. And I knew where to stand. I'd seen this spot earlier in the week. get right behind the tea. There's a TV stand. You can be there and nobody bothers you and you just see the tea shot right away, whether it's going to go out of bounds or what it's going to do. And Tiger took a little extra time. And I mean, it was just a huge, huge moment for him.

I don't think that whole really fits his eye according to Rob McNamara, kind of his guru and friend and confidant. And we talked a little bit about it. And he just hit the most beautiful. kind of knuckle cut shot that just it just went right at the OB briefly and then cut and then just took this crazy bounce because I think it had like this sort of knuckle spin on it and the tempo, the rhythm house of his swing just it's just so different than what he's been doing. Everything about it. It almost looks like he's not, this is going to sound strange, but it looks like he takes a club back and then it's almost the same speed through the ball. He just the rhythm and the lack of pressing and trying to bomb it.

And I mean, 18, he kind of let one go. And then we had that stupid fan thing. But it just looked sensational. So yes, so I went out and went the whole way with him. And then Molinari, it was just stunningly consistent and relentless. He just hit every iron shot either in a great spot. The only iron shot he missed and the entire back nine was on the par 313th

which was just really awkward today with a back right hole location and he got very lucky the ball bounced through and almost went into the gorse and it didn't and he had a swing. Otherwise I can't think of a poor iron shot and no bogeys on the weekend. Just an amazing performance for him

to come from the John Deere Classic and win the Open Championship. Yeah, 37 straight holes without a bogey. But the reason that I wanted to call to everybody's attention, the fact that you were physically outside is because I wanted the first person account, the firsthand live boots on the ground account of you, what that wind felt like, how it was switching back and forth. And the ground under your feet, you know, what part of the broadcast this morning that I enjoyed probably the highlight of the morning broadcast for me was bones out there with a basketball, kind of dropping it from head level and. how far up the basketball would bounce, you know, to reflect how,

it was cool, it was super cool. Bones looked like he had some game. Now he said on the broadcast, he hasn't played in a long time, but he spent the ball. He's so modest, yeah.

Yeah, he does, yeah. Bones got game. But in any event, between the firmness of the fairways, the way the wind, the wind finally picked up.

And I wanted to know on six, the three would the tiger hit, to get to the front of the green. So good. That's the one that really, it's funny that six to me was really in many respects, the pivotal hole for both Tiger

and for Jordan. And both of them with Threewood. How close were you to Tiger and then Three Wood did he hit? I was about 40 yards ahead. And when he hit the shot and I watched his body language and then I heard the applause

from the crowd and we kind of had fun, Ian O'Connor of ESPN.com and I were kicking around how far if somebody hit the ball from the hole and when we couldn't see it based on the ovations here and the crowd didn't give it much. And I got up to the green and I said to Ian, what's the deal?

That shot was phenomenal. He placed it in the left front. Nobody was getting near that green really. And then you had Fleetwood took himself out of the tournament on that hole. Out of the tournament. That's right. Jordan later took himself out.

And I actually texted my. editor house I was going to write if Tiger won my story all around the sixth hole in his play there. He went par par par, he had an eight iron in in round one. But then he birdied it both days on the weekend, played it so beautifully yesterday too. And it's just such a scary, scary t-shot. It's kind of goofy. They've brought the fairway in on the right. So it's way wider left of the bunkers than the right, you know, and they all talk about Ben Hogan. and whether, you know, he went left and he kind of did maybe one day, accidentally maybe. But anyway, it's a great lore and all that.

But the fairway was tiny on the right. But it didn't matter where the fairway lines ultimately were. It just looked stupid to people who look for that stuff. It just, it is just such a scary haul. And so his execution there, the two days, if he had won, I would have written about it. It was so just epic to watch that and watch, because I just don't think it's a hole that anybody's that comfortable on, but I especially sensed it's not his favorite. And so to see that kind of thing, I think in recent times, if he was uncomfortable like he was on that hole,

we would have seen some quackers out to the right. I'm just keeping it in bounds and then chasing it. I mean, he just didn't hit many crazy. He didn't really hit any crazy shots on the weekend. It was just, gosh, he's playing well. Incredible. So I'm glad that you had sort of mentally circled six because I did the same thing, which is why I'm insisting that we kind of go through it.

I really thought that was the shot, that swing with the three would. The drive was great. And the fact that he played it, you know, perp the cut exactly the way he wanted to play it. You know, kudos to Tiger. for the you know where his game is right now and his sort of mastery of of that shot at that sort of still still on the front nine you know there's still this thing and I want to get to this with you he he shows a different level of comfort front nine to back nine on the weekends now but I was really prepared to give you know this this critical moment crucial moment to six

and then he had the save on 10, an all world, all time, vintage Tiger Woods, save on 10. And that's when the phone and the Twitter and everything on my end here in the state started going crazy. Oh, good. Yeah, that far away bunker shot was amazing that he gave himself a birdie pie. That was the one where you just miss it a little and you're in the burn. And I got a good look. I went up the left side and the lie was sensational. but still, and it was downwind, but it was, again, the sand was heavy in these buckers,

and he misses that by a fraction, and that's in the burn. So that was a huge, ballsy shot. It was, it was awesome. It was the height of, of Tiger excitement. He walked on the 11th T. 434. He was on the sole leader of a major championship again. I noted the time because he just thought, oh boy, is this it, is this, do it, here we go.

and then he just completely bungled the 11th hole. That was the difference. The funny thing is it seemed like his T-ball, you know, quit on him a little bit on each of 9, 10, 11, 12, and he was able to save himself on 9 and 10 and not so on 11 or 12. At 11, he compounded the mistake by, you know, trying, again, kind of a vintage type. shot and where he was able to pull it off on 10 on 11 that flop out of the rough where if he'd stuck it he he would have had a chance at saving bogey i think after the round he he said he didn't regret how he played that that shot um bob harrig asked him and he just said that he um because

i was kind of expecting him to say you know in hindsight i would have i would have just thrown it over the bunker a little bit more and and taken my uh licks and made bogey but Right. He really believed he could play that shot and he just got too cute with it. And that double was really painful. And it was just a killer while Molinari was just plotting along there so beautifully. And really the sixth hole was the last time Molinari was a little shaky. He was shaky on six both days on the weekend. And then after that, he just, he was a machine. It was just incredible. Well, you know, he made par on every hole until he got to 14 and then made Bernie on 14. the way that everybody was making birdie on 14. But the true culprit to me with Tiger was, you know, just the compounding the mistake on 12. You know, he was obviously shaken by the double on 11.

And then to tug that three iron into the rough on the left again on 12. It's like, ah, that's it. I mean, it was right there. and then it was gone. It was all in the course of maybe 35 minutes. Maybe, but you kind of knew what, I don't know if he knew about the Eagles on 14, but you did have that looming sense that there was an eagle out there. And so I guess that's why I didn't get to where I felt like, oh, it's time, this is, it's over. Mollinari, you know, showed a little sign of trouble there on 13.

And then just made that amazing up and down. But Tiger, I mean, he just wasn't, he wasn't phased by anything Molinari was doing or the circumstances. But as you say, it just got a little ragged in that stretch. And he said after that it felt exactly like it used to feel in contention. Because Ron Green asked him, did it feel different? And he just gave the biggest smile all week. And he just said it felt so good. It felt exactly like it used to feel.

and I think that is fascinating because when you're out there watching that kind of leaking oil on that stretch when the wind was really going, you're wondering, is he feeling something, a tentativeness? But then the ball striking really, the shot on 16 was fantastic, a dumb hole location. They had a lot of dumb hole locations this week. A lot of one caddy, I'm writing my course story right now for golf. We call them infinity hole locations. He was so mad. and I saw a few of them. They were just, they just looked like they were about to fall over the edge of the green,

and they put a bunch on knobs. And so that's why the field, I think, stayed a little bit bunched, is they had so many, but the greens weren't fast enough that it got goofy. They just were, they just were kind of lame hole locations. I mean, number one today, if you watch the puts, Tiger hit a great put there, and it just snapped at the hole. And a lot of the puts did that. And so they, they say they don't care about scoring, but they really,

They found every knob and weird spot to put holes on. And I was a little disappointed with that. But the guys, you know, they really kind of kept their head up and didn't say much about that because the green speeds were so reasonable. And so they didn't have a Chinatcock situation on their hands. Well, that's it. And I want to talk about that. And I want to be clear.

I talked about it being over for Tiger, just the way that I was watching the broadcast. just to be precise about it, my experience was, you know, the margin for winning error here is so thin because of how tightly bunched everybody is. Losing three shots, you know, dropping three shots over two holes feels like almost insurmountable. Notwithstanding all the golf that he had to play and all of the opportunities to rebound, it was just too many great guys all together there in that same batch, you know, the best I was hoping for. at that point was a playoff

where we'd have Tiger and Justin Rose and Rory and Jordan Spieth and you know Frankie Mullineri earned it you know all those guys in a playoff and let's just have a shootout so I didn't want to I don't want to suggest like oh you know

I saw this is it that's the you know the sky hadn't fallen at that point let's take a quick break because I do want to talk about course setup and the comparison between Karnusti and Shinnak and that green speed point that you just made. Well, and I have a really important

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She's engaged to Sean B. Sean B. Yes, Sean B. Of course, Sean B. I mean, who else would it be? Right. But she's, she loves. She loves golf. She's got a cabillion Instagram followers.

I am told, sources tell me this is a great get for Callaway Live. So check it out. And of course, by the way, also on Calloway Live in the archives right now, Tom Watson, who's playing in the senior open this coming week at St. Andrews. Also a great discussion with Harry Arnett. Go to Callowaygolf.com and you will find Callaway Live. Well, Shaq, I'm happy to also give a quick shout out to our new friends. my bookie.ag.

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and bonuses. That's mybooky.orgie. And use promo code shack. Well, when I regroup, I'm going to use that promo code because, oh, did I? Oh, did I have a bad week? I had a good weekhouse in that I had many bets that were looking promising, but I just too many near misses. Alex Noren blew up today. Bernard Langer.

24th, my top 20 bet at 14 to 1. I had him at 10 to 1. How unbelievable is he, by the way. I had Stuart Sink also who was also finished his outside. I think I had him at what a turbulent. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Wow.

So I got the thrills of, and I get to cash, you know, a few things. But the big, the big ticket items, not so, not so great. But hey, it was great entertainment and always great fun going to Ladbrooks and watching the digital horse races. I'm so jealous. I mean, that's the thing, right? We're going to be talking about this. You don't want to see that site. In any event, we talked a little bit about, you know, some of the pin positions.

and I do, I share your frustration. I wanted all of the pins from 15 through 18 to be slightly more generous accessible. 15 was in a terrible spot. There was. It was. 16 was fine for the last, very last groups. It wasn't great, but the very last, I mean, Zander Schofley hit it close.

And so did Kevin Chappell. Both of them had Bertie tries on 16. 18 was getable, but 17. wasn't as getable as I would like, but you mentioned the green speeds. And this is a thing I made a mental note. I wanted to make sure that we talked about this because you're there, you walk them, you could, you could feel them. I, I, uh, we have as a juxtaposition, what we just saw out of Shinnecock where there was this, uh, apparent. Now, I don't know, you know, we will have an opportunity as, uh, the golf year continues to, to the stories, the deep dive

stories on what went wrong at Shinnecock and what the USDA got wrong. We know in the immediate moment that they let, you know, they confess to letting some of the conditions get away from them. But the difference between how Shinnecock played with its impossible green speeds and the way Karnousti played with greens that rolled at, at the fastest, what, 10 this week? I think they got up to 10 and a half. They alerted us yesterday that they'd picked up a few inches on the stint meter. So Yeah, I mean, really maxing out 10 and a half in the morning, by the way, but they grow during the days. So my question to you, is it fair to compare Shinnecock to Carnusti the way those courses are designed, the natural defenses, and taking a look at the green speeds of Carnusti and what we saw from the guys in terms of a test of golf and producing a true champion compared to the green speeds of Shinak. and where guys felt like, you know, the course of playing in an unfair way,

is it fair to compare those two venues? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. No, the greens just got too fast at Chinnecock for the contours. And, you know, this golf course is irrigated all the way. And Craig, both the superintendent, did a beautiful job managing this place, and they kept watering it until just recently. And then they turned, if you can believe it, those fairways were irons.

I think about 10 days ago. And then he just started turning off the water gradually and they turned, you know, the color of the leaderboard. But the greens, they maintained the irrigation. I was a little trouble. I'll be honest, early in the week. I thought the look of the yellow within the green greens was a little odd. And the way the guys were saying that the fairways were faster and harder and to hold than the greens wasn't great. the greens picked up just enough firmness and lost just enough color that it really worked.

And then with television masks it because they cut to another player. But the pace of play out here was so nice. And it's just so much more enjoyable not watching people mark every two-footer and set up shop and regroup and reread. And it was just wonderful, the pace of play. despite how demanding the course was. Now, a few groups fell behind today, and I think Jordan Speed got his,

they got a bad time. Tiger and Molinari were behind for most of the back nine. So they, but everybody could see the difference here in the pace of play, and everyone attributed it to one thing and one thing only, and that was GreenSpeed. So it's just a vital issue for the sport. Here were two perfect examples back to back.

Two great golf courses. And that's really the gist of the piece I'm writing right now for golf week is Carnoustie this weekend's and Carnusty's reputation, I think, has just improved incredibly. It didn't have a bad reputation, but it had a reputation as a place that could get freakish and weird. And maybe reward luck too much. I don't think anybody leaves there this week thinking that. And I think it now becomes to a lot of people just a masterful test of strategic golf.

Whereas Shinnecock, it's like, wow, what do we do with that? Where do we go from here there? And that's how fickle this whole thing can be in major championships reputation-wise for courses. Well, that's exactly why I asked the question. Because I, you know, the number one takeaway for me after Shinnecock was the debacle resides in letting those greens, you know, get to a speed that the course is not designed to produce. You know, it's not, you're not, you're not going to find the most proficient golfer in, in a manner that, that's consistent with what the, the course is asking of golfers.

You might, you're going to get the, guy, the golf. Now, one, two there, Kepka and Fleetwood played the best on Sunday. There's no, no, you know, demeaning or diminishing what they accomplished. No, no. And I don't mean to be suggesting such. but there was just too many wrong bounces and and you know the guys on sat saturday afternoon just got a radically different golf course than the guys who got who went off the first part of the day carnoosey by contra distinction you know rewarded the best player over the entire weekend there

was one player without a bogey over the entire weekend and and he won he's the championship golfer of the year. So that's the point I wanted to make. Yeah, no, and it's a great point, and I'm glad you brought it up because I have to go finish about 250 words in the piece. And so you're, I'm feeling good about it now. I, you know, I wrote it and then we're doing this and I'm going to

finish it off with some stats and stuff. But I you're making me feel better about it, that it's just it's such a cool place too. And I don't know how it came off on on television, but there are so many unusual hazards here and funky little ditches.

is and it just reminded me when you're here, well, on a number of things, but it's amazing what tiny little hazards can do to be really interesting golf, to create interesting holes and to get in the heads of these guys. And it just was so fascinating how they managed it off the tea. And I think the other cool thing is how much the guys liked it. I mean, this left them worn out at the end of the day. They had to think, but they didn't have to, yeah, it wasn't physically tough in terms of hacking out of stupid stuff all day, like other opens here. But they were worn out.

When they'd come into our little interview area, you could just see guys were pretty frazzled at times by having been out there and on all the things that go into the golf course. And that's just cool when you see that. Well, that's, we, in the run up to this week, as we were trying to kind of, kind of, do some early forecasting. We did observe that there did seem to be a pattern of kind of a cerebral golfer having success at this venue and that

the great strategists have been rewarded at Carnusi. And I think, you know, the prominence of Tiger this week showed out that's a great strategic thinker on a golf course.

His strategy of getting himself to Saturday without any, you know, major mess-ups was really quite brilliant, right? I mean, he just nudged himself. And then he went ahead and got aggressive on Saturday, shot the 66 that shot him straight up the leaderboard and put himself in position to where he's standing on the T on 11 as the leader of the Open Championship.

And the world was on fire. But the same thing is true, of course, of Frankie Molanari, who shot a beautiful 65. on Saturday and played a game that that didn't feel to me to be, you know, unbelievably aggressive. But, you know, because of his ball striking right now and the rarefied air that he occupies, he shot eight under over the weekend. He was even coming into Saturday. And then he went, you know, 65, what, 69? 69. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I mean, that that's, but just in terms of, of, you know, we have Yet again, another guy 35 years old or older winning the Open Championship.

There's a reason that that stat bears out, Shaq. It's these guys with experience. It's these guys with, you know, the gravitas to think their way around to not get flustered. They have the short game and the touch doesn't abandon them. And I want to make a just draw a distinction between what we saw from Malinari down the stretch and the ex-man, X-Man, Zander Shafley, who was really terrific today. I mean, notwithstanding his three over, he shot 74, but it was a pretty effing impressive 74, Shaq.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I mean, he was in it to the end. And by the way, playing the Chrome Softball, the ball that changed the ball by Calloway Golf are that comes as no surprise. Yeah, yeah, what a, but what a steady performance to hang around. And I, again, did not watch the speech group, but it's just listening to the radio,

the open radio broadcast that I, enjoy so much over here and I could have sold my radio for a lot of money. They used to sell these things here house. It's so enjoyable to listen to. There's no delay. And it sounded like Xander's grouping there with Speed was really tough at times because they had a lot of issues and they had some rules situations. He tried to get a drop and they were behind and then Jordan gets a bad time. So for him to hang in there and then he gets to 17 and there was something we were listening to Rory, was there something with a baby right behind him and he backs off the chip and he smiles and he laughs and he still hits a, that was a phenomenal

bloodshot. He hit, it's incredible. That's where I stood most of the week, that area when you got up to 17 green. There is no shot there. You see nothing. And so for him to have given himself a putt there and to hang into this tournament, hang around until the, really to the 71st hole, just a sensational performance for him. Yeah, it was a funny. It's worth talking about it. It was a funny sequence.

He hit probably the best T-ball on 16 of anybody today. And he had an immensely makeable putt that he just hung out on the left side. He looked, it was clear he expected it to turn. It didn't move an iota. It rolled right over the left edge. He was surprised by it. But it was a super makeable. And that would have brought him up to.

seven and had him tied with Molinari at that point. And then he and Spieth both laid back on their T-balls on 17, and they both had 2.25, at least 225 in, and neither one of them hit good balls. That's probably the shot that took him. Well, it's not probably. It is the shot that took him out of the tournament because, you know, it was short, it was right.

It was in a portion along kind of the gallery line there. where he had to move folks. And it was probably like an eight to 10 minute real time exercise to get people moved for him to figure out what shot he wanted to hit. And then the baby in the back swing, which was low. You only get that really at the Open Championship where the fans are so close. A woman is there with her baby in a stroller. The stroller is physically prominent in the in the camera shot when they show from behind. And you can hear her the little girl babbling a little bit in the background.

I honestly wonder if it loosened him up because he had a chuckle. He backed off afterwards. Because he was really grinding over the shot. He probably stood over it and took, I don't know, 10 practice swings and they had to move people a couple different times. And then he hit just an unbelievable shot and had a very makeable par putt on 17.

At that moment still would have had him in there at 6 under with a chance to get to 7 under because he didn't know that Frankie was going to bird. 18. But, you know, all kudos to him just hanging in there all the way up to that point. And he still had a chance to Bertie 18 and take second place alone. But his performance is in the majors and that major tournaments now. It is time to take note check of the X-Man. Yeah, absolutely. So good for him. And I mean, just so many great performances. Matt Coucher, you remember I talked him down. I'm fessing up, by the way, all the bad advice I got.

I talked him down after seeing him at the Scottish on the weekend, struggling on the range. You did. You did. He was getting a lesson and the body language was awful. So that, I, that, you know, and look at him. He finishes tied for ninth with speed. Patrick Cantley, a great performance, tied for 12th. I mean, so many people had a chance.

Thorburn Olson. Eddie Pepperell was a leader in the clubhouse there. Kevin Chappell, super weak for him, now working with Sean Foley, who's helping him with some swing changes to help take pressure off his back. So just sensational stories. How did it mask? Again, we have both Sky and NBC here. We can watch, but we can't hear audio entirely. We don't get the commercial that you get, like the playing through commercial.

your kind of overall take on the on how it came off on the broadcast so over the last two hours i was getting increasingly frustrated with the number of ads the number of commercials and i don't know if i have been gaslighted by the other majors by the masters and by the u.s open where over the last two hours it feels like those tournaments have um you know really uh committed themselves to showing uninterrupted golf play. And with the tiger in the mix, I really, I didn't want to even countenance any play through.

Like I just want to watch Tiger in that moment, you know, on the back nine, Tiger and all the guys, because all the shots are coming out on the back nine of the Open Championship when the leaderboard is that tight. And it just,

it was a, it was a Sunday like, you know, I'm not going to name, many tournaments by name, but not, not, it had a not major feel in terms of the frequency with which we were having commercials and so forth. And I, I don't mind front loading because, you know, the broadcast starts so early, front load that son of a gun with the, with commercials and let us watch the golf. Like all the eyes are on it, you know, for those last two hours. It just felt like too much, too many breaks. Okay. Now, I do need to hear a little bit more about,

your feelings on certain players and the fashion. Because, you know, I usually take note of that, especially the Masters, like, what final round outfit looks good with the green jacket, you know, carmically, what's a guy thinking there? You, I really just didn't even take notice of any major fashion gaffes today, but you, besides Spieth, was there more that you were appalled by? First of all. And you're not normally appalled by these things.

I'm fascinated. I'm going to keep saying this until he's. You wear white belts. I don't wear white belts. You talk me out of it. I stopped doing that. Last time we were together, I was in black belts and, you know. You were, but I figured I just scared you.

But I have two things to say on this front. First of all, I worry that all the guys sharing the house were giving each other votes of confidence around their sartorial choices that were not, not, you know, they weren't doing themselves any favors. Because first of all, Ricky Fowler wearing those. orange pants. I mean, I'm going to keep saying it. That's his thing. You can't win a major

dress like that. There is a way to wear orange accents. Wear gray with a orange accent or something like that. You can maintain the orange theme. Now, he was out of it, right? I mean, his tournament ended on Saturday on 6th when he hit it out of bounds. But

no, no, who's the last guy dressed like that? That's one of a major championship. And this goes to, by extension, I didn't have an issue really with Jordan's shirt, although I heard some, so there was a lot of people out there in the Twitter sphere that didn't love the horizontal stripes. I don't mind that shirt. It was the shirt and the pants that was just, you know, it looked like a trying too hard kind of combination, Shaq. And it was a blue belt.

It was royal blue pants and it was a shirt that was on a color scheme that just had them all too similar. Now that's one set of guys where it's like he's not dressed like he's going to win today. And I had that reaction. I'm telling you, I checked the odds and I went to go do something about it. The other thing I want to talk about is Nike. And at some point, I really feel like we should have somebody on from Nike or somebody who reps them. Because I've been, I've said this many times, I'm a lifelong Nike Dave Ote. I can't for the life of me understand what the hell they're doing with their golf clothes.

They had guys in Pocodot hats. Let me tell you something, Shaq. I liked that hat. There ain't nobody coming out. to the Open Championship and winning holding up the clear jug in a polka dot hat, Shaq. Let me tell you right now.

But Torberg-Ollison, my boy Ollison came out on fire, Shaq. Birdy, birdie. I thought, oh, here we go. 29 on the front maybe. We start, you know, Ken and I was like, oh, Pocodot hat, he's out. He's out. No Olison for me. Yeah, that's the way I usually am.

But I thought that hat was cool. It looks like Stars of the Night kind of thing. Oh, well. I thought you were going to comment on these theme colors where a bunch of the guys were wearing some sort of pink color day. Rick Riley was asking me where this came from. And I said, this has been a thing for a while where they have these like they're in the Tour de France. He goes, well, that's, that's it. They are teams.

They're not teams here. I go, Rick, I can't. I'm trying to explain to you. I have no idea why they do these thematic things. It was, it was curious. It's clear that guys. Tiger, of course, is never a part of that. Right.

Well, you know who else wasn't a part of it? Frankie Mullenar. Frankie Mollonari had beautiful clothes. Beautiful clothes on Frankie Mollinari today. And a lovely black and white stripe, very muted. A nice stone color slack, a nice white shoe. Look like a major winner to Meshack. Great outfit, Frankie Mollonari.

Open championship winner outfit as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, well. And a Nike guy. So how is he able to select? Well, I know. Yeah, they have this thing where some people seem to not be on the varsity squad or they don't get the memo. I'm not sure. We'll look into it, House.

How's that? But I'm with you. I mean, it is fascinating. But let's not, we don't want to leave this discussion in this week without just kind of summing up. I think what was, it was so close to an all-timer and immensely satisfying, at least for those of us here watching. and hopefully those watching at home, that I think it probably got monster ratings with Tiger being in contention,

with Jordan Speed being in contention, and Rory in the weekend and, you know, the early morning coverage. Yeah, let's do some context and some stage setting. Our boy, Justin Ray, who you know I love to cite, he mentioned on his Twitter how this week was the week 40 years ago that Jack Nicholas won his 15th major.

So wow, wow, is this poised to be something special for the tiger? But let's just talk about all the other special things for the tiger that happened. He is now inside the top 50 of the official world golf rankings, which means he is playing in the bridge stone. I don't, I don't, please, I don't want to discuss. No. No, I could care less that he's playing in the bridgestone. He could care less.

Somebody asked him about it afterwards, and he didn't. think he was going to be in with his his finish so um but that was just his but he didn't it was not uh i understand i know i know i know the point you're making and i don't disagree with it but it's nice to know the next time we're going to see him it's going to be at a venue where he's had enormous success where you know we're certain of seeing him one more time before the pGA and he's going to be playing against you know best in the world so those are all good things. Those are all things that I'm interested in. I'm excited about.

I have a tournament to look forward to now as the calendar flips from July into August. And, you know, the final glory's last shot is coming up hot on us. It's truly glory's last shot because then it's going to May.

That's a great point. That's a great point. Yeah. No, it should be good. I'll be honest. I'm more excited about the Bridgestone at Firestone than I am a PGA at Belrieve for a variety of reasons. Architectural. So there you go. Yeah, there you go.

Things I'm hearing. And just it's just so hard to follow up the open. And when you see these amazing players performing on a course like this that is so intensely difficult and playing all these cool creative shots and, you know, you see the look, you see the caddies, what they're doing to try to keep these guys going. The whole thing, it's just a very special place. here. The open is my favorite in a lot of ways because

of that. And when it's like this, it's just so gratifying. It's just really hard to get excited about 7 million yards of soggy, hot St. Louis, Ries Jones golf course architecture.

So I'm going to relish this one and really soak it up and think a lot about it and blog a lot about it and all that because it was an amazing week. And Tiger just is bring something else to the proceedings, but but you also don't want to overshadow

the incredible work that all these players did to, to peak and, and, you know, House too, it's just so fun how much they're embracing this and, and you just don't any longer hear people come and be the dumb American or the, um, just the

point misser. They really, really truly got it. And, uh, That's just really neat for the current state of the game and these players. And then continuing to raise the standards of where we go with tournaments. Well, that's it. Right? The perfect antidote to the bad taste, some might have had in their mouths from the Shinnock experience, golf returned to a birthplace kind of venue with a reputation of producing genuine,

wonderful champions. We had an unbelievable Pax leaderboard. 10 million congratulations to Frankie Molinari for his. style of play for his strategy, for really flipping the script on his own game in the middle of his, really approaching the end of his golf career life, right? He's probably got another 10 years of, but you know, you don't see guys in the mid 30s acquiring the short game that he's managed to acquire. He's always been a great ball striker, but you know, now he's right there at the very upper echelon of, you know, he's all the way up to seven. I think he's the

official world golf rankings or the FedEx or something. I know that I saw as a stat here in the last couple hours. Inside the top 10, obviously a Ryder Cup guy. That's going to be a hell of fun competition in Europe with him now kind of a, you know. Definitely. Yeah, him winning a Euro hero. They're very, very nervous about the Ryder Cup being a big loss for Europe over here. I'm a little surprised how they're sensing it.

So him winning, you really could hear it in the cheers out there today. They are very excited that a European has won the Open. They always are. But also they take the rider cubs so seriously here. And so this little extra boost that their guy, who, by the way, was in a match with Tiger when the matches were decided in 2012 at Medina, they were playing against each other. It's just very cool that they... How great would that be?

He faced down Tiger Woods this weekend and he won. So they're very excited about that. So really exciting and a lot of respects for what's coming up. I'll try not to be too much of a downer about Bel Rieve. And we'll get excited. You've got some fun stuff coming up on House of Carbs, I take it. We have a wonderful show where you just recorded, went up on Friday with a local hero of mine,

a founder of a bespoke cocktail business called Small Crabbs. Half Lickers. Amy McDonald's on. We're doing this. We covered the summer palette. A lot of delicious cocktails, ingredients, recipes, ideas for you. Because we're really entering the best part of summer. It's vacation time, Shaq. It's time to sit back, enjoy a cucumber tonic, enjoy a Paloma. Enjoy, you know, a delightful salty margarita.

I'm going to try to get a PIMS tonight, the British summertime drink, although the Scots don't really think a whole lot of me ordering a PIMS up here. but we've had some lovely meals and alcohol and all that good stuff up here. It's just been beautiful evenings, late evenings, and it's just been a pleasure to be here. So I look forward to listening to that when I get home and catching up on all the good stuff and catching up with you in a few weeks on.

The shock house part of the rare podcast network. Ain't nobody coming out to the Open Championship and winning, holding up the clear jug. In a polka dot hat sack.