Fairway Rollin' - Welcome to Northern Ireland, Home of the 2019 Open Championship | Fairway Rollin’

Episode Date: July 16, 2019

Joe House is joined by Golf Digest’s Alex Myers to discuss the overall vibe heading into the Open Championship, the weather forecast at Royal Portrush Golf Club, Rory McIlroy as the favorite over Brooks Koepka, and Tiger Woods (3:40). Then The Ringer’s Megan Schuster drops by to talk about Phil Mickelson’s mental and physical state heading into the tournament and judge the fits the pros will be wearing this weekend (54:05). Host: Joe House Guest: Alex Myers, Megan Schuster Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, my birdie buddies, here we are. The last major of the golf season here on Fairway, Roland, brought to you by our outstanding friends at Callaway Golf. If you want to see the championship version of Royal Port Rush Golf Club in actual championship conditions, you have to see this video, a collaboration. between Players Tribune and Calloway Golf, they got New York Giants' wide receiver, Golden Tate, to fly out to Northern Ireland. Golden Tate, by the way, an excellent golfer. Wait till you see his swing.

You all understand what I'm saying. Last month, he flew out, and he played Royal Port Rush, and they captured the whole thing in this collaboration. It was a Golden's first ever trip to Northern Ireland. If you want to get your mind's eye around how this golf course is going to look and how it's going to play. It's lush, it's green, it's windy.

Everybody's wearing sweaters and pants. The name of the video, it's called A Journey North, and it's going to get you right into the open championship mood. It's available right now at CalawayGolf.com. Golden Tate playing Royal Port Rush Golf Club, A Journey North. My par saving pals, this episode of Fairway Roll, and also brought to you by destination Kohler in Kohler, Wisconsin. of Whistling Straits and Black Wolf Run.

Golf Digest has ranked all four Kohler courses in the top 100 of America's public courses. Those are courses that you can play. It is home of the upcoming 2020 Rider Cup and one of Pete Dye's most intimidating par 3s, number 17, known as Pinched Nerve. Gather your birdie buddies for the ultimate tournament style summer golf experience. Get rolling to destination coaler.com to book your package today.

That's destination coaler.com. Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf podcast, unlike any other. Oh, my friends, it is the final major of the season. It is a sacred moment here on Fairway Rollin. The golf podcast. On the Ringer podcast network, I am your starter, Joe House, channeling my very best, Ivor Robson, on the occasion of this terrific open championship. Too many outstanding storylines. We had to hit up our friends at Golf Digest,

Alex Myers, senior writer at Golf Digest, and host of The Grind, great digital media show that he does, came on to help us work through all of the storylines and also give out a couple names that we're looking at early in the week here. And of course, Megan Schuster is available to walk us through a couple of interesting tidbits happening on the golf social scene. We also talk a little bit

about some scripting that's going on out there. The first tea appears to be open. I'm going to walk up there and try and let out a little chef with a two iron in honor of the Open Championship. Let's get into it with Alex Myers. All right, my buddy buddies. Now joining us from

Golf Digest. He is a senior writer there. He is host of the grind, which is a multimedia digital platform. The leading digital show that captures all shenanigans

going on in the golf world. Now on the T from the USA Alex Myers Thanks for that intro I love the shenanigans It's one of my favorite words So I like that you got that in there

Well I have to be honest with you I watch the grind religiously And I admire that it typically You know Captures my sensibility In terms of the things I'm personally interested in And it's lots and lots of shenanigans Myers That's right

That's right I love shenanigans. Keep them coming. There we go. And there's been no shortage this golf season. But we are on the brink of a hallowed moment in the golf schedule. We have the sacred open championship in front of us. This will be the 148th competing. And there are a lot of very interesting storylines going into, are we going to call it the Open Championship,

we're going to call it the British Open? What's your vote? Well, that's the thing. I mean, it's kind of crazy this year, right? Because it's not in Great Britain for only the second time, and the first time since 1951. So I always have this argument with our Scottish friend, John Huggin, and he's one of these, you know, adamant, it's the Open, don't out there you call it the British Open. And now this year, he actually has a point. So I really hate that that he is actually right this year. We really can't call it the British Open this year, but I'm still going to call the British Open because I'm lazy. Okay, so am I. And I think our fairway roll in listeners, by and large, think of it as the British Open as well. So I think that's the way we're going to roll with it. You mentioned it being competed in Northern Ireland. It's the first time at Royal Port Rush, the Royal Port Rush Golf Club since 1951, 54. 51. 51. Yes, right.

Yeah, Max Faulkner won that year. I'm sure we all remember that victory. It was a very big, big moment in golf history, Max Faulkner. Congratulations to Max and all of his survivors, because I don't believe he's still with us. No, he isn't. But he has a Wikipedia page solely because he won. That's well done. Well, I want to begin with this proposition.

Saw the preview that the homie, Kyle Porter from CBS Sports did. And he made the point, a point that I agree with, which is why I'm giving him the shout out, that the Open the Open championship, the British Open should be the last major of the year. That the way the schedule has been reconfigured, you know, with the PGA championship being reslotted into May, it does provide a kind of a building momentum, a narrative that has what feels like a natural, conclusion with the British Open as the culmination of major season here at the end of July. What do you think about that? Well, considering that they always call the winner the champion golfer of the year,

yes, that does make sense. I agree with that. If we're going to hold this, you know, oldest major championship up to maybe even a different standard, then, yeah, it probably deserves to go last. I think, you know, obviously that schedule change benefited the PGA, I think, more than anybody, though, because now it's kind of in the middle of the major season. When it was in August, people kind of forgot about it. Everyone was away for vacation or whatever. But nobody forgets about the British Open.

I mean, how can you? It's obviously one of the, you know, the most unique events on the calendar and certainly one of the most interesting. And for those of us here in the state, it occurs at a time of day. you know, we're enjoying breakfast and watching championship golf and that goes into sort of lunchtime. It's a very cool summer tradition for us golf fanatics, right? Yeah, definitely. And, you know, you can wrap up on the weekend. I know a lot of people like to play golf before the master's final round comes on or whatever

that's tradition. That's cool, too. But this way, you wake up, you watch the, you know, Saturday, Sunday, and then you can go out and still play if you want. So I like that. you know, waking up at maybe, I'm going to set my alarm earlier this week, put it that way, of course, but I'm still not doing the Tiger Woods 1 a.m. wake-up call. I mean, that was insane. But I'll be waking up early, definitely, and especially on Friday because Tiger is actually teeing off at 5 a.m. East Coast.

Now, if you're on the West Coast, man, that's 2 a.m. You might as well not even go to bed. That's a little, that's a little nuts. That's just stay up and enjoy yourself time. I mean, party all night. That's exactly right. And catch Tiger on the back end there. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, the setting of this. You know, Northern Ireland, it's been well documented, had its troubles known as the troubles, which lasted about 30 years. You know, civil unrest for political and religious reasons that had a chilling effect on the country's ability to host. But the things. that really, you know, return it to the British Open Rota, is what they like to call it. But we had three major winners

across six major championships in the 2010-2011 time frame, all hailing from this tiny country, Northern Ireland. You had Graham McDowell winning the 2010 U.S. Open, Rory won the 2011. U.S. Open, and Darren Clark won the

2011 Open Championship, and so there was a lot of attention paid to Northern Ireland, and folks point to that is kind of the thing that really galvanized the interests of the RNA,

Peter Dawson, you know, chiefly, and they went ahead and put the Irish Open in 2012 at this golf course, just as I think it's kind of a test run to see whether they could pull it off. Apparently it went smashing. Smashing.

Smashing. There have been stories percolating about how big of an event this is going to be for Northern Ireland. Have you seen some of these tales? Yeah. I mean, you know, it's certainly the biggest, because obviously, you know, we mentioned that Poor Rush hosted in 1951, but that was a different world back then. I mean, they probably had about 10 people out there. in the tournament that was back then.

But, you know, this is certainly going to be the biggest sporting event in the country's history. And I know some people are calling it the biggest event, period, in the country's history. I mean, you're right. I mean, it's a small, small country, you know, it's, it's, and certainly that run of major champs from Northern Ireland, like you said, put such a spotlight on this area saying, wow, this is, you know, an incredible area for golf. they have the great courses. They now have the great players.

Certainly thrust it back into the limelight. Certainly, Rory Macquarie since then, even went on to win, obviously, three more majors and counting. And, you know, those guys in particular are obviously more excited than anyone that, you know, what they consider to be the biggest event in golf, of course, the Open Championship. So there's just so much buildup to this one, maybe so than any other event, just because obviously the long layoff, but also like you mentioned, you know, all the political unrest and everything else that that country's gone through, you know, they certainly want, you know, an uplifting week with this tournament.

So two things on that note that I know I ran across and the research for preparing for this week. Apparently every single ticket to the entirety of all four rounds has been sold out and has been sold out for some a number of time, amount of time. And that is a first. I don't think it's a first in the history of the competing of the open championship, but it's definitely like a modern era first. There had been this tradition of, you know, fans that are interested in seeing the tournament were able to walk up day of and do some

day of tickets and go in and walk the grounds and so forth. Not so here at Royal Port Rush. Every single ticket that was available is gone. But the other. element, the touch on your observation about sort of the significance of this, Graham McDowell has been giving lots of interviews and talking to publications and various media outlets. And he made this observation about the sense of patriotism. That was something that he observed for the first time in a genuine way when he left Northern Ireland and came the United States to compete in golf here in college.

He was down in the south. I think did he go to Alabama? Where did he go? UAB, Birmingham, Alabama, Birmingham, exactly. And what a revelation it was to find that the sort of sense. He expressed it both in terms of the rabid fan base, the sporting community that he encountered down south, in terms of the loyalty that folks have to their schools, but also just the general sense of patriotism

and how that was something that he felt like hadn't experienced growing up in Northern Ireland, but he thinks is potentially going to be restored as a part of this open championship, really putting Northern Ireland on the map. So, you know, no pressure, no pressure Northern Ireland, no pressure Rory McElroy or Graham McElroy or Graham

Dell or Darren Clark, but, you know, the spotlight is on. And by all indications, everything that I've seen so far, it looks spectacular. I mean, the sort of early, you know, media stuff, what have you seen that's caught your eye? Yeah, well, I mean, like you said, the course from what we've seen looks spectacular. I'm actually, I've gone to five in the last six open championships. I'm disappointed. I'm not going this year just because of how good this place looks. Now, I did, you know, there was some trepidation over logistics and how this would work out. Like you mentioned, they did use the 2012 Irish Open as kind of a test run.

But certainly this is a bigger time. And, you know, between fans and media and everybody else trying to get in and out, I mean, this is a small place they're going to that's at the tip of Northern Ireland. There's certainly, I bet we'll hear some, you know, some traffic stories at some point, or at least some biching from some certain golf riders. But, no, it looks tremendous. They've gotten a lot of rain. So it actually looks, you know, last year, if you remember, Carnusti, it was about as brown as a golf course as you could get.

And, you know, it's kind of a win-win for these open courses, because when it's brown like that, we go, oh, that's how golf's meant to be played. When it's brown over here, we say, oh, the course looks like crap. but when it's green over there, we say, oh, man, this is even better. So that's kind of the situation we have this year, Port Rush. It's gotten some rain. It looks very lush. And, you know, it's interesting because I've been trying to think.

I mean, it's tough to think of another major venue that before a major championship, they brought in, they created two entirely new golf holes. And that's what they've done here. They actually, this is a great course, always has been revered, is a great course, one of the best in the world. But the 17th and 18th holes were actually a little underwhelming and not really as good as the rest of the course. They've locked off those 17 and 18 holes.

They've used land from the adjoining course to create a new seventh and eighth hole. And so those holes behind that have gotten pushed back. So, you know, the old 16th is now the 18th and so on. So that's quite an operation done there by Martin Ebert. he was in charge of that renovation. So to have that much happen on top of all these other things that we're talking about, it certainly is a lot of pressure on this course, on this community, and yes, on kind of the unofficial host, those Northern Irish golfers this week.

Yeah, I'm glad you made the observation about the course renovation. So when we get talking about our prognostication, our forecast for potential champion, we're not really going to be able to look back to the 2012 Irish Open and glean a ton because the golf course is different. They went through an 18-month renovation headed by Martin Ebert. You mentioned it. Five new greens, eight new T-boxes, long par five that was not part of the golf course, is now on the front number seven.

And, you know, they, that was one of the, logistical challenges, you know, the Open Championship has the storied history of the amphitheater surrounding the 18th green and the fairway as the players approach. And they couldn't do that. The logistics wouldn't permit that with the old routing. And so they, you know, they basically grabbed, they lopped off the 17th and 18th. And they're using that for the traditional spectator village. They have that land there. And, and now, using, as you mentioned, the 16th as the new 18. And when you look online, you can see the amphitheater set up.

It has that very traditional closing hole appearance of every open championship course, with the exception of St. Andrews, because St. Andrews just has the building in the rear. Right, right. But let's talk a little bit about the things that we both heard are going to be the key. sort of elements of success at Royal Port Rush, beginning with, as always, the most unpredictable variable, which is the weather. A lot of folks are positing that the scoring could be low if the wind stays down. There is right now rain kind of in the forecast. It seems like the weather forecast is changing every 12 hours in terms of the potential severity of the winds, which I think

is also very reflective of what we see in the British Open. Are you honing in on anything right now in terms of a particular weather pattern? You know, not really, because like you said, it changes so much. I mean, we mentioned before, this isn't in Great Britain, but it's still in the UK, and certainly like Scotland, especially, you know, the weather can change just in the blink of an eye over there. So, but, but yeah, I mean, certainly we're not going to see too much difference in the temperature. It's going to be low 60s pretty much every day, probably when they go up early, it'll still be 50s.

So it's not, you know, it's not going to be warm. And it's going to rain, yeah, it's going to rain probably off and on throughout the week. There's rain probably a 50% chance of rain projected for every. day. But what's interesting, like you said, I mean, the wind changes so many things. That rain, if it's just a little drizzle, it almost helps the guys, because obviously it softens the course of. If that wind picks up, though, and that rain's coming in sideways, that's when it becomes

annoying. And, you know, that's when you start to look for maybe some of the more the mudders to kind step up where, you know, other guys who are more fair weather guys, that that's where it hurts them. But overall, I mean, you know, it doesn't look like the wind is supposed to be too crazy. looks something like the 15 mile per hour range on a daily basis, which I think is pretty typical over there. Nothing too crazy. Yeah. So it's Monday that we're recording this. Our guidance to everybody is check back in on Wednesday. Look up the weather forecast over there at Port Rush

Wednesday to get a feel for how it's going to behave. Right. Exactly. Because, I mean, we always talk about the luck of the draw, and that really comes from this tournament specifically. I mean, there's very often a pretty stark contrast between the scores of the late, early wave versus the early late wave. I mean, you can have

years. The 2010 open at St. Andrews jumps out where Louis Eustace had the luck of the draw, obviously got up to a nice start, and then he just cruised to a win. He was so far ahead of everybody, because he got the benefit of the good weather. So, you know, that's definitely something to look for, but you're right.

I mean, until Wednesday night, it's kind of tough to hone in on that. Yeah, exactly. So I want to see if you and I can come up with a handful of names. I know that you already listed out Golf Digest. It's up today, golf digest.com. You can check out Alex's work on 13 potential winners. So I know that you have some names in mind. I wanted to bounce a couple of trends off of you because I believe it to be the case.

that the Open Championship, more than any of the other majors, favors guys that are really in form. So there are a couple of trends over the last handful of years. Five of the past six Open champs won at least one event in their previous five starts. The outlier there was Zach Johnson back in 2015, and he had three straight top 10, so he was also in form. Four of the past six champs had a win in one of their two previous starts. And then there's a whole other set of considerations here.

I want to share with you since 1995, we're sort of looking for bigger picture context because we kind of just hit the most recent kind of trend lines and looking for guys in form. since 1995, American golfers have won 14 times. So they've gone 14 and 11. And then of the 14 Americans who won, eight of them had previously won a non-British Open major. So, you know, if you're looking for something here.

Now here's the real sort of clincher for trying to really drive the funnel. down only twice in that 25-year stretch have two years gone by where the champ was was not American. So it's been virtually every time that a non-American in those 11 instances that a non-American won, virtually every single other time, an American jump up and won the following year. Shout out Shane Ryan for this. Patty Power, I had to give them a little love for some of these trends. with those kind of sort of trend lines in

place, you know, recent form being at a premium. Molinari won last year, so maybe that suggests an American is likely this year. Eight out of the 14 Americans, you know, are major winners. That really starts to

shrink the potential pool of winners for this. If you subscribe to this trendline kind of theory, what's your, who right now your gut. It's only Monday, but who's in your gut right now? Who's your leading contender right now? My gut, I don't know how you can't say, Brooke Shepka. And I've learned by less than these last couple years. I really just, after he, after you almost wanted

Pebble, which, by the way, I mean, when he birdied four of the first five holes and made that incredible par on the second hall, and I was out there. I mean, just the buzz was just so, you could feel it. I mean, we were watching history. And shout out to Gary Woodland because he held off, you know, an all-time great player. Let's be honest here, and Brooks Kepka, to win that major, that first major. But when he did that, it just seemed, wow, this guy's going to win again. It's going to be five out of nine. And I said right then, I said, I'm picking this guy to win every major, at least for the next few.

I mean, because he's that good. he's always in it. Out of the last four, he's finished in either one or two all four times. Obviously, again, he's won four out of nine. And, you know, in an event like this, too, I know he's actually British Open track record isn't quite as strong as these other majors, but it really comes down to ball striking, especially in bad weather. And if we do see any bad weather, no one hits the ball on the screws more solidly, more

consistently than this guy. And then there's the added element of the local knowledge. Brooks Kepka's caddy, Ricky Elliott, grew up in Port Rush. He was a member at the club right down the street very well. He was a great junior player in his own right. He obviously didn't quite make it to the pro level, but he's still a great golfer, and he's obviously a great caddy. And at a week where not a lot of guys know a lot about the course, Brooks Kepka is certainly going to know more about Royal Port Rush than just about everybody else there. Yeah, it's an incredible, I don't think it was, you can say it's just dumb luck. It's not dumb luck that he has the gentleman has his caddy.

And, you know, Royal Port Rush has been on the rhodo. It's a known quantity, you know, for some time now. I don't imagine that Brooks selected the gentleman to be his caddy purely on those grounds. But, you know, you are right. Just by sort of comparison, on a comparison basis, Brooks has played less well at the Open championship at the British Open than he has in the other majors. But he still has, you know, two top tens. And your point about, you know, we just keep, we have to pick him until further notice.

It's crazy because, you know, we keep saying that, though, and now who's the favorite this week? Rohra McRoy, Naprox, Keppka, and he still hasn't been a solo favorite at a major. Yet he's on this historic tear. And so, and you know, we always joke about how this guy's always looking for ways, you know, motivation, he's got this chip on his shoulder. Well, I'd have a chip on my shoulder, too, if I wasn't favorite after what I've done. I mean, Rory McElroy, great player, obviously, and has played as consistent of good golf as anyone this year. But he's a guy who's coming up on a five-year drought in the majors.

Now, I know he's got, you know, we talk about the local knowledge. He, of course, has probably more than anybody at this event. But if I'm Brooks Kepka and I've won as many majors as Rory has in his career in the last two years, I'd be a little tick that I'm not favored over this guy. So I just think that, you know, he's the favorite, the hands-down favorite until further notice. And going back to the caddy thing, you know, it's funny because we did a piece recently, Dave Shaloski on how kind of this home field advantage in golf is a little overrated. And certainly it's a small sample size of guys who kind of go back to their home course

and get to play a major. I know Collin Montgomery was the famous example. He grew up at Royal Tru and he never really did well there. There's just so much pressure on these guys. But the caddies, it's a little different. And if you think just back to 2015, Chambers Bay, which is kind of an unknown place, Jordan Spee's caddy, Michael Greller, that's where he worked as a caddy, Chambers Bay. and look who won that week, Jordan Speed.

So again, I do think there might be something for Brooks. It certainly doesn't hurt that he's got Ricky Elliott on his back. Yeah, I love it. And, you know, the stats reflecting the superlative performance of Brooks since the beginning of 2017 are just unimpeachable. He's 64 under par in major championships. That's 35 strokes better than anyone else. in that span. He's either led or co-led 13 major championship rounds since the beginning of 2017.

That's more than twice as many as any other player in that stretch. And of those 13 rounds that he's either led or co-led, this is the segue I want to make, only one has come at the Open Championship. And that was the first round back in 2017. He shot at 65, and he finished 6.5. and he finished six in the Open Championship there. Now, we mentioned Rory.

I want to just go through some stats, because if this event was not in Northern Ireland, I just wonder how we would feel about it. His resume, he has four top five finishes in the past five years at the Open Championship. That's the most. He has the best score in relation to par at the Open Championship over the past five years.

He has the best scoring average in the open championship over the past five years. He's second in birdies and eagles per round. He's second in most rounds in the 60s. And that is a very interesting stat because he missed one of these effing opens because he was having to kickabout with his boys. So, you know, he only had, he's only played in four of the last five, but he's still second. out of all the golfers that competing in the open championship in rounds in the 60s. And, you know, if you want to talk about guys that are comfortable playing link style golf, you have to start with Rory because it's, again, an unimpeachable resume,

the thing that has everybody tapping the brakes, if we just called him Player A, if we didn't call him Rory McElroy, we went through those stats, you would say, oh, I have to go gamble on this guy. We have to bet him. He's going to win. He has got as good a chance as anybody. I mean, obviously, the 61 that he shot when he was 16 years old at this venue now, it's a different golf course than when he was 16 years old. But still, you know, that legacy lives.

He gets to set foot on the same grounds where he did that thing when he was 16 years old. Like, you know, comes up out of the ground and energizes his body. But the concern is, speaking of energizing his body, how electric is it going to be among the, the support. there and do we have anything we can we can point to in terms of modern professional golf where a crowd willed a player to an outstanding performance that the two that that come to mind to me a little bit of tiger woods over like the last you know a couple instances including the masters this year now it was a supportive crowd I wouldn't I don't know that I would necessarily say that the crowd helped Tiger will because Tiger's will doesn't need any

any support really but I can't think of other examples where you know a crowd was so in the bag for a particular player had the effect of elevating that player's performance is there anything you can think of along those lines you know what's funny the one thing that jumps out and he's a guy who's in the news over the weekend is Andrew Beef Johnston at uh in 2016. Now he finished a million shots behind Phil Mickelson and Hendrick Stenton as everybody else did. But I tell you what, I've never seen

anything like it. I walked the front nine with him that Sunday. You've nonstop, like I felt bad. I think he was playing with Bill Haas that day. I felt bad for the people playing with him. I felt bad for even for him. He must have been tired from just waving to everyone. People were screaming

beef nonstop. I mean, they had to be yelled at to stop. just so we could hit a shot. So, you know, and so that was, I've never seen anything like that. I've never seen support like that. But you're right, this might be like that in terms of electricity. You know, again, we talk about these Northern Irish golf fans have been waiting so long for a moment like this.

And not only do they get this moment, but they have, you know, at least the Vegas favorite as their guy. So it is going to be something else. But again, it just, I just, I almost think it's a tough spot for Rory. You know, he grew up just an hour away. from here in Hollywood, Northern Ireland. It's going to have so much support, so many people watching there, and just so much pressure on him.

And as we've seen every year, what, the last four or five years at the Masters where he's had a chance to complete the Career Grand Slam, when there's this much hype and this much buildup for him specifically at an event, he just has not been able to get over the hump. And usually that's because there's a slow start. Then he, you know, he's so talented that he ends up rallying. And that's why even when we think, oh, he had a bad week. He still ends up finishing the top 10. He's just so good. He's finished in the top 10, 11 of 14 starts this year, which is crazy. But to actually win here, it's going to be really

tough because, as you mentioned, it really might be a scene unlike we've ever seen before in terms of a top player at a home venue with the crowd just going absolutely berserk. Yeah, it does feel like too much. And I agree with you, if we're looking for a reference point and Rory's ability to respond to the pressure. He's had the masters within his grasp a couple of times over the last handful of years. And especially, you know, I think about the T-ball he hit on the first hole when he and Patrick Reed were basically, you know, was going to be a match-play event. And he blast one damn near out of bounds.

Now, he did rally and save, I think, bogey on that hole. And they could have immediately changed things on the second hole. and then he missed a short birdie on the second hall. And it just was a short eagle. Eagle, that was what it was. It was a short eagle. You're absolutely right. That was like to tie for the leader.

And right, you're right. It was right there for him to seize. Everybody expected him to do it and he didn't do it. And it's tough because he's just so good and he won so many majors so quickly and it's such a young age that we just expect the world out of him. And he still, he's had an incredible season this year. But he does not have a major win. He does not have a major win in almost five years.

when you have those expectations thrust on you because you're so good, you know, we start to pick them apart. And it's tough because that's just the price you pay for being that good. But again, it comes to, yeah, it's tough. And again, like we talked about before, for this to be the final major of the year, too, so you have that extra pressure of, oh, man, if I don't win this one, I got to wait all the way until April again.

And then everybody's going to be talking about the career grand slam again. So it's a tough spot for him. Yeah. I mean, I'm rooting for him. I love the story. I know you're rooting for a story also. Yeah, sure. It just feels like too good to be true, although we did just have a too good to be true moment at the Masters.

Speaking of Too Good to Be True and the Masters, let's do a quick hit on this week in Tiger Woods. Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, Tiger. So Tiger hasn't played since the U.S. Open, Alex. and there isn't a great record of guys doing that. I have another little factoid to share with you. Not sure if you maybe have already seen it. The last time, I'll ask you, I'll just ask you, the last time a player competed in the U.S. Open and then showed up at the British Open

and won without playing competitively at all between those two events was who in what year? Tiger in 2006. Oh, so that's interesting. Maybe. I think he played an event in between there. Did he play? Okay. It was in one of his layers.

The data element that I have suggests it was none other than Johnny Miller in 1976. Wow. Okay. So it's been a long time. It's also, yeah, it also does, you know, kind of make a type of intuitive sense when we've highlighted some of these trend lines about guys, you know, needing to be kind of in form, you can't show up at a venue without having played any competitive golf at all.

And my particular concern with Tiger, I again think it would be terrific if he was competitive. I would love very much for him to be on the leaderboard come Sunday. I don't have any evidence, and I'm hoping you do, that suggests that he has played this golf course other than when he arrived here a handful of days ago. No, I'm pretty sure that was his first look at it. And you're right. It's a little concerning as well.

What also concerns me and this look to be a problem at the U.S. Open is just the weather. When he wins, it seems like, you know, it's 80 degrees or Atlanta was in the 90s. And when he kind of struggled and looks like he's a little stiff, it's, you know, in the 60s or high 50s. So, yeah, I mean, I also, though, however, I did, I remember last year I got all excited for his chances of Karnoenstein. I wrote a piece that the Open championship, or sorry, the British Open, we'll call it today, would be his best chance to win a major again. And he almost won at Karno St. So I have two ways of thinking about it. We also, we did a piece recently on when it's kind of an unknown venue, it does seem like it produces a strong, it pretty much just rules out a fluke more than a known venue.

And you get a guy like a tiger who can figure things out quicker than other people. So if that, that would be what I would tell you, if you want to get your hopes up for Tiger. And I want to get my hopes up for Tiger as well, believe me, it would be that, okay, this is going to be pretty much an unknown course. for everybody else. Tiger will be the guy who figures it out, strategically, mentally is able to work his way around this course and get the job done.

But other than that, I mean, yeah, I'm definitely haven't seen a lot from him. Nobody's seen a lot from him. He's taken all these weeks off, and certainly the last time he took this much time off in between events, he missed the caught a bet page. So it's going to be interesting to see. But obviously, the warmer the temps are,

the better chance he has as well. Yeah, I like your point about his strategic capacity because I honestly believe that was the difference maker at the Masters. He outstradigized everybody else on the Back Nine at the Masters and won the Masters because of it. And I think you're right that it's not necessarily an enormous disadvantage for him to have not played this venue a lot because that will be true of the majority of the field. They're all going to be arriving there. Now, we have had a couple of observations, both Rory MacRoury. Roy and Adam Scott have talked about how easy it is to get into trouble off the tea, that they're encountering rough that is not sort of traditional open championship rough and that the

fescue is sort of cited in some places. And we both observed that they've had rain in Northern Ireland. So they can grow the grass up. They can grow rough. The fescue is prominent. I happen to think if I'm going to be a glass half full kind of guy about it, I like Tiger with driver out of his hands. I mean, there are a couple of drivable par fours here, but for the most part, I like him getting around the golf course with something less than driver. What do you think? I agree.

And right off the bat, it might be the most intimidating key shot of any major championship that the first hole of Royal Port Rush has out of bound stakes down both sides. you don't see that often and you really don't see that off in the links golf where it's usually you know one side of the course you can just kind of not worry about and the other side you can hit it as far as you want so right off the bat and we've seen tiger on that first team many times you know snipe one he's he's going to have to be very accurate especially up that first team so i agree with you the the more times he takes the driver out of his hand puts the ball and play i think the better but then to work with that he's

obviously doesn't want this to be a shootout. And that's kind of, Carnusty last year was so interesting. He played such a conservative game plan and he kind of fell behind, but then it got tougher on the weekend. And that's kind of when he crept up the leaderboard. So, you know, he can't put himself too far behind a ball. But if it's not a total shootout this week, which I don't think it will be just because, like you mentioned, the Rupp is going to be so thick and there will be some rain and

wind to deal with. That will help him and that'll kind of help him stay within reach. Yeah, so we've now talked about Tiger Brooks and Rory. We got them all covered off. Let's talk about, you know, let this be our parting shot, as it were. Who's a name that we haven't talked about so far that you think deserves a little airplay here? Sure. Well, I mean, I think you're a Tommy Fleetwood guy.

I'm kind of feeling Tommy Fleetwood this week, especially when you're looking at, we're going down to odds a little more. I like him at 25 to 1. Actually, I like a few guys this week. I mean, it's interesting. You look at some of these eyes. I'm actually a little perplexed. Jordan Speed, I know he's had a ton of struggles, but he did almost win the last two British Open.

He won in 2017. He was in the final group last year before a rough day on Sunday at Carnegie. He's 40 to 1. I mean, that's just wild to me, especially on these slower greens. I think he's really aggressive. He makes a lot of putts. Adam Scott. 30 to 1. Ball striker. That's a

Tommy Flewwood, Adam Scott. I like those guys. And then, you know, you mentioned that stat before. I'm glad you did about Brooks Kepka having the most round letter co-led since 2017. Number two on that list is Kevin Kisner. He was runner up here at Carnegie Street last year. He's 125 to 1. That just seems a little off there. And one last guys, five guys I wanted to mention. Patrick Cantley, who we've obviously seen that name, pop up on the leaderboard at the majors. This year he won the memorial.

He's 25 to 1. He's actually seconded in strokes gain total to Rory this year. So he's having a fantastic year statistically. Those are five guys when you factor in the odds who I think are pretty good value. Yeah, I'm going to stay away from Fleetwood, which means he's definitely going to have a great week. There you go. Okay, good. because he's he's he's he's he's he's he's three round Tommy this year and he just hasn't been able

there's always been one round I had him in in a prominent um head to head against Jason day at the PGA championship and he went out and shot 80 on me so I I've been a little little I have some Tommy fatigue right now but um he does play the links he's a very good links player he he he so far hasn't been great at the open championship when they've played at links. I think his best finish is a T12, which was last year. That was last year. Yeah. That's right. He's on the up

a little. I'm interested in your thoughts in one name. There's one guy that I'm kind of like puzzled by and his name is Justin Thomas. So homie was was number one in the world inside the last 12 months. And he

also has a surprisingly distinguished links background. He's not a to come over and play. And this is one of the things I admire about him. He gets himself over to Europe and plays in the links events. He's the only guy on the U.S. team in the most recently completed Ryder Cup failure who went over to France and played at that venue.

And so he's, I like that about him. He just played in the Scottish Open and had a top 10 in that event. I believe he's currently available anywhere. between 25 to 1 all the way up to I have a book open right now with 33 to 1 that just feels like a ton of value for a guy now I know that the wrist injury has been the thing but you know what's held him back so far since he's returned from that injury is his putting and I love the observation you just made they keep these greens slow over in Europe so so you know guys like jordan spieth and justin thomas guys who might be going through whatever putter putting sort of struggles. They have, you don't have these six-foot comebackers that are on glass where you feel like, you know, at least that's the reputation typically. I don't know about Port Rush because none of us know about Port Rush, but, you know, typically, you know, they're a little bit slower so you can feel comfortable trying to bang the ball to the back of the hole. What do you think about

Justin Thomas? Yeah, no, I mean, it, he's an interesting guy and it's funny because in my 13 ranking, he was up there. I think he was in my top 10 and I saw him at 40 to 1. I said at 40 to 1, that's just too tempting to pass up. Once he flew down to 25, I flew them just outside of the list, just because, again, at those odds, I'd wrap that I mentioned. But, no, it's a good point. The only thing, you know, his Open Championship record, obviously, despite the fact that, like you said, he isn't afraid to go over to Europe and teed up,

a T-53 and two missed cuts, you know, pretty brutal. So, you know, we talk about how the slow greens can help bad putters or mass putting struggles, there are some guys who just don't like putting on slow greens. And no matter what, that's just a tough thing for them. So I don't know if that's the case for him. I think it's still too small of a sample size. Having just played in three open so far, but that would be maybe the one thing I'm scared about. But yeah, certainly once you get 33 to 1 or above, you're right, a guy who was so recently ranked number one in the world, you know, that's pretty decent value, I'd say. Yeah, well, you talk to me out of it. I'm not going to do that. I forgot the

His open championship record. You need a guy that's at least got a top 10 in there with some of these trendlines that we're looking at. I need him. Let's let him get a top 10 and then we can go ahead and jump on the value play. All right, Alex Myers, what do you have coming up this week on Golf Digest.com? What should we be on the lookout for? Oh, wow. Well, you know, we'll just wall-to-wall coverage of this event, obviously.

Again, I'll be even getting up early and we'll have a live blog. We'll have, you know, stuff pops up. There'll be plenty of stuff. We talked at the outset. that we're always looking for shenanigans. It's a serious week, but there'll still be some shenanigans. We'll be on the lookout and we'll have it covered. Well, I know at a minimum, Phil ought to give us a couple things to look at.

The fasting, the everything else. You know, he mentioned he did a hard reset. I need to do a hard reset, first of all, and lose some ways as well. Sure, we all could. But Vegas did a hard reset on his odds. He went from 50 to 1 to 100 to 1. So, obviously, Vegas didn't really like that. He lost the weight.

That's a hard reset, all right. That is. All right, Alex Myers, I have to call to your attention. One fact about the performance of Odyssey golf, the putter are killing it. Odyssey has won the putter count at every major this year on the PGA, LPGA, and Champions Tours, and added another putter count win this week at both. the senior players championship, which is a major event on the senior tour, as well as the PGA tour event this week at the John Deere, Dylan Fitelli, winning with his Odyssey EXO.

That's the XO Stroke Lab two ball putter. His putter designed like most of the stroke lab putters to promote maximum forgiveness from a premium multi-material construction. Odyssey led the field with 35 putters in play at the senior players. No other putter brand had more than 12 in the field. It is the most played putter on every major tour all season long. My friends, get yourself over to Calwaygolf.com and check out what Odyssey has to offer. Alex Myers, Golf Digest.com.

Thanks for coming on today, my friend. Talk to you again soon. Thanks, house. Thanks for having me on me on, man. Take care. All right, for sure. All right, my thanks to Alex Myers. Hopefully you are ready for some open championship golf. We're going to talk to Shusty in a minute before we get there. Quick word from ZipRecruiter.

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House. Are you ready to wake up at 4 a.m. this week? Because I certainly am. 4 a.m. I'm going to be working. I want the 2 a.m. I know that they have the golf channel, I think Thursday, they come on at like 1.30 or something. It's just spectacular. The middle of the night golf viewing.

These are two nights. The Thursday and Friday, I'm on the couch in my house. And it doesn't have anything to do with being in trouble with my household. It has everything to do with dozing off and then just waking up as I naturally will in the middle of the night. And seeing the lush green Royal Port Rush Golf Club in front of me and catching half an hour and the dulcet tones of Mike Tariko or whoever else they have on the mic. And then I can fade right back down, catch, get my next two or three hours of a shut eye taking care of them, wake up and see what the leaderboard looks like, have a little breakfast and just enjoy this thing. It's just one of my very favorite traditions of all. Yes, I agree.

I'm going to have to see if the ringer will give me a special dispensation for. Thursday and Friday to kind of shift my schedule around a little bit. But I, too, am very, very much looking forward to this weekend. Well, it's a work from home for you. I think that's, we have to talk to the boss. Maybe the podfather can understand the work from home. Hopefully. Angle. So I wanted to begin with calling everybody's attention to your story. Not that they haven't already seen it, but I think it's very timely and poignant to our story. remind folks of your story from June, Brooks Kepka is appointment viewing now. This was all right

at the heels of his performance at the U.S. Open, where he gave, you know, the singularly most dramatic round of that Sunday, that Father's Day Sunday, came out of the Kepka. And I just chatted with Alex Myers from Golf Digest, and the two of us just can't come up with a reason not to pick Brooks Kepka this week. What do you think? Are we crazy? No, you're not crazy at all. My pick for this week, but this is purely because I want amazing things for him and think this could be a good venue for him is Tommy Fleetwood. But that is my completely biased choice. And I think if I was going to pick a second person, I would have to pick Brooks. It's, we're at this point now where you really can't bet against him in a major championship.

Like he can take on any sort of venue. Like his game is not limited toward just the big long driving courses. Like we thought, you know, maybe after Aaron Hills, he's really adapted and he could play anywhere at any time. Well, and on that note, this chat with Alex Myers, we were reminded and we shared with everybody,

this important reminder, his caddy is a member at Royal Port Rush. Yes, he is. His caddy has grown up playing at Royal Port Rush. Nobody knows Royal Port Rush, even with the changed holes and everything. Like, if you want to show up at a venue with a head start on like, okay, I can't see where I'm aiming from here.

Tell me, show me something on the horizon that I should be aiming at and give me a yardage. His caddy is going to be able to do that. I mean, it just feels like an enormous advantage. Yeah, it's truly like the ultimate. ultimate home field advantage. Like you said, especially for a course that's not in the typical rotation that they haven't played at in what 60 years, 65 years. So that is really, really just like an ace in his back pocket to have that along with, you know, his typical major championship form. Right. Exactly. So we have a few things to touch base as we enter. This is the Monday of

Open Championship Week. And there will be certainly some noteworthy developments on the golf social scene, but we've already had a pretty rich run up here. We had Tiger Woods. We talked about him waking up at one in the morning last week. I wish he was waking up at one, you know, the morning to go play golf at Royal Port Rush. I mean, if he's going to do that and take video of it, I don't know why he didn't just fly himself to Northern Ireland and do it.

and do it there and play the golf course and get used to it, because I don't think Joe Likava has a ton of experience at Royal Port Rush, but I'm there far be it from me to ever doubt the preparation of Eldrick Tiger Woods. And then since then a couple more little developments, our good pal, our A number one, Phil Mickelson, reappeared on the social scene. Yes, very briefly. He posted a video Sunday to Twitter to explain why he hasn't been posting as much lately. And by as much we mean, like, what, three times a week?

Three videos a week? Like, it's been a quote-unquote drought for Phil, which basically means he hasn't posted in about a week. But so he opened the video by saying he hadn't been feeling great about his swing. His confidence had been low on the course. So he'd been staying off social media to try and write the ship, which sort of makes sense. He's currently 120th in strokes gained Tita Green,

145th in putting. And he hasn't had a better finish than tied for 52 since the Masters. So. Damn it, Phil. Fully support him trying to write the ship. He said that he has gone through a, quote, hard reset over the last 10 days to ready himself for the Open Championship, in which he lost 15 pounds house and did a six-day fast where he drank water and a, quote, special coffee blend. And he also went on a retreat.

What do you think about his whole reshaping, refocusing self? I have to tell you my first reaction was that this was a put on and the whole thing was made up bullshit. Whoa. I don't believe a word of it. I didn't believe a word of it. And I still kind of don't. Like if you look at him in his plain black t-shirt, did he have 15 pounds to lose and still keep that belly? Like he wasn't he's not giant.

He's a big man. But he wasn't appearing over the course of this season as though he was like trending towards, at least to my eye, you know, a bulging pants. You know, I didn't really see a belly overhang anywhere along the way. He just kept up his sort of, you know, larger middle age man, you know, daddy bump is what I was. I'll call it. So he got on camera and said that he lost 15 pounds. 15 pounds is a lot for for anybody. Yes.

But the bump was still bumping. I mean, I don't know. Was that a misread? I will say, I feel like in tournaments, Phil is prone to wearing sort of the looser polo fits than some of the other guys. So, and in this video, his shirt was more of like that dry fit kind of material that It's a little bit more fitted. So I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I will also say, though, that 15 pounds is a heck of a lot to lose in 10 days. Like, that's really crazy. And I don't love the whole let me get there by doing a water juice cleanse. Like, that sounds like stuff that girls in my sorority we used to do to, like, try to lose weight before formal, which never ended very well. Oh, God. So I am slightly concerned about such a dramatic weight loss for Phil. I am cautiously optimistic that if he's feeling well about where he's at, that hopefully that is actually the case.

Well, I think it's fine for him to be conscious. I think it's great to sort of take his poor play and turn it into a sort of, you know, this is how I'm going to flip this, this narrative. I'm going to like control this and hard reset is just glorious. I absolutely love the idea of a hard reset. And he could have done all those things, both in terms of his practice. and in terms of his diet without the insane, ridiculous water diet and 15 pounds and all of that. Because we just went through this with Brooks Kepka, who really did go on a calorie deprivation kind of diet and really did lose 18 pounds over like two months and really did lose yardage.

And concurrently seemed like some accuracy as well because he sucked at the players championship. when I had him on my fans team. But, you know, there was, there was, he was physically out of sorts so much so that he went to a blood doctor to get the diagnosis to make sure that he hadn't, you know, taken anything on. So I'm, I'm calling bullshit on the like the actual, like, this is what he did as part of his hard reset thing. Yeah.

But I do think, hopefully he's gone, he's done some refreshing that he's fresh of mind, fresh of body. there definitely has been a turn in his spirit at the British Open. He has become, you know, since his 2013 win at Muirfield. And then, you know, the battle at Royal Trune, one of the all-time great head-to-head matchups with Hendrik Stenson in 16. I mean, that, that's, he has become a true lover of the Open Championship and the links. and the folks in the UK have really grown to embrace him. So hopefully there's a refresh right around the corner.

Hopefully the hard reset will pay some dividends. We want to see him play golf on Sunday, Shusty. We do. We do. And the part of his video that I did appreciate was that he said he went on like a little personal retreat. And I think that that was a good decision for him. I think just, you know, spending some time examining, self-examining is always great.

And hopefully that, yeah, like you said, his dividends this weekend. Okay. Fingers crossed for no fucks, Phil. Yes. Yes. What else do we got? We know it's the last major championship of the season,

which means the last opportunity for these guys to put on something interesting. Now, I do want to go off on a quick tangent with you. Did you watch any of the American City event, this celebrity event that's competed in Tahoe at a golf course there, you know, made for. TV kind of thing. Did you watch any of that this weekend? I saw a few photos, but I missed most of the actual tournament. Well, seeing the photos is enough because I think you will be able to help along the point

I want to make here. A lot of the guys have relationships with clothing manufacturers. Steph obviously is an Under Armour guy. There's a bunch of Nike guys out there. And then, you know, the guys, a lot of folks, Justin Timberlake, was paying extra close attention. I'm not sure who he was wearing. It looked like it might have been Grayson or G4 or somebody.

But a lot of guys paying close attention to their kit, to their outfit, to their peer, knowing they're going to be on television, for Christ's sakes. And then one guy stood out by Contra the distinction. He ended up kicking everybody's ass because he's basically a professional golfer these days. Did you see what Tony Romo wore on television on Saturday? and Sunday. Yeah, not, not great. Uh, the whole like bumblebee stripe shirts. Is that what you're talking about? Well, and, and, and, and, and he had a monotone blue look. Yes. Yesterday. And he had some version of the red and black tiger combo on Saturday. Now, this, I don't, I didn't do the research to

see if he has a clothing deal with Skechers. We know he has a shoe deal with Skechers. And that's fine. And it's the commercials are funny. They're very tongue and cheek. as has become the Skechers way. But his clothes sucked. He looked like a frumpy dumpy, you know, out there that you might run into. Somebody trying a smidge too hard, but with, you know,

clothing styles and fits that were like two eras ago. Yeah. So it looks like he wore Nike those days, which is somewhat surprising to me because I've been pretty impressed with their scripting throughout this major season. So I don't, yeah, I don't know if he bought like last season stuff

off the racket like a dick sporting goods for this event or what like if now that he's not an NFL player he can't get like the current looks but uh yeah this whole red gradient striped shirt is a really poor choice and yeah that uh navy and blue combo from yesterday is uh not the look you want when you're being photographed as a champion now the thing is like he can wear wherever the eff he wants because he kicked everybody's ass he didn't even play outstanding but he's so good at golf now and he gets so much opportunity to play. Right. Um, you know, it was kind of fun to watch. I mean, dude, you, you know you, you, you intend to go win this thing. Dress like a champion, Tony Romo. That's, that's, that's my advice. That's my only comment and observation on that one.

I would like to give that same advice to many of the players on the pro players on tour this year. Okay. Especially those who are currently sponsored by Adidas. And I know we've ragged on them, um, quite a bit so far this year on the podcast. And I, remain unimpressed with their scripting for the Open Championship. Okay. It's tough. I'll say that I think Dustin Johnson's look is fine. It's basically what we've come to expect from him very little in the way of color pop.

There's like a little bit of blue thrown in there. It's, you know, pretty classic DJ and that's fine. I'm okay with it. Zander at least has a little bit of like a coral color for Thursday and kept it pretty simple the rest of the days. but Sergio has some super weird almost like computer line gradient. Like it just looks so strange for Thursday and Friday. And then Saturday and Sunday has these awful, awful color block shirts.

So yeah, the Sergio thing is in particular, I don't know how it happens or why it happens because the Spanish in general, just to grossly overgeneralize, are well-dressed people. I just came back from two weeks in Spain House and I will agree with you. Yes. That's both both the men and the women. They know how to be handsome. They dress for the occasion. They like to be seen out and about.

Nobody's in, you know, denim shorts or, you know, cargo pants or anything like that. They, they dress to impress by and large. And yet he chooses color schemes with his, it has to be his team that are so, out there. I just don't, I'll never forgive the all yellow that he had a handful of years ago. No. And I will say I read that these Adidas polos that they're unveiling are sort of where the company is going for its like winterish look. So maybe these are just like sort of the test cases to try and promote that line. So maybe they really didn't have too much say over it. But I would like to think that Sergio could object to some of these color matchings because Saturdays Navy and combo is really uninspiring.

I mean, step it up. This is the last major of the season. Yes, fully agree. So who else do we got? We also have Justin Rose, who, with his bonobos outfits, they've been pretty impressive throughout most of the year.

These ones, I'm not super thrilled by. They're pretty much sticking to the black and navy and white combinations. He has at least some interesting pattern shirts for Saturday and Sunday. but yeah pretty pretty standard i'm a bonobo supporter i like their their their golf stuff i had a lot a lot of their pants there's crazy comfortable pants um i've i've wanted justin rose to get like one half step um more fashion forward it does feel like just a hair too down the middle um for me because

you can get really creative with the bonobos yeah i sort of felt like like we were trending that direction earlier this year at the PGA and then the U.S. Open, and now it seems like they've sort of rained it back in. I'm not sure if that's because it's the Open Championship specifically or if this is just sort of where their line is headed directionally. But I thought he was really close to where we wanted him to be earlier and now it's sort of been toned down. But agree with you. And then we have Ricky Fowler who is going with some Navy and green kind of combo this weekend,

which I'm also okay with. Yeah, so I haven't had a chance to look, but I want to tell you this, Shusty, I have as an outside bed of mine, a guy that I'm going to go ahead and play some money on this week. His name is Ricky Fowler. I just feel like in terms of narrative, obviously Rory is at the tippy top of every storyboard, and Graham McDowell is right there a lot. alongside with him. But I do think if there was a time for, you know, a guy that's been around the hoop quite a bit, but never broken through to come out and make, make that statement, it's Ricky. And Ricky's got, you know, pretty great Lynx record. And, you know, we're wondering about a venue that nobody's played as potentially being kind of an equalizer. So I'm interested

in seeing his Sunday outfit and whether or not I like his Sunday outfit with the claret jug. Yes. What's your opinion of that? I think it would look great next to the claret jug personally. And also, to your point, I saw he posted a few Instagram stories this morning from his practice around. He was playing with Tiger. He posted a shot of him hitting, I think it was a nine iron into 18 and he was just talking about how excited he was, how cool the venue looked, how amazing, you know, that walk up to 18, the 18th green was. And he seemed really loose house and was really looking forward to playing this weekend. So I support your pick. And I'll put you on the spot in a second. This is the Monday edition.

This is the Monday preview edition of Open Championship Week here, Faraway Roll. And so that will be my Epic Flash pick of the week. Shusty, the Epic Flash continues to kick ass and take names, none other than the most recent PGA tour winner, Dylan Fertelli, out there in the Quad Cities at the John Deere, taking everybody down with his Epic Flash sub-zero driver. Epic Flash continues to lead the count across the PGA tour of players putting this weapon into use. And it is the first driver developed with artificial intelligence and machines.

learning, two things that would be very helpful to my wagering strategy, if only I could convince Callaway to help me out, Shusty. That would be nice, right? Get that Intel? Yes, it really would be. That would be amazing. So what else do we got? Well, I just wanted to briefly say that Nike has not released their scripting yet, so we don't

know what, you know, Rory and Tiger are going to wear as of this podcast recording. But I will say that journalist Peter Bukowski tweeted at you and me, after our U.S. Open preview with some Nike scripting Intel. And he said that he had talked to the Nike apparel people and said that they in part built their Open Championship theme around Rory. So when those scripts do get released, it'll be really interesting. We'll have to share thoughts offline, I suppose. Oh, we can do it online.

We can do it on the Twitter machine. We're allowed to talk to each other on the Twitter. Yes, very true. We can invite Peter to join us. It'd be fine. I enjoy that very much. Yes. I bet they'll be green.

My guess is there will be green. in the color scheme. I would think that's probably a safe bet. Yeah. All right. Shusty, do you have a pick? Do you have your own epic flash pick of the week?

I think I'm going to go out on a minor limb here and pick my boy Tommy Fleetwood at 25 to 1. You mentioned Tommy. You're loving him. Yes. My problem with Tommy's been three round Tommy this year. He just can't string four together, but he's got a great link's resume. Alex Myers and I were comparing notes.

on this. The only thing he hasn't done is play great at the Open Championship. Last year was his first top 15 finish. He finished tied 12. But maybe this is the trend line. We know that he's comfortable playing this style of golf. So I can't quibble with your selection. I'm just going to stay away from it. That's all. That's fine. That's okay. More for me. Shusty, before we go, I have to share with you. Travel plans lined up. I'm going down to Memphis, Tennessee. We're going to visit our good pal, our mutual buddy, Chris Vernon, Memphis, the native son down there in Memphis, because right after the British Open is concluded,

the top 50 in the world are getting on airplanes and flying directly to Memphis, Tennessee, to compete in the WGC, St. Jude Invitational, the last WGC event of this season. And I want you to help me root for somebody. Who is that? I have this, this on good sources that there's some decent fried chicken down there in, uh, in Memphis, Tennessee. In fact, we, we've, we've, told the tale, we've done some regaling of it. Gus's fried chicken, the world famous Gus's fried chicken emanates from Mason, Tennessee. Now there are three or four different, uh, venues down there. And I have designs. I'm going down there, Shusty. And then not only am I going to enjoy the Gus's world famous fried chicken, but I have an invitation extended to none other than Thailand's native son,

Kyridak Fee Barnrat. No way, really? Yeah. So Kyridak, I've been told, has never tried Gus's world famous. And I haven't tried it either. Verno is going to host us and we're going to go down. And as part of Kyridak's preparation for his week down there at the WGC. event. It feels like if we can get him like thinking local thoughts and if we can really channel

his inner Memphis, his inner Tennessee action, we're going to try and do that with this fried chicken. We're going to break bread. We're going to enjoy some from fried chicken together, but I need, we both need one thing out of Kyridak and it's, and it's this. Only the top 50 players in the world are invited to this event, Shusty. Guess what number in the world Kyridac Happy Barnrat is right now? Oh, no. What is it? Fifty-one. So let's get everybody. We need everybody on the Fairway Roll and to help get some mojo role. And we need positive, the power of positive thinking for Kyriduk. All the good vibes. All the good vibes. The very best vibes. Because let's be honest, everybody wants to see Kira

and I eat some fried chicken, right? Obviously. Think of the content, guys. This is it. Think of all of the marvelous videos and podcasts. We could get out of you and Kyridak eating fried chicken. It doesn't cost anybody to think good thoughts about Kureadek Fee Barnradom. That's not a heavy ask.

I don't think we're going for here. No. It's going to be very fun next week. Me and Verno will be together for the open recap Sunday afternoon. And then I'm going to join him on the Chris Vernon show, which is available online, both Monday and Tuesday. And if we're lucky, we'll have Kiridek and go have some fried chicken together Tuesday afternoon.

And it'll be a damn fine time down there in Memphis, Tennessee. Amazing. I personally will be sending out all of the positive vibes to Kira Deck. And I hope in the future to be able to hear all about your guys' outing together. You're the very best. Thank you, Shusty. All right, my Eagle Enthusiast, there you go. Your Open Championship preview.

I think we got all the storyline. We've got some important names treated there. We'll see how our mind changes, if it changes between now. And the next preview show, we have going up midday Wednesday. Justin Ray is coming on board. He, you know him from the 15th club. All of his beautiful strategic thinking about how guys are going to perform and what attributes matter most. And of course, our buddy, our good buddy, Chris Vernon will be on to do his epic flash

pick of the week and break down all the angles of how we're going to allocate a little capital. That's midday Wednesday. That show will be up. And then we'll have a recap show right after the claret jug is hoisted. Me and Verno will be together in Memphis, Tennessee. And we're going to compare notes on that winter. I know it's going to be a good one. Until Wednesday, my birdie buddies, hit it straight out there.