Fairway Rollin' - U.S. Open Recap: Wyndham Wins, Rory Falls Short, and LACC Criticisms with Bryan Curtis

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

House and Hubbard are joined by The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis to give their takeaways from this weekend’s U.S. Open, including Wyndham Clark’s impressive win, Rory McIlroy falling short, and more (02:01). They then give their impressions of NBC’s U.S. Open broadcast and the Los Angeles Country Club’s venue and discuss where they fell short (24:23). They end with a quick discussion about the potential merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf (50:44). Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Guest: Bryan Curtis Producers: Tucker Tashjian and Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Issa Kwanga and I'm Ryan Hunt and we co-host Stadio, a football podcast, on the Ring of Podcast Network. Twice a week, Musa and I talk about the goings on in men's and women's football around Europe and sometimes around the world. We like to zoom in, we like to zoom out, we like to make some silly references.

So if you like soccer or football, make sure you search for Stadio, a football podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I think we got it? Yep, that's good. Hello, friends. Welcome to this golf. program unlike any other.

Yes, my friends, we have done it. We are all together. This is a U.S. Open recap here on Fairway Road. A golf program on the Ringer podcast network and on your airwaves on Fandul TV. I am your starter, Joe House, joined as I always am by our incomparable accomplice, our tour, boots on the ground. Nathan Hubbard and special guest here live for your enjoyment Sunday evening. He was all over the Los Angeles Country Club North Course this week. Brian Curtis, editor at large and co-hosts of the Press Box Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network.

My Bertie Buddies, we are ready to roll. It will be a three ball for this program. The pegs are in the ground. Let's get stroken. Right. Special night, boys. not only do we have yet another first time winner, but we have a first time participant, Nate Dog, right here on this fairway

rolling our buddy Brian Curtis live and in person. How you doing, B.C.? I was going to give you some Dan Hicks, but I have no Dan Hicks impression. So hello, friends. What an honor to be here. Well, it's great to have you. This convening Sunday night feels,

I'll just be candid about it, a tad bit curious. and curious to me, curious to me, and I'm curious for your own reactions, because a lot of the day, building up to the very worthy champion in Wyndham Clark, felt a little stop start.

We didn't really have anybody going out and grabbing the tournament by the lower parts and really charging hard towards a victory, the best versions of the, of, that kind of, uh, dynamic were Tommy Fleetwood and Cam Smith. And neither one of them John Rom, five under. Yeah, but he was so far back that it didn't, you know, he didn't like, you know, factor in. But yes, another top 10 for John Rom in a major. Good ticket to collect on.

Uh, so that's my sort of first blush reaction, Brian Curtis. What, what do you, uh, you don't have to share that sentiment. What's your overall reaction to how the the proceedings played out today? Yeah, I totally agree. It felt like a very, very static leaderboard for most of the day other than Ricky fading. We got a little drama late, which I think for, you know,

me made the tournament and it was really fun toward the end because we had a classic, my God, is he going to blow it? Is this guy named Windham going to win the U.S. Outs? He was going to throw it away in the last three holes. And he didn't. And it was fun. It turned out to be fun, Nate, dog, right?

No, this sucked. No, he says it sucked. No, this sucked. This, uh, this was the worst. And we got a worthy champion out of it. It's fine. But we had so many unbelievably compelling storylines. And we got just okay golf.

We got Wyndham Clark with sort of a steely, determined. This is what, this is the best we could have gotten from Windham Clark. And I think it was just about the most mediocre Rory and Ricky performances we could have gotten. And I think actually Windham might have performed better had he been pushed more. I think Rory is going to rue the 14th hole, which unequivocally changed the golf tournament. Even when he should have been out of it, having only made a single birdie on the first hole, I just, man, this could have been something super epic. I think we have a super worthy champion in Wyndham Clark. Golf gods do not lie. This guy, you know,

when you think about how stupid it is to hit a little white ball around a city on a $6 billion piece of grass for four days, you know, a guy who lost his mother and doesn't get all tied up around the axle in the drama and the nonsense of it all is the guy who came through mentally an event that starts with qualifying where the three of us, donkeys on this Zoom could ultimately make this tournament ends, you know, Sunday night. It was Wyndham who was the most mentally tough. And I think kudos to a guy who has, you know, perspective hashtag and in quotes on his life, but really has gone through the ultimate ringer, if you'll pardon the pun, to get to this place where he can play great golf when it's the hardest.

And it's fun to have him on the stage. Yeah. So Brian, Curtis, I mean, just to give some context to what Nathan is saying, sure there were stories out there, sure there were characters that we've grown very close to in professional golf that we might have preferred at the very end, you know, standing there with with the trophy. But, you know, ultimately we had a guy to Nate's mental toughness point who at each sort of juncture when he was called upon. to do the thing that was going to help him win the tournament. He did that thing.

He won his very first tournament. We now have nine out of the past 11 U.S. Open winners, have been first-time winners. But he beat three guys who had majors on their resumes. I mean, the guys right behind him, second, third, and fourth. All three of those dudes have majors. So I think we can go ahead and put some respect on Wyndham Clark's name and at the same time recognize the disappointment that we're,

experiencing, I think, because some of our beloved characters didn't come through. Do you agree with this? Totally. Totally. And it's, you know, it's funny to me on a Sunday like this, watching the broadcast and also watching my friends in the print media, try to figure out who Wyndham Clark is in real time. You know, we mentioned a very touching story about his mother. And then it was kind of like, well, you know, he transferred from Oklahoma State to Oregon. I'm sort of like, okay. You transferred colleges. Okay. I got it. And it's just you can just see people on television just being like, I got a card that has like three things on it. And I just read the third thing. He has Ricky Fowler's putter. It's the same thing as Ricky Fowler. Not clear whether he cut the

inch off and widen the grip like Ricky did. We've had a few conflicting reports from the same host on NBC about whether they did or didn't. But yes, they got past the third bullet on the PGA Tour profile and that was it. Not a lot of prep. I will say, I do want to give this shout out. This is the caddy corner portion of, you know, this is a thing that Nathan and I do

every time after a major BC. We just, we look at the resume of the caddy and it is a way to us of kind of separating out some guys that may not be sort of jumping over the top. John Ellis is

Wyndham Clark's caddy. He's a guy who played professionally and then became an assistant pro at the University of Oregon. That's where those, I mean, an assistant coach. He was a coach. He was a coach in Wyndham Clark's life. And, you know, they got together and Mr. Ellis has been on his bag. But that's a guy, Nate Dogg, with some credentials. I think he passes muster for the kind of thing we're looking for. Do you agree or disagree with this? I agree completely. And I think at the end, listen, at the end of the day, the U.S. Open is a mental challenge, and Wyndham survived over, ostensibly the best players in the world.

I mean, Rory McElroy was there today. Scotty Sheffler was there today. Cam Smith, arguably the best putter in the world, made some just unbelievable putts. He did not really have a chance in this U.S. Open, but his three under is going to go down. There were a lot of shades of St. Andrews today in its own way. Rory hitting the ball great.

He was third off the Tee Today House. He was sixth Tee to Green. He was 57th in putting. Scotty Schaeffler. The story on Scottie has been unbelievable ball striking. He was 10th T to Green today.

47th in putting, right? Cam Smith, who is okay off the T, hits his approach as great. Ninth in putting sort of made that little run. So we had all of the things that we've seen really wonderfully over the last nine to 12 months of golf were sort of percolating their way into this into this final round. It's just that Wyndham played solid. If you had told me today at the beginning of the day that even par, after all of the complaints from the course,

and Brian Curtis, I want to hear your thoughts because you were on the grounds this week, all of these complaints about the course, about the membership, about the setup, if you'd told me that the top three guys, Wyndham Clark who won, Rory McElroy finished second, Scotty Schaffler who finished third. We're all going to shoot even par. I think you would have told me somebody else would have come up and grab this. At the end of the day, did this course acquit itself or not? I think you kind of have to say it did.

I mean, I got to say as somebody who's not in the golf intelligentsia, the Thursday story is really funny to me because I was there on the grounds that day. Ricky comes in at 62, and I'm looking at Twitter. I'm like, oh my God, everybody's so pissed off. And I think from my perspective, I'm like, if we are going to, to use a very abused phrase over the last year or two, grow the game, if some non-golf person is looking at Twitter and go, wow, Ricky shot a 62 today, I'm going to watch tomorrow. Yeah, it should be a celebration. I'm not going to be mad at the course. You know, like, what do you, you know, and I understand that argument's totally fine.

I understand people having an understanding what the U.S. Open should be and all that stuff. But I'm just like, this discussion to me feels very, very different from the. discussion in the rest of the world. Well, House had had 25 transfusions by the time that Ricky tapped in for 62. No, that was early. So he'd had 45 by the time Xander tapped in 22 minutes later. 20 minutes later. But we did, we did sit there on Thursday and say, you know, foundationally the question was, is this good for the game? Right. We've had all of this grow the game. The PGA Tour lives stuff, like all of these debates over what is self-interested? What is self-interested? and lies and bullshit in service of sort of taking a check.

And what is actually in golf, you know, a step forward towards actually trying to grow this thing and bring people in and make it a thing about competition and integrity and all the things about golf that a lot of people really like. Rory, or not Rory, Ricky was actually a wonderful representative of that coming in on Saturday night. After he taps out, he misses a three-foot putt in the dark. he makes no complaints about it. Wyndham Clark makes apologies for him,

criticizes the USGA for the time that they sent them out, says, I know my bogey on 17 was because of the dark, and Ricky will never say it, but that bogey on 18 was because of the dark. Ricky still is out there signing, doing all the things. It felt like a sort of grow-the-game moment in the best possible way. What I want to ask you, Brian Curtis, is you were there again.

Does Wyndham Clark as a champion? is this a Gary Woodland sort of situation, which he's gonna, we're gonna love that he was there. It's a great story. He's a wonderful human being. I know this. He's from Denver.

He grew up with my brother. Like, they are thick as thieves, close. This is as good a human being as you could ever want. I was rooting for him, even though Rory, like sort of my heart of hearts, like impossible not to root for Wyndham Clark. But does this come off?

Do you think that this is a guy who is, you know, going to be a sort of one and done? does it help grow the game or is this sort of, you know, sort of a passing, you know, we're going to sort of forget about him in the years to come. What did it feel like watching this guy go around the course? Well, some of it's unknowable, right, because we just don't know what Wyndham Clark's future looks like just to we didn't know what Wyndham Clark was going to do this weekend. I will say in the media tent, I mean, if you, we're being honest here, right? Everybody wanted to write Rory today. And if they didn't write Rory, they wanted to write Ricky

today. And that's just the way it goes, right? It goes to the earlier point about established stars, about people we know about great stories, both of which are comeback stories. So, you know, just it's a great question. What is like, what does Wyndham Clark do for the game of golf? And I just think it's a big, I don't know, right? It's going to be a great round of feature stories. It's going to be 48 hours of him, you know, doing interviews and it's going to feel really good. But I don't know. Is he, you got to tell me, is he a big star? Do we ever hear that name again? Well, let me just say that there is no bigger truther or rider of the high horse for Rory McElroy than the man in the blue hat and the white cordy zip on this Zoom.

So, House, for you emotionally coming down the stretch, I got a number of texts from you, and I can sort of infer, but let me not prognosticate. Why don't you tell us what that felt like and how you feel about Wyndham Clark as a worthy champion of the United States Open. I promise I will do that, but I do want to weigh in on this grow the game concept, this framing that you post, because I think it really is particularly interesting at this venue under these conditions, right? Because the Los Angeles Country Club

situated where it is adjacent to Century City. And we covered this earlier this week. The Playboy Mansion, the center of London. Los Angeles, yes. Lina Richie's Mansion. Adjacent to Beverly Hills. It's a house, Brian. Come on.

In addition to, you know, the rarefied air surroundings, also a place that has made its own commitment to the community, but also extraordinarily hard to get into, right? It doesn't have a reputation of being, you know, all comers, please, please come experience this club. So Ricky would have been a better winner because Ricky is an ambassador that connects a couple generations of golfers. We've been living with Ricky, you know, even though he's still a pretty young guy. We've had about 15 years of Ricky Fowler in our lives. And Ricky Fowler also a guy who like made a point of going to the Olympics in Brazil because he wanted to represent his country.

And he's been on our television screens for a long time. So as an ambassador, as a person that, that, you know, might inspire young kids, Ricky, I think might have been the most preferable choice. I'll speak now to the Rory idea, though. I feel like, you know, it would have been if Rory had pulled it off today, the golf gods rewarding him for the past year. We're going to have the opportunity to break it down a little bit with Mr. Curtis here.

But what he did in front. furtherance of the PGA tour's interests and his own really unmatched, you know, leadership at the forefront of both players and all the executives for the tour, the validation of that could have been today, the validation of all of what he put in there. And we know, because we've been talking about it, Nate Dogg, it had an impact on his game and had an impact on his life. Like, you know, he had to drop out of the public eye for a little while. He clearly needed to recharge after the Masters.

His game was not in shape. We entered calendar year 2023 talking about the big three because Rory was extraordinary last fall. What he did at the Tour Championship, you know, reminding us of his stature in the game. And then we came into 2023 and, you know, Homeboy was just flat. He was tired. We didn't really get great performances from him. The Masters did to him, you know, miscut at the Masters, miscut at players, and no real chance to recharge. So that's what was potentially out there today, Nate.

Yeah. Well, since we're talking about Roy, let's say a couple of things. One is there were some rumors, and they were just that, but from sources that we somewhat trust that were flying around the open this week about some of the personal things that Rory was going through. He's fine. His family's fine. There's no drama. But he was going through a few hard things, we think, during the Masters. And some of those stories came to light this week.

But more importantly, I think this is about one or two weeks early in that Rory has told us since the Memorial that he was still working on his game. He was very clear about that, both at Jack's Place. And then last week, in Canada, he played 36 holes with Mark Hubbard, Saturday and Sunday. Mark Hubbard beat him by two. Rory could not get a put to the hole. Does that sound achingly familiar to what you just watched on Sunday? And Rory really made no, he did not come in saying, yes, I've got my best game and I'm on fire, and here I go. He knew, he sort of has had this sheepishness about his, his, his, in-camera persona, because I think he's understood that his game was a B at best, right?

And he was probably from a scoring perspective, overperforming relative to where the state of his game was. Today, we saw the exact same thing that we've seen over the last couple weeks. And, you know, achingly, the same thing that we saw at St. Andrews, which is he struck the ball great. He made a few mistakes, nothing terrible, but he could not get a put to the hole. Unlike St. Andrews, today it was that 14th hole when he got, and just an unbelievable break, he should not have ever from the fairway inside 100 yards, or 100 yards, left that wedge plugged in the bunker. But once it was plugged, getting the luck of the drop, as it were, and being able to put that in a better location and not get up and down for part. he was followed by Wyndham Clark

who kept his sort of unrelenting one foot in front of the other Cory Paven-esque not in terms of the shot shaping but in terms of the stealingness and the will that's the kind of guy that Wyndham Clark is which is that like Corey Paving guts

he's a gamer that's it he's a gamer and Rory Rory lost the opportunity Windham made Bertie and and Roy lost by one. So I feel like that was that moment. And the good news if you're a Rory Truther, and I'm saying this to you, House, is we got an open championship in less than a month. And his game is on the rise. It is trending upwards. If you look at the statistics today, the guys who started in the top five all put like absolute shite. Windham Clark was 37th.

Rory McElroy was 57th, Scotty Sheffler was 47th, Ricky Fowler was 52nd, Dustin Johnson was 62nd. Was that pressure? Was that the course at the end of the day? I don't know exactly, but there was nobody at the top of the leaderboard who putt particularly well this afternoon. And at the end of the day, that's what made the difference in the tournament because Wyndham put his, I'm in trouble, I've got to give myself a chance shot.

so close on 8, 9, 11 that he won the tournament. There's no argument with that. Brian, so I like what you're selling, Nathan, about Rory properly being sort of targeted, focused on the Open Championship because that's probably the timing-wise when his game will come together. I honestly think coming into this event,

he was somewhat surprised by how well-suited his game was for the venue. And he got here, he was like, oh, hold on a minute. Well, why don't we just go try and win this one? Right here that's right here in front of my face. Brian Curtis, you got to weigh in on some Rory. I mean, I know you shared with us, obviously, the sentiment of the fellow scribes in the media center. But as a focal figure, and for all of what he's been through over the past, year the conversations you had with with your your folks and it showed up in the great

article that appeared on the ringer website going into this weekend everybody check it out it's still as as it's basically evergreen because it's a state of the Union in terms of golf media in this weird moment but but tell me about sort of your your experience of what media folks in your encounters we're sort of thinking about in the Rory context Well, it's really funny. I mean, walking into the media tent there at LACC this week, you've got all these golf riders and commentators who basically had the biggest story of their lives happened a week and a half ago. And, you know, we could argue Tiger and the Fire Hydrant.

That was the only one I got in the power rankings, really, maybe the rise of Tiger. The nine iron in the back window, yes. Yeah, but for most of these guys, right, it's either one or two. And not only do you have the story of your life, you have the story of your life happens at, you know, 10 a.m. on CNBC when you're absolutely not. expecting it and in fact probably expecting anything but that so it's just so funny to talk to the golf riders because they've all been way into this obviously they've been covering this as much as they've been covering stuff on the course there was a really interesting sentiment if we're going to bring it back around to rory who said he was a sacrificial lamb last week yeah you know i had

golf writers tell me look i feel a little betrayed by this not because i was sticking up for the pga like roy was but i was sticking up for the same ideas for the same reasons why I thought this was a better idea than live, why I thought there were moral grounds to advocate for this. And then the PGA and Jay Monahan pulls this about face. And the word actually used and it's in the piece was betrayal. And there was this also sentiment that was like, look, Jay Monahan's got to do a lot of work with players.

He's got to do a lot of work to do with us too. Because there were a lot of us who went way out on a limb with this. And then to see him do what he did. I just thought that was a really interesting sentiment that I had not heard. So Mr. Curtis, we like to do in the immediate sort of aftermath, a little breakdown of different categories, winners, and losers. But always we try and give a fair grading of the presentation of the tournament on television. Oh, Lord.

You, Mr. Curtis, got to spend. I wish I can't even let you get out of this. Come on. He let him. He was in the NBC truck this week. He was taking it all in. Bring out the big sword for this. Come on, tell the truth.

What do you mean? BC's going to give it to us. Where are we starting with this? Well, right from the top. You know, you can do it glass half full. You can do it glass half empty. You could give a grade. Like, you know, we're very open-ended here on the fairway rolling golf golf park.

Are we starting with Zinger when Wyndham Park was on the ninth hole? No, no, no. No, no. You know, that's not good. that's not within 10 feet. And we're all watching the ball. Roll and he goes, well, it's still not going to be within 10 feet. I'm like, are you watching the monitor right now?

Because I am. And it's rolling within 10 feet. This is why Wyndham Clark has a U.S. Open and Zinger doesn't, I think. That was a tough day for the Zinger. Let me tell you. It was a tough day for the Zinger. It really felt like the American golfing public. And I don't know, I don't want to like, you know, extrapolate into,

the greater sporting public, but definitely those of us who have some golf Twitter follows, you know, some folks that we like to pay attention to, there just was, it felt like a lot of frustration with the Zinger today, Nate, Doug. Yeah, let's just start. This was the first time that I can remember since I've been following golf, that it was readily apparent that there is a massive golf. the gulf the size of the hole at pebble beach that jordan's beef almost fell into seven on pebble beach why are you don't evoke that i still gives me chills that he did not between

the two major broadcast uh partners of the tour NBC did not do it this week they didn't have the blimp they had two Cessna's buzzing above which resulted in a really funny alien joke but also incessant, awful noise that their microphones picked up. They missed most of the catty conversations. They did not put data on screen that would have helped us in moments of peril for players, in moments of drama for players making puts. They had technical difficulties that was everything from weird static that I didn't hear because we were on Korse House to missing Wyndham Clark T. Off yesterday, the ultimate winner, which I did see because we were on the couch. This was a miss by NBC. They are behind CBS in terms of the quality of the presentation,

in terms of the technology. In terms of the quality of the analysis, these are good people who are doing it, who are on camera, let me say. I can't speak for the production people and the people behind the scenes, but it is ultimately the people behind the scenes who are responsible for this. This was a massive miss. They showed every shot on a course that people were complaining about from overhead when the interesting parts of the course were, as you saw a house at eye level, there was nothing about this telecast that deserves anything other than a D at best. They blew it this week. So Brian Curtis, I'm going to ask you this, but I want to just agree with Nathan.

And I do wonder if we are trying to be gracious about it, if the logistics of that venue made it super hard to replicate what we've become accustomed to in terms of the presentation of major championship golf in terms of the data the overlays the i mean there is no explanation no good explanation that i will accept for not having the tracer really on every single shot i mean they they had it on most but i need it on all i need i need the tracer on every shot especially um when we're not getting you know full uh uh you know background and and and full scope of what the whole shape has looked like. What I want to pose to you, Brian Curtis,

and I'm wondering this aloud. Like the stories about NBC sports, the investments that they've made, their commitment to, you know, programming other than the Olympics, you know, it doesn't take very much on the Google machine to find many stories about cuts to NBC sports

in a whole lot of different areas. Do you think that there is, you know, a squeezing of the budget that could be part of the situation here? It might be. But, you know, watching it and I want to second the items on Nathan's list that he listed off there. I think there's just a lot of mistakes, you know. I mean, look, there was a moment on Saturday where DJ, remember this was up on that little bluff.

And I think it was Azinger they came back to him. I was, I wonder why, I wonder how he got up there. I was like, I don't know. You guys could show us, you know, the shot. You show us how we got up there. And somebody even texted me tonight, you know, after Clark won, they didn't have his face when he put it in to win the tournament. It's like, can we see his face when he goes in?

We had to see it on a replay. So to me, that to me is not a budget cut. And if there are budget cuts, it's not to, it's not to your A golf team. It's not to Sunday night football or anything like that. I just think it's, I just think there was a lot of misses out there. Yeah, I mean, look, last week at the Canadian Open, they had Colt and Amanda sort of redoing their 16th hole at Phoenix thing at the rink, was the 14th hole at Canada. You know, it didn't work quite the same way,

but at least there was some youthful, fun, let's make it happen, energy. There is nobody on the NBC broadcast who brings that level of, it's Kira Dixon, who is not there at all and ought to be at best. She's the best asset that they have. Somebody's got an emotional EQ

to sort of connect with the players in these moments, especially today, when you've got Windham Clark walking off, and the best part of this story is a guy who's had a really tough go of it, who, you know, I think when you just step back and look at this challenge, the things that happen in his personal life, unlike Rory McElroy, who has been gifted from the age of two, and this is not a knock on Rory, but he has had a very charmed life. And you can feel sorry for him,

but you can't look at a personal history of Rory and go, wow, he really had to struggle through. No, he's been, he's the sort of silver spoon guy of golf. He's, the things we love about him is that he's humble and gracious and all those things in spite of that. Wyndham Clark has had tragedy in his life. So it would have, you know, benefited the telecast so much when he walks off the course to have an interview with someone who could connect with him in an emotional way and actually, you know, pull out the essence of this human story, which is what golf is all about. Because it's not teammates.

It's not, you know, somebody on the other. side of the net. It's the beauty of golf is it's just fucking you and the earth out there in the middle of Los Angeles. We just didn't get it today. And I think NBC's got to take a step back from this week and say, how do we rejigger this telecast? Not because we have bad people on the broadcast, but because golf in general, forget this podcast, forget anything we do. Golf media is changing underneath our feet right now. The PGA tours adopting different people, the USGA themselves have adopted it. Kira Dixon worked for. for the USGA this week.

She didn't work for NBC. So you've got to step back and say, how do I bring in a broader audience into a set of stories that are now percolating popular culture? This live-PGA-Tour story is now something that like your grandma asks you about.

It's something that people who are not associated with golf are asking you about. How do we have faces and personalities and ideas on the telecasts that can bring in those outsiders and dare I say it, grow the damn, game. Well, Nate, there is always that challenge of, you know, on the one hand, presenting

that the national championship in like a sober way that that kind of meets what the golf viewer, the diehard golf viewers, us kind of have an expectation. And at the same time, having the new voices that you're talking about. I will say, again, I'm going to try and do some glass half both stuff here. They did on golf channel get Mr. Clark's brother and sister. And they were interviewed. They had grabbed those interviews.

They did grab them. He was taking pictures with them. That's, I think, what you're sort of talking about. Great. We did have Smiley Kaufman out on the golf course, giving us some good, you know, specifics. Yeah.

Noda was, I think, was out there for a bit. Also giving some perspective. but I think Brian Curtis one of the things again trying to be a little bit fair to NBC here that was palpable from the first ball that was hit the air

on Thursday was the lack of energy at this venue and the lack of energy at this venue it didn't this whole week didn't match the energy of again what I think we've become accustomed to

in the national championship which is the participation of fans in the national, in the competing of the U.S. Open. There weren't really fans. They, like, you know, finally as the leaders arrived on 18, the U.S.TA permitted the fans still on the grounds to line the fairway and, you know, create the visual impression of people, you know,

surrounding the situation. but that wasn't the case until the last 10 minutes of the golf tournament. In your walk around with the other media folks, your own walk around on the grounds. Now, we know what the explanation is. There was not very many tickets made available and the tickets got scooped up. But in your own experience of it, what did you find? What were people saying to you? Let's not leave out when they allowed people on the course there at 18 that Dan Hicks says,

it looks like all of Los Angeles is standing behind Wyndham Clark. I mean, all Los Angeles was standing behind it with that moment. That was a good one. And by the way, not even just walking around, and I totally, totally feel, and I'd love to hear what you guys think walking around. It did feel a little muted to me. It felt muted on television on Sunday. It really did. And to me, the galleries were only really alive when Wyndham Clark started giving away the tournament right at the end.

And you heard some of those really loud, you know, on 16, 17. but it was like, I didn't get a lot of, I didn't feel a lot of gallery energy today on television. It's funny. When you talk about a venue affecting a broadcast, like that, the one that really jumps out of me is remember when Fox did Chambers Bay a few years ago. Everybody killed Fox. Fox was like, it's Chambers Bay's fault. It's not our fault.

Right. I'll be interested to see if NBC comes around and says, you know what? This was just a tough hand. We were dealt with this course, those small galleries with that lack of energy and that seeped into our broadcast somehow. All right. So this is me sort of wind in a, up, right? Because I hear it. And they're right. A house, we were there for three days. There were

just a sort of modest assembly of people who were split in a bunch of different areas, right? It was so weird to see the ninth and 18th grandstands, which were ostensibly the largest on the course, perpetually at best, 40% full. Well, the 18th was restricted access. It wasn't for Genpop. Fine, but guess what? You had two guys putting out for the two best scores ever in the history of the U.S. Open, and of the available seating, less than 25% of it was full on Thursday. So look, the course itself is because it is on a $6 billion piece of real estate sandwiched between, you know, the Century City where every agency in the world is,

high-profile Hollywood agency in the world is, and the Playboy Mansion and all of the things that you've heard about if you don't live in L.A. It is in the middle of it, right? Because it's there, it's tightly compacted. And so the T-boxes and the greens are on top of each other and all of the things that we've heard about make it really hard for spectators. It also means, hey, we shouldn't just have to go to courses that are massive pieces of property where people can move through because I really do believe that the idea of this open was the right thing. I do want to make the one counter case to both of you. And push back on me on this. But I want to read you literally the top 10 who finished at this U.S. Open. Number one is Wyndham Clark, who is the hottest player in golf.

He's won the most tournaments in the last two months. Wonderful story, like a rising star for sure. Number two is Rory McElroy. Obviously, probably the biggest guy in the game. Scotty Sheffler, the number one player in the world, finished third. Cameron Smith, the reigning open champion, finished fourth. Tommy Fleetwood, who now only the record for most Sunday low scores in the U.S. Open is tied fifth with Min Wu Lee, who is arguably the sort of rising star in the game, international star. Ricky Fowler was tied with him fifth. Tom Kim, another young rising star, eighth, tied with Harris English.

And Austin Eckrode is 10th. There's always two who gives a shit. Hey, Austin Eckro, it's a comer. He's on my betting ticket. I bet on him. There's always somebody, but John Rom was T-10. Zander Schofle was T-10, Destin Johnson was T-10.

That's the top 10 at the U.S. Open. That, under any circumstances, and any tournament, is as good of a leaderboard as you could ever possibly hope for. So I guess what I want to know from each of you is, did LACC do its job? Uh, no, it did not. Because, because it turns out.

Should we cancel 2038 or 39 or whenever we're coming back? back here supposedly? It was a very cool. This is a great leaderboard house. This is as good of a leaderboard as you could have asked for. But that's not a reflection on the golf course. That's a reflection on those dudes. Those are the best players in the world.

And so it wasn't- Justin Thomas and Max Homer are drunk drinking rosé, compensating. I mean, it did filter out the guys who in this moment in time are the best golf golfers in the world. I'm not sure that next week, TPC River Highlands is much I love that course is going to be as good of a filter of who's playing the best right now.

That's not a reflection on the course. That's a reflection of the circumstances. The guys that you just rattled off are guys are preparing for majors. And a lot of majors, you know, under the belts of that group that you just rattled off. So the cream rising to the top, this is the moment that we've been enjoying the entire first half of this year. We've been so lucky to have great players playing most of the time. I mean, you know, if we can do the leaderboards at a bunch of the events that we've had so far, they've been great leaderboards. And the venue kind of doesn't matter. The reason that, you know, I'm answering this no, is because it's as wonderful as the track is.

And all of the deserved acclaim of the architecture and the particular terrain that it occupies, it didn't produce the national. championship level tension. It didn't produce the thrill. It didn't give us fans in the moment, you know, ready to lose their minds. Because for the most part of the week,

most of the time, fans were several, you know, 75 to 100 yards away from the action. There was nobody near 13. There was no cheer for the birdie putt that I think it was Ricky rolled in yesterday. Who made the bomb yesterday, Saturday?

on 13. Yes, it was like, it was Ricky. It was polite clapping. The peacocks today went nuts right before Wyndham putt. It's the peacocks in the monkey cages. Was it the fans or was it the course that let you down or both, Brian Curtis? No, I think it was, I think it was it filtered out the fans in addition to being the in addition to unworthy players. And that's what it was to me. I mean, it began. And again, it's like both as a walking around product, looking around and feeling the energy and watching it on television. I mean, that to me, that is again, That is one of the things that comes through on TV. It's one of the fun parts about watching the U.S. Open.

It wasn't the same today. Yeah, I don't feel like House that the winner necessarily was different than we would have gotten. But I think the viewing experience, both sitting on the couch and walking on property, was affected by the course. And I know they tried. They tried to dry it out. I concede that the weather in Los Angeles has been worse than Seattle for the first six months of this year. And the only time we saw the sun was Friday afternoon and, you know, a little bit of yesterday and a tiny bit today. But it was a little bit like Groundhog Day where you didn't know if the guy was going to see his shadow.

But I think if they're going to come back here in 2030, whatever, they're going to have to expect some changes because the energy of this one did not live up to what we would expect for a national, national championship. Yeah, I'm not bothered by the, the weather impacts so much. What I'm bothered by is missing U.S. open level energy. And that only comes by way of having, you know, true,

you know, you have to have numbers. They have to be close. You have to have proximity. It was missing an intimacy that I think we've grown accustomed to. And an intimacy that we have at the Masters. And an intimacy that I think we saw pretty well, as best as Oak Hill

could deliver it, right? Giant grand stand on 18. What's the best moment of the year? It's Michael Block making the hole in one and the entire place going absolutely bananas. You could feel it. You could feel it through the screen. And we just didn't have a single one of those moments

even with three holes in one, including one by the defending champion of the U.S. Open. We just didn't get that, that adrenaline rush that you should get when you're watching a sporting event on TV. And again, I think NBC bears some of the blame for that because I just don't think they made this course as exciting as it could be. But, man, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to go to the mat for a course that definitely did not hold up in terms of the energy and the sizing is the way it should have. It's not a stadium, right? It doesn't have the infrastructure.

It's not like it's not a gigantic piece of land where you can cram, you know, 50,000 people a day. Brian Curtis, let's start doing some like glass half full, glass half empty. If you had a chance to ask Ricky Fowler how he felt about his week, what question would you have posed to him? Oh my God. See, now you're putting me on the spot for the thing I make fun of people on Twitter about all the time, right? Here we go. Because I'm so much better at imitating the questions that I actually do get asked Ricky. Ricky, what happened out of the day? It is true. Yeah, but what do you want to know? Ricky lost today, you know, but you led for three rounds.

Building Block going forward, feel good about the open championship. I don't know. See, I can just, I get the two imitations. I've been revealed as a critic who can't actually do it. It's great. Well, let's give him, let's fill in, let's just do some pop psychology. Do you think that he thinks that he had a great week or do you think he's disappointed or both? Got to be both.

How can it not be better? Got to be both. Right. I agree. I agree. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, House, for the event, he was 23rd on approach. Today, he was 64th, almost dead last. He was 52nd in putting. If we grafted out his stats on approach in putting, they were moving down, down, down from his opening around 62. You could sort of see it coming. Five over. I mean, if he shoots even part of a he's in a playoff. And so I think for him, this is a disappointment. but it's a reminder of where he came from.

And what I loved about his attitude and the way that he hung in there and did what Ricky does, which is without being asked, without telling everybody all the things he does without talking about his brand and he is on commercials,

whatever. The guy was out there after he missed a three-footer on Saturday night, signing autographs, and he showed up this morning and he went out and he did his thing. And I think golf is better

when Ricky Fowler is in it, playing at a high level. We have seen statistically despite the downward trend of his stats over these four rounds, it's been an upward trend over the course of the last year. And golf is better when he's in it. I'm super happy to have him here. I think all things considered,

Ricky Fowler walks away and says, I am definitely right now one of the best 20 golfers in the world, and I'm going to have a lot of chances over the course of the next year. Well, let's go ahead to the number one golfer in the world. Brian Curtis, I'll give you a chance to go first. Do you think that Scotty Sheffler looks at this week as, you know, a satisfying experience or is he disappointed? He shot. He ended up, he really scuffled his way to an even par 70 today.

And Nate will share some of the stats in a minute. It was a very like not Scotty kind of performance today, in my humble opinion. Do you think, how do you think he sized up his week, Scotty Sheffler? Yeah, that's another one. I don't want to be, you know, irritatingly similar here, but it's got to be, that's got to be a good and bad one too, right? Because he's got to look back at that round and say, how many putts did I miss by that much, right?

I mean, he was so close for so much the round. And it was, you know, that was another big deal on the broadcast. Well, you can't say anything bad about his putting now. It's like, well, they didn't go in, you know, but yeah, okay. Yeah, I think he's, I think he's sort of right in that zone of a lot of good and a lot of regret, too. Yeah, I think. They wanted to jump on the narrative that the putter was fixed. For the event, you know, this is where, you know, averages belie your eyes.

He was 37th overall in putting. But round two, he was 75th. And today he was 47th. I mean, still, for the entire event, the guy ends up first T to, excuse me, third T to Green. Again, this has been the story of Scottie Sheffler. He was 10th today. Maybe he had a few miss hits. And I think his approach today was the problem.

Again, 46th on the approach. Yeah. Atrocious. That was the problem. So he wasn't terrific today, but I still think for Scotty Schaeffler, the guy probably ought to have three more wins under his belt over the last four months than he has. And it's been the flat stick. Did he make progress this week?

Yes. Is it going to be a continuing area where he's got to work? Sure. Can we afford definitely the best iron striker, ball striker? since Tiger Woods, at least going through this last stretch, the grace of having one off Sunday, yeah, we can do that. I'm not so focused on that as I am thinking about, like, this guy probably has 10 majors in him if he can figure out the flat stick, full stop.

And he's still figuring that out. It was, though, ultimately strokes gained positive this week for the first time in a long time, right? Pudding wise, Nate, right? Strokes game positive. His approach let him down. Yes. For the event, it was barely positive. Let's be clear. He gained two tens. Today he lost over a stroke on the greens.

But for the event, listen, again, approach, he was positive, strokes gained approach. He lost today three quarters of a stroke on approach. That's unscadie-esque. I still think at the end of the day, really when we sized it up, this was a three-man race coming in. It was Ricky versus Rory versus Wendham. The data suggested Ricky was going to struggle. The data suggested

Rory should win this golf tournament, but he's had a lot of trouble on Sunday. And the data of the last two months suggested that Wyndham Clark is steal. He hits good shots. He makes good decisions. He executes extraordinarily well. And that's really what we watched. Yeah.

I wish that we had a chance to kind of think through a tiny, you know, I forgot how good he played at Memorial. I forgot it. As I was building my own betting card, I just have regrets about my betting card. Anytime a 75 to one guy, you know, he was available out there for a minute. I sat down with somebody who had been on course on Monday, Tuesday, who turned to me and said, Wyndham Clark says, he thinks, and this was on Tuesday night.

No, I'm sorry, Monday night. this person said Windham Clark thinks that the scoring record for the U.S. Open is going to be broken this week. And I thought, okay,

Wyndham Clark, he won the Dengolf tournament. So he showed up, played it a couple times and said, I got this. And House, my only regret

is that I didn't pass it on to you. So I owe you dinner next time you come to L.A. Well, you paid for a lot of dinners when we were in L.A., but I will let you buy me one more.

Brian Curtis, I want to make sure that we have a little bit of time to get your perspective on where we go from here. Because we are at, we are still not even two weeks out of the announcement of this potential combination, some kind of relationship between the Saudi regime and the PGA tour. And just in those two weeks, there have been seismic shifts in the likelihood of this thing, occurring in who the leadership might be going forward and in your own you know sort of experience of getting feedback and interfacing with the media folks you know that everybody's trying to catch their breath in the first place but also forecast sort of what might come come next and

what the the trajectory of this thing might look like what what's your sense having gone through some of these rounds with folks. Well, the funniest thing I think I saw a week was I was in the interview tent Monday, Tuesday, watching all the players come through Matt Fitzpatrick and then Colin Moracawa and Cam Smith. And every single one of them gets asked, you know, what do you know about this? And they all looked at the reporters and said, I know as much as you know. And you may actually know more about me, which is, of course, a convenient answer and kind

of a sandbagging answer. But then I went to the reporters afterwards and I said, no, no, they actually don't know anything. And the reason we know they don't know anything is because they keep asking us for information, the reporters, right? This is how many things. So to your question of where do we go from here, it's the whole ball game, right? I mean, I think, you know, we could jump on two or three big questions. You know, does Live golf exist in a year or two?

Alan Shipnick, the author, told me in the 10, he thought it would. There were a lot of people that did not think it will go on. But there's no, nobody knows anything about this deal. I mean, that's the amazing part, right? Talking to all these people who have covered the biggest story of their life, as I said a few minutes ago, they don't know anything. There are only very, very tiny skeletal details of what's going to happen. So this is not, as somebody put it to me, this is not the end of this huge story. This is kind of another chapter.

And not to mention the whole Justice Department hanging over the whole thing, whether this deal will even go through, which we learn from the Wall Street Journal, Wall, Ricky, and Zander Shofley were posting those 62s. is already being investigated. So there's a lot to do. A lot to do. Nathan, we return to the PGA tour. This week we are at one of the favorite stops on tour.

You know, kudos to travelers and kudos to the folks that run that tournament. They've really made themselves a destination. On top of that, the tour has taken recognition of the popularity of the destination. and, you know, insented folks to fly across country

and immediately, you know, go from L.A. to Cromwell, Connecticut. There's an charter tomorrow morning to be clear, but yes. Well, a PGA tour charter, right? Yes. Let's get the guys there. That seems like a courteous thing to do. If you want the best guys to play,

you know, come together right after a big championship like this, the least you could do is throw them a little net, Jets action, right? I mean, no plugs, no plugs for net jets, but whatever, whoever the charter is. Yeah. The thing that I'm struck by here is we pull out of this week, which started with the commission of the PGA tour stepping away for health issues. And we wish them the best and we want to be back and healthy. But I think it's indicative. You don't step away for health issues that, you know, when everything is hunky-dory. There's a lot of

stress and uncertainty around what's happening between these two golf leagues right now. And it has only been amplified over the last five days with the Senate and the DOJ sort of stepping up their pressure and inquiry into this. There is so much that we don't know right now. And when we came into this week, what we said was the guy who wins is going to be the guy who can compartmentalize the drama. I actually think Rory did a pretty good job of that today. it didn't seem like he was sort of caught up in it, but it sure felt like Wyndham Clark's steely demeanor

was tied to, you know, his historical, you know, his life story and his ability to sort of put aside all of this for the next three months from now until the fall, which who knows what the fall is going to actually be, we haven't actually, you know, heard a ton about what it means. And now, I mean, there's so much uncertainty, whether you're the number one, player in the world or the number one 95 player in the world, what your future looks like is very much in doubt, in question, how you're going to make your money, how you're going to feed your family for some, it's a bigger issue than others. But at the end of the day, we got a couple months here where as what happened in the player meeting between Grace and Murray and Roy McElroy, where

you know, Grayson made a comment and Roy turned him and said, just play better. And for every single guy over these next couple of months, through the British, all the way in the FedEx Cup playoffs, it's going to be about who can compartmentalize the stress,

the uncertainty, the weight of history, the weight of family issues, all of it. Who can put it aside and just play better? That's the fascinating part of the next three months in golf.

Well, I want to ask Brian, and this will be the sort of parting shot, my sense is that maybe nothing, is going to happen for a little while because with the intervention of the government that, you know, that that sort of puts and it hits the pause button in terms of of anything

that the private parties may have wanted to do contractually. What would do? Did anybody in your media dealings have a perspective on what the next, you know, four weeks to eight weeks to 12 weeks might might look like. Yeah, I think that's probably a pretty good guess. And there was a, there was a sense, too, that I got both from watching the players and hearing from reporters, too, that there's a little bit of a relief to from some players, like even if there's this huge, vast unknown, which we all agree is going to do is the next two years, however many years of professional golf, there's also this relief that the actual war, the thing that that was consuming their day to day is now over. Right. So that is at least put to the side for now.

Lawsuits are gone. They've been settled, yes. Right. So maybe there's a scenario that's say, look, this is not just something that I'm being asked about constantly, that's on my mind constantly. And now I can just kind of, so in terms of compartmentalizing to your point, Nathan, which is a really good one, you know, maybe there's that. And maybe we enter this period of weeks or months where it is kind of slow as we figure out what the future looks like. Well, that to me feels like the right way for us to, you know, it'll be the hoped for outcome. We'll, we'll give. We'll give. the bouquet of flowers that Wyndham Clark absolutely deserves for winning the 2023 U.S.O. Open. Clearly the best compartmentalizer, among other things. Definitely the strongest mental fortitude. And maybe all of us will have some blessed relief from this, you know, merger mania and just be able to enjoy golf, you know, on peacefully into the summer. Our enormous thanks to Brian Curtis for coming on here on a Sunday night helping us break down

the U.S. Open, of course, thanks to the Nate Dog. Thanks to our producer, Eduardo Ocampo. Thanks to you, my birdie buddies, my eagle enthusiast, my par-saving pals. We are back right at it this coming week, the Travelers Championship. Nate Dog and I will have some additional thoughts, hopefully, on how this U.S. Open Championship went down and also maybe some forecasting on what might shake out up in Connecticut. I have a few wounds to lick. I didn't have a fully realized dance card,

but there is always next week, my party saving palace. If you're able to do so, the summer solstice, the summer solstice, it's right upon us. That's the longest day of the year. Try and get two loops in.

And if you're able to do it, please let's hit them straight up there.