Fairway Rollin' - U.S. Open Recap-tacular (Ep. 39)

Episode Date: June 19, 2017

Geoff Shackelford and Joe House discuss Brooks Koepka's first major championship (03:00), the unpredictable weather (08:00), the lack of rivalries (17:00), the pressure on the USGA (22:00), and Fox's coverage of the event (26:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us on the U.S. Open Recap Edition of Shackhouse, presented by Calloway Golf. Shackhouse, Shackhouse. There is one more week left in the exclusive Shackhouse Calloway Customs promo offer. Calloway is offering $25 off your order of Calloway Custom Wedges. Choose that paint fill, weight port color scheme, and throw some custom stamping on either the MD3 milled or the MD-forged wedges to get up and down with style. To redeem this offer, visit Callowagoff.com. slash customs and use the design tool to get your wedges looking just right.

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beautiful Chicago Air O'Hare Airport. Forgive the Thunder and Lightning in case some of that gets picked up in the background. How are you doing today? Shaq, it's not started. thundering and lightning here on the East Coast, but it's pending here as well. Glad to hear that you're still in the Midwest.

Are you reveling in the reverie that was the Kepka experience of yesterday? I think that might be a little strong. Well, and just so everybody knows, this is the second checkouts we've recorded a post-US open, so the House knows exactly how I feel about all this. But, you know, it was a good week.

And I think that we have to, put a lot of these things in perspective that went on. There's a lot of complaining that this wasn't a true U.S. Open, and there are a lot of things that people are upset about, and I understand that. But this was a very difficult venue. They made it work in a lot of ways. The weather changed things in ways they hadn't anticipated. And so I think it worked well, and I guess the point I would make is that history will look

back and you will say Brooks Kepka won the U.S. Open. He deserved to win the U.S. Open. Yeah, the score was low. But nobody looks back at Rory at congressional shooting the same thing in terms of par in relation to PAR as Brooks Kepka. Nobody looks back and thinks that was the tainted U.S. Open. That's right. And I don't think that this performance by Mr. Kepka is going to be looked back as any kind of a tainted performance. There was no doubt from the beginning to the end that he was the best player.

The point of the U.S. Open is to determine the best player. at that particular point in time. That's the entire premise of our United States Open Championship. And Kepka was the guy. And he showed it with a virtuoso performance Sunday. And, you know, he and Matsuyama really set themselves apart yesterday in conditions that were a challenge for a lot of guys that had aspirations and ambition. I do want to take a quick note, Shaq, you just mentioned

that you and I already had a conversation. This is indeed the very first ever Shackhouse Mulligan show. At some side. Tell me how you consumed this U.S. Open because you were playing a member guest. And so I'm kind of fascinated to hear what the reaction of the people you encountered was to Aaron Hills and the way the golf course played. And then just kind of how you took the whole thing in. You know, one thing to note right away, a big fan personally of the tournament coverage

starting at 11 in the morning and running all the way until the lights went out in the evening because that allowed for the ability to catch snippets on each day. I didn't have an opportunity because of the member guests to sit down and watch an extended period really until I watched the end of Saturday and then all of Sunday. But you're asking me about the group that I was with. This is a group of serious golfers, you know, guys that are. belong to a club and have kind of a traditional, generally speaking, traditional approach to the game. And on balance, these guys appreciated what Aaron Hills was trying to accomplish,

but across the board, folks were kind of pining for the U.S. Open that our dads kind of grew up with, which is something slightly more severe, a more, you know, a challenge. that produces big losers. There's a lot of carnage in the way that folks come to expect the U.S. Open. And that was a prevailing sentiment among the crowd that I was with. The group appreciated the new venue. And I think people understood what the U.S.GA was trying to accomplish, which is introducing more public venues into the Rota,

places that the American golfing public can go and enjoy. and sample and try out themselves. But because of the scoring that really kicked off, you know, on day one, it didn't really feel like that, that U.S. Open, you know, kind of a murderer's row vibe. Yeah. And you touched on this a bit earlier. The course was really imagined and designed and set up. And we talked about this with Mike Davis, imagining dry conditions and windy,

conditions and instead what the course experienced last week was rain for the first you know three days in the lead up to the event so it was a very soft course and we didn't really get any of the wind that was supposed to be part of the challenge of the of the tournament until sunday the advanced setup of the course was done so with the potential for a wind event or or really daily winds in mind and so they erred on the side of caution no question and I don't have a problem with that. I know a lot of people were bothered by that, the width, but if it had gotten, well, it was pretty brutal yesterday on Sunday.

It was, but the Greens were holding and so pure that the guy still scored pretty well despite the win. And I completely get what people want in terms of the U.S. Open and the challenge. But sometimes you're just at the mercy of weather, and you can only do so much. And you have to err on the side of two, easy or I don't even like the word easy because that house that course is so long and big and there's so much trouble and so I think that people forget because it was a really bad run for a few years with the U.S. Open where you felt like maybe the right person didn't win that the setup painted the outcome and you just can't have that and so Mike did the right thing and Jeff Foll who does the

front nine and airing on this side and by the way by doing so with greens that were more saying they are being more consistent with their message about sustainability. Oh, yeah, and the six-hour rounds we thought were a given didn't even come close to happening because the guys just were so much faster on the grains and they were so less finicky about the 18-inch putts and marking every single one. And that I attribute to the speed and the quality of the putting surfaces. I mean, they were just amazingly good. But then also they just weren't that insane speed.

So that's a very positive thing. And these aren't things, though, that they're going to want to be entertained and want to see all the trouble. I think it's worth mentioning a few of the statistical accomplishments that really provide the context for how well Kepka played throughout the week. Yeah, let's, yeah. And, and, you know, one thing, I read, um, I read, um, Kyle Porter's story from earlier today, he mentioned the stat that coming into the event, Kepka was 151st in Fairways hit and 98th on tour in Greens and Regulation. And as we know, he was top five in both of those categories this week, particularly the Greens

and Regulation. I think he hit 17 Greens and Regulation yesterday. And I think he was best in field at Greens and Regulation through the balance of the tournament. Is that right? Yeah, I think it was over 80% of the greens in regulation were hit by him. And I don't know, I never did get a count on yesterday's irons or what he hit in, but he threw three rounds, he had never hit anything more than a seven iron into a green, which, which speaks to his power advantage. And that was certainly rewarded, although I think we, we agree that the power bomber's bias was there, but it wasn't so extreme that other people like

Brian Harmon or even Ricky, I looked at his numbers. I mean, he was only averaging $297, house, poor guy. Only 30 yards behind for the week. Yeah. So there were people on the leaderboard who were not bombing it, but obviously the difference on a lot of those holes with the uphill second shots and the elevated greens to be hitting a shorter iron in and then to be able to be somebody who's hits a ball high as Kepka does was was enough of an advantage for him and then obviously everything kind of came together so it was it was really fun to see that I got to walk a few holes with him on the front nine on Tuesday and he was very relaxed it was he was playing with Dustin Johnson and then with this young man from Pepperdine,

Sahith, the Gala. And, you know, I was so impressed that those two, Kepka and Johnson, who were good friends, could have sold this kid qualifier to bug off. We have our business to do because both Claude Harmon, a Brooks' teacher, and Butch Harmon went with them. And Bush went all 18 with Dustin. And they were out there grinding, getting ready, trying to prepare,

late into the evening, maintenance workers flying around. And it was chaos. And, of course, DJ being the number of, one player and the defending champion. The USDA is not going to tell him no about anything right now because he saved him last year. And it was just fun to watch. It was fun that they, it was one of those things where they, to see them embrace

the young man like that and not just say, Shoe away, go play by yourself is one of those great things about the U.S. Open. You kind of find out who the class acts are in golf and Kepka and he were, and DJ were both very nice to him. And I think it was a good karma for him. Yeah, that's right. I didn't realize until the Kepka story started to firm up when it became apparent that he was going to win. And then immediately after when he was doing interviews, the relationship between he and DJ, how close they are,

that they're, you know, Jim Rat training buddies. And, you know, they have in common the Harmon family clawed with Brooks and Bush with, with DJ, all these kind of links. And, you know, Brooks mentioned getting on the phone with DJ, DJ giving him a call. He made a, it was funny. He said me had one of our longer calls. It was a two-minute call. But that's a pretty good, you know, what's interesting to me is those two guys,

I'm really hoping that this chart's a course for Kepka because I'd really really like to see these two, those two guys go head to head a little bit. Very interesting power games, similarities in their power games. And then, you know, if Brooks can capitalize on what we saw in terms of his ball striking, because, you know, while it's the case that he was not hitting longer irons, the important thing for him was he was hitting his irons from fairways. So the accuracy thing was the real distinguishing factor for Brooks. But if he and DJ, I mean, you know, at this point, I'm kind of desperate. I want to get a rivalry going

somewhere. I would counter, though, yeah. I mean, we want a rivalry, and this is a show unto itself. I mean, we've been talking about this, and there was very much a lot of discussion at Aaron Hills, and I'm looking forward, there are a couple pieces I'm looking forward to reading

on the plane right home about the sort of closeness of all these players and the lack of rivalries and the lack of really guys not we just don't have any situations where players don't like each other where they all

seem to get along pretty well and I think there's some people now sensing that some combination of that and parity is a little bit dangerous for the sport in terms of being competitive and exciting and having that dramatic tension and

and I would that again it's a very complicated subject and and you don't want people to be rude and jerks out there. So I'm with you that it would be fun to watch them compete head to head, but I also like it that we had a Brian Harmon and some other people on the leaderboard who don't bomb it.

And so it was a strange leaderboard for sure. It was not quite what we expected from Aaron Hills to have so many top players just completely stumble and blow up and not be able to play the place and then have those crazy low scores in contract. Yeah, that's going to go down in history is kind of the most inexplicable aspect of this tournament. The top three guys in the world all bomb out, but the prevailing sentiment coming into the tournament

and then validated by the performance of the guy who won was that it was a wide open venue, big fairways. Rory himself said, if you can't hit these fairways, you ought to pet your bags and go home. And by golly, Rory did that. So, I mean, I was a terrible Rory. impression, but, you know, there was no real explanation for why those three guys in particular,

Day, DJ, and Rory could not hit the ball down the middle other than, you know, perhaps the way that they responded to the way the course was set up and how their eye sort of captured the course. Now, when you were walking with DJ on Tuesday, how was he hitting the ball? What did it look like to you? Oh, he was hitting the ball great and he looked very engaged. in the round and he appeared to really like the course. He was enjoying by the turn when it was just he and Seheath and

their instructors and caddies. He was really getting into showing lines that he thought were the best ways to attack the holes. And by the way, his round was one of those. He was just kind of staying around and then it just kind of went bad at the end.

It wasn't like, his flame out wasn't nearly as distressing or shocking as Jason days. And And then maybe to another extent. Rory's wasn't as a shocking because he's rusty and he's got a new club. Yeah, play a new putter. Yeah, and I think he thinks he can roll in like Tiger and off the layoff just show up. And I don't know how many people really could do that.

That's a gift. That's a talent. And Rory did not do that very well. So now, House, did you play Chrome Softs and the member guests, I hope? Please tell me you. I play, of course I play the Chrome Softs. I took a picture on Friday. I tried to show everybody what I was up to.

Now I have to confess, when I took the picture shack, it was kind of late in the afternoon. Yours was a stream of post-U.S. Open tweets that are like the Mickelobad and the NetJet's blog. But anyway, yours was a little more subtle. Yeah, I'm not sponsored by Cores Light, although I'm available. And I'm also not sponsored by the club, by Westwood Country Club. in lovely Vienna, Virginia, although their fine lemonade was on display there. But, you know, I was, I showed what I was playing with.

I just wanted everybody to see. I was, all my bases were covered for the member guests. I had my driver, my ball, and my beverages. I was ready to roll. Yeah. Well, as you know, of course. And I'm sure you shared this insight with all of your playing partners. But Calloway has been the fastest growing major golf ball brands in 2013.

and it's Chrome Soft Golfball, of course, is the main reason behind that. And, House, I'm sure you share it during a lull on the T, the importance of the ChromeSauce performance with the dual soft fast core, which makes it extremely fast, incredibly soft. And what else, House? Oh, yeah, unbelievably easy to control. Now, I don't know how you feel about personalization, but you can still get free personalization until the end of June at Callowagoff.com.

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And I have to tell you, they went three for three with me. Best of all, we've partnered with Bomfell to get our listeners a special offer of $25 off your first purchase when you go to Bomfell.com slash shackhouse. That's Bomfeld, B-O-M-B-F-E-L-L-L-com slash shackhouse for $25 off your first purchase. Go do it, fellas. It was as much of a story in this as anything else. Because of the way they came into this tournament on edge and then the way it executed, a lot of people were tough on them.

What was kind of what your sense of what you heard from golfers and their take on the USDA and kind of how did you respond to them? So folks understood that we are in year one, A DJ, right? After DJ, this is the first year for the USDA, to do a few things in the way of rehabilitation. It needed a little bit of rehabilitation with the viewing public because the experience last year on the back nine and the U.S. Open at Oakmont was confounding and frustrating

for the viewing public. It needed some rehabilitation the USGA did and everybody recognized this, recognized this between the organization and the players. And in that respect, I found it very interesting that the couple of the players, early on the scene, early last week, took note of particularly thick, high,

fescue in certain places that were perhaps unfair. and those players kind of called out the setup, the potential setup, on social media. And by golly, the next day, we see the superintendent and crew out there with the mowers chopping down the fescue. Now, I think, on my side of the fence, my guys, the people I was playing with, everybody thought that was a little bit of an overreaction. The guys responsible for maintenance said that was all part of an already planned and already scheduled chop down that that had begun the week before. But my crew was not buying it. Most folks on my side of the fence thought Rory made a good point in terms of, you know, come on guys. The fairways are already wide enough.

The Fescue is part of the overall experience. Don't hit it in there. if you don't, you know, want to experience the penal effects of it. And I think that was, you know, the thought out of my crew. Now, you're physically there. So what kind of vibe did you detect walking around the grounds and your interaction with the writers and the players yourself? The USDA comes down to how the greens are rolling.

And they were great. So they liked the course for the most part, and the conditions were amazing. the superintendent and his crew just did a phenomenal job. So that kind of ends a lot of the criticism right off the bat with today's player. But in general, there's just a hostility there still left over from Dustin Johnson. And I would really attribute it to the fact that the players just still look at that situation and don't really feel what happened last year still was the right thing.

They looked at Dustin Johnson and said, guilty until proven innocent. And the players, I think, want to be treated as innocent until proven guilty when there's a rule situation. And so there's just a long-term attitude by the USDA types that the amateur golfer is the purest, the professional is less pure. And that still pervades today, I think, their mentality. And I think the players say, well, wait a second, you make all this money to fund what you do and pay your salaries. and do your initiatives and have your role in the game.

And it all really, most of it comes from this U.S. Open. And yet you still kind of think of us as second-class citizens. So that hasn't changed. And that's why the first one up this year. And Mike Davis has done some things to do some outreach to explain to players what the USDA does. You know, a lot of them don't know. And I think that's helping. But there were elements to the setup and the situation that were kind of funny,

little stuff you'd see like the weird parking lot and entrance road and they had this just ridiculous dirt road that you came in and there was no nothing glamorous, no sign, welcome to the U.S. Open. It was just terrible. It looked, it looked silly. And you're thinking, got some kids just qualified. He comes to the U.S. Open and he has to wait at the entrance because it's not wide enough for a bus and a car dirt road and cones and he's parking on the side of a hill and a field. It's weird stuff like that. And that's it, but I think the setup really won them over a lot. The players will have their view now, and then they'll think back and I think a little while and go, oh, you know what, they did the right thing.

They were careful there. They didn't let it get out of control. And hats off to them for doing that. So I think it's one of those. We really do need to kind of give this one some time to breathe. And there will be people who just are never pleased with it. And I totally get that. You want the U.S. Open to be one thing.

But I think a lot of other people will just kind of remember that Brooks Kepka won it. He went out there and won it. So they have him to thank too. All right, so of course the other component with the U.S. Open and the USDA always relates to Fox and their coverage. I thought it was really, really strong. They're strongest yet. But obviously, Jay Buck is on the apology tour. As I understand it, he was on Dan Patrick. And he's explaining his little boondoggle there identifying for what's Keppka's girlfriend incorrectly

and being corrected by Brad Faxx and it's unfortunate because I think it's distracting from what was a telecast that you know, it had some, there are so many hours and it did a lot of the things that we've discussed with various people that we think golf television needs more of, more

graphics, more shot tracers, and just the sound was just tremendous this year, some of the conversations they picked up. from from your perspective, I was in a media center and, you know, listening and looking out on a big screen, but how did it look to you? It looked great. So the combination of the way the course itself presented on television, it was such a visually different perspective from Chambers Bay. And that's really, to me, the proper comparison. You know, it's not fair to compare.

Aaron Hill to Oakmont because we have, you know, a whole lifetime of watching Oakmont on TV and seeing guys play it. We know what that should look like. We don't know what Aaron Hill should look like. It's a brand new venue for the viewing public. And I thought it was such a dramatic improvement in terms of just sheer viewing over Chambers Bay. The contrast between just simply from a color perspective, the fescue and the native grasses compared to kind of the lush green of the greens themselves.

And it also, I'm not sure if this is a function of HD or what, but I really got a good feel for elevation. It looks like Aaron Hills, quite, you know, unsurprisingly, is hilly. And maybe it's because of watching the guys walk up and walk down.

Maybe because of the way the ball behaved, you know, when the bombers got a hold of one, you could see they'd sort of hit a place and then it would roll for another 30 or 40 or 60 yards in some instances. Like, yeah, Kepka's T-ball on 18 looked like it was going to roll, you know, of 400 yards. And maybe at the end of the day it did. I think it was just shy of 400 yards. But from a visual perspective, the combination of the way the course looked, plus, of course, the time. technology you just described, which we've talked about this. We've had, we've been lucky enough to have some, some TV folks, guys that produce these big, these big tournaments on, Tommy Roy, and then Mark Loomis recently. And then we also talked about this a little bit with the Mr.

Commissioner himself, Jay Monaghan, around, you know, the interest of the viewing public in capturing the essence of the way the players are playing these holes. enhanced by the technology, the tracer technology. And I really especially appreciated the side-by-side, where you would see a player hit. And then on the side, you would see the ball traveling, you know, a certain path with the overlay of the hole. So you could see how the ball was sort of tracing out against the hole.

And a couple times, especially yesterday, when guys missed and gave them. a reaction in the box. You couldn't see their ball, obviously, from that shot, but you could see the ball moving from the overlay on the right-hand side, and that was pretty cool. Yeah, it really was, and you're right. They did capture the elevation. I think they did that. You saw a lot of camera shots where the camera would start, and then it would move up, and they also just get up higher behind the player. I thought they captured the course beautifully, and the reaction I heard and saw on social media in various places. People were, they thought the

course, came off beautifully in terms of the visual. And so that's a, that's very much a compliment to Fox and the way they presented it. I, I just think that they, the only negative was that they were on so long and I maybe got a little bit ragged there at the end on Sunday. And then we, that may have explained, you know, some of the mistakes. But I don't think that should overshadow the telecast, the features, the, the, the brownie points were just, wow, those house, they've got me re-evaluating how I talk about courses and present them. He is so good at getting right to the point of those holes and giving you so much information. And they timed a lot of them perfectly for when the players got there.

It was great, great stuff if you were watching. Yeah, I understand from an earlier conversation you and I might have had that there was brownie points in Augusta that I'd be very interested in tracking down and watching. after the fact because I so enjoyed the way that he provided information about Aaron Hills in a way that, you know, I learned something. But, you know, he's got the right kind of sense of humor about it. And, you know, it was a good balance between, you know, just trying to convey a small point about something that the viewers might not necessarily intuit from watching the thing. But, you know, with the right kind of self-awareness about it, not taking...

himself too seriously, which is part of Ken Brown's obvious charm. You're right. He does blend enough seriousness with humor and really highlight things. You're right. It would be so fun to listen to what he has to say about Augusta. It's amazing they allow him to go out and do that and bring his bag of tricks out there. And it's so foreign to everything they try to do. But it's Sky Sports and they're allowed to do that. And they view that telecast as a different one than the CBS one. So he was sensational. I thought most of the announcing was very good.

Of course, there's the usual Joe Buck griping on social media. He's not a popular man with some people. If you like him, you do. If you don't, you really don't like him. And I don't feel like he did enough to track this time. For me, the mistake, I think, is more humorous than anything. and he has been defending and also today with some of the interviews he's done.

I think he's referred to her, Brooks' girlfriend is his one week or girlfriend of a week. I don't know if that's going to help put the whole thing to bet or not, but she hasn't been with him too long. And so you do wonder how that name made it to the notes, but it's amazing how that kind of thing becomes such a fascinating element

when there were so many other things to seize on. Now, one other thing from our earlier conversation that we didn't agree on, you love the length of the broadcast. And I just feel nine and a half hours is too long. And I have reasons that are both related to modern society and the business of golf. But why do you like that they're on that long?

Well, it's especially the case on Thursday and Friday, but it carried on to Saturday as well. I like to be able to watch the golf when I have the opportunity to watch it. And so if it's on, if it becomes on at 11 and it's on until the lights go out at night, that means through the course of the day when I find a few opportunities, I don't have to try and track it down on my phone and watch a substandard streaming experience. And I don't have to try and grab featured stuff on the internet. I can go into my local.

If I'm at work and it's lunchtime, I can go to my restaurant of choice, ask them to pull it up on the television and watch an hour's worth of it, just to get a feel for what's going on. And the other thing about the duration of the broadcast, when it's spread out like that, I don't feel like I'm in a rush. I can get the feel for the pace of the competition. So one of the things that we were attuned to, before this tournament started was,

are there going to be six-hour rounds? How are these guys going to make it around? Where are the challenges going to come from? Are the greens going to be so hard because of the wind and the firmness of them such that we're going to see four puts and stuff? And then it turned out that the pace of play was totally reasonable. I can get that if I'm sitting and watching the broadcast, even if it's just for a half hour or 45 minutes.

You can see how quickly guys are playing holes and where the challenges come from and whether or not, you know, the thing's going to be unduly delayed across the board by watching broadcast TV. I do think, you know, in view of the comment you made about nine and a half hours being too long,

it can't be the case that resources at Fox are so constrained that they couldn't come up with a couple different approaches. You know, broadcast team for one portion of the day, broadcast team for middle portion of the day, broadcast team for prime time and ensure that we have some fresh voices and some fresh eyes. And I honestly think that could be kind of an interesting thing. Save Zinger and Faxson and Joe Buck for kind of the prime time coverage and let, you know,

some other folks. There's lots of competent golf observers out there, plenty of very good personalities in golf for TV where we could watch elements of the broadcast and get, you know, kind of different perspective. So that's kind of one thought that I have about, you know, how you might conquer the duration of TV. Now, the answer to that is, well, we're not going to spend the money. And if that's the answer, then that's the answer. But that's one thought that appeal to me. Yeah, they're spending so much already that I think that's part of it. Part of it is they, you know, when they go to a non-lead team, people take that the wrong way. Let's face it,

All audiences are tough. They're fickle. And my issue is that it's just a long time to be working for the crew and for the announcers to stay focused. And then from a ratings point of view, it's disastrous. You know, this is the second worst rated U.S. Open ever. They're on for nine and a half hours, which is a lot longer than it has been in the past, you know, I think by at least two hours.

And so then you have this negative story, the rating for or bad. and it kind of snowballs. And I just would love to see, you know, if you want to be on them in the hour, start on FS1, but then the big show on Fox, the final nine or the final 12 holes or whatever that sweet spot is

that gives them a three-hour telecast. I think that's one of the people who are not hardcore fans feel like they can commit to that, really put a lot into that. And then for the core golf fan, they'll be on the pre-broadcast. on whatever, and then they'll go to that. So I think it's something that a lot of these people need to look at.

I love that they want to give us all this golf, but a lot of the repercussions I don't think are so special. House, is there anything else you want to mop up from this U.S. Open before I head on out? I think we've covered enough on this. The one thing that I'm interested in, it's never too early to be thinking about the next major, Jeff Shackleford. Let's talk about a couple guys that acquitted themselves. I am going to do 30 seconds patting ourselves on the back for getting a couple names right this week.

We did in the first place. You were pretty adamant that low scores were going to be the order of the day. And you were pretty adamant that the bombers would have an advantage. Now, it was interesting that Brian Harmon appeared and competed, and it was on the back nine that Kepka finally separated himself. And that was an interesting battle between a guy. you know, that was probably on average 60 or 70 yards behind Kepka on each hole. But at the end of the day, the bomber prevailed.

But we did get a few things right about, you know, this U.S. Open Championship. And I did mention Brooks Kepa a few times both on. Oh, I see where you're going with this. You just want to mention that you got it right. You don't care about it. Okay, go on. I mean, I do. Have your moment. I do care.

It's important for us and our credit. credibility to let people know when we get it right, Shackleford. Five out of the last six majors. It certainly wasn't my pick to stand out. Go ahead. Well, you were on Ricky early. We talked about Ricky for three straight weeks in the lead up to the tournament.

And then by, by golly, Ricky acquitted himself quite well. I was on Kepka and Peters because I liked the odds that they, that they were at. They were in that 40 to 50 to one odds class. And both those guys fit a kind of profile that, we talk about running up in the run-up to the competition as, as, you know, particularly well-suited to take on the challenges that we thought Aaron Hills was going to present. But enough about that, let's talk about the Open Championship. Name a name, and then I'll name a name.

I have any doubt that now we're going to all pay very close attention to Tommy Fleawood with that great fourth place finish. He's got the hair. he's got the incredible golf swing and an interesting personality and he grew up right down the street from Burkdale. Literally, that's his child at home and so he's played there

and he's going to have this mojo. He's a great story. He's the 188th in the world about a year and a half ago at Rock Bottom kind of coming back and so it's not exactly a secret that everybody's going to be watching what Tommy Fleawood does here in the lead up to the

open championship, which this year includes not just the Scottish Open on Link's Golf for European Tour Watchers, but also Rory's tournament has played on a link. So obviously that's my thing. Perfectly reasonable. It was a joy watching him and Kepka

pair together. You could see Tommy's got a personality, a flare, where Kepka was kind of, you know, in the moment, just taking the next shot as it came. Tommy showed a little bit of emotion, a little excitement, and it was pretty

enjoyable. So I'm excited to see what he's got up his sleeve for Burkdale as well. The name I'm going to mention is a guy that I'm anticipating is going to hit that number that I'm always after, which is in that 45 to 1 to 60 to 1 class. I'm hoping that I can get odds like that. And that's Paul Casey, who started off last week looking like he was actually, you know,

he was well positioned to do something. He was on the first page of the leaderboard Friday night into Saturday. And then he had a little bit of a misstep. He ended the weekend, I think, with a 74 and a 75 or a 75 and a 74. But he's been quietly, you know, quietly successful this season. He's been hitting some top, top 10, top 20 kind of metrics. And I think he's sort of positioning quietly. This is, again, this fits the class of a guy that I'm looking for around 45 to 1,

the 50 to 1. I think Casey might come in kind of quietly. He's a guy I'm going to watch over the next five weeks. Let me put it that way. Okay. Well, that sounds good. Well, we're going to, we're finalizing some of our plans here for the pre-open championship shack houses. And we're going to get some great guests and hopefully really enjoy this run-up to Burkdale. Of course, I don't know. So we're going to try to get some people who tell us about it and just talk some fun golf. But on that note, I have to get out of here. This is time for me to head back to sunny Los Angeles and get a little recharging after a fun open. Yeah, that's right.

We'll check. Great job from the Midwest. Hope everybody enjoyed the Check House. U.S. Open Recap. Let's close this U.S. Open Recap edition of Check House with a word from our good friends at Odyssey Golf. Odyssey is the number one putter in golf, and they are especially hot right now with the O-Works micro-hinge insert.

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