Fairway Rollin' - U.S. Open Reactions from The Country Club in Brookline

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Joe House and Nathan Hubbard give their reactions as they witnessed the latest U.S. Open goings-on from Boston. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Derek Thompson. Does the news feel overwhelming to you these days? There's a pandemic, then there's inflation, and also this crypto thing. It's way too much to keep track of. That's why my podcast, Plain English, breaks down the news twice a week. Short, sweet, and surprising, it's everything you need to know with key insights you won't forget. Listen to Plain English free on Spotify. Friends and welcome to this golf podcast, unlike any other. Oh yes. semi-live edition of Fairway, Roos, Open Style.

This is the golf podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I am your starter, Joe House, PGA Tour correspondent Boots on the Ground, U.S. Open Boots on the ground. Nathan Hubbard, we were out on the golf course today, my friend. We have some reactions. We had some experiences. We saw some things. We saw some golfers.

We saw some vodka. You saw a little gin. It was a wonderful day out there today. at the country club. So let's go ahead, throw a peg in the ground and talk about it a little bit, buddy. House, is this a good course to be at? Or is it just a good course to watch on TV? Well, it seems like it's a wonderful course to play.

Every single person that's played it says so. Big smiles. It seems like it's a wonderful course if you can be inside the ropes. There was some media walking along with some embedded media along with the groups. Perhaps the very best opportunity we had on the golf course today to watch golf up live in person was on the seventh hole when the ropes guys. By the way, we'll have a rant about the ropes people. The ropes people have a little work today. There is something about, yes, it is one of those jobs in life.

But that's an aside. Rent a cop. We managed to enter the seventh fairway behind the group of Rory, Macaroy, and Zander Shafley, and Hadeki. And we were able to kind of linger in the fairway a little bit, so much so that we watched maybe from, I don't know, 75 yards away. Yes. A tiny bit further. Each of those guys hit their approach shots, but really watching Rory hit his approach shot into seven that he then turned into, converted into a birdie. that gave him the sole lead of the golf tournament.

Now, this was for him his 16th hole because he started his day off of number 10, but a high water mark for the Fairway Rollin podcast boys, right? It was a moment for you, given how high you've been on Rory. And look, if you take away the day, he's second in putting. And so he has continued what happened at the Canadian Open last weekend. he continued it forward. If you're worried, you look and say he didn't hit it great off the T. And he's 17th an approach. It's about all we can hope for on this course because, look, I felt a little

moisture in those fairways under our feet. Oh, I'm so glad that's where you ended up with more after you started with. I felt some moisture. Thank God. Yes, I agree with you. This is going to be the easiest day by far. And it looks to me like, it's already getting tougher. I mean, there is a split of almost, it's not going to be a full shot, but it's going to be three quarters of a shot between the morning and the afternoon. And we noticed that it was kind of a dome when we showed up. It was cooler than we thought it was going to be. It was cloudy. There was no wind. But by the time the afternoon wave kicked off, that wind was a factor. I mean, we saw Phil on the par three-sixth really have to think about

what he was doing. They were staring at the trees. Well, let's go ahead and talk about Phil. The way our day played out at the country club, we followed two golfers more than any other golfers. We caught several holes of Rory on his back nine, which was the front nine. And we caught several holes of Phil. And the one thing that I'd like to say on this podcast, after I got the opportunity to share some time with our good friend Bill Simmons on his podcast yesterday, is that.

that Bill Simmons might owe me, I mean, we'll put this out there to all the birdie buddies, the par-saving pals. He might owe me a million dollars. I mean, I did say on his podcast that if he lent me $3.1 million last night, that I could turn it into an immediate million dollar return on investment there. And that transaction did not go through. Phil Mickelson is going to miss the cut. He's going to miss the cut. Really, the gamble, the bet now is how much is he going to miss the cut by. But the interesting thing, Nate Dogg, is it won't be because

of anything untoward occurring from the fans. There was some untoward comments on the course. Yes, there were. And we heard them. The contrast between the support that Phil got versus the support that

Rory got, I think it was four times louder for Rory. I think there were four times as many people for Rory. it felt like Phil was a zoo exhibit and people were coming out more out of curiosity than anything. He had the smattering of support. He also had some hecklers.

I mean, our first hole watching him come up that fairway, we heard a woman scream, Phil, I used to love you. And then we had another guy screaming, you know, the Gordon Gecko. Yeah. Greed is good, Phil. Greed is good.

Great is good. And it was eerily quiet as people. People were just sort of watching. No one rebutted. No one said, hey, Phil, we'd love you to try to drown it out. There were people taking their shots, and those shots were landing. When he came to that sixth hole, we saw that T shot. There was a lot of applause.

But it didn't feel like Kiowa for crying out loud. Well, nothing's going to feel like Kiowa. I mean, that's not the benchmark for whether or not Phil has support. Yeah. I thought overwhelming. You mean before putt, by the way, after that. Well, that was, that's the karma. That's, you know, that's everything.

We don't even have to be silly about it. He doesn't play competitive golf. He hasn't played any competitive golf. Of course he's going to finish dead last in putting today. Of course he's going to finish dead last in putting. That's exactly right. But I would say like that corridor, the sixth hole, it's a par three. And it goes right by this American Express hospitality venue where a lot of people were posted up.

We had a good opportunity to spend a little time in there ourselves today. but that when he hit his ball, he had the best T-ball of his group between he, Shane Lowry and Louis Oosty-Husty. Yeah. And it looked like, okay, you know, we watched him three putt on number five, the very reachable par four that he, you know,

smashed a drive. For him, it was a hook, not a slice, over to the right side and then chopped to the middle of the green and then three-potted, blah, blah, blah. But the four put on six, let you know exactly how dialed out he is. He ain't dialed in, he's dialed out. Yeah.

I also think the ratio of thumbs-ups to footsteps on the course is way down. He's acknowledging the crowds, but he's probably only popping one or two per hole right now. He looks different, doesn't he? He does look different. Thinner? Thinner? But like a little gaunt almost? Look, we want to be careful about.

filling in a narrative based on how we've been talking about him for a bit. At least I'll try to be careful about it. I'm not going to say, you know, it's all of these factors that the Saudi experience are weighing on him and it's visible. But we've been at golf tournaments and watched him play. And there is nobody can argue this a lack of enthusiasm. He also appeared to me, to my own eyes, tired. Yes. But I don't think I'm filling in blanks with that. I don't think you are. He's wearing the stress of these last couple of months. And he didn't say a lot in the press conference this

week, but he did directly address the fact that he's been working on himself. He's been taking a lot of time. There's a lot of things going on behind the scenes. I think there's probably more still to come. We still feel you and I do. I think that there may be another shoe to drop. I don't want to keep, well, there might be more than one. shoe to drop when it comes to Phil and the stories that are going to come out, we anticipate. I want to kind of end the Phil portion of this conversation with this question to you. Do you think that he can ever play competitive golf again? Like, I don't know why he's here.

It's his 52nd birthday. Why is he playing this venue at this time? I think it's the logos on his shirt and hat and bag. that are the telltale sign. I think the driving force behind this shift to live golf has been, I want to be a brand. I want to fully monetize my own brand. And to do that, he's got to be out there.

I think there's somebody behind the scenes, who may not be wrong, by the way, who's telling him that the news cycle here is going to wash out through time, and at some point people are going to appreciate the jump in the air that is that silhouette logo that he's wearing everywhere, but he's got to stay active. Before all of this went down, before Kiowa,

we had the whole coffee for wellness thing, and you and I were joking that he was a marketer moonlighting as a golfer, right? Yes. He's back to that. He had a brilliant moment in the sun at Kiowa, and that's probably it. And that's okay.

He's 52 today. Like 52-year-old guys are supposed to suck at golf. I mean, I suck at golf. So that's so, yeah, it fits. He's still probably a little bit better than me. Yeah. But I think this is all, he's just got to be out there and present to fully capture the value of what he wants. And now, listen, what we have seen over the last two weeks is it's gotten personal for the guys on both sides.

Yeah, it has. And it's personal for Phil. At this point, like, he's got a burning something to make this work. There's a whole lot of failure that sits on his shoulders if this doesn't come through. And as we have heard more and more on the course and the buzz and the media tent about who's going to jump ship, you also start to understand that some of the comments that were targeted at Phil back when he first had the blow up and the Shipnuck interview came out and he sent out the statement and basically disappeared for a few months. Some of the comments from players were not that they disagreed with the decision that Phil was making, but that they were. pissed at him for blowing their opportunity to go get some money. I mean, Pat Perez gave some pretty

pointed Phil as an idiot comment. And Phil, I mean, and Pat Perez is going to Saudi. Yeah. Well, and that's its own animal that we can either choose to get into or not. I say all that just because he has been wearing not only his own stuff. Yes, that's right. But that of his peers. And clearly today, he is not beloved out there. He's not beloved. He has more support probably than I expected. Yep. But there were plenty of assholes. We were.

Yeah, you're right. Doing their thing. But more so than that, it wasn't just guys trying to take a cheap shot. Like, I will remember for a while that woman saying, I used to love you out loud. Like, she couldn't help herself. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, the thing that I was struck by, he is a celebrity. No doubt.

Like, he's the star of a show. He is. So that he's, you know, in terms of eyeballs, everywhere he went, the cameras were up, people were walking, big surges in terms of the crowd traffic. It's Hollywood Hogan to me now. He's got the weird facial hair. He's dressed in all black. He's taken the heel turn.

You kind of know that in five years he's going to be back in the world of good. It's just going to take a little while for people to get used to this. I guess so. Well, too much airtime probably, except for... It's the story. It's the story. I mean, look, there's a couple of other stories out there today. Well, we saw one.

Your pal, Joel Damon, yes. Put out around. And the funny thing coming into this, two funny things, he and his typically understated way talked about the likelihood of him having a great U.S. Open. Yeah. And something clearly fit his eye, Nathan.

Well, he's third and approach fourth off the T, first T to Green right now, as these rounds are winding up. I mean, he's shot 300 today, and he's middle of the pack in putting. So that's a good sign for a guy who is actually a pretty good putter. Yeah, we watched him putt on his final hole, which was the ninth hole today. And the put that he made there was an eminently makeable birdie, and he gave it a good run and just hung out, hung out a little. little bit. But he felt he looked pretty enthusiastic. It felt pretty stress-free. Five birdies on that course is a pretty impressive run. Look, there are a few opportunities out there. We saw it five is playing under par. Yeah. And the two par fives, eight and 14 are playing under par. Five is that

315-yard par four that guys are going right at. Yeah. So they have to, it's also the long, you know, the slowest hole on the entire golf course. Like they have to let groups hit up so that, you know, while the guys are putting, it just took forever. And that's something to talk about with this course. You don't see it on TV, but I was just struck how many of the holes cross. I mean, on almost every hole,

a player, when he putts out, has to cross over another hole to get somewhere else. So the spectator traffic is just, it's like Boston Rush Hour. Yeah, it was for the first time walking the grounds. On the one hand, I liked the fact that it's all pretty close together. On the other hand, it's all pretty close together. So like the crossings to get across, the rope bearers, they're not in sync yet. They're not fired.

They're going to need a couple days of getting yelled at. A lot of long, long, long weights. Two long weights. Giant crowds amassing and trying to get your bearings on like, where are we going to post up to watch some golf? I think if you come to the country club, you've got to go find a grandstand where you can see three or four things happening at once. That's going to be your best bet. Yes. And what is special about this course is so many of the shots are blind. Yep. And what's hard as a spectator on this course is that it means, you can't see a lot of the shots, including getting close to the greens

is very difficult because they're isolated and there's mounds and there's rock outcroppings and there's Fescue, which makes for a cool as fuck golf course, but not really a cool as fuck spectator experience, at least not yet. There's a couple holes, you know, we'll spend a little more time tomorrow, but like

11, which is playing 122 yards today. There's some interesting things that they're going to do with these shorter holes that, you know, I bet the fifth hole doesn't play as easy as it does going forward, because I think they've got some pin placements, at least it looked like they have some pin placements that will be a little enticing, and some guys are going to blow it into that Fescue. But they do have some interesting choices in terms of how they're going to set this

course up. But with that wind blowing this afternoon, we just saw the easiest golf that they're going to have. It does seem like it. Like we can't, there is some weather in the forecast for tomorrow. some potential thunderstorms. I don't know how the forecast has changed over the course of today, but Friday was sort of circled the afternoon, possibly having some disruptive weather. And that will impact, you know, obviously, if there's thunderstorms, that'll impact how it plays.

We still got 40, 50% chance of thunderstorms in the early afternoon, but it doesn't look like we're going to get a deluge that's going to dramatically alter the course. It already is starting to look like, that browned out sheeny U.S. Open thing. It's getting there. It's getting there already. I'm going to put you on the spot. Yeah.

Lots of sights and sounds. You saw some good friends, you know, for media and otherwise. Yes, we did. A lot of nice shoutouts from the crowds. What was your favorite scene or thing that you saw today, your favorite thing? I loved the support for Rory. It was awesome. There was a fan who screamed out, thanks for being a leader.

Uh-huh. and there was real energy pushing him forward. And listen, you and I both from the DMV, like this course isn't Congo. Right. But when they put that stat up on the TV in the bar that he has not won a U.S. Open since 2011, I thought, God, this is as close as it comes.

It's a city course. It's kind of close together. It feels like he's riding a wave at the moment. And he's going to be tough to be. I mean, he's really going to be tough to beat. One of the stats we saw today, he continued his accuracy from 75 to 150. Jay Ray popped that out, still riding that heater a little bit. And for sure, it was the most buoyant crowds, the biggest energy and really the hardest to navigate.

And we kind of encountered it early in our day. Yeah. What was the Roy crowd? My favorite moment of the day was, was the 13th T. We got to see a couple of guys that we might not have observed. We're friends arm and arm walking down after striking their T-balls. And it was, of course, the clown prince himself, Sergio Garcia, wearing these fucking clown

glasses and an Adidas hat with giant three stripes. He looked like he was headed to live the club down in Miami in his arm around Kevin Naa. His great buddy, Kevin Nah, who are the arm in arms, you know, walking down the off of the T-box. And we could hear we were within earshot of Sergio. Oh, where we're going to? What did we go to play? What are we going to? It's fucking arm around them.

The best buddies, Kevin Nah and Sergio Garcia. It was ridiculous. It was contrived. And it is symptomatic of what's going on right now. These guys are battening down the hatches. And whether they like it or not, they're in a little bit of a war. I think they're going to have some more soldiers joining them soon, but we can speculate about that later on as we continue to hear the buzz underneath.

I think what I love sitting here, and we still got a couple holes to play, but just if you look at the leaderboard and the guys who are in the top 25, this feels like a test of golf for the best golfers in the world. The number is going to be, call it if Hadwin doesn't choke it out here, you know, it's going to be three, four, five, maybe. But all within striking distance, Rory, Fitzpatrick, who we got to take super seriously, he is playing really well, House. He's, like...

I just need to see some more major brain out of them, that's all. I know, but he's hovering. Rom, who was first off the T, basically didn't do anything else well today. A kid stole his ball on 18, but he's still sitting there. He got a drop off of that, did. He did. He's still sitting there. one under. Morikawa, just a guy who got himself up to three under, but is still there at one under.

Really good. Willie Z, who didn't seem to have his best stuff. He does seem to be transitioning from a boy to a man, the facial hair. You said that. I didn't, I, when you first said that's really Z, I'm like, no, no, that guy has face hair. That's a grown man. You're like, no, that's a Willie Z. It's a ferret with a with a goate. And it was Willie Z, but you know, for him, a ho-hum. Yeah. 69. Good job. That's our guys. He's

didn't seem to do that much well, but I'll say he's 21st in putting right now, which tells you if he starts, right, our guy, Max Homa, is first on approach. He's like hundreds in putting. So if Max can figure out those greens, we've seen this coming

for a long time. We've been talking about Max as stepping up, making those inquiries. You know, he won again at, you know, in D.C. at Avanelle. Yeah. He's, he played the PGA pretty damn well. This is going to be a, the top 20 bet that we put out, I like at the moment. I like it too. I like it, especially with how he's striking this ball. We try to take good care of our birdie buddies out there. You know how we do. J.T's hanging in there at one under. DJ's there. I mean, like, this is a great leaderboard at the moment. There's nobody of the real serious favorites. who seems to have flamed out in the way that, you know, wouldn't have been expected.

You're not, you don't treat Patrick Cantley as a serious favorite. I don't. You have talked me out of it. Okay. He's 125th in approach. He's not playing good golf. It's a major. What did I expect? I think we might say that Cam Smith, who's sitting there with Schaeffler at plus two,

but it's early, early days. Yeah, both those guys can have rounds go off tomorrow morning because they're on the afternoon shift today. Wake up tomorrow morning, refreshed, and either one of them go a little bit low. Let me ask you right now, having watched what we watched today, seeing the course and the condition that it's in, anticipating the weather that's going to play out, what would you say is your guest for the winning score for the week? I think whatever the ending first round lead is. Interesting. So right now it's had when it's four under. Yeah. Let's say it finishes in the three, four, four, four. Four. Four. Yeah. Let's say it finishes in the three, four, five.

This course is only getting harder from here. The morning round was the easiest it's going to be. Okay. I don't have any reason to argue with you. No, I was going to get, my guess would have been five under. Yeah. Like somebody in the way that JT. Yeah.

You know, on Sunday at the PGA championship, went out and, you know, went two or three, four under. That's, that that'll be, I'm not saying that JT shot four under. It may be an even round that functions like that round. That's right. And that most, you know, the scoring average on Sunday might be plus three plus four. 100%. 100%. Well, it was a great day. Today, we have a banner day lined up for tomorrow. The podfather himself, the Boston native, hopefully there's a little pep in a step. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. We may not get him out of bed if the Warriors close it out tonight. Well, let's not talk about that then. Okay. There we go. My birdie buddies, my par saving pals, my eagle enthusiast. We might be back tomorrow. We might come right back on this feed and give you a download on day two. Who knows? See how the day.

plays out. We'll see how the trophy club, the victory club, all the hospitality, the Amex club, all the lounges play out for us. We are definitely going to be back Sunday night after the final round. But hopefully everybody's feeling good about the tickets. I think our guys are hanging in there.

There's been some reasonable performances thus far. And I hope everybody out there managed to figure out a way to borrow some money from their neighbors to bet on Phil Nicholson and miss the cut at minus three 10. Let's go collect from bill.