Fairway Rollin' - Wyndham Clark Wins His Second U.S. Open!

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

House and Nathan react to Wyndham Clark's (–4) second U.S. Open win. Plus, they dive into Scottie Scheffler's performance, lessons from Shinnecock, Joaquín Niemann's potential, and more takeaways from the rest of the field. (00:00) Welcome to Fairway Rollin’! (01:43) Wyndham Clark (–4) wins his second U.S. Open (17:23) What we learned from Shinnecock (20:00) Bryson DeChambeau misses another major cut (27:20) Joaquín Niemann's top-10 performance (30:40) Evaluating the rest of the field (37:40) Has Wyndham Clark redeemed himself? (47:05) Reaction to Scottie Scheffler's T4 performance The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Producers: Tucker Tashjian and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf program, unlike any other. Oh, yes, my friends, we have done it. We have a U.S. Open champion to discuss here on Faraway Roll. And a golf program on the Rigger Podcast Network and on Netflix. I am your starter, Joe House, joined by my inimitable accomplice, our PGA tour boots on the ground. Nathan Hubbard, my birdie buddies, my par saving. pals, my eagle enthusiasts, Wyndham Clark goes wire to wire, and we are going to try and figure out why America hates him. I'm just kidding. Here we go. Two pegs in the ground. The ball, the balls are

ready to fly. Nate Doug, speaking of balls ready to fly, how's your heavy putter? I guess not heavy enough because it may not have been the best putter of the week, It does stats say it was the fourth best part of the week? But it was the most clutch putter of the week. And that at the end of the day, there was so much talk coming into Shinnock about course setup, about how the importance of good pars, right? Yes. And being ready to make four to eight footers, five to ten footers, five to 14 footers,

whatever, right, those longish knee knocking putts to win U.S. Open and how important that is. And there's one guy all week who stood up in the most, important times and made those puts and it's Wyndham Clark and he is your two-time winner house two-time U.S. Open major winning champion, Wyndham Clark. Twice in four years. I mean, that's pretty good last time right here, first time right here, LACC. I feel like he won the golf tournament on Thursday, which is a little bit of a silly thing to say. It's not.

But, you know, in the context of the way the weather behaved, the way. the golf course behaved and, you know, the saving par experience of Wyndham Clark, round two, round three, round four, two things that jumped off the page at me. In the first place, the 70 on Saturday could have been a 76, could have been a 75. Yeah. I, of course, bet on him over 71 and a half strokes on Saturday. Bad decision. And he just made everything.

thing he looked at. Every put to save par. And really the clincher for him on Saturday. And maybe the golf tournament was the Eagle on 16 that nobody saw on the grounds at Shitticock because nobody was there. But looking, looking back, I feel like he perhaps won the golf tournament with that mighty stroke, that mighty, what was it, a five wood that he said he hit? It was a cut down three wood. Because he was in between a three iron and a three wood because he didn't have the five wood in the bag. It would have been a five wood in the bag.

But he hit the sort of cut down, slappy fade with three wood that played out perfectly. He took a little bit off it. I want to come back, though, because I think leading up to this tournament once again, maybe we over-rotated on the weather because we were sure that the guys who were going to be, be going late early, we're going to be the ones who had the problem because the wind was going to

blow everybody off the course. And so that was going to bode well for guys with Rory and Scotty on the early part of the draw. But then, as you said, they got this golden hour at Shinnock on Thursday afternoon where DJ of all people and Wyndham are pushing it. The greens were soft and slow. The wind was down and Windham goes birdie on three, birdie on four, Eagle on five, right as he's coming down his back nine. Now they didn't get all the way done. I think they wanted to play as long as they possibly could, but he'd also made a birdie on 18. You could just see he had this momentum and just did not want to stop as they kept going. That was where, now listen, everybody out, you know, half the field had the same advantage that he did. But the golf,

and Wyndham was the first to say this, the golf got worse from there, it got progressively worse in terms of his ball striking. And you could almost sense that as he was on seven getting himself up and out of the bunker in the dark and then making that putt. You could just sense he was trying to keep it going as fast or as long as he possibly could because it did diminish. The quality did through the course of the weekend. And it really was that putter that just kept him with his head above waterhouse.

And I do want to say, I mean, let's get after it here. Today, there were a lot of things that could have gone wrong for Wyden Clark, and almost all of them did. He was in the last group with the number one player in the world. He had all of golf Twitter that then spilled into all of the New York crowd that decided to go to this golf tournament, actively rooting against him, probably too aggressively in hindsight. And at the end, turning him into a bit of a sympathy figure, he had a scary six-shot lead, which anytime you hear six-shot lead, you think of one thing and one thing only, and that is Greg Norman getting chased down by Nick Faldo, right?

He had all those things, and he had a game that clearly was leaking a little bit of oil on the ball-striking side of things. There was so much that could have gone wrong here. Man, every time he got pushed to the brink, he stood up and either made a birdie, that putt on 16, either made a long par saving putt as he did earlier in the round. He just never relinquished it. This was a very tough, gritty performance by Wyndham Clark, wasn't it? It was.

And one thing that I want to emphasize to your point, what do you think he shot on the back over the four rounds? What do you think this aggregate score was on the back? I don't know. He was 35 coming in today. Yeah. So he ended up six under on the back. Well, there you go.

And your testament and testimony around that. that grittiness that's where it revealed itself that's where yeah we saw everybody having enormous trouble on 10 yesterday Saturday well he he he he encountered the same trouble but he somehow you know banged the ball into the front of the green had it roll up to whatever it was eight feet and then made made made made the par put and even today even today we saw guys go through 10 and go over the back and he managed to to save par there uh in a way that almost felt like he was picking up a stroke Well, 10 today wasn't that he and Scotty both made birdie. I mean, he matched birdie with Scott.

It felt like we might get finally, you know, Scotty unleashed. Yesterday, Saturday, Scotty, you know, went on a mini run that got all of us excited, a bunch of birdies. He just never really could, speaking of the back nine, get that potter working in terms of making the chances that he had in front of him. But Wyndham, you know, just hung in there. And so the even par back nine, that includes today a three putt on 17, you know, that really felt like, okay, it's knee knock time. Yeah. And then the approach, you know, he wasn't great on approach.

I think he was negative strokes game today. Yes, he was. He was 61st on approach overall. Yeah. So. It was a bad. He lost a stroke and a half today. It was not good.

He hit it to 52 feet or whatever. But once again, the putter, I mean, he, you know, he knocked it all the way up there into tap-in distance and left no doubt in a very similar manner to what he did in 2023, where he had a long putt. He had a one-stroke lead, and he was just nails on the 18th green. And what the golf tournament. Look, it does feel like if this golf tournament was five days, Wyndham was not going to win. I agree. But he was two over over the three rounds after his 64 on Thursday. Yeah, he was also helped by the fact that, I thought, I mean, look, Burns' round today was really good. He was really good. Fifth on approach and eighth and putting and, you know, three under was, or fifth in putting, excuse me, an eighth on approach. He, he, three under, I think you felt like a 66 was the minimum that you were going to have to get to go actually rein it in. And I think all of us felt like Scotty was the guy who was going to do it. And I thought that the best thing for Wyndham was Scott.

starting out with PARS. Yeah. Because it just was clear that Scottie did not have, on Sunday, on Saturday, excuse me, he was first on approach. And so coming into the clubhouse, it was like, uh-oh, Scotty figured out his irons. He hasn't had those for a while now. He has got this rolling.

But on Sunday, the irons were kind of mediocre house. I mean, you know, he was 41st on approach. And that just never put the kind of crowd pressure on Wyndham that you thought might come if Scotty made a little run. And when it didn't come from Scotty, it was going to come from a couple of guys who, I mean, are you really nervous about Tom Kim? Are you really nervous about J.T. Poston?

You're nervous about that redemption arc for Sam Burns that sort of paralleled Wyndham's after the fumble last year. But look, Sam had putts on 17 and 18. He had good looks, and he just wasn't able to put those through. And I think that took a little bit of pressure off of Wyndham overall today in that there wasn't anybody. The scariest guy was right in front of him. And when he did not have his teeth today, being Scotty Sheffler, I think Wyndham could understand that even as that lead got down, he probably felt like he had just as much, if not more dog, than any of the other chasers. He was emboldened on 16 because the drive into whatever that fescue situation was where it, you know,

Bone says it's a horrible lie. We'll have our chance to talk about the broadcast. For Christ's sakes, there was no lie in the Fescue, this entire goddamn golf tournament that these guys couldn't hit it out of. I mean, they all could advance out of the very worst of lie. Everybody except for Patrick Reed, who did manage to get one wrapped around the hazel and a snap hook left. That was the only time we saw. Sothed lost a club today. He tossed a club, but that, yeah, that was it.

guys could get it out. Listen, they filmed it well. There were some nice shots from above and on the sides that showed. That was great. But bones of all people, setting us up for he's going to have to just hack this out. And when Wyndham hits a 200-yard shot down the middle of the fairway. And, you know, but to Wyndham, the point I wanted to make is then he hits an approach that has a little bit of that top spin action on it. It goes off the green the way that that balls at Shinnecock will do if they don't, you know, have enough spin on them to stay on the same shelf as the pin. And he just stood over a put and made his, his fifth from 20 feet or more and won the golf tournament from the back of 16 green. So to the 16th hole, what was his,

his champion hole? And I mean, there was a Cota to that, though. I mean, the three putt on 17, suddenly he's only got one shot lead. And on 18, he's looking at another 53 footer, just like he did at LACC. And that was not a gimmy under any circumstances. But I think the similarity must have put him a little bit more at ease. I mean, what he said as he walked off the green was that he heard the crowd. And I think let's talk about it because I know you and I had some different views

on just how much he had fallen on the sword and done the things. I really thought he handled the negative energy this week as well as anyone possibly could have. And what he said is I took every negative thought and there was a lot, every negative comment, and I just was going to replace it with a positive. And he just committed to it. And I almost think that the overwhelming amount of negative energy that was directed at him helped him because he was forced to just stay relentlessly positive the whole time. He could not.

He was on camera the whole time. He was under scrutiny. And so he just had to just exude this positivity that I think kept him from getting in the way and kept the demons from even creeping in. He just had to be so strong in that way because it was such a topic of conversation. I almost wonder if, you know, with a little bit less scrutiny and less chatter in it not being the story with him, obviously being in the lead for all four days, that he wouldn't have had that advantage. There was something about, you know, the line from the singles, all this negative. energy only makes me stronger. Well, I will say, I don't think he gives a shit about any of the surrounding commentary

from folks like us and golf Twitter and golf media writ large in the context of trying to win this golf tournament. He certainly didn't hear. He responded to a lot of it, though. Well, he didn't hear anything on Saturday because there was nothing to hear. There's nobody at the golf course for his back nine on Saturday. Other, there was a jerk off that was done. doing some getting the bunker stuff or whatever for social purposes, right?

It was apparent that this guy was like filming himself and yelling that. I don't know. These guys today was different. This was the Shinnecock that I thought we might get for four days. New York showed up today. Yeah, Rich said they thought they were to Jets game. And there were guys getting thrown out left and right. They kept it tighter this time than they did at the Ryder Cup.

That I think was the difference. And I think USGA did everything they could to keep it in the, the boundaries, but it was getting, it was getting edgy out there, I think. I, to your observation, do agree with you. I think it helped him. He said in one of the pressers that having participated in a president's cup on a foreign soil and in a rider cup on foreign soil. And honestly, he referenced Canada last week, where, you know, having dawned the

Jack Hughes jersey and taking it from, from those fans, I will tell you, that part of my calculus and thinking about whether or not he could hold on over this weekend, I mean, this is overreaction City, but he bogeyed the 18th hole in Canada and knocked himself out of a top 10 there because those fans were approximate and yelling. And he was in the middle of the fairway, you know, after his second shot, it's a par five in Canada that they end on. And his third shot was garbage.

He hit it into the bunker. They yelled at him to hit it in the bunker. He obliged and then he didn't get up and down so we bogeed that last hole. I thought that that was kind of indicative of, you know, whatever his his fortitude is mental fortitude. But no, I think that it today, it was a galvanizing effect. The all of New York wanted to see Scotty Schaeffler, you know, come through with make the grand slam.

Yes. And give us, we everybody in the first place was rooting for drama. We got that. because, you know, three over, he had three bogies on the front wind him. First five holes, it was within two. So we were there. Let the field come in, yeah. But I do think to your observation that it helped his focus.

He wasn't rattled by it. He didn't have to work, you know, whatever he felt about his game, he's also hearing that energy and just like, oh, well, the thing to do is to maintain my energy and the golf shots are the golf shots. Yeah, you know, there's a couple of observations sort of broadly. One is, like, he was sitting there at 40 to 1 or even longer, and we talked a lot about that because... Well, one of us said two weeks ago that I had bought tickets on both Wyndham Clark and Sam Burns. Sam Burns 35 to 1 and Wyndham Clark at 40 to 1. Yes, and the reason that we did that is because you could see this coming. He won at C.J. Byron Nelson on a course that had been revamped because Scotty shot 31 under,

and Wyndham went out and shot 30 under on that revamped course. He shot 60 on Sunday to win the effing golf tournament. And so it was there in all facets of the game. The only thing that wasn't there, the Byron Nelson, was around the green stats. Well, at the Memorial, he was third for crying out loud, and he was great around the green. Same thing in Canada. Like, you could see he was third at Memorial. He was just outside the top 10 in Canada.

But it's a reminder that momentum coming into this tournament really matters. And I want to dovetail that with what we learned about the course. This course was not lost. And this court, you had J.T. Poston and Tom Kim in the mix. And all manner of golfers, by the way, a bunch of amateurs who were coming around the first time. Yeah. But this golf course was not just for bombers, despite the fact that it gave DJ a little, you know, bit of hope. Bryson DeShambo, John Rom got sent home.

Other, you know, J.T. Poston and Tom Kim are standing at the end. I think we just have to remember that I think in, I think in, future U.S. opens, the current regime did not want what happened the last time at Shinnock. They did not want just an absolutely burnt out impossible test. They wanted this kind of thing. Three guys who played really well shot under par. You know, 20th was in the plus, you know, 25th was in the plus two range. And so this was a winnable golf course more like JJ Spawn could have a chance than only DJ Bryson and guys who hit it 380. yards could have a chance. And the reason that that matters is momentum then matters, because then it is

the guys who are playing the best are not out of it just because of course set up. And that's why you pay attention to Wyndham Clark. That's why you paid attention to Sam Burns coming in. A, they had had good performance in U.S. Open setups before, and those were the two best stories, to be honest, coming in. Sam had been in a puddle on 15 last year and kind of let it slip through his hands after the 54-Hill lead. and Wyndham had been in a puddle of his own feelings and destroyed the locker room and coming in, you know, finally playing really good golf, clearly had a chance to win. So we just have to remember that on a go-forward basis. This is a different regime setting up the course in a way that allows the best guys in the moment to compete. It doesn't box you out just because you can't hit it the way that Bryson did at Winged Foot.

No, and, you know, as we go through the next U.S. Open is at Pebble. next year, which lets all kinds of a variety of players win. Justin Rose has a win there. Jordan Speeth has a win there. Gary Woodland. Gary Woodland has a U.S. Open win there. But when you think of the list, Kalamorkawa, guys that have won at Pebble, obviously, you know, Nick Taylor for credit out loud. Yeah. Right. The tournament they play in February is different from a U.S. Open setup. But yeah. Well, I think it just is a good reminder that this is a different, it's a different tournament to bet on. But back to Wyndham, I mean, I do think, you know, man, the thing that's just resonating

with me is Bryson went home yet again after that post about, hey, like this, you know, with this two thumbs up, if you think I'm going to make my first cut, almost making a joke of it. And in that afternoon, he was a benefit of the wave. And at one point in time, he was in the top five of the leaderboard. And I thought, oh, House, he's going to absolutely take your money. and I was teasing you over text because you were like, I'm going to need a triple bogey here or else.

Well, you know, Bryson DeShambeau has two U.S. Open wins. So does Wyndham Clark. And there was something about waking up today, assuming that Wyndham was going to get it done, that for me almost, it didn't quite diminish, but it lowered the way that I think about Bryson's two wins, given his recent performance in majors.

And let's not take anything away. Like winning two U.S. opens is incredible. it's it's it's obviously like you're getting to uh world golf hall of fame status but it is um it's not the same tier as somebody who goes and wins at these other tournaments and guys who locked down the masters it's it's a it's a bit of a dilutive win for um for a two-time u.s. open winner to me having having windham grabbed this not that win him earned this like 100%. this is a fortitude test all the things that you want to from a U.S. Open. It just, you step back from it and you go, do you think Wyndham is on the same

level as Scotty or is Bryson on a pretty significantly lower level than guys who've won three, four, five, six majors, given that he's only won two U.S. Opens, including, may I, may I just say, the last one will always live on for me as one that he did not grab, despite that last shot, but that was kind of given to him by Rory. Yeah, that's fine. I think it's hard to to parse Bryson because he to me is such a different person and a different golfer than when he was competing. And honestly, I think the same is true of when he competed and won at Wingfoot and when he competed in one at Pinehurst. So if you wanted to do a parallel thing, you could say the win at Wingfoot, you could put a mini asterisk next to it because there was nobody there. It was a COVID U.S. Open, right?

The only people allowed. It was also just so clearly set up for him. him, though, House. Well, I mean, it turned out to be something that he could take advantage of. He uniquely pursued a strategy of hitting it. He didn't care where it ended up. He wanted to be as close to the hole as possible. Because he uniquely believed that he could advance the ball out of the rough. The rough was not up to his, you know, couldn't challenge him the way it challenged other players in the way that we've come to understand the Wingfoot challenge. It did challenge other players. It just didn't challenge. He just thought with a wedge, it was going to be easier than with a seven iron. And he was right as far as he could. And he was right. So, but if you

wanted to put an asterisk next to that, well, I would say his win at Pinehurst removes the asterisk. It's a validation. And in a way, 100%. In a way, that's very similar to the way I think about Wyndham Clark, because that LACC situation, that was very weird. It was a weird golf tournament. It was a weird venue. I don't think they'll ever go back there again. I don't think the won the tournament back there again i mean remember ricky fowler started that golf tournament by shooting eight under or nine under or whatever right it didn't feel like uh a u s open um because of of you know a lot of factors and variables the weird weather the marine layer um the lack of water like all kinds of stuff that came into play for the lacc u s open um and it felt like rory kind of

gave that one away but windham going wire to wire at shinnock That that takes, like, removes all doubt. Yep. And so to me, I like this sort of comparison, but I don't, I can't make any sense out of, you know, the correct way to view Bryson in history. Yeah. I mean, look, 24 guys have now won this tournament twice. Yeah. That's a bigger list than I expected.

Me too. You've got Curtis Strange on there, right? Yeah. You've got, so. And that's- Tansen is on there. Yeah, that's taking nothing away from those guys, but it's a different kind of test.

And now the challenge for both of these guys is can they take it and get it done in a different venue? I will say this. What did you see from Bryson? I thought he came in actually playing well on Thursday. Like I was telling you, like his short irons, his iron game was pretty good. He seemed kind of solid with the puck.

and then it just evaporated on Friday. And again, I'll say to you, I, he's not mentally tough house. I agree. You're absolutely right. And all this outside YouTube shit is for show, and it's to feed the hole in his heart that he wants the attention and he wants the love, and I don't,

there's lots of people who function that way. I have that stuff in my life too, but it is a real mask and concealer at this point. sealer at this point for an underlying mental weakness that again when he won that u.s. open at pinehurst rory outplayed him that day he just hit a good bunker shot down the stretch and i'm he did hang in there he did hang in there uh to to put himself it should have been a playoff i mean by the boy the way that that um yeah at a minimum it should have been a playoff rory struggled that day too and was mentally weak and it took him to sort of exercise those demons in augusta uh you

you know, last year to get through it. But I think this is the thing for Bryson. He's got to step back. The talent is all there. It's why when we talked coming into this week, I said, you have to keep Bryson DeShambo on the list of guys who can win a U.S. Open. He's shown it to you.

He's got all the talent. It's going to be about whether the switch flips in his mind, as it did before Pinehurst, and even in 2020, like, pre-live, he was a villain, and his game slipped. Post-live, he became, of the people's champ for a little while there. Those incredible shots on, you know, when he had the second place finishes of the PGA,

he was just everybody's darling. And it fed him. He used COVID to completely rehabilitate his image. That was where the creative streak arose. That's where the YouTube came from. And he became a compelling figure that, you know, America could relate to through their screens, through this YouTube and this unique, you know, quirky fellow playing with, you know, celebrities in this crazy format and it made him likable.

And look, I imagine on Thursday evening there was a text that our friend Scott O'Neill certainly sent to a few people who've been looking at investing and live and said, look at my guys. I got Bryson up there. I got John Rom up there. I got DJ up there. You know, I got all of these things happening. And by Friday afternoon, they were all gone.

And the only guy, two guys who were still in there was Tyrell Hatton. By the way, we talked about him, he was plus 900 to finish first Englishman. It was there for you. And you had Joaquin Neiman who covered himself in poo-poo with that 11. Although he did, his comment today when they asked, hey, you know, if you hadn't had the seven shot, you know, if you hadn't taken the 11, you'd have been competitive in this tournament. He said, yeah, if my grandmother had wheels, should be a car, which is just a great response from a Chilean. like shout out to Joaquin Neiman.

If Windham had such a good response last year, we probably wouldn't have spent the whole year beating him up in the same way. But look, those guys did not cover themselves in glory in this golf tournament. And so is it just Bryson House or is this moment of live very clearly in the way that they prepare and in the uncertainty about what lies ahead getting in the way of these guys' ability to execute? Well, when you say mental weakness, I'm thinking of it in the context of these guys playing high pressure golf in high pressure situations at the hardest kind of tests and them not getting sufficient reps i mean it's a reps thing to me and i think that's equally true for for for rom i mean he looked

good on thursday yeah his friday collapsed his hitting eject on the back but that that that's that's a mental fortitude that's like he he lost focus he got frustrated he let the whole thing go He was even through five. Right. And he shot eight under, eight over from there. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, it got headed in the wrong direction and he couldn't write the ship. I honestly think that Joaquin Neiman played the best golf of anybody this entire tournament.

I think you're right. It was a fucking incredible 65 that he shot for his second round. And to follow that up with a second. Saturday's round. Saturday was the 65? No, Saturday was the 72, but even there he sort of pulled out of the fire. Today's 66. That's what I was, a 65 and a 66 at Shinnecock under the circumstances, you know, after

what he experienced, that dude can, and we now have a couple. We've been waiting for his talent to shine through at the majors. When is he finally going to get a top 10? Well, now he's got a couple at a couple different venues. and another guy that would be welcome, at least to me, I'd like to see more of them. I'd like to see some more Joaquin'em. He won that tournament at Riv going away.

You remember that? Yeah, no, for sure. And we've been waiting for it because he's been a little bit whiny about being entitled to these invites. And we keep saying, well, just go earn it for credit. Well, we're going to see him at the U.S. Open next year because he finished T7. So he's not going to have to worry about qualifying. And I think you're exactly right.

He put his clubs in the trunk today and said, but for one hole, I win this golf tournament. I'm good enough. And that's that mental switch that for whatever reason, the weight of carrying being the face of the breakaway leagues on Bryson and Rahm, it just seems to snowball. When things go badly for them right now, it just accelerates. It's almost like it's a live betting opportunity. They cannot pull out of the tailspin. Neiman had a massive blow up and pulled himself out of the tailspin. Yeah. I want to do some glass

half full, glass half empty. We waited around for Ludwig Oberg. And by golly, he gave us a Sunday 66. I mean, we were waiting. So he finished inside the top 20 plus three for the tournament, but a four under on Sunday. Justin Thomas inside the top 20. I'm inclined to call that a glass half full kind of of a kind of a deal. Sahith, we've been asking for you, you know, when are we going to see him back on a little bit of a heater? He had a great round. He had a tough day today.

Yeah, great round yesterday. Really fun to see him back in the mix, Tide 11. Aaron Rye, you know, after winning the PGA championship comes down and to the USA, I mean the U.S. Open, USA, and a T-11. Only player I saw wait to congratulate Windham, Missy Warkdown. off too. So like all class. Super classy. High class. I mean, what are you going to say? I mean, when are we going to say?

Zander Schauffley, he's played the U.S. open 10 times. He's finishing the top 15 10 times. I was disappointed. He was glass half empty for me. Okay. Disappointed. So here my bucket of disappointment. I have Zander in there. I wanted more out of

Tommy Fleetwood. Yeah, I wanted more out of Tommy too. He felt like it was right there, right for the taking. Yeah, it was there. And he just doesn't elevate the game to the A level when that's happening. I was livid at Matt Fitzpatrick yesterday. No, I knew I knew you were going to blow him up. I was absolutely furious with the lack of concentration.

I wonder if he was, it was he and Wyndham having, but it was basically like a lovely, you know, walk on a Saturday afternoon, unencumbered by, by fans, certainly unencumbered. by weather. They had perfect conditions and he just was absolutely dead lost. A 39 on the front was just, it was a mess. And he thought, okay, he's going to battle back. He makes that birdie on 10 and then it just never materialized. He just couldn't put it together. I don't. He looked like the guy after Thursday who was going to persevere and win this

golf term. And I felt great about your pick. I was happy with that pick. I didn't lose. faith until that that's and there really was nothing you could point to he didn't have you know there wasn't bad luck yeah there was no outside interference it was just been the six inches between his ears yeah that to me you know got in in the way um so that's my glass half full glass half empty go ahead glass half full i mean you also i think we can both say to ben james newly turned pro and jackson coivan who finished uh as as low am tied with rider cowen i i Jackson coven is, Kauvin is coming. I mean, this is, you can set your watch to it. This is, I don't know if he's

going to be Scotty Schaeffler, but, you know, we talked about what a great putter. He was, he was ninth off the T today, you know, for the tournament. Jackson, you know, he had fine stats. There wasn't anything amazing that he did, but he was consistently good enough. And I just can't wait to see him now that he's turning pro get out on tour. It's going to be a lot of fun. I agree. Alex Fitzpatrick shot three over today inside the top 25 though his sort of excellent play continues I'll give him glass half

full Colin Warcawa who I thought might be in the mix he was in the mix for a little bit he got really hot there for a stretch what was it on the back nine on Friday Friday yeah on Friday made three birdies and bogeed 17 but he still shot a 65

on Friday so it felt like it was happening But yeah, they're just guys who didn't grab a 73 yesterday just didn't feel like it was good enough. How do you evaluate Hatton? I mean, here he is yet again, competitive in a major, outplaying his countrymen, three under today, sort of a backdoor top 10, if we're being honest, right? But, you know, at 72 yesterday at least wasn't a terrible score. And he opens with a 68 on Friday. was the 74 on Thursday that ate him up a bit, but

this is a guy that we need to start giving sort of regular top 20 consideration to in majors, because he's now just done it the last four times that he's shown up. Absolutely right. And we had a nice discussion with him with Justin Ray about Tyrell Hatton and his fortunes for this

week, and he continues to warrant the praise. I mean, just is showing up for these big golf tournaments and performing well. And he's playing better than John. I mean you know he's he's much more consistent and and you know to his credit the interesting thing for me in the next chapter of whatever comes between live dp world tour and the pga tour guys like neman and and hatton are they going to be playing more

d p world tour we're not going to see him over here in the u.s we'll only see them in the majors but i'd like to see more of those guys you know i'm hoping that that that whatever agreements get dropped into place that we get to see more of those guys, more of guys capable of that level of performance. Yeah. Because we're, you know, we're seeing it. Yeah. By the way, Reed missing the cut bum me up because I thought for a little while he was going

to be in the mix here on Thursday. And it just again, yeah, he's, it was another guy who Friday just just ate him up. Yeah. But there were guys that got the bad side of a weather window. Yeah. It wasn't like the prevailing, you know, a huge weather impact across the board. It certainly didn't materialize in the way that it was forecast.

Yeah. And look, again, it's just a reminder. Like, we got to pay less attention. The weather moves around. If they couldn't nail it at this tournament, like we just have to not over rotate on that, on that draw stuff and pay a lot of attention to the guys who are coming in playing well. And by the way, Tom Kim came in with some momentum. JT. Poston just won a golf tournament. Like, yes, they all were there.

Keith Mitchell had been playing better. Good love. Keith Mitchell with four 70s for the first time ever in the U.S. Open, including a 41-29. Great work. I mean, it was fun to see him on camera this week. For all of, you know, the sort of dissension around Wyndham, it was the complete opposite.

America has a love affair with Kashmir Keith. Nobody looks at Kashmir Keith with anything other than admiration. Everybody, the only thing missing is him walking around with a butt. Everybody wants to see him with a dart, you know, just firing it off. Well, let's finish on back to Wyndham because I, man, I wanted to get on the hate train. I really did. But I just thought that by the time I finished watching all of Wyndham's comments and the way that he handled today and a way that he handled the questions and the way that he repeatedly sort of fell on the sword and acknowledged it openly, even in victory, he never tired of answering that question. He never pushed back. He never

got ornery. He just, if we felt like coming into this week that he never had owned it, I don't know how you can walk away from today and not say that he owned it and he made it part of the narrative that I think fueled this victory. Now, I give him a ton of credit because I just, think he did under the circumstances he handled this pretty much perfectly and yes they put julie elean and yes they put his coach on tv to try to talk about how much they liked him and what nice guys what a nice guy he is they tried to kind of whitewash it with you know people who were sort of testaments to his character and even on the 18th green all the people who sort of mauled him you know the broadcast said oh that seems like a lot of people like wind him and i get it um

But I really did think under the circumstances, he handled this extraordinarily well. And in a way that I think is the reason he won. It required a lot of mental toughness and discipline to do that. And that's exactly how he played this tournament. Yeah, he is tough as nails. And he held on. Again, the six under over the balance of the four rounds on the back when, you know, things can slip away.

Nope, he didn't let anything slip away over the four rounds because he was under par, three out of the four days and even par today when it was time to go win. Bogey last night to not have the seven shot lead to sort of land on the voodoo six shot lead. Bogey on 17 today, like he still was able to just write the ship and roll with it. It's a let me put it this way. We got two guys in this era who've got two U.S. opens. That's Bryson and that's Wyndham. And I'll tell you right now, Windham's way tougher mentally.

And if I'm going to bet, if I'm going to bet on who's, going to be able to expand in the next 12 months to go win something outside this tournament based on what i've seen in the last month it's windham clark man well i mean wait way to go out an alimnate dog come on of course like he just finished inside the top five at uh at memorial and you know he's number one on tour with since making this putter change he was 135th putting going you know into the cj cup or whatever he made the putter change at the masters and it really started paying dividends and now he's one on tour over that period since he made the change. I will say I still, you know, it's not just the Oakmont thing with him that folks, you know, I understand folks the wrong way. He runs his

mouth a little bit. He had something to say about Brooks's return. And, you know, some of the stuff when he tries, you know, to be funny, it falls flat. And so that, that rubbing people the wrong way. He's clearly an intense guy. And that's not for everybody. I get it. It goes beyond that. But I get it. I definitely agree. I concur with the idea that, you know, he was able to set all of that aside and go out and win the golf tournament on the back nine. It was on the back nine today. And, you know, I'm fine with saying, okay, the story about him making restitution to Oakmont, it came out yesterday.

Like, we finally have a journalist saying he. did everything he was supposed to do we you know shupak reported it we you he paid the for the lockers he made a charitable contribution yes you know all okay like why did we have to wait until the fucking saturday of the u.s open when he's in the lead by set by six strokes why like it would have been fine to have known all of that earlier i know i agree he hasn't been the story because he's been playing shitty golf since then and so it really wasn't until he won he It really wasn't until a month ago when he came back into focus. And I think people actually had the reason to go ask those questions.

How did you feel about the application of the new rule around player conduct? I mean, inexplicably in our fucking National Open, walking Neiman makes a fucking 11 and throws a club 50 yards and kicks at a bunch of red ant hills. And nobody has a camera on it. Not one camera on it. There are 100 fucking cameras all over, you know. It's not credible. We should have, and I wonder if we'll see it.

Well, I mean, there's cameras there. And don't they profess to capture every golfer, every shot? Isn't that one of the, you know, it's not. There's no footage of it. Clearly not. Clearly not. And it went on, you know, it went on a reporter to go do this and this catty yelled at her and all this. bullshit. But like, can we get a camera at our national open on every shot? Can we do that? Can we

pay somebody $100 an hour? It will cost the USGA less than 300 grand if they have three people on every hole for 12 hours a day for four rounds to just film and make sure that if somebody goes fucking nuclear, that we have it on camera. There's no doubt that a portion of it is on camera. Because remember, it spanned two days. He didn't finish the hole when they called for darkness on Thursday. He had to come back Friday. So it might be the case. It might be.

If you're trying to be generous about it, you would say there's no reason to be on that portion of the golf course. You know, capture it. I don't know. I'm trying to manufacture something. I'm trying to give somebody the better than that. They blew that. How did you feel about them not assessing the penalty to ROM as he kicked? his driver down the T-box.

If they want to assess penalties, I don't have any issue with it. I'm totally fine. Stupid Sergio should have got a penalty at the Masters. If they had given Robert McIntyre a penalty at the Masters, I would have been fine with that too. But that's what they implemented this for. Was because of the Bobby Mac, because of the Sergio stuff, they're like, listen, we're going to start cracking down. Now, you know what almost happened today? So Wyndham Clark almost got a time penalty.

He was. Yes. They were very much on the clock. That last group was slow. They were. That's a different animal altogether, though. And there's... It was Brian Harmon-esque in the way that they stuck to their process

and just went through the conversation every time. I understand what he was trying to do. In both those cases, those guys were trying to protect a lead and just stay in their zone. Stay disciplined. Make sure they go through the process, as big wave Dave would say every time... Every time when he stepped into the bunker or the shit to hit his second shot, because that's where he was most of the time.

But it worked. I guess I just wondered if you had any problem with the way that it now feels like a little bit of a technical foul call where, you know, I can tell you the definition. Can't tell you exact the definition, but I know what it looks like when I see it. Who watched it? And who is the official that, you know, a judge that the penalty was warranted? And why can't America make its own judgment about whether or not, you know, I'll take everybody's word for it that he threw the club. I don't have any problem with that.

But yeah. Great Chinnacock. Blame Chinnichock, sure. No, grade Shinnecock. Oh, great Shinnecock. Yeah. I liked it. It was it was docile for the most part, you know.

It didn't really have the teeth. Yeah. But only three guys finished under par. Yeah. And, you know, sort of typical now. Before this golf tournament, only three guys in the history of U.S. Opens competed at Shinnak-finished under par. So that we doubled that number with this golf tournament.

And I think a lot of that is because of the opportunities that were presented Thursday and Friday, by virtue of the USGA, wanting to preserve the golf course, you know, into the weekend. And what we all have to accept when it comes to Shinnock is, like, Like the variables are beyond our control. All we can do is our very best to like deliver the golf course in a fair way for the competition. And I think the USGA pulled that off pretty well. Yeah. And I like the golf course.

I think without the wind, the scores actually would have been higher because they would have firmed it out more. They just couldn't actually get it into that condition with the threat of these wins. So I like it being in the rotation. I certainly like it a lot more. LACC, even if both of them were a little light on the fans and you had a little bit of fair weatherness until today. The fans were there today. We got a full like New York compliment and, you know, we saw all of them surrounding the boxes

and the greens on the entire back nine. So I was very happy to see that. Nate Dogg, any closing thoughts? No. I mean, I think this is probably the only glass has. full glass half empty thing that we didn't do is scotty sheffler okay how do you think he walks off this tournament feeling uh disappointed for sure yeah i think that he should take some solace in in the ball striking on the back nine he put himself in the position he just couldn't get any of

those putts to go in yeah 41st on approach overall today though after first yesterday but he i i felt like on 10 on 11 on 12 Those were all makeable birdie putts. And you go through. There were additional makeable birdies throughout. He just couldn't get any of them to drive. This is not the same Scotty Schaeffler of a year ago, though. Right?

And somewhere in his head, it's fun to surmise that he understands that and that there's a little bit of a challenge. And I like to see that how's he going to respond now with one major left? Is he going to go, and he's where he will be the defending champion. So it would be very interesting to see how Scotty handles this a year of no majors. Well, one opportunity left. My birdie buddies, my part saving pals, my eagle enthusiast, there is your U.S. Open. Recap, we're back because the tour keeps marching on.

Our last signature event of the season, is that right? Am I right about that name? Yeah, it depends on how you define Scotland. Yeah, this is the last stateside one for sure. State side. Very good. With a banging field, including Mark Hubbard, am I right about that? Yes, he's in.

There we go. Good thoughts towards his heart. I think he's going to, he's certainly traveling there. That's the good news. Okay. Well, yeah, we're rooting for good health for Mark Hubbard. We're back this week. We'll be back Tuesday for sure with a little bit of forecast of what's going on up there

in the greater Hartford area as well as, you know, the continued afterglow, the stories that will emerge here in the next 48 hours or so post U.S. Open. But until then, glorious weather for throwing a peg into the ground. And please, let's hit him straight out there. Must be 21 years older, older, and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or.

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