Fairway Rollin' - Travelers Championship, Rory's Putter Problems, and the Phil and 'Bones' break-up. (Ep. 40)

Episode Date: June 27, 2017

Geoff Shackelford and Joe House discuss the Travelers Championship's dramatic conclusion and Jordan Spieth's cinematic reaction (2:013), Rory McIlroy's putter issues (17:00), and the recent separation of Phil Mickelson and his longtime caddy, Jim “Bones” Mackay (27:09). Later, 'ShackHouse' examines Malcolm Gladwell's podcast, 'Revisionist History,' and its unfavorable take on the game of golf (36:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I hope you're ready. We have no guests, everybody, but we are excited because there's a lot to talk about in the world of golf. Thrilling Travelers Championship, big-time players and weird states of their game heading into the Open Championship. filling bones, Malcolm Gladwell, Donald Trump, food, you name it. We got it. Oh, and doping, too, House. That's a pretty good lineup. We got it all, Shaq. You know what? You know what's coming. Shaq? This one's so good. I guarantee we're going to chest bump at the end of this one. I don't know if it's going to be as good a chest bump as what's and his caddy Greller pulled off yesterday. But, you know, two old white guys jumping up,

you know, at least four or five inches off the ground and getting that bump on. We're going to do it to it, Yeah, we would definitely look like Tom Lehman and Bernhard Longer, the all-time worst, the air bump where they just missed each other. They had no business jumping. Oh, it's brutal. You know, you know, Speeth and Grellers was impressive. Speets was impressive because he was going uphill out of the bunker house. Well, you know, he's got to gone wrong in a lot of ways. And it, and he, he had some hops out of there. I was impressed. He's got athletes. There's jeans in that family. You know, his brother just signed as an undrafted, um, free agent, I think to Dallas, so he's going to try out for the Dallas Mavericks. But they got some basketball, some basketball jeans, some hoop jeans, some athletic genes in that family. So I'm not surprised that the J.S. got up there on it. Now, you're a big sports fan. What did you make of the, you saw the reaction to the tournament? Great tournament. We're going to get into why it was great, because I think it's important. But you probably saw the social media reaction. So much was dedicated to his reaction, not the fact that he hold the shot or that

There was this bizarre playoff or great final round. But so many people were seizing on the reaction, which I found fascinating. And of course, there was a usual golf needs more of this kind of thing. Your take? Some of that, I'll be honest, bothered me. But I'm anxious to not the celebration, but that people are so consumed with the reaction more than the excitement of a player hauling out on the last hole. I think part of that is some pent-up.

you know, I don't know what the word is. Frustration. Well, maybe, it wasn't really frustration, but, you know, the U.S. Open left us a little flat in terms of the way that outcome, you know, developed. It was not a super dramatic ending. We've gotten a little accustomed to really dramatic endings in the U.S. Open. And, you know, Kepka really shut the door on the back nine, and Harmon kind of limped in a little bit.

And those are not too great names. in the world of golf and just in terms of, you know, the overall reaction of the sport viewing public. Yeah. So I think there was a little bit of that pent up kind of demand for some real drama, but really more than anything, I think the reaction that you saw in sports media was to the authenticity of the moment and how golf doesn't often provide opportunities for that kind of an authentic, spontaneous reaction because, you know, most of the time the outcomes in

or occur sort of, you know, over the course of several holes. It's not, it's not so often the case, even in the playoff setting, that you have somebody doing something so dramatic that it produces this kind of spontaneous reaction. That's my take, what do you think? No, I think that's reasonable. I just am, there's no question the last Open, the Open, the Open, U.S. Open created some of that pent-up desire for some excitement. And then I, but I do wonder.

It's a little bit of a generational thing that now Tiger has kind of set this bar, these great reactions that people expect that now from golfers and good for speed for delivering and it added to the moment. Great. I was just sort of fascinated by that element. That was the main takeaway from people or people were asking today. What did you, what did you think of the reaction? I was like, my reaction was, well, I was kind of more enthralled by the shot and the scene and the setting

and the way the TPC River Highlands kind of played out as an arena. It was also fascinating how quickly people were ready to pounce the way that tournament finished. And then you saw all these reactions about, well, that was way better than the U.S. Open. And look at 6,800-yard course and only 12-under-1 instead of 16-100. There were all these interesting reactions. Of course, I like all those reactions because they feed my view

that Aaron Hills had a lot of positives, but the one negative is that it was so big in scale. The people were set far back. The property was so massive. And River Highlands is such a cool arena. It's more like a college, a basketball, I don't want to call a gym, but a smaller venue for basketball compared to playing a game in the Superdome.

And I think I'm excited that people reacted to that component of the finish as well. I mean, it came through loud and clear on TV. I assume you noticed that as well. Well, and I think that was a big part of what fueled the reaction out of both Greller and Speeth. It was immediately a deafening roar. And Jordan was asked in the press conference, you know, to try and compare it to other

huge moments in his, you know, his early career. God, he's only been, you know, playing professionally since, what, 2012 or so. But, you know, the best he could come up with was at 16 at the Masters, you know, when he won in 2015, his shot into 16 there. Which is a reasonable, you know, that's a pretty good comp. But that's another place where the fans, you know, first of all, it can accommodate a big audience. and you get people's reaction. It's right on top of you. And it kind of, I think, you know,

it was a goosebumps moment for me watching it live on TV yesterday. And the players, the player and his caddy, he obviously had goosebumps from it. And, you know, our boy, Daniel Berger seemed like he might have had some goosebumps from it too because he took, you know, it was clearly kind of a stunned reaction. But he had enough. you know, presence of mind to walk over. He gave Jordan a little, little dapp, gave him a nice,

you know, down low hand slap. And I liked, I didn't realize that Spieth and he kept calling him boogs. Burger had this history, you know, they've been playing against each other, competitors, you know, for all going all the way back to the juniors, because they're from the same class in college. But that was, you know, kind of another sort of cool aspect of it. But, you know, this is, I think, the thing where you see on social media, people are saying, we need to see more of this out of golf. Now, golf doesn't produce it that often for the reasons we touched on earlier. But, you know, it's a nice, authentic moment. The reaction was real.

It was cool. It happened at the right time on the sports calendar because there just was not anything going on yesterday. No. And that's, I think, why we got some of that, well, boy, this was what's. the U.S. Open was missing. Now, I mean, that's obviously a little silly and a little bit of a strained kind of comparison. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, certainly looking for those kinds of moments, it makes sense. And, you know, some of that, you just alluded to it, had very much to do with the venue. I've been lucky enough to play River Highlands. Oh, you have? I didn't know that.

I have. Those holes, 15, 16, 17, 18 are so close to one another. Yeah, it's amazing. And really facilitate people being able to watch quite a bit of golf. And then everybody convened for the playoff. It wasn't that hard to get that crowd. And it really swelled up, right? It would look like it was eight to ten deep surrounding the green there. Another key component to that, which I, of course, I had somebody complain on Twitter. I retweeted the photo, the tour put out of.

CBS had that great wide shot from back in the fairway, like they did at the Masters when Sergio made his put and won and you got to see everybody stand and cheer. They had that wide shot. And the thing that was really cool to me to see that you are seeing less of more and more at tournaments was how many people were packed immediately around the green and in that amphitheater setting. And so many tournaments now are moving people up into grandstands that are set a little bit back. And there are still the Riviera's, the Mirfield villages. There are venues, and River Highlands is one of the best, where you get those people right on top of the green, so one, it's just better spectating. Because that was the number one thing

about Aaron Hills. People still ask me, where were all the fans? Did they all just, do they, they know, show? I go, no, they had great crowds. They're just set so far back, and they were forced into grandstands instead of being able to sit right around a green, except in a few instances, that you lost their energy and the sound and all that that goes with that. And I can tell you, I mean, I've been at Riviera's 18th Green where the people is the greatest amphitheater of all because it's surreal how on top of the green people are and how loud it gets when somebody makes a put on that last day. And there's just nothing like it other than maybe an NBA arena that's, you know, the NBA finals or a college arena, you know. Well, you got to, yeah, you got to be fair. We got to talk about Phoenix if we're going to talk about, you know.

Yeah, but even Phoenix. Yes, on 16, it's very. tightly surrounded, but that's really about it there. A lot of the holes, the people are back a decent amount, and you don't have anything like you have at River Highlands or Riviera or Mirfield Village where they're on sort of slopes right off the green. And the people are just breathing down your neck as a player. And I think that just adds another element. And so it gets to why River Highlands is besides those finishing holes is so great. It's set up to be this arena setting like that. They've changed

the course a million times, but they look like they finally have it dialed in. I mean, that's the other thing. It just looked beautiful, beautiful day. The golden kind of native grasses with the dark green looked great, and it just functioned like a TPC. I think kind of the way

Dean Beeman and everybody else who envisioned stadium golf, really that was just a perfect example of what stadium golf can be. The combination of the risk reward holes and the way the fan could be so on top of the action, just broad an energy that is something

that people, I think, need to be aware of more and more. And it's something that, you know, at the major championships outside of Augusta, you really are losing. People are getting pushed back up into grandstands. The Open Championship has a little of it. Torrey Pines this year didn't have a fan grandstand even on the last five holes.

It was all corporate. And so the energy that, I think is what's fascinating. Is that that energy translates to television and people who watched that yesterday, and they got a good rating, by the way. Thankfully, we finally ended the, I think, the rating slide streak. We'll watch that and go, oh, hey, you know, golf can be pretty exciting. It has an energy to it.

And right now in this discussion of the sport being stagnant and all these issues, I realized more and more watching that yesterday that, now, they had great crowds, too, and credit to travelers, and credit to Rory McElroy and Jordan Speeth and the guys who showed up who don't normally play there for helping someone. more tickets. But it showed how important that fan energy is to capture on television to show that there is energy out there at a golf tournament that's really fun to be a part of. I couldn't agree more, and it's something that I know the good folks behind the Players Championship would love to see more of. And I wonder, I just sort of vocalize this out loud, if that drama could be recreated by making the

players championship less of a war of attrition where you know we only get that drama you know with a playoff and so forth it feels like kind of once every three or four years you don't get it year in and year out and it seems like that some of that is because of how difficult that that that track is is playing now with the the sort of design um revisions that have have been incorporated in um but i do uh i would like to see that's a you know speaking of of stadium venues, the TPC Sawgrass Stadium course really wants that that drama and is built for that drama with all the risk reward of 16, 17. And then 18 really has two wonderful places for folks to watch, right for the T-ball

and then surrounding, you know, the 18 green. But the drama is not, you know, is kind of lost there, except for, you know, every so often, 25% of the time or so. Well, and then Rick has set that ridiculous. bar there that's going to be impossible to surpass, but right, that's right. But the thing I wanted to mention, you mentioned

we talked a little bit before the show. The other thing before we leave the travelers, that was fantastic for a group that works really hard behind the scenes and it was nice to see them have it pay off with this great field is the new

rule that basically forced a few people to show up there that haven't been there. I think will now return because they had a great experience. I'm not sure of that, but that'd be my sense. But this was a great example of the tour's new rule that makes you show up at a golf course and a tournament that you haven't played in a few years. And I think that can't be underestimated in how it helped this event.

The other thing that we have to talk about, besides Spieth, I think the contrast of Spieth and Rory is really interesting. And so they both are struggled. with their putting. But you don't sense that Jordan is totally lost on the greens. You just sense it's just his ball striking has gotten really good. He's leading the tour and strokes gain approach shots, which is incredible. He was 87th last year. And so he's clearly probably put a little too much emphasis on the ball striking practice and the short game practice. I mean, Riviera, he just spent an unbelievable amount of time down on the chipping green,

hitting bunker shots, hitting wed shots, and he maybe neglected his putting a little, and now it's kind of caught up to him. I mean, there were a couple weird putts there yesterday where you just knew he was going to miss it by the body language, and I think Michael Greller even called him off on one of them before he could do anything too dangerous, and speaks to his credit.

Noted that. But then House, then there's Rory McElroy, who just looks utterly lost. I mean, to have people sort of mocking you on the, as you're, I think Whit Watson said it looks like Demo Day out there. four or five putters on the putting green, this is alarming stuff. And this is not encouraging for a player who people pay money to come see as the traveler showed. He sold a lot of tickets there.

And that was stunning, though, to see a player trying that many putters before a round on the Fiji tour. Forget about before the round. One thing, but that many. He competed with three putters over four days. Yeah, that's incredible. Forget, you know, the testing and whatnot. And really, you know, we, I have a couple times over this, the course of Shackhouse 2017 conveyed my disappointment at Rory sort of being out of the scene so far this season. Largely because of the injury thing that he's been confronted by. And also because he had, you know, he got married this, this summer. So,

it's spring. It's reasonable for him to have his head in other places. But my real concern and the thing that that worries me with Rory is he's only going to be 20 for another couple years, right? So like he had all of his 20s to be at the height of his physical dynamism, to be the kind of physical specimen that he's built himself into with all of his gym work and so forth. And, you know, he said,

and I believe him that he's working so hard in the gym so that he has the ability to endure and to have a career that might last less longer with his swing and how he goes after the ball and so forth. But you can't keep missing these opportunities, especially with majors, in your 20s and then hope to have a legacy at the end of it. Now, I know that, and I think that was really at the heart

of what Elkington was trying to get at completely and artfully. And he didn't have any business getting on Twitter with Rory because Rory ate his ass up. But at the heart of what Elkington was trying to say is, I think, well, far be it for me to try and translate Steve Elkington. Yeah, no, he was trying to say that these guys are a little bit softer. And then Rory kind of confirmed his point by correcting him that he's worth $200 million instead of $100 million. And it was a good dig at the time. But you kind of realize now here he's made this show. shift and obviously full disclosure we are sponsored by Callaway and he has gone from his Nike

equipment and he signed with Taylor Made. But what is shocking is that he in this deal clearly is mandated to play a tailor-made putter. Now he had gone to a certain kind of putter and was putting decently before he got injured and Phil Kenyon, his instructor and he had worked out, he was getting, he had a little microhinge in his life. and he dumped that in this signing with Taylor Made. And I just was shocked by that because a lot of times guys have structured deals where they switch, but they allow the putter to remain something that they control for a while until they're absolutely sure they can switch.

And he just, he went all in because he liked their ball or he liked whatever. He liked the check. I don't know what exactly the whole package was. He is intimated. It was the golf ball. That was a problem for him. he was playing a titleist of the Masters, and he blamed that on some of the wind shots, whatever. I'm not sure I'm entirely buying that.

But that's what mentally he felt good to make this change. But House, he has to play their putter, and he's just clearly not ready to make the change. And I think this gets to a bigger point that he has often, and he's very good at it, very good at making money, but he's often put these deals ahead of what's best for his game. And this is probably some of the danger of having your own manager that you control as opposed to what he had before with a Chubby Chandler who might have said, we're just not signing that deal until you have a putter that you're happy with. Or we're not signing the deal that locks you into that putter.

And it's an amazing thing to watch. The other thing he said, though, House, I don't know if you caught this. He's now calling this a transitional year because of the Nike equipment leave, getting married, and now the rib injury. and the back issue and whatever this is, that kind of keeps coming back. And I think that's just kind of astonishing to have declared this now a transitional year. So it's just something to keep in mind going into what is the next week.

A concession speech. It feels like a concession speech. And this is the thing you just mentioned, you know, the equipment change and how long it can take a player to acclimate. This was, you know, it's not exactly ancient history. We went through this same kind of frustration in watching a player. with a super duper talent. I keep using the word incandescent.

I think it applies to him. Super duper talent when he went from tidalist to Nike and the reports of the amount of money that was on the table for him when he jumped over to Nike and he went all in the exact same way he just did with the tailor made in terms of ball, putter, irons,

woods, the whole nine yards. And he went through a prolonged stretch. of, you know, no wins. And this was right on the heels of, you know, the, I think it was the open in 2011. But I might get my, I might have my timing wrong. But in any event, the thing that broke him out of it, unfortunately, seems to have been back then his breakup over text with the tennis star girlfriend. Yeah, Caroline. Well, right.

Either way, I think the thing that's fascinating and what we have to move on, but the difference, I think, with Rory and Spieth is that you don't feel like Spieth would make such a switch in the middle of the year and do anything to compromise his game. Now, his game may be off because he tries too hard. He feels some pressure. He sees a weakness in his stats. He goes after that. I think that's why people are drawn to Spieth because they realize even if he maybe struggles. a little bit for a while. You sense it's because he is striving for such excellence that he might be guilty of trying too hard. Whereas I think what we're starting to see with Rory that's disconcerting is that he doesn't do that. He sometimes puts what's best for his game a little bit aside for the dollar. And he's entitled to do that. But it's just hard because you know what a talent he is. And even if he's just a so-so-pubre.

putter. He just can be such an incredible force in golf. And he's just such a huge draw. People love to watch him. He brings a certain something. Yeah, I love to watch him. I want to see him at the height of his powers. I don't want to see him effing around with a spider. I know. Just put with a camera. I don't think you're going to see the spider for a while. All right, let's take a break for a minute and hear from a few of our sponsors. And then we have some fun talk to get to on Philin Bones, Malcolm Gladwell, and other good stuff. Hey, how it's just a quick word from our friends at Odyssey, the number one putter in golf, because they are especially hot right now with the O-Works micro-hinge insert. I know somebody who used to have some micro-hinge in their life,

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It's more wonderful to see one here in L.A. House, no offense, the Hollywood Bowl. Sorry, you got no chance. Anyway, go on. Don't let me interrupt. Well, look, our listeners get a $20 rebate off their first Seat Geek purchase. If you haven't bought tickets with Seat Geek, now is the time to do it. To get that $20 rebate on tickets, download the Seatgeek app, go to the Settings tab and click Add a promo code and just enter promo code House, H-O-U-S-E. Seek will send you $20 after you have made your first ticket purchase $23.

Download the Seatgeek app and enter promo code House. today and make Steakkeek your go-to ticket source for all things PGA and beyond. House, so now we have the other big story since we've last talked, of course, is the breakup of Phil and Bones, which is Stillman News. As we record this today, Phil was on Dan Patrick, he was on Morning Drive, discussing a few things he was launching and, of course, was asked about this breakup. But people are really fascinated by this. 25 years is a long time, too long, probably.

which is ultimately the issue. I have spoken to Bones. He has not wanted to talk about it. He actually called me because he had put out this statement announcing the breakup. They didn't change their Facebook status, which I thought was admirable. They went to the farm of essentially their version of a press release, which was like an iPhone notes thing typed out. But anyway, it was very kind of him.

For some reason, he had the wrong email address from. Phil's press representative and was calling to apologize that I didn't get it. And I, of course, just assumed he wanted it to be broken by the hip kids at no laying up or something. But that was it. And then I tried to, of course, prolong the conversation a little to get something out of him. And he just wasn't going to go there other than it really does sound like a mutual thing. They have had a great run. And I think it was clear at the players that, well, and not just the players.

I think there have been a few examples where we've seen. There was that epic one that Bones just you could tell. He didn't agree with something Phil said. I think it was at the Wells Fargo. And it was just a comical reaction almost just kind of nodding and supporting the shot. But I think it's really as simple as that. And now Phil, you know, I think he just wants to move on and do his own thing. and Bones can go a million different ways.

But is that your sense that people are fascinated by this because of their longevity? Of course. I'm fascinated too. So what I'm really interested in getting to the bottom of, and I hope that the guys will be candid after enough time goes by. No. A little bit, right?

Bones is like a – he's the ultimate caddy and then he treats the player-caddy relationship like – like a lawyer, attorney client privilege. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'll never, he'll never, ever say anything. Cady player privilege. Well, look, here, here's one thing that I'd like somebody to shed some light on. Why now? Like what, yeah, it's a weird, it's a weird time. It's a weird time, right, Shaq? It's a very weird part. And that is the scary part. And it does not make me bullish on, on Phil's game the rest of the year unless this is something he felt like was holding him back. And now he can go to the upcoming events at the Greenbrier

and to the, he's not playing the Scottish Open this year, but he's going to play the Open, which I think is, could be related to the new golf course there. They're playing in the Scottish. But yeah, I don't, I don't like the timing. And I don't like the chances that, that, you know, Phil's going to be,

Bones was an editor house. He was, you know, the analogy I like is that he was sort of like a great, you know, he was George Martin to, to Phil's, Beatles in that he could kind of take the artist there and sculpt them and steer him in the right direction and not allow the artist to go just crazy with let's pile on the strings in the brass section and the gospel choir or whatever the artist wants to do that the great producer, the great editor says, knows when to speak up and say let's let's not do that or let's go here.

And I think maybe they had lost that ability or bones had lost that ability to shape him and to guide him in the right direction. And I don't know if having your brother on the bag is really going to be the way to bring. Because Phil is an immense talent and he needs to be rained in occasionally. And I think even he knows that.

I think he's credited bones a few times that way. So that's what makes me a little, yeah, a little, not so bullish right now. I don't know if you know this about me. I'm a sucker for conspiracy theory. So obviously, I'm scouring the web, right? I mean, you know, you can go down so many holes. And especially with the PGA tour, there is a gossip culture

because the tour itself is so quiet typically on all matters governing its players. And it's not like the tour had anything to do with this one. but I did like the one conspiracy theory that I found appealing, and I want to be 100% clear. I didn't, there's no credible evidence of this. And in fact, you know, Phil's plans coming up seem to suggest that this particular theory has no legs whatsoever, but that there was a quiet suspension perhaps in Phil's future as a result of some of the mishaps he had with sports gambling and so forth. Yeah, and none of the math adds up on that with his.

with his schedule. And this is why the tour's news last week, which kind of got lost in some of these things that happened, was so important, House, this policy they've had of not. They first, okay, they don't let you know who gets a certain number of slow play times and the fine they pay. They don't let you know if somebody gets suspended for conduct unbecoming. They don't let you know if somebody gets suspended for a positive drug test unless it's a a steroidal one that they're mandated, essentially to be in compliance with WADA and the Olympic movement on. And so that breeds this culture, this conspiratorial culture in golf, and that has been bad for the tour. And many people have made that case. Tim Fincham was just very protective

that of the image of the player, the image of the player was the most important thing to the tour, taking hats off and shaking hands after the round. That is the essence of the PGA Tour product in his mindset. And the beauty is Jay Monaghan is a sportsperson. He knows that it goes beyond that. Golf to have a future is to be exciting finishes like the travelers, and it's to be transparent and to not try to mask and be this kind of old boy's little club that lets us in and lets us watch them but kind of sweeps their own problems under the rug and takes care of their own kind of thing. That doesn't work in today's world, right? I mean, it rubs the sports fan wrong.

Well, that's, you know, that's precisely the point. It is interesting going to see the tour announced the new drug testing, and I guess we'll see whether or, you know, how revealing they are about, you know, folks that get on the wrong side of it. It is interesting, speaking of big news from last week, we're now, you know, like a half hour into this conversation, and we're just now going to touch on the fact that Tiger, you know, voluntarily put himself into a facility to deal with his prescription drug problem, which speaking of, you know, speculation after a particular event, there was a pretty widespread consensus that the dude is suffering from some kind of problem with prescription drugs. And he, his own self, you know, confessed to such in connection with the statement that he made immediately after the car crash.

So knock on wood that this is really something that that helps him get back on the path to health. I said this on a podcast, on a shack house podcast maybe three, four weeks ago right around that Memorial Day event. I want him to play. And this, I don't think that this rehab in terms of getting the prescription drug thing figured out necessarily imperils his ability. to play competitive golf. Now, all of it is mental in terms of, you know, the time that he needs to devote to getting himself right and making sure that he continues to be in the corner of his taking care of his family, the way he's supposed to, with two young kids like that.

And so maybe it's the case that the golf is going to go by the wayside. And maybe, you know, I just need to make finally come to grips with the fact that he's not going to come back and play competitive golf, but they're not mutually exclusive necessarily. No. So I'm glad to hear the news that he's going to take it on head on. It seems. Yeah, I hope so. All right.

He's not going to be at the tournament this week in your home region there at the Quicken Loans where he's the host. He's going to be unavailable. And I think everybody understands that. Now, more importantly, House. Well, okay, not more important than that. But I'm coming to you from Los Angeles. And we have golf clubs here at country clubs. I know it's hard to believe.

Yeah, yeah. And so I'm sure many of our fine listeners are also subscribers to Malcolm Gladwell's fine work. And he started his second season of revisionist history, a fascinating podcast, totally different than what we do. But I love what he does with the format. I think he's always a fascinating thinker. I don't always agree with him, but I love the things that he tries to highlight and then the discussions he tries to generate. That said, he targets golf and his first show, if you haven't listened, and score some very interesting points. But the problem I have, of course, living in Los Angeles is I know enough about the topic to know there were some massive holes in his case. But essentially, the gist is a short version for people who haven't listened and don't want to listen. He likes to jog around Brentwood Country Club. And he started to feel like that was a waste of precious space in the middle of the city

that is short on parks. And so he looked into golf courses and found out that the country clubs around here have a nice little tax break. And then he essentially used that in-house, correct me if I'm wrong, to basically target golf. And it's a rich white guy's sport.

And CEOs waste a lot of time, which, you know, I thought that was interesting that he won in that, but he didn't quite flesh that out. And that was the gist of the show, was to target golf and to point out that the American taxpayer is subsidizing this game in the major cities. And there were many places where that obviously fell flat. You listened to his pod with Bill, I believe. Did you not? I did. Yeah. He was on. It was a good discussion.

He's making the rounds. He was on Coward also. Oh, yeah. Yeah, CBS, he gets, he has big exposure. And that's why we're talking about it. You know, a lot of people, I sent it to one to write it off. I said, well, I'm sorry, but he's got a pretty big platform. You need. to take it pretty seriously. Yeah. So I have obviously a whole number of problems with both the conceit and the delivery and the execution and the presentation of this episode of revisionist history. And before I go into my sort of list of criticisms, I will observe like you.

I have been a I've been a Gladwell fan for a long time. I like, you know, sort of the fresh approach to topics and, you know, the deep dive that he takes into certain things. has been illuminating in the past. And, you know, he's a, he is a prodigious, you know, thinker and writer. And, you know, lots of times I found him to be very persuasive. This was not one of those times. And, you know, I think he had in mind a particular point to make that with the very first

episode of this season of revisionist history, which happens to be within, you know, the first 150 days of a new president of the United States. who also happens to be a big golfer. That's exactly right, that he had this sort of liberal populism that he wanted to sort of deliver. And, you know, he starts off, it's in the first three minutes of the podcast. I hate golf. And by the end of this, hopefully you will hate golf too.

Yeah. Well, you know what? You know, Malcolm, fuck off. Okay. Hey, we earned our explicit tag better than ever. Well, look, you know, we're going to, first we play this leisure activity snobbery, like running is superior to golf because of the impact on resources and some of this other kind of thing. They liken the fence at Brentwood to the Berlin Wall, which calls into the thing with the fences. Oh, my gosh.

And, you know, rich people really, really like it. And then two sort of highly specious to my way of thinking points that he makes about, you know, You know, why golf? And, you know, he doesn't dare be particular or constrained in how he defines what he's criticized, which is really just private golf in L.A. That's really the thrust of this whole argument. Not I hate golf, and by the end of this, hopefully you'll hate golf too. He doesn't make a case to bolster that.

He has an economist on who apparently has done some work looking at the handicaps of CEOs who, you know, at 1,500 companies now, he quickly, you know, blows through the fact that of the 1,500 CEOs that they've identified for the purposes of this study, they could only find handicaps for 330 or so. And then he talks about 10% of that playing a certain number of rounds. And then there's apparently some correlation between the success of those businesses for the CEOs. So we're talking about 30 CEOs, I guess. if I'm doing the math correctly, that play a some number of rounds and that there's a

relationship between the success of those businesses. And I guess the point is the leisure activity of those folks. Now, I'm not going to try and defend the leisure activity of choice of anybody, right? Because I don't care. I just like to play golf and I play it at public venues and I play it at private venues. The other aspect of his criticism is a reference. from 1978 that the people of California voted for it nearly 60% in favor of this referendum that froze property taxes at that point in time and made it such that unless property changed hands in the future, then you're only paying property tax as though it was 1977. And so every governor since that time in the, in the,

history of the governance of the state of California has considered the political consequences of taking on that proposition and has decided against it. And none of that is described here. It's basically portrayed as this special tilt to the private club's private golf clubs in the state of California. And really just Los Angeles, it's ludicrous. It tells so little of the story. He jogs here, yeah.

Well, and I'm not going to argue the tax element because they certainly are not paying a number that enthralls you and says, oh, yeah, they're paying their fair share. What I have a problem with, though, House was his targeting of the clubs for not being more open to the public. Obsessing about the fences around them is just really bizarre to me. And I get, you know, the old course of St. Andrews is wonderful. It's not open on Sundays and people picnic out there. And that's wonderful. but that's just not realistic. What I have a huge problem with, though,

and he discussed this with Bill, is the lack of public park space in the city of Los Angeles. And where I was disappointed in, and I know it would have really hurt his case, but in Los Angeles, we have a magnificent history of civic leaders completely screwing up the formation of this city. And in a couple ways.

One, in terms of transit, we had the auto industry basically bribe people out of creating great mass transit that were now spending just gobs of money to remedy. And then the other area where we've just been horrific has been in the area of parks. In fact, and I linked this on my blog, the Olmsted brothers were commissioned to write a report in Los Angeles about public park space long term and the vision for that. And so for him to ignore that, plus we've had multiple. instances since. We currently have another one where we're going to try to fix the LA River and create these great park spaces along the side of that. So to blame country clubs for having the vision to have created something and having the wherewithal to have sustained that and those leaders

and those visionaries to have made something and to not have made them open to the public and to blame them for the lack of public park space, I thought was really, that was the one thing that really, really bother me. You can go into why people don't like golf. It's all Donald Trump's fault. It's all Barack Obama's fault because he played too much. All that nonsense. I get all that.

We've heard all that. But to not, the way he researched it and the way I know he can research, for him to ignore L.A.'s history, I thought, was really the most disappointing part of the listen. So, again, still worth looking to. So I think it's good for golf. though, to be aware that this is a view out there. And my view is unlike a lot of people in golf, say, ah, you know, they're just, it's this, it's that.

I think you do have to refute it. And I think there's some pushing back is important. What I really resent is the populism, this sort of liberal populism tilt, that comes right on the heels of revisionist history presented to you by Chanel. So like what? Chanel is the people's perfume? Is that what I'm supposed to believe?

Before we go, go hard at the, you know, at the privileges of the folks that belong to the, okay, I'll stop now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because speaking of advertisers and podcasts, there's a wonderful new podcast that's going to become available for advertising folks out there. House, you can't tell us the name, but I listen to Bill's show, your fine show on the NBA draft, and you discuss that you're going to be having a food pod. he will be on the second episode. I'm very excited to hear about this. Could you tease us a little?

Are we going to have, is there going to be a little bit of golf food talk? You know, there's a lot of big-name chefs, as you know, love to play golf. Give us a little teaser of what's coming up on the to-be-announced-named pod. Oh, Shaq, you know I am nothing, if not, a food enthusiast. We've had occasion to have some meals together. I have a few opinions on food. You do. I'm not afraid, Shaq, you know this about me, to write a food wrong.

When I see a food wrong, I needed to be righted. And really the genesis of this whole idea was Ringer took on last meal on Earth. It was a really great week-long kind of expose. And all kinds of expose is the wrong word. But just a thorough treatment of a lot of different elements of. of food. They had a lot of famous chefs on to talk about what their last meal on earth would be. Now, part of this was a ranking among the Ringer staff, a group of folks that are largely populated by under 40-year-olds who were asked to provide their opinion on their favorite fast food.

All right. I know all about your beef with that. Come on. We don't need the live story of this show. Just give us a plug. Yeah, this is going to be. a food podcast for the hungry people by the hungry people, Shaq. We're going to have food news. That's the elevator pitch I was looking for. We're going to have food news. We're going to have food rants. We're going to have food guests.

We're going to have food recommendations. Well, that first guest, are you ready to reveal that? No, you know, we're still, everything is still a movie piece. But we're going to look, the first handful of guests, we're going to have some great folks. We're certainly going to have a good Callaway friend, Adam Rappaport, the editor-in-chief of Bonapit, Bill Simmons hates avocados. We're going to try and figure out what that's all about. We're obviously going to have our good friend.

He's a friend to the ringer. He's a friend to the DMV to the D.C. area. David Chang, the Momufuku, Empress. He'll be a guest in there. Absolutely. So, you know, it'll be all the kind of folks you expect. And you're absolutely right. There are lots of chefs, famous chefs, that have the food angle.

So let's get into it. All right. Well, I can't wait. I'm going to be subscribed. I can't wait to listen. It's going to be a lot of fun. And we look forward to hearing maybe on one of those shows your Fourth of July spread because we are a holiday approaching.

We hope everybody enjoys the fourth. And then we're going to get all in on the Open Championship after that. Check. Hey, everybody, let's close the show with a word from Chromesoft, the ball that changed the ball. House, by the way, our friend Jim Cunningham, Sr. Just tested out the Chrome Softs, and I understand fired a 78. first time he's ever used the ChromeSoft.

I think we did well getting him some golf balls. That's better. I've never shot 78 in my life. I've broken 80 twice, but I've never broken, I've never shot 78. Well, we won't blame the ball in that case. But hey, Calloway has been the fastest growing major golf ball brand since 2013, and it's the Chrome Soft golf ball. Of course, it's been a major part of that, as our friend Jim Cunningham can attest.

The key to Chromesoft's performance, of course, is the dual soft fast core, which makes it extremely fast, incredibly soft, and unbelievably easy to control Chrome Soft. It's the ball that changed the ball. And friends, I talked a little earlier about the good people at Proper Cloth. You know what I mentioned. Something's always off when it comes to dress shirts.

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