Fore Play - “How many mulligans to win the US Open?” w/ Mike Ballo

Episode Date: May 1, 2018

Riggs makes a big announcement about the new podcast extension “Fore Play Digs," and Mike Ballo joins the show. Mike's the assistant pro at Winged Foot, played on the Web.com TOUR, played college golf with Keegan Bradley, and caddied for Jon Curran on the PGA TOUR this year. He reveals the prank Keegan and the boys played on him at the Honda Classic, surviving a nuke scare in Hawaii, his life as an assistant pro at one of the US Open's most famous tests, and what makes the world's best so good. In From The Gallery, Frankie, Trent and Riggs debate how many mulligans they'd need to win the US Open and if it's acceptable to rock a pull cart!You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/foreplaypod

Hey, 4Play listeners, you can find us every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. This week's 4Play is going to begin with an announcement. I would like to announce the official launch of 4Play digs. Foreplay digs will launch this Thursday. It's going to be a deep dive, a deep dig, if you will, into historical golf events, people, places, etc. We're going to get at all kinds of good stuff. It's going to be very different.

It's going to be a little bit journalistic. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be riveting. You're going to love it. We are beginning, very appropriately, with the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. This year's U.S. Open at Shini will mark the 10-year anniversary since Tiger Woods' last one, a major championship. He's playing this week. He's playing next week.

It just makes sense. Also on this week's show, we've got my good friend Mike Ballo, who's the assistant pro at Wingfoot. He knows his stuff. He played college golf with Keegan Bradley. we got all kinds of good stories about that. He carried on tour this year with John Curran. He also played some web.com tour golf, so he knows his shit. We break down the walk-up music at the Zurich Classic.

Was it weird? Was it great? We're going to get into all of that. We also ask him from the gallery, how many Mulligans would it take would you need to win the U.S. Open? It's that and much more. It's ForPlay. Let's do this.

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That's forhims. com slash F-O-R-E-P-L-A-Y. Once again, that's forhems. com slash for play. Let's hit it. I mean, we've got everybody in here. We got Slim Daddy Trent. We got Frankie Braley Pizza Maker.

This is the part where I go, hey, guys. Say hi. Hey guys. Hello. Yeah, it's always weird. I scared people last week with my hello. I got a couple of tweets where I was way up on the levels and people were afraid of me. Yeah, well, again, I kind of put you on the spot and then you were like, hey.

Holy shit. But I do feel like it's important to put your voices out there. Everybody knows what we're going to get. Yep. We got a lot to get to. We've got, first of all, Zurich Classic, the music. We talked about the music for a couple weeks. We said it was probably going to be awkward and dumb.

It was awkward and dumb. Well, we had said it's one of those things where it's a good idea in theory. And then in practice, it's going to be a little strange. And I think that that was proven this weekend with what we saw. They got the format wrong. They were doing walk-up music between when they announced the guy and then when he hit the ball during, like, his pre-shot routine, which is all weird. And like... I don't think it could have gotten any worse.

The Ben Crane one was really bad because it's what you're saying. It's walk-up music, but they did it to the point where the guys are just standing there and they had a routine planned out. If you want to do walk-up music, just have it when they're walking up and that's fine. Or you do it the way Kevin Kisner did it, where he was like, play to them. music while I'm hitting. Right. And the place, I think that was actually better than the walk-up. He gave it the happy Gilmore. Like, come on, I care you. And like, people were clapping. The Kevin Kisner one was

fucking awkward, too. Did you really listen? No, I thought it was great. Yeah, but like the song choice he chose. He did me. Let me just, but I guess it was not weird for me because we know kids. I was like, I guess so, but like, as he's hitting the ball at this event, the words that were said where she's

numbing me, that tongue on me, oh yeah. And then they bleeped out just horrible words. As he's hitting the, just like, It's golf, dude. It's golf trying to be cool and just like a big miss. It was a step back. When the very classic tweeted out the first, there was a guy at the first tee, an older man, the guy who was announcing all the players, they tweeted out a video of him dancing to back in black.

And he was dancing like an old man at a wedding. And then they wrote, they wrote, when your first tee starters are ready for the walkup music, hashtag lit. Everything about this tournament made me cringe. Everything. When I saw Ben Crane and the other guy whooping up his hair, I almost threw my phone right across the road. I never wanted to see my phone ever again. And here's the thing. People are tweeting to me like, come on, this is fun.

This is good stuff. Like, if you think that that's funny or interesting or good, then we are fundamentally different people. We are just not going to ever see eye to eye. The crowd in the background, when the music's blasting, they're like air guitaring and you just hear a couple people in the background go, yeah. Like, whoa. Maybe it's going to take some reps because the crowd had no idea what to do. At baseball games, people know what to do. The guy walks up, the music's playing.

And I like the baseball one because the arena gets going. You kind of learn a little bit about the guy, what kind of music he likes. The golf, the fans had no idea how to react at all. Yeah, and, like, in baseball, it's like, oh, that's his damn music. Like, let's go, you know, that's your guy. It should be when he's walking up from the putting green. Right. You should hear it from a distance.

Through the tunnel or something like that. Right. But when they did, like you were saying, it was like, and now up to the tee, Brian Stewart. And then you almost heard someone hit play on an iPod. The song started at, like, the wrong part. It's like, Exit light. And, like, they're just, they're like, they're trying to fit in a dance. And they just, they did the whole thing wrong, too.

It was like every other article on every website leading up to this was like, here's the list of all the walk-up songs. And it's like, this is the coolest thing we've come up with in golf in the last decade, the walk-up songs that we fucked up beyond belief. Well, it's very golf for people to be writing the articles afterwards be like, this is the coolest thing ever. It's like, I like change. Change is good. Like a two-team format of the Zurich is a good idea. And walk-up music is an interesting idea. but as you can see, maybe it doesn't work,

and you can't celebrate something just because you change something. It has to work and be interesting. I kind of like the idea of maybe play the music. I guess it wouldn't work in groups. After they hit the ball, as soon as they hit the ball, like hit the music, and then they walked on the fairway to some music. I don't know. Having the guys up there and doing a dance routine,

I know that doesn't work. It was weird. I know that. Shout out to our guys at Golf Channel 2 yesterday morning. I got the Golf Channel on, and Morning Drive, like, transitions from whatever coverage they had beforehand to Morning Drive. like 11 a.m.

And they introed the host of Morning Drive with walk-up music and like a DJ on set. We love Golf Channel, but this is what we knew was going to happen. We called this a couple weeks ago. And that's what happened. It's golf, like, forcing the issue to try to be, like, cool and hip. It's like when, like, Kay Marco, like, reinvented the newsletter. It's, like, golf's, like, reinventing walk-up music. And it's like, dude, no.

And we do shit on golf a little bit for, like, not changing or adapting or, you know, trying to get a younger demographics. So, again, I put this in my blog, and speaking where it's like, I'm glad they're trying stuff. It's a good, like, the Zericclassic seems like an experimental ground where they're going to try a couple new things, and that's cool. Keep trying to change stuff and doing different things, but sometimes stuff's just not going to work. I like that they're throwing shit at the wall, though. I do, too, and when they miss, we're going to, we're going to analyze it and break it down. This was a huge, man.

And this was a miss. It would be incredibly disingenuous for us to sit here and be like, that was awesome. Commend the effort. I love it. You know, you try shit. When you're, you know, when you're creative type or whatever, you're trying to get new stuff to work and to stick. like Trent said throw shit against the wall some of it won't stick you move on

I don't think this stuck and you got to move on or you got to massively tweak it because it was unwatchable I couldn't watch we're going to be looking at these videos like remember that time they tried to do walk-up music at a golf event and we're going to have Ben Crane and that guy and them just like rocking out dude they had like honorary

fucking observers who had their own startup music on the whole and it was just it was unwatchable I described it as it's like two white guys at the later parts of a wedding reception like Are you guys watching it right now? We're watching some old guy dancing. The guy on the first tee is just, he's throwing his arms out,

and everyone else is just staring at him. Oh, my God. It's so bad. You couldn't think of anything more awkward than what I'm watching right now. The entire tournament was awkward. So, you know, commend the effort golf. We've got to tweak it. That's not the answer.

Overall, too, I want to say, very boring tournament. I was trying to get into it yesterday. I was flipping back and forth between this. playoff hockey and you know it heard them that the teams that were kind of in the mix down the stretch were teams that nobody really cared about we had billy horchell and scott piercy end up winning it um we don't like billy horsley it's blocked on every platform imaginable we've shit on him before for his antics on the course but he's delivered one a couple times since then it's a four-play opposite bump reverse bump situation got blocked on everything

uh i told him he looked like the uh he looked like christian bailed american psycho He does. The only teams that were in the mix that we wanted to pull for that would have been excited about fell off down the stretch. Kids and Scott Brown. They teed off final group with a one-stroke lead and played like shit on Sunday. I would have been into it if they were in the mix. We did have Duff and P.P. We're in it down the stretch, which, again, like they're not the most exciting guys to actually watch, but we do like those guys a lot.

But outside of that, I mean, it was just a boring. It just wasn't that exciting. It's just the TPC, Louisiana. the Zurich classic the music turned me off i just was like eh you know yeah it was it was very yeah on a massive sports day too yeah it just didn't work game sevens you had playoff hockey like you needed something to really hit home you had the afternoon pins caps game right if your hockey got you know it just it was tough to really be that excited about this which if you put it that way i guess it's not the worst time to try something out i mean totally the music was the worst thing

I've ever seen. I actually wanted to throw my TV out of my room while I was watching it. But, yeah, now that we say that how great of a sports day it was, not many people were probably watching it. The ratings were probably pretty low. Hey, let's try something that literally no one's going to like anyway. They had the team of it last year. It was cool. People dug it. I saw that Zurich renewed their sponsorship deal through like 20, 26 or something. So clearly they're seeing good things. All of that's great. It's great for the city, New Orleans, all that bullshit. Fantastic. Love it. In terms of, like, captivation factor, just didn't do it for me yesterday. They so bad. They changed the format so that it was alternate shot on Sunday, which you would have thought would have led to more drama. I guess, you know, it was kind of a one-stroke finale or one-stroke lead that they held on to down the stretch and all that.

So sure. But again, it's like nobody gets into a rhythm. They're not like ripping birdies, which in a tournament like that. We talk about how we want carnage all the time. But at this type of tournament, you kind of want fireworks and, like, birdies and shit. down the stretch. This is one of those tournaments. And they, instead, this is a battle.

Guys, you know, guys struggle, I think, like, the lowest score in this format over the last two years when they do the alternate shot is like a 66 or something like that. It's not very low. Yeah. Other news, we got Tiger Woods. He's back this weekend. Wells Fargo down in Quail Hollow and play a back-to-back weeks. Got the players championship next week. I don't want to delve too much into this, but bottom line is, Tiger's playing a full schedule.

Yep. That's all it really matters. You know, he's going to be playing. I wrote a blog about this. I'm trying to remember the numbers, but I think this will be his seventh start of 2018, which is the most he's had since, like, 2012. And then by the time we get to the U.S. Open, it'll probably be his 10th start,

which is, again, that's a ton of tournaments for Tiger, especially this early in the year, the health factor. All of that, it's all very good. It's all great. I'm pumped to see him play. He's won at Quail Hall before. I think he won in like 2007 was the one time he won there. And then he's got a couple wins at the players.

So he's going into two events that are, they have big fields. They always have star-studded fields, especially the players, kind of the fifth major, all that coming up. So this is kind of the build-up to the U.S. Open. It's weird to think that we're like now building up to the U.S. Open. Yeah, and it's good that he had a couple weeks to recover. I'm excited to see how he does in this tournament coming up because I feel like he needed, you know, this time to really get back.

I feel like he has a whole new way of recovering. now, which I don't know if we know yet, like, what he does. I agree with that. I feel like he goes home and, like, sits in, like, an ice chamber or something. I agree with that. He's, like, slumbering. We don't even know about it. He's on some, like, Tom Brady-type futuristic, like, fucking recovery system.

And when he has a couple weeks in a row, I think it, like, makes, it does wonders for him. Somebody, hopefully somebody's doing a, like, Tom versus Time Tiger Woods documentary. He probably wouldn't allow that, but I hope someone's making it. You think they, like, they plug him into, like, a chamber for a week. Oh, he, like, yeah, right. And it just, like, rejuvenates him. I think when he knows that he's coming back I think he steps out of this thing with a bunch of like steam and fog that comes out

like oh yeah tiger's back like he wasn't even like Darth Vader when he's like yeah right or when they freeze Austin Powers for 30 years he comes out and he takes like a wicked for tiger to wake up someone has to press a button I know that for a fact I think you're right I think you're absolutely right he comes back to life and now he's back

so he's got a couple turnies coming up it's crazy to think so there's a couple things crazy to think the U.S. is coming up I want to kind of do a little bit of a tangent. And so I played Beth Page again yesterday. Or, I'm sorry, again Saturday. I'm basically a member now.

It's becoming your home course, like you said. A couple things I want to talk about. Number one, Beth Page is in my top three of courses I've ever played in the world. No big deal, but I mean, I played the old course. Played Pebble Beach. Played Friarshead. Played a million courses.

Beth Page is top three, no doubt. That course is fucking awesome. And it's the best deal in the country, and it's not even close. Yeah. ID now in New York just for this purpose. 75 bucks. You go play it.

That's peak. That's on the peak. I was reading an article yesterday. You could do, even if, so you can do, for rounds, let's do the math on this. You could play six rounds at, no, eight rounds at Pebble Beach at Bethpage for what it costs to play Pebble Beach once. Gotcha. And Beth Page is arguably a better course. I think it's a better golf course.

Like whole by hole. Views wise, no, obviously. Totally. You get the stretch at Pebble. get five through 11 is or five through 10 is like the best four through 10 arguably is like the best stretch of golf you know maybe in the world all that but hole for whole beth page doesn't have a week hole on the entire golf course maybe seven arguably seven but outside of that doesn't have a week hole on the entire golf course and it's fucking i'm i'm rigs nobody from missouri and i can go out

there in a random weekend now new york resident play for 75 bucks in prime time on saturday and it's and and then the second part of that is that dude how about this time next year Bethpage Black is going to be hosting a major championship. PGA championship. Unreal. In May of next year. Isn't that nuts? It's nuts.

It's nuts. I was just at Bethpage. Yesterday. Played a quick round early in the day. And I went through the pro shop, which was a fucking debacle. I had a debacle at the golf course yesterday. Okay. Uh-oh.

Let's hear it. This is the place to talk about it, Frank. Are you okay? I'm going to look congested. Are you okay? You look like you just like swamled like a pepper. Let me just cough for a second. I honestly thought he was getting emotional about his story he was going to tell.

No, I've had this like fucking cold, man. I can't get it. I can't get it out. I think it's Liz from the radio show. It's a whole thing. She's still sick. She's been coughing all over my shit. It's like all over the place.

The radio room's disgusting. Everyone's sick in this office. It's definitely, yeah. It's gross. It's because our office is a disgusting pile. It's disgusting. It's too much shit in a small place. So I went to go golf at Beth Page, and we didn't get on the black or the red, which is the two places, which is the two places, Iversity golf.

Yeah. So we played the green, which actually goes just to the right of the black. Some of the holes go alongside it, which is kind of fun to look at the people in the block having a better time. It's all the rich people and all the poor people. Even though it has nothing to do with the price, it's just like... Just feels like. Look at those, like, people. Yeah. It's like you're on the Titanic.

You're on the lower fucking dog tree level. Right. So I brought out a couple of my buddies there, a couple of hackers. So we just went out and, you know, we just got a bunch of beers and played. At Beth Page, listeners that know Beth Page would know this, for years, you go into the little area. into the little area to buy your ticket. And then you'd have to go walk across the parking lot to go get your cart, right? My buddies were a little late, and it was kind of getting on my nerves.

We had like a 1230 tea time, and they showed up at like 12.15. I was like, all right, we got to get going. And the guy at Beth Pay just didn't make it easy on us. He knew we were in a rush, and I had all the money. I had all these cards. He's like, all four people have to be present. I'm like, okay, well, that's kind of bullshit, because they're, like, running late, and now I have money.

I will give you money for golf, and then we will golf. Now, I know that they're not here, and I was arguing with him like that, and he knew we were in a rush. I waited for them. They get there at 1215. We're paying. We made us wait online again, this guy at the, fucking, at the attendant, made us way online, and now we're getting frustrated.

We get the ticket. We sprint to get the golf cart, and the guy of the golf cart goes, oh, the guy up front didn't tell you, you got to buy the golf cart at the ticket window again. So I went, I literally said, oh, really? And I sprinted to the ticket guy to go say, did you not fucking think to tell me? heard us talking about who's going to buy the golf cart. I asked him, I'm like, oh, like, I was joking because, like, we had all these gift cars and shit. It was a shit show.

He definitely did that on purpose. He heard us talking about who's going to get the gift. I literally said, hey, Jeff, go run and get the golf cart. And he's like, yeah, you better go run. He saw us come back with a huge smile on his face. I'm like, we are missing our tea time right now. It's now 1230, and we're here trying to do it. And he just, and what happens is, I said, where's the golf car?

He just points. Now it's another room. Now it's in the pro shop. So the only reason I bring this up is because I was walking. through the Beth page pro shop looking how to buy a golf cart. And I saw this PGA championship gear that the whole entire place has filled a PGA championship gear. They've already come in and just restock the whole entire place, which is crazy. They have a whole PGA of America like trailer over by the range.

Dude, it's crazy. They're like they've been posted up for a while now. And I know for a fact that so the pro shop was very weak. Like they didn't have any stuff in there. Like all the shells were open. I'm like, well, I think that the PGA slowly but surely. just bringing in all their merch. I think they've overtaken Bethpage already,

and, like, we just don't know it yet. Yeah. Dude, Beth Page, that's the one kind of knock on Beth Page is their customer service is, like, big time, like, long. I feel like every person in there is, like, a stereotypical Yankee fan asshole. To what works there? We were walking.

I was in a rage. I was in a pit of raid. I felt like rig something. Like, I wanted a fucking... Sounds a lot. Like, I wasn't a risk of that. You're like... I'm sorry.

I could not understand. I could not understand the incompetence. And we were saying at one point, This is the Beth Page golf course. There is a, we were just talking about, there is a major championship happening at this golf course in 12 months, and you guys can't figure out how to get golf carts to people. We can't just figure that out.

It's the whole entire fucking thing. And why at New York, why at these golf courses do we need to sign away our lives to get a golf cart? When I go to another state, when I go to a country club, oh yeah, the keys are already in the golf cart. When I go to Beth Page, I have to fucking sign a lease. I had to show my credit score. Let me say this Dog shit, by the way

I had trouble buying a phone to that day. I have bad credit I don't know I have bad credit too Let me say this Let me buy a phone Let me say this about

Betpage too The fact that everybody that works up there That they're like really stingy dickheads Adds to the intimidation factor When you play the black for the first time It's nuts Dude because you're like I know they got the sign says warning

Like highly skilled golfers only Place is super hard They got the black railing Behind the black horse You look out the fairway looks like A fucking like needle And not only that they put a fucking wristband on you.

So then everyone that looks at you in the facility knows you're about to play the black. Look at that asshole. They put a wristband on you. Then you got to go to this little hut where there's another guy who's the ultimate jackass of everybody and he like makes you check in again like you're buying a fucking house. Then comes out of the hut to cut your wristband off and has his go-to black course martial guy chirps. Like, oh, you guys really playing the black, huh? And then you're like, first of all, these guys are assholes.

Everything's black. The fairway is fucking miniature. and there's a sign that says like you're fucked and then you're getting ready to play the black course you're like right this place is going to be impossible and that's going to have fun and that's the best experience at that place go try and play any of the other golf courses it's even more of a shit show

but then it's crazy because you get out there and you expect to be like this is just going to be a battle and I'm going to do once in my life to see Beth Page Black and it's just awesome course is so good it's crazy how good it is we watch people coming up actually one of my friends who was supposed to play with this yesterday my friend Tom was playing the black at the same time as us

we couldn't match up our T-tats we wanted to watch them tee off because the green and the black are right next to each other. We're going to chirp the shit out of them from our tea box. Like, hey, it must be nice over there. I guess we're just fucking hacking away. But we watched them come up 18, and they had on the 18, it looks like they're taking away some bunkers. Oh, yeah. They're adding rough.

It looks like they're nuts. Narrowing the fairway, which is already crazy narrow fareway. The most narrowest fairway in all of golf. Right. And we watched it and take his tee shot, and it rolled right into that ground under repair, and we were like, that's nice because you can take it out now. So we were calling it Future Rough yesterday or on Saturday. So you are able to, so we have. So we ended up leaving.

It was fucking freezing yesterday. The weather right now. Saturday was beautiful. Yeah, the weather right now, maybe 55 and like 52, but then, like, when you get, when you stuck out there at 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock and the wind starts going through you, it's unbearable. Oh, yeah.

So we were up on 18, which is such a cool place to watch at Bethpage. You watch everyone come up. It's a great hole to watch, and we saw his bowl roll right in, and we were wondering if he could take it out. He definitely can take it out. Yeah, a ground under repair. Yeah, okay. But, yeah, they're making changes.

The whole they've got flags out there and stuff where they're showing you how they're kind of narrowing the fairway. it looks like they're probably going to put rough in at that spot to really kind of try to take driver out of people's hands or make it tougher. Because that 18th hole gets shit on all the time for how difficult the golf course is that the 18th. I think we might have said this before, but Lucas Glover, I believe, hit like a six iron off the 18th tee. Yeah. In the 09th year when he ended up winning like six ironed like nine iron into the green. Yeah, it's just not a fun 18th hole.

So people don't love that. There's been, you know, all kinds of discussion about what they're going to do, blah, blah. But that course, man, that course is so good. You shot well this beginning, right? No, I played terrible. I thought you said... I shot 88. But from the tips, right?

From the tips, but I can't... How about the course is so fucking hard? I believe it's 78.1 rating, par 72, and a 155 slope, which is off the chart. So I did. Like, you know, you have... I love people. Everybody always chirps online.

People are so annoying. People do that. What? So I posted that. I was laughing at the absurd rating of the golf course that I shot 88, and it comes in when you posted into the gin app, it comes in. It comes in. It tells you what your hand...

What handicap that comes to... in that and it was like a 7.7 handicap, which is ridiculous. I shot 16 over par comes in as like a seven handicap. But anyway, I played with Ashley Mayo from Golf Digest. Yeah. Little known fact, Trent and I had her on our first test podcast ever. That's true. Never saw a light of day.

She was our first time. Never saw a lot of day. It's tough. This first time I've actually played with her. Yeah. And her husband as well, Jeff, they actually, they were awesome. We had a blast. They invited me like late last week.

And it was funny because I was like, well, I played Beth. I played the black two weeks in a row. What are we calling it, Beth, though? No, that would be sick. Stuttering kind of. The black. I think it's just the black, right? Isn't that what the locals call it?

I've never heard anyone call it Beth, and I kind of like turned me out. Kind of like it? Yeah. So I was out of that. You know what? You'd be like, I'm going to see Beth. No, don't. Okay.

My mom's name is Beth. I don't know why I said it turned me on. That was fucking weird. You didn't have to tell anyone that you're running about. I know my fucking. You okay. My brain to shut off, man. You're having a weird day.

It's my nose. I'm trying to not have congestion in my nose. Your nose is affecting how you're speaking about that. It is. I'm constantly thinking about my nose. We've got to take a quick break to tell you about our friends at Lightstream. Are you paying more money in interest than you need to on your credit cards? You probably are.

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auto pay prior to loan funding. Terms and conditions apply and offers our subject to change without notice. Visit lightstream.com for more information about limits on lightstream loans and same-day funding. So speaking of speaking of Ashley Mayo Golf Digest awesome time very delightful couldn't have more fun of ripping beers went to a wing place

afterwards by the way out there where? God what was this place called? Oh I can't think it was like it was a wing sports bar million TVs Buffalo Wild Wings It's not like a local spot I was a joke Croxleys No I wasn't it fuck wasn't Croxley's alehouse

I can't think of it I just can't think of it but All right. Anyways, this is a great segue into the From the Gallery because Ashley Mayo rocks a pole cart. And one of our submissions were now transitioning, professional transition into the From the Gallery segment. We had, who asked this? I can't remember who asked this. No.

Was it Ben? I guess it was Ben. I'm looking at it right now. It was Ben. It was Ben. Who asked basically the age old question, like, is it acceptable to rock a push cart? are you or a pole car, or wherever you want to call it? Is it like a little bitch move?

Frankie, what do you think? Yeah, I like to, any advantage I can get without having to carry a, I mean, I am a little bitch boy because I'm a frail. I have a frail body, so I do not want to carry a heavy bag, especially at the black horse. Right. I'll spend any amount of money. I always like, I always say I'll take carts, I'll take pole cards. Money at that point does not, I'll pay whatever I need to pay to have an easier experience on the golf course. That's all I'll do.

It's true. You're pretty famous for wearing pants in the course because you think the sun's going to burn your legs off. Correct. Okay. I'm the same way. Anything that'll add to my convenience, I'm all for. I don't care if people look at me different. I don't care if they call me a bitch or whatever.

I just want to be able to enjoy myself as much as possible. And if that means I don't have to carry a big-ass thing on my back, then I'm going to do whatever I can to get a push-slash-pull cart. If you're, like, making fun of somebody for rocking a pole card or whatever, you're an insecure loser. It's crazy. People do whatever they want. They offer it. It's a thing at the golf course. It just makes your round easier.

Now, I used to play, I understand that carrying your bag when I was playing high school golf, obviously you carried your bag and you didn't even think anything of it. But for some reason, after high school and just playing leisurely, like, I'm not going to fucking go out there and, like, kill myself. Who you're trying to impress? No. Exactly. I like to carry my bag, but again, I 100% understand the preference if you want to roll it

and rock the pool cart. We had a guy at Granite Lanks. I was a member up there. He had like a little, his name's Anil. and he had like a little electronic. Pull cart thing, and we called it R2D2. And he just fucking, you'd see him from a mile away walking down the fairway, and his pole cart thing would be like five feet in front of them.

Those guys would love that. The second they hit their punt, the things are already on the T-Boh. 100%. It was great. It was awesome. You do whatever you got to do to be more convenient, more comfortable, whatever you want to call it on the course. A lot of people, too, have bad backs.

Yeah. Carried your bag for a whole round is miserable. Also, Bethpage Black, another thing. It's a great workout. Yeah. That walk is brutal. We were talking about last week that it's crazy, too, because it culminates with that. The hardest walk on the course is the walk up from 17 green to 18T, just like direct vertical.

So you've already been, your ass has been beaten, like, 15. Especially going up 15. Right. 15 is like a 490 or 480 par 4 straight up the hill. 16 is a 490 par 4. But you have to walk straight vertical to get to the 16T. Yep. And then 17's like a 200 yard par 3.

And then you've got to walk up a mountain to get to the 18th. It's crazy, man. It just beats you down. Even every, I think every hole on that course is hard to walk. I mean, every, every single, even from hole to hole, there's some on the front nine that are like insane. People are probably listening as being like, well, how would I go play this course? It sounds like, it's fucking awesome. It's so good.

It's in perfect conditions. It's incredible how good it is. Two-part question for Ben. He says, how also do you go about packing, keeping cold, whatever you're going to call it, beers for the course when you decide to walk instead of ride? Now, what I was going to say about this is that my alcohol consumption, generally has like a direct correlation to with I decide to walk versus like ride. But usually when you're walking, it's typically like a nicer type place. Therefore, you're kind of taking the round of golf a little bit more seriously and you drink less.

Therefore, you don't have to worry too much about carrying beers. Whereas if you're taking a cart at a lot of places like it's kind of a shit show of a day, let's get hammered. You can just throw a 30 pack in the back of the cart covered up with a quarter zip so nobody yells at it. Boom, you're good to go. Yeah, I guess we had 36 beers in the cart. and we were just ripping it and, you know, playing the Bethpage Green, just getting fucked up. But if you're playing fucking a country club, you're drinking transfusions in a cup and you're just walking, you're not really packing beers in your bag.

You know what I mean? Right. And I feel like, too, if you're out playing like Bethpage Green and you're like walking, you're kind of like an asshole. Yes. I've made that argument many times. If you're playing a regular municipal golf course and you're just out there just with regular people just like hackers, just regular golfers, and you're walking a golf course. I think you're a crazy person. Yeah, it is a little, it's a little, like, hard-o-type move.

The only thing I would argue is if it's a chilly day, I prefer to walk because you stay warmer. I think it sucks when you're driving around in the cold, and it's, like, with you. And you get colder when you get in the car. There were times where I thought I was just going to freeze up, like, drive, and you go from the T-box to the fairway. It's a nice long drive, and the fucking thing goes right through you. The other thing is if it's Carpath only. It sucks taking a cart anytime it's Carpath only. But outside of that, I mean, if you're on, like, kind of, like, one of the more dog track courses.

and you're everybody's taking a card everybody's booze and it's kind of a shit show of a day and you're like walking off yardage and stuff that's like that happened to us yesterday we the entire golf course had cards and just a group in front of us we're all walking the old men just walking with their pull cards which we just said is acceptable

but then again if the entire golf course is taking cards like let's go guys like come on I know you're probably out of the fucking like go walk on a treadmill they're trying to extend their round as much as possible they want to extend their life by walking yeah we got Alex he asks, is it acceptable to take practice swings that are perpendicular to the T's, aka your club face is facing directly at your playing partners?

This one made me laugh the way he wrote. He went on and said, I bring this up because I had a horrible experience where I was one of my buddies does this as part of his pre-shot routine. He was getting ready to Tia off at a part three going through his stupid routine, club face directly at us. But it had rained like a day or two earlier. The ground was very soggy and wet. It takes a full practice swing and literally sprays the shit out of us with mud. It was horrible. But now if anybody pulls that routine before they tee up, I'm dropping out of the way.

I love the way he uses horrible because you know that this still haunts him to the day. He wakes up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Like, holy shit, I can't believe that happened. It was a horrible experience. I mean, he just got doused in mud from his buddy just taking hacks on the T-box. I don't even know if I noticed if I do this. This has happened to everybody, though, where I've done this to people who feel like such an asshole, where you're just taking like a loose practice swing.

You're kind of in conversation with people. and you just, you're fucking, whatever reason, like your depth perception's way off or you're just an idiot, maybe you're hung over, you're drunk, whatever, and you just take a massive chunk on your practice swing and just crush everyone with, you just forget that you're hitting, like, dirt that can come up.

You just forget that there's something underneath you. It's such a shitty feeling. You're like, get at people's mouth and their tongue, they're like, what the hell was that, dude? You're like, I'm really sorry. Like, I didn't mean to do that. Right. It is kind of like a weird move, I guess, to have, like,

if you have this crazy, like, pre-shot routine where you're swinging right at people, that's weird, I guess, but I don't know people that really do. So I figure if I have tee up the ball and then you step back and you look at your line, maybe take a swing as you know when you're looking straight at your ball, you may catch someone right or left. I mean, I don't know if that's kind of a dickhead move. I don't think it is either.

If you're aiming at people, obviously, you're a psychopath. It's a weird move. And it's what you're saying, it's like conversational. So you don't even really think about it. So I don't know if I even do it. For the most part, I don't think I do it. But there are times when I would just be not even paying attention. If you're talking to somebody, you want to be looking at them.

So maybe you just fucking hit him right in the face with it. That would suck. So another, we're going to move on to another one. This is, this was actually a conversation point, a debate that was brought up during our round out there with Ashley Mayo and crew. And she asked something very simple that at first I thought the answer was really simple and then now I'm like 50-50 on it. Would you rather have one win, the Masters, or 20 just average PGA tour wins like the John Deere class? 20 of them. Shout out to the John Deer Classic.

That's right where my, that's right where my heart is. Shout out to you, Trit Daddy. That's a tough question because right away, obviously you think Masters, right? Instantly. I said Masters and it's not even close. I mean, you're probably right, but 20 wins is no joke either. Like, what's, I guess I wish I had looked it up before. Like, what are the, what players are we looking at here?

Like, if you win one Masters, then who are you? If you have 20 average wins, who are you? So the good, like, look at like a Trevor Emelman. Okay. Like he won a Masters. Maybe he's won another couple tournaments. But he won one Masters. Like, who the fuck is Trevor Ullivan?

Yeah, now he's on golf channel a little bit and stuff. But like, who the fuck is Trevor Ullman? Versus, well, I'll let you. Frankie, what do you think? I don't know, because if you win 20 tournaments, you become like a Justin Thomas, right? You win 20. You're like set for life is kind of the thing. You're relevant all the time.

You become a huge name. Right. As opposed to a Trevor. I think so, 100%. But you get to go to the Champions dinner. Yes. But. But I don't know, man.

I know we say with every single hypothetical we get, we want to be able to play the Masters. I mean, to win the Masters is something that's unbelievable. It depends on what you're trying to do with your career. Is winning the Masters the only accomplishment you ever want to do? Or do you want to try and make millions and millions of dollars? See, it was, right, the instant, instant reaction for me, like I said, was, excuse me, was Masters, and it was like, dude, I get to go to the Champions every year.

I get to play in the tournament every year. I'm forever a Masters champ. Like, I got a green jacket. I can roll over to a. Gust I'm like an honorary member. I'm a fucking master's champ, dude. Like, are you kidding me?

But then they started arguing and they were like, look, you're a master's champ. You win one tournament. There are many master's champs that are nobody's. That are like legitimate, just nobody's that one good week, won the masters versus if you win 20 times, 20 times, you're relevant.

Like basically every year you're having a win on tour. You're relevant all the time. You've got a lot more money because you're winning on tour now. You win like over a million dollars every time you win. So you're winning 20, $25 million at least. you're probably, like, you're getting on to Rider Cup teams all the time because you had, like, a win. You're, you know, and we looked up, or they were saying the numbers are very close on total number of Masters champions ever and total number of golfers ever that have 20 or more wins on Tour. It's like a very similar number.

Now, also, if you have 20 tour wins, you're getting invited to the Masters too, so at least you get to play. You may not win it, but you're playing the Masters and you're also winning 20 times. I'm taking the 20 wins. Yeah, it's really interesting. Like I said, I like laughed in their face. Now, I also said that like, I was like, well, the difference to me would be like when you walk into a room and people say, oh, that's so-and-so he won the Masters. We're just like, oh, that's so-and-so, he won 20 John Deere Classic. See, I don't know if you said.

You're just saying, oh, there's that really famous guy that has all that money because he's fucking in the golf world news every single day because he's winning 20 tournaments. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think you're probably right. But it's just it's such a... The Masters, dude. I know. But you're still playing in the Masters. You're just not waiting. So what if you play in the fucking master?

Like it's still the same experience of playing in the Masters. It's just like you get to make always the... No, it's not. When you return as a Masters champ, dude, you get to, like, on Sunday, you get to force him with, like, your dad and whatever you want. You're playing in every tournament. Everybody looks at you. You just look at people differently. Like, that's a Masters champ when he walks around.

You're fucking champ. You get a green jacket. You get a green jacket. You're at the Champions Dinner. You're mixing it up with our close personal thing Gary Player, who I have my... His hat on right now? You sure do. I think...

It's tough. It's also hard because are you... Are you a professional, in this scenario, are you a professional golfer your whole life, like, trying to become the best golfer in the world? Or are you like a guy that's working in his cube, but you just get to, you just get to choose one. No, you're a professional golfer. Yeah. You have to choose the 20 wins. Yeah.

You know, I get it. I get the argument, but I didn't at first. I was very, I was very much the other way at first. Going off this, we're getting into the U.S. Open's coming up next. The next year is next on our radar. Colin asks, how many Mulligans would it take for you to win the U.S. open. How many would you need? A gazillion. So many. So many. So many. You got to figure

at least 50% of your drives because the U.S. opens is so hard to drive on the, if you miss the fairway, you're done with the rough. Yeah. You got to figure like, I need at least to win the U.S. Open. To win the U.S. Open. So you got to think, like, realistically, you probably need to, let's say it, like, I need 20. Shinnock this year? I think you need more than that. More than 20? Yeah. Because if you figure you shoot an 88, for all four rounds, though, Frank? Four rounds, Frank.

Oh, across the whole tournament? To win the tournament. I'm talking 20 around. Yes, you'd need 80. Yeah, I think that might be right. Because you got to think you probably have to shoot maybe, let's say, four, five, six under to win the U.S. Open at Shinnock this year. Yeah, I need 20 around. Like, who knows, it might be harder than that.

It might be easier, but. And that would even be close. Just think about how many punch. Dude, I think, too, I think, like you, you think you would just shoot an 88 at the U.S. Open, like normally? No. No. You shoot 100.

I think I probably shoot 95, maybe 100. I just said that because, like, that's what I shot this weekend. That was at the Bethpage Green. Right. That's Beth Page Green. Yeah, that was really bad. Right. With the whole course, like your backyard.

I'd shoot 110 for sure. Yeah. And I'd need... But then again, I don't think, like, not every mulligan is just one stroke difference, right? Like, one mulligan might be a three-shot difference. Right. Like one drive, right? Like, one drive might lead to a triple, whereas if you hit that one drive over again, you make an easy par or something like that.

I'd need a thousand molligan. Yeah. I'd talk to myself. If you need $1,000, then I need $50,000. I'll be honest, I don't think you could win the U.S. I would just walk off. But think about all the 8 to 10 foot puts that you might miss lip in and around. Like, do you keep those going or not?

Like, when do you use them? Yeah, that's like, it would be very strategic, right? Like, if you teed off in the U.S. Open and they said, like, all right, Rick, you have 81 mulligan. And you had to just decide when to use them, that'd be a battle. Because, like, you'd hit a bad drive into the rough and then hit another terrible. drive and be like that was one fucking mulligan gone we had no chance because let's say shoot 100 and and your 20 mulligans take off 20 strokes or whatever 25 strokes you're still not even in contention not even close not even close not even close shooting 75 so you might need 150 like

molligans and then think about that I said I'd shoot an 88 I wouldn't even come fucking I didn't somebody he's probably going to shoot an 88 this year that's like a professional golf qualified for the third an amateur for sure or an amateur or somebody that got in and you're yeah right no I would shoot 135 Dude, imagine how nerve-wracking that would be, like, trying to make the decisions on, like, I think I can make that eight-footer, and then you miss it again. You're like, that's one of my 81-ball. God. They should let somebody try that.

One guy in the field give him unlimited mulligans. That would be awesome. That would be so fun to watch. It would be. That was like our hypothetical we said you should get a foursome of nine handicaps and just see how they do on tour. They should get to play in every tournament. Yeah, scramble, right? Yeah, scramble.

Dude, fuck walk-up music. Put one guy in the U.S. Open and give him. 100 Mulligans around, and let's see what happens. Yeah, if you put like a nine handicap in the U.S. Open, and he gets 150 mulligans, or 100 mulligans. Okay, 100 Molligans. No shot.

I don't even know if he could make the cut. I don't think he could make the cut. How fun would that be, though? That would be what a story to watch. It'd be awesome. Here's Tim with it. He's taking two mulligans on this T. Wow.

Oh, he's in the fair way. Now that you think about it, a mulligan's not guaranteeing you. You just have to do it again and fuck up. again. What am I talking about? A mulligan means nothing. You might need 200. I mean, seriously.

It'd be more. Right. You need unlimited. Every shot I'd have to redo until I make it. But then again, yeah, I'm trying to think. Like, you could, yeah, I don't know, man. And we're still, you'd still play golf. Like, we would say.

That's the thing. We'd still be playing. We'd still be, like, hitting drives and getting on the green and regulation sometimes. Like, you'd still be, you'd mix in a couple really good drives and, like, a good fucking six iron in the middle of the green. You figure it out at some point. That's a par.

Right. We play golf. I don't know. I just broke my fucking shit. You broke your journal. I broke my journal. You're having a weird day, Frank. I am, man.

You know the little piece of felt that comes out that you get to see what page you're on? That's the most important part of a journal. It is, and you broke it. All right, that's it for us this week. Did I just end the show on that? No, we were going to end anyways. Okay. We went for a great, it was, you know, that's perfect, Frank.

It was absolutely perfect. Remember to send us your submissions. It's foreplay at barstoolsports.com. Next time we're on, we're going to have. have a little tiger breakdown to go through. Nice. And it's going to be Players Championship Week. We got all kinds of good merch coming out that we're going to be shoving down people's

throats players championship week. It's merch season. It's golf season. I mean, golf season is officially here. It's going to be like 80 degrees this week. It is supposed to be. Yeah. Starting tomorrow, it's 80 degrees.

When you played Beth Page, you see last Dooley's out there? Yeah, tons. Yeah. On the green, it was littered with Suleles. And shout out to the guy on the 15th hole that gave my group a lighter. I don't think we ever gave it back. Yeah. You guys should probably give that back.

Yeah. Yeah, there's a still way right behind me in my group behind me. And it's tough because, like, on every T, like, there's always a little bit of a weight at Bethpage Black because it takes her a bit of pause. So every T, I know he's, like, watching. He's like, oh, how good his rigs? I played fucking terrible. Briggs stinks. Yeah, actually, they saw, like, a group of guys were driving because it was so cold and we were playing 18.

We were in a little match that we wanted to play it through. And my last drive, I just hooked. And I just, like, screamed. I think I was a little drunk, too. I was like, ah, fuck you. And I may have said like some other words with like C's and stuff. Like I just dropped like bombs. Yep.

And they just drove, they were just driving up the fairway and they just looked back. Like, is that the crazy person, Frankie? And I was just like, fuck here. Like in my head, I'm like, fuck. That one drive, I pull. I finally got over. I have a mental block on the 18th pole. Yeah.

At the black. Don't you top it? No, I topped one with a three wood. Yeah. So the first time we played it, I hit it into way into the right traps. Oh, my. missed right second time I played it I topped it with a three wood and that was when a stool saw me on the T brutal and it was after the top though so he saw me he's like oh riggs what's

up is like hey guys go and then like eight seconds later I hit my second shot from the rough just in front of the T-box you know because I topped it made double so two doubles and then the third time I played I hit it in the first fairway on red one that's how far right it went made double again yesterday or I'm sorry Saturday I hit a little bit of a hook into the left bunkers hit the lip on my second shot, rolled right back to my feet, hit it to 15 feet, made it for par. Wow. There you go. So I'm over the 18th.

I'm good to go now. It felt great. That's it for us this week on From the Gallery. Thank you, boys. Adios. This chat with Mike Ballo, my good pal, is brought to you by BetDSI. BetDSI.com has been in business for over 20 years, paying out winners. I have to tell you a quick story.

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Mikey is the assistant pro at Wingfoot. Bit of a stoolie, right? Oh yeah, major big stool. Boys with Keegan Bradley played a bunch of pro golf for a while, what, like 10 years? Not five years, five, six seasons. So you played some fucking real golf. You know your shit. We're idiots. Obviously, we don't know this, that.

We know amateur golf. We know being dummies that have chopped up public tracks. Been lucky enough in the last year to chop up tracks like Wingfoot. That's how we got to know each other. I figured have you on. Let's talk some golf. You caddy this year. Yeah, done it all.

Done everything. For John Curran. How many events you caddy? I think we did six. And it wasn't my first thing. I actually caddied for Jamie Lovemark a little bit. Catted for Keegan once. So I've kind of been around the block.

So we're going to get into caddy. We're going to get into like knowing the guys on tour, a little bit of an insider type thing, a little bit of a kind of convoy just about a guy who's not stuck in a New York office but is ingrained in the golf scene. I want to talk assistant pro life. First off, you know, everybody kind of looks like, oh, you're like an assistant golf.

pro type thing what's the vibe like like what's your day to day like what are you like what's what's mike ballo's like job what are you doing um incredibly lucky at wingfoot obviously so assistant golf pro i mean there's like at wingfoot there's like 10 of us in the middle of the season so you're just there you make the shop look pretty you know which you guys have one of the best shops wait till you see the new one this last the last two weeks have been a complete shit show because we moved out of the old one. It got redone. We got like 900 square more feet.

And there's been four of us here. All the mutts that are coming in this week missed all the hard stuff. Those fuckers. Yeah. It's been pretty eye-opening, honestly, for me. Because I haven't done much on the whole merchandising side yet. Because last year was year one. That was more of kind of a, I guess, kind of a puppy.

Do this, do that, do this, do that. You're just like, I'll do it, whatever you guys want me to do. Right. I'd do anything. I'm the new guy, like whatever. I'll wash the windows. Do whatever. Be happy doing it.

Hell yeah. And this year, luckily I have some more responsibility and, you know, I'm kind of getting into the groove of things. But, I mean, we're there. Two or three of us are there all day. Seven to seven. You know, we're giving lessons, playing, doing everything that there is involved in running. Maybe the best logo in golf. I would argue the best.

I think it's, I think Marion can take a hike. A lot of people like to make. I'm rocking. I feel I'm rocking a Marion. Yeah, I see that. Water bottle right now. But I got plenty of... I've spent more money in the Wingfoot Pro shop than anybody should.

You've done well. Let me ask you about giving lessons. Like, how do you know... How does a fucking guy know... Because you can play golf, right? You play golf at an incredibly high level. We're going to get into that. How do you know that you can teach golf that you can actually look at someone's swing and be like, this is what you're doing wrong?

It's hard. Yeah. Honestly, it's hard. And I've had lessons where I leave it going, I can't believe they paid me for that. That was fucking terrible. Like, that was so bad. I feel awful. Like the next one I'm going to have to really think about it and really do better.

It's hard. It's hard. Like a day if you're just like hung over. Yeah. You're like, I don't know if I. Like, did I help? There's no way to help them. I mean, yeah, put your sunglasses on and just go.

Yeah, that looks good. Mr. Havocamp. Keep it going. That's the chubs from Happy Gilmore. Yeah. Keep your head down. But some of them are awesome. Like I gave one yesterday.

Where I left it, I was like, I am the next bitch harmon. I'm like, this guy was like, oh my God. This is like the greatest. and I was like, I felt so good. But it's hard. I was lucky, though, because both my parents are golf pros. So I kind of grew up in that world. So I have a little bit of an inn.

And I've been lucky enough to be around like a lot of world class golfers and teachers. So I've picked up a little bit here and there. But right now, I think the most important thing is you start with the fundamentals and just kind of go from there. But it's hard. It's hard. You get some people where you get stuck. Is there like a most common, like, traditional diagnosis?

You guys are all huge slicers. Yeah. All Amer golfers are sluggers. It's the weak fucking over the top thing. Totally. Inside. Suck it in. Throw it out. Cut across.

So you see a lot of that. But then you get a guy, like I was with a college player for like a half hour a few weeks ago. And he's a good player. And it's a lot harder with a good player. It's a nitpair. To kind of, yeah. I mean, because everyone, I don't believe in like a method. So I don't think that you can swing like me and whatever.

Right. And there's a lot of people out there that kind of do. And so for me, it's a little bit harder to kind of figure out where I'm going to go with the lesson. Yeah, because you've got to nitpick the little stuff of somebody who's already got good action. Totally. Yeah, this kid, the college player, he's a good player. And it's little stuff. I actually like to think of myself as more as a coach than a swing instructor.

Okay. Because I like to get people on the course and kind of talk about how to get their self around. on the course and scoring and stuff like that. I feel like it's very, like, anytime I've taken like two lessons in my life. And every time I do it, when I start in the range, I'm so nervous in front of my coach that it's not my real swing. It's just different. And it's like, sometimes it's worse.

But I'll hit the ball a certain way and I'll turn around and be like, dude, that's actually not how I usually do it. And I deal with that a lot. You get these guys, these AM guys that come in and they're like, oh, my God, I'm hitting it so good on the range. They go on the course and it's gone. Right. So actually one of the things I really like to do is like the last thing.

10 minutes, I tell them, I was like, listen, you're leaving in 10 minutes. Like, we need to figure out a thought that you can take from here and go play with. Because you can't play golf with 10 different things on your head. You just can't do it. So that's one of the things that people need to realize is that figure out what they're doing well and then have one feeling to kind of take on the course. I always feel like, yeah, because I feel like a lot of times I've got like three different swing thoughts and I'm trying to like, you know, I'm trying to like do them at the right time.

The last few years I've played, I can. have to like a journal and then when things started going sideways I'd have like six pages of feelings and thoughts and I'd be like panicking and like calling my coach and I'm like oh like seven 12 of 2011 we did this you think that'll work so it's it's uh it's crazy I mean it's there's just so many moving parts really dude it's so true I'll be like one day I'll be like keep left heel on ground and the next day I'm like point club right of head you know with the You know what the worst part about it is, too? You'll be on, like, one side of the spectrum,

work on something for, like, a month. You come back, opposite side of the spectrum. And you're like, how the hell did that happen? Well, don't they say what? Like, the hook is the sign that you're, like, really close to being? For some people. If I hook it, I might as well just go in. I won't quit.

Like, I can't even dream of playing hitting hooks. But, yeah, I would say most AMs, club golfers and stuff, you get them to start drawing the ball and we're on something. So let me ask you that. So you played golf with Kagan. Obviously, Kagan's a people's golf at 2.0. We've had him on the show. He's the man.

You're very tight with Kegan. Other guys, like Love Mark's, one of your boys. I've seen you play. I've been out with you at Wingfoot, one of the hardest golf courses on Planet Earth. You're like two, three, four, five under out there playing. What's the difference between, and I don't want to get into some emotional? No, it's okay.

It's okay. I'm an assistant pro wingfoot now. I'm happy. What are these guys got? What's the difference between them and you? Because I watch you play and you'll shoot the easiest, fucking 68 I've ever seen. They are just the most confident people that I know.

Jamie, Keegan, Curran. I played a lot with Luke List. These guys are, like, the most confident people that I know. List kills the ball today. He's so good. It's crazy. It's insane. He used to live in Florida, like, when I first moved down there, and then he went to California.

So we had, like, we had a hell of a group down there. So I was so lucky to play with guys who were significantly better than I was. Did you know? You're like, these guys are better than I am? Or were you thinking, like, I always thought that, like, physically, I always thought I could play on tour. And I have a physical game that could play on tour. It's just kind of mentally getting it together and emotionally and stuff like that. And no matter what happened, these guys are always think that they can win and always think they can compete and always think they deserve to be out there.

And that's why they're there. Right. I was watching this. So I've been deep in the YouTube game because I finally learned to hook my YouTube account. up to my Xbox 360, which is what I have hooked up to my main... Late night. Wait, you still have a 360? I'm sorry, Xbox 1.

Okay, just wanted to double-sharp. I'm actually rocking a 360 in my room. I was playing Golden & the last night. Because you get some of the throwbacks? Yeah, it's good. Don't hate on the 360s. I mean, playing Golden Eye, literally two nights ago. Great game.

One of the goats. Like, the greatest first-person shooter game. Master's Week? Master's Week, I think I sent you a picture. I was playing Augusta like 70 times. So Ballo sends me and my roommate Lurch, who we had on last week We talked about Street Zong.

Instructional videos. And you should see the fucking two of us in the apartment. He's got us with like a club across our shoulders doing the rotation, how you're supposed to move it as a unit. And we set the laptop up on a stool so we both have enough room and we can both see it. And when you're like doing drills and shit in the room. What's the other one you had it's doing with like a tennis ball on the ground? Oh, yeah.

You get to impact. We were working on the takeaway. The takeaway was huge. Where you get the ball going straight. And then the other one where you set up at impact and you like push off the ground so the ball goes in there. Yes, that was big. Yeah. That was big.

Lurch was like, that changed his whole mindset. Yeah. That's huge. Wow. I didn't realize that. So anyways, I was deep in the YouTube game and I was watching interviews with Ernie L's talking about how he, you know, in the mid-90s was like the guy. He was basically in his brain going to do what Tiger did. And then Tiger came on the scene.

And they're asking him, like, is Tiger that much better than you? And he's like, honestly, I don't know, but I know that Tiger always thought and knew in his head that he was that much better than me. And that's all that mattered. He is the guilt. I'm sorry. No offense to Jack Nicholas. He's probably, I always say Jack Nicholas is the greatest champion of all time. Okay.

And Tiger has played the best golf ever. Like that stretch of golf was literally insane. I agree with that. And it was just interesting hearing him talk. He's like his mindset was so different. He's like physically down the stretch, like the physical talent down the stretch, isn't much different. He's like the mental ability is so much better.

If you go back and go back to when he won at Pebble, the U.S. Open by like 18 shots. Yeah. And there's an interview you can find on YouTube. It's like on Tuesday. And Tiger's sitting there and he's like, this course is impossible. No one's going to break par here.

No one. It's too hard. The guy shot like 14 under. The next best was like five over. So he obviously didn't believe no one was going to shoot under par. But he made everyone else believe it. Oh, God. He was the best.

He was the best. He's back this week. I mean, assistant pro, you got any thoughts on his action? Yeah, I think he looks pretty good. I mean, Tiger with speed is good. So his body's holding up. His short game is ridiculous. I can't believe how good his short game is.

Ridiculous. That's why when he first came back and he was, like, chunking chips of hour, where he played for like 20 years, that's when it was full panic for me. Like, oh boy, he's at home and he's chunking stuff. Like, we're in trouble with Tiger. Yeah. But now, like, he's making up and downs.

out of his ass. It's incredible. So your boy, Keegan, wins his first major you ever plays in, what was it, 2011? Yeah, 2011. 2011 at, was it ACC? Yeah. Atlantic, yeah. I mean, are you guys, you know, your boys with him hits his first fucking major? I know one of my buddies played in a tournament with him in college and was like,

playing the same group with him. And he was like, good, but he wasn't that much better than anybody else. Keegan was really good in college. But at St. John's, where we went, I mean, he won like 9. events in college. Jesus Christ. That's pretty good. That's a lot.

That's good. Yeah, that's a lot of tournament. And it's, dude, winning, knowing how to win is just so unbelievably important. You watch these guys on tour that will play lights out for three rounds, which means they're clearly playing really good golf. They're playing better golf than anybody else. In closing is just so hard. But that's what we're seeing now.

I think you get these younger guys. They come out, the Spies and the Thomas's and those guys. They've been winning for 25 years. I mean, they've been winning for 20 years. Since they've won. Junior golf, they won college. I mean, they've won everywhere. So now they get to the PGA tour and they're like, whatever, I've done it.

They can beat these guys. Like, you know what I mean? We're back in the day, 25 years ago, it was like, oh, you got to pay your dues and, you know, you got to play on tour for a few years before you figured out. And now guys are coming out. And you'll see there's guys every year now to come out. And they win. I think we get like a new superstar like every year.

Like, like Xander Sheffley? Right. Who was he? I never even heard of him. I played, I mean, I was playing. I never even heard of it. him. And he came out and he won the tour champion. He's like lights out by the end of the year. And if you talk to him, he's won 50 events in his life. You know what I mean?

It's amazing how important just knowing how to win is. And it's, it's crazy because guys like, like me that haven't played competitive golf at all, you just look and you think like, okay, like he's really good. He's been playing phenomenal all week. What's the problem? Why is it like, why is it trickier at the end? Just keep playing great. Keep it in the same shots. Winning these guys under pressure. How much? much it changes you like that's why like even the few like member guests i get to play them they're life changing because i go from from 99% of the golf that i play where any given swing is just the exact same as any other swing i'm gonna fuck it up for the same reasons i always put it up

a terrible swing then you get into like a big match against the guy and you know like if it's a member guess there's like a calcutta on line or something like that and you're standing over like a nine iron on 16 when you're one down or something and it's like you're fucking nervous your whole body changes and you're like wait what what is going on it's it's unreal i mean it's That's why they've won so much growing up that they don't really, there's no learning curve anymore. Like they've dealt with it. It's amazing. It's honestly amazing.

It is. It is. And I felt that before on a small level. You know, I've won tournaments in my lifetime, nothing national or anything like that. But it's a whole different ball game. Like, it's a whole different deal the second you get to the back nine and you have a chance to win the tournament. I mean, everything changes. It's crazy here in Todd could talk about it, how when he goes through swing changes and he goes through like getting into the right.

form, how he always talks about, at first, you get it on the range, and you can just deliver, deliver, deliver, deliver on the range, you can't miss on the range. And then you get it where you can deliver in practice rounds and rounds at home. And then he's like, and then you have to take it to another level where you can do it on Thursday of a tournament. And then a whole other level is Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then back night of Sunday, and how he's like, no, these are legitimate phases in like the evolution of your game. 100%.

And it's so nuts to just think, I just can't, I can't, it's so, you can't relate to it. No, it's so hard. And this is a crazy way to think about it. It's so lucky. Winning a tournament is so lucky. Anyone who finishes in the top 10 that week could have won that tournament. You know, they lipped out twice. They lost by two.

You know, the ball bounced in the bunker instead of on the green. They lost by one. Like, it's crazy to think about. But the guy who wins, he obviously plays amazing, but he also gets some of those breaks where you're playing with them and you're like, come on. Dude, look at it, so a two examples, examples of that of great examples of what you're talking about. Patrick Reed at the Masters,

okay? He's basically in the lead going into Saturday. He holds out for Eagle on 15. He eagles 13. So two Eagles on the back nine Saturday. On Sunday he's got on three, he's got a put that's maybe going off the green, hits the hole and goes in. On 17, he's got another put that's maybe going off the green, hits the pin, stops six feet away. He makes it. All these things go his way. wins by one. It's like he wins by one. It's incredible. And then another great example is I was, I was doing some research for my Tiger 2008 U.S. Open podcast that I've got coming up for Played Diggs, no big deal. And I was going across, I came across Rocko Mediate interview. And whenever he won, which was what, like 2012 or something like that, when he actually, he won on tour,

it was like his last win on tour. And he was like, I hold out five wedges from the fairway. I hold out five wedges for the fairway, and he's like, I had to make a five-footer on the 72nd hole to win the tournament. And those are all luck. That's what he's saying. Wait, what are you? Like, read them right and they went in. Exactly.

He's like, it's so hard to win on tour. It's just nuts. It's hard to make a cut on tour. It's hard to make a cut on the web.com. It's hard to make a cut in Canada. It's hard to make a cut on the Hooters Tour. And it's hard to make cuts. Forget winning.

It's insane. So let's get into caddian on tour. We love caddies. We had Kip Henley on here. You know, we've had an interesting back and forth in terms of having your average caddy at a club. I have a lifelong feud with caddies at clubs just because I just always, I have very rarely. Please do not scratch my putter. I don't care about that.

But there are things I do care about. I don't want to get into that whole thing. But we love tour caddies. We're big pro caddy guys on here on the overall. Caddy on tour this year. First of all, you're in Hawaii. for the nuke scare. Okay.

So, on Saturday morning. Did you believe you die? For a second, we were like, are you got to be shitting me? Like, for a second, it was really real. So we get the text, and then we pull up Twitter and all this stuff, and it's like, this is real.

So I call the front desk. I'm in a room with Keegan and John. Me and John had missed the cut. And because it was Hawaii, the tea time started late. So the first tea time was like almost 11. for TV. So we're sitting in the room at like 815.

Lovemark texts like Keegan, like, hey, did you guys just get that? So I call the front desk. And they're like, oh, our security's on it. Like, if it's real, like, we'll let you know. We'll make an announcement. 70 seconds later, the PA system comes on. This is not a drill. Newk incoming, please seek shelter.

We're sitting there going, are you kidding me? Like, the lady said, if we confirm this is real, we will make an announcement, and then they made the announcement. So why would you not think it's real at that point? So we're sitting there and we're like, all right, we'll meet you downstairs and we just go down there and sit around table and we're like, is a bomb about to hit or is this all a joke? And then about like 10, 15 minutes later we started seeing on Twitter that like it was kind of all of a screw up. But there was a five-minute span. Classic.

Like people are crying. Like the story about John Peterson, like had his family in the tub with the mattress over it. Like people are calling home. You see people. Like there's videos of people in Honolulu. They're like throwing their kids down manholes and stuff. Right. Oh, yeah.

I remember that. It was real. It was real. It was real to us for a little bit there. I would have been Googling how to survive a nuclear attack. I was like, we are done. There's nowhere to go. I was like at least we won't feel anything.

I guess if this happens, but this would be an outrageous way to die. This would be the worst way to die. The whole tour is going out on a nuke. Imagine that. Imagine like the web. The web.com guys would be so pumped. Oh, they'd be jacked up. It could be like the web.com guys would have an immediate promotion to the PGA tour.

They'd be making so much more money. Oh, God, it'd be insane. Be the replacements. I mean, that's honestly, wow, that would be. I never even thought about that. Imagine how devastated those guys were when they were like, oh, it was just a fake out. Yeah, I mean, I know some guys who, like, didn't even want to play that day because it was like a real thing for them for a while.

Yeah, I mean, the way you described it, how. Why would you not think it's real? Why would you ever think that was fake? We actually had Keziah on after he won that week. I was with him that week. Yeah. And he was like. Later that day I was, I was drinking on the beach.

Like, yeah, yeah, I survived the nuke. So I was having peanut collados with like Jamie and like Pat and Kizzerr was there, John. And we're sitting there just kind of thinking like that was insane. Yeah, because Kazaya's like, I'm a pretty chill guy. So I wasn't going too crazy. He's like, but I mean, we thought like, This is it. And like you said, there's just nothing.

I mean, there's literally nothing you can do. There's nothing. See you later, guys. No, you're done. So caddian out there on tour in the early part of this year. What, I mean, how seriously of a caddy do you take yourself? Scale of one to ten, I'm like a five. All right.

That's pretty good. I'm like a, I'm a character guy. I'm a character cat. You're in the locker room. You're a locker room guy. I'm a locker room guy. I didn't, like, I'm not out there, like, mapping the course as hard as I should be. I know what's going on, though.

But I'm not like, you know, there's these guys on tour. These guys who are real caddies on tour, their job is hard. Like, they work hard. Right. They're there all day, every day. Like, their guy tees off at, like, 2 o'clock. They show up at, like, nine and go, like, see how, like, the ball is bouncing on the 11th green. Like, these guys work hard.

Yeah, they work hard. So, I mean, I was taking notes and doing everything I had to do when I was with John on the course. So, like, I had the answers if I, if, yeah. ask me a question. How big of a benefit would it be, and I'm just kind of like, I'm just kind of spitball in here. Like, I'm watching on Masters Week, for example, on like Sunday morning, Tiger, because he's playing like, shit, it tees off at like 10 a.m.

Leaders don't tee off till like 2.30 or 3 or whatever. I mean, how beneficial would it be, or why would a caddy not or a player or not? Like, I could stream and watch every single shot Tiger hit. Why wouldn't you do that and see how everything's reacting on the greens? They do. They do. Some guys don't want to see the leaderboard on stuff. but some guys, I mean, they sit there and watch the coverage.

Yeah. They 100%. Why wouldn't you? It can only be an advantage to see what's going on. See how the putts break? Because everybody has the same putts. That's another thing going back to winning. You can get in a shitty wave and you're done.

Yeah. You're done. We were, because I've been on a huge Beth page black kick. It's one of the best in the world. Of course, it's so good. It's so good. It's so hard. It's so cheap.

And I've, me and Keegan and St. John's golfers, we're the only people in the world who've played that course with no one around. We used to go there on Mondays. And the superintendent at the time, he can't get in trouble now. He's not there anymore. But he, Currier is his name. Okay. And he let us park at the maintenance barn and tee off on the third T, part three.

Okay. And we could play at a 14, as many times we wanted three to four. through 14 because no one could see us. Nobody on Earth knew you're out there. Yeah, because it's on the other side of the road. It was literally incredible. That is awesome. Yeah.

Dude, I'm just thinking about your second hole of the day being in the par five. That hole is so legendary. I mean, it's amazing. Think about that. Think about if you played that place because you've played it like Saturday and with all those people six hours. Yep. Out there, just us.

Would you guys loop it around a couple times? Yeah. I mean, there's times where you go two times. You know, it's like, I mean, there were days where like you just get class Monday morning and like why am I going to stay at school till noon and not get there till 1.30. I have one of the best courses in the world. I'm going at 9 o'clock. So we were talking about the 09 open there when Lucas Glover won and we were talking about how basically if you weren't in the wave that he was in you had no chance to win. Yeah. It's a big thing on the British Open.

Yeah, British is huge. Like it's huge. So major story that I'm remembering. Catty, catty times here. So I'm out in Palm Springs, Canford Johns. It's right after Hawaii. right after the bomb scare. Okay. And my college coach, his name's Frank Darby, he does a spot in PGA Tour Radio. And I'm going on there Wednesday nights doing like a course setup thing.

Okay. And I get asked a question, and long story short, if you take it out of context, I called Palm Springs the JV of pro amps, okay? Okay. I didn't say that. I cleaned up my, like I did say JV,

but that's not what I meant. It's whatever. Okay. Came off like you were shitting on the, Bro, yeah. Well, I said J.V. And John and Keegan didn't hear one word after I said after that. There's like, you are a dick.

So I'm worried about it. They're making me feel bad about it. Six weeks go by. I'm at the Honda. Okay, I'm sitting down. It's Monday afternoon. Like, we had played. They had a players meeting.

And I'm sitting there, and this PGA tour official comes up to me. He goes, you, John Kernscatty? We go, yeah? Hands me an envelope. He goes, I don't know what you did some, but it's really bad. Walks away. Keegan love Mark and Kerner stand. They're like, what is that?

I'm going to open it. It's a letter. PGA tour, like, heading on it, the whole deal. Like, basically saying it was so unacceptable what I said. The sponsors of the events are so upset. You need to, like, make a film, like, make a movie apology, posted on the internet, Instagram account. Like, you need to apologize. You have to make a video apology.

Video apology. And the letter is, like, legit. PGA letterhead. And then the player relations guy's name is Ross Berlin. He, like, he, like, he, he's. He's like the second man in control on the PGA tour. His signature is on it. Like real signature.

So I'm like, holy cow. And I'd totally forgotten about this. Like, I didn't even remember. So now I'm going home and I'm taking the shuttle to my car and I'm freaking out. I'm texting John. John, I'm so sorry. Like, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to like bring any bad karma or like I'm sorry that this is happening.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And then I, at home and I am pissed. I have my brothers there. I'm filming this apology. I'm mumbling. I'm stuttering.

I'm pissed off. I'm like, it's not working out. And then of course, Keegan and John the whole time are like, oh, let, send us the video. Like, we'll make sure it's good before you post it. So in the meantime, I'm like, I'm going to email Ross Berlin. And Keegan's like, no, you don't need to do that. Just post it. So I email Ross Berlin.

And like a three-person. Paragraph apology. Like, I am so sorry. Like, I've always wanted to play the PJ at Tor. I would never want to offend the tour. Yada, yada, yada. Right. He sends me an email back.

Call me in 10 minutes. Here's my number. So now I'm like, that's the fucking answer I get. I just poured my heart out. And you're going to say, call me. You just wrote him a love letter. So I call him screenplayed. Calls me back like five minutes later.

I'm still pissed off. Keegan and John, I sent them the damn videos. Oh, come on, dude. They're like, dude, you look so bad. You need to refilm it. This is not good enough. And so I'm on the phone, Ross Berlin, and he picks up. He goes, Mike, are you sitting?

In my mind, I'm like, are they really going to, about to, like, suspend me for this? And he goes, your boy's got you. I go, what are you talking about? He goes, you know, this is all a joke, right? I go, what are you talking about? He goes, yeah, that letter is not real. I just signed it. Your boy, this is all a joke.

And I honestly, hand it to him six weeks. Great work. Well done. Like even the next day. So I'm walking to the range the next day. And I'm named after, but like, so I'm walking past Ricky Fowler. Fella goes, Bella, what happened yesterday? You get a weird letter from the PGA tour?

Everybody's going on it. God. I'm like, this is awful. So now I'm sitting on like, I have like a five-year plan to get them all back. But that was, it's the best prank I've ever seen in my life. I mean, they hit you with the long play. You got to hit them with a longer play back. The guy who handed it to me deserves an Academy Award.

I mean, he was so serious. Even Keegan John were like, oh, my God, that guy was amazing. Because if he screwed that up, I would have been like, this is bullshit. Dude, you know what sucks is that they have those videos? That's the worst. It's what they say to this day. Kikin's like, I cannot believe that we got videos out of this. Like, we were never going to let you post anything.

Like, we thought we knew we were going to get you, but the fact that we got videos out of this is insane. I love the fact that they're like, yeah, you got to, you should tweak this and refil it. Oh, guys, you should see these videos. They're so, it's like a mug shot. Like, I'm sitting there. I'm pissed. I'm like, this is an apology. I'm like yelling at my brother.

I was like, get them. Like, get in my face in it. I'm like, this is bullshit. I'm like in my room. Like, it was, and it was really, really funny. You got a hand, hey, listen. You guys, sometimes you tip your cat and say well done. Tusha to those guys.

Yeah, really well done. So you told me to remind you about a story, Caddian with Keegan for Keegan. So he loved this story. Okay. Shark shootout. Okay. And he's partners with Steel.

Tell everybody, remind everybody what the shark shootout is. It's like, you know, so it's the team event. It's a quote-unquote silly season event. Yeah. It's over in Naples. It's fun. It's a good week. And Keegan and Brendan had won it the year before.

Okay. So I'm caddying from the next year. And he's with Steel and they're paired with Dustin and Ian Polter were playing together that year. And I forget what hole. It's like 13 or 14. And everyone's kind of the same distance. And I give Keegan a yardage. And I give him like 13 yards.

too much. And he hits this shot and it's going right at the flag. I mean, it's like, it's about to go in. And then it one bounces on the back of the green and bounces over and he looks at me. And I'm like, don't look at me. Don't look at me. You hit that way too hard. And so luckily, steel goes next and he hits it to like literally two inches.

So they bury the hole. Dustin's caddy comes on over. Like we leave and we're walking up the green. He goes, Keegan, your boy messed up. He gave you 12 yards too far. And I was like, thank you, Steely. Thank God. He's stewarded you like that?

He just threw you right on the bus. It's like a fun thing. And they know I'm not like a pro jock. So he's like, yo, your boy really messed that one up. And so the same event, the same event, it is a torrential downpour. Like they need to cancel play for the day. And as a caddy's job, you need to keep everything dry. And it was coming down so hard.

I wasn't even thinking. I took his towel. I put it over my head and used it as like an umbrella. His only towel. So I'm walking off the course. You're fucking idiot. It's raining so hard that we're walking to a house on the course. We don't even know the people.

We're like jumping over a fence. Like we got to get underneath that thing. And he looks at me and goes, is that my towel? I'm like, yeah. So? He's like, that's my only towel. It's soaking wet. What do we have to go play?

I'm like, shit. I didn't think about that. Didn't think about that. So he loves that one. He always reminds you that one. I was, what was it? I think it was the British Open at Carnusti when there were the forecast. I don't know if it was Carnusty.

It was one of these that I've been, again, been big, big YouTube rabbit hole. I've been down the last couple months. And it was like the forecast was like 62 and sunny, zero percent chance of rain. And it turned out to be like 48 degrees and raining sideways. And it was like guys like even like, Tiger says the guys in his group were grabbing pullovers and rain jackets from other people in the gallery. And the other guys were trying to like when their group swung by a hole that was near the pro shop, they would try to play really quickly and run off the course to the pro shop to try to buy something.

It's none of the caddies put anything in the bags. It's same event. I just remember this. Same event. You got some serious sharks shoot out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This story might not be great because I think Dustin ended up kind of firing him. like pretty soon after.

Uh-oh. The caddy, you have to have the umbrella. I had the umbrella. This guy had the umbrella in the bag for like three years. That day, no umbrella. Forecast? It was just as bad as me putting the towel over my head, put it that way. DJ's not happy.

No, you can't be happy at a caddy. If there's 2% chance of rain, the caddy needs to carry the umbrella. See, this is another one of my issues whenever I've had caddies and they take everything out of your bag, because they want to lighten the load. It's one of their favorite things. Dude, I just need everything in that bag. I know it's like six pounds heavier.

I just, I need it. That's just my bag. I pack it. Like, when I leave my apartment, I pack it like I'm going on a two-year fucking journey. Like, I know every little nook and cranny, everything that's in there. I got bug spray.

I got my shit. I try my best. I make it as light as possible, but like there's a lot of shit in there I need. It's like a really dirty bedroom where like someone can go through. Like, hey, where's your chapstick? And you're like, it's in the third pocket and the bottom right, Like just move the quarter over a hundred percent

That's how my bag Don't mess with it Don't mess up what I got going on there Take all this shit out of it And I'm just I'm lost on the golf course And like there's something Every time they take shit out of my bag Or they do the thing where they put your clubs

In one of their own lighter bags You know Every time that they do that I always need for the first time In like a year and a half I need one of the things in the bag That they took out of it. It's not there

Fucking sucks And it's a mood changer It ruins the whole day So wing foot Obviously like we talked about one of the toughest golf courses on Earth. I love Carnage. I want Carnage.

USOPA. We got Shinny this year, which we'll get to a little bit to talk about briefly. But US Open 2020. Yeah, it's going to be incredible. Redesign or I'm sorry, not redesign.

What is it? Restoration. Restoration. By our boy Gil Hans, who we had on the podcast. Four year project. We had Rabidoo on. He's the king.

He's the man, the super at Wingfoot. As good as I've ever seen. The absolute man. Wingfoot 2020. I mean, we saw Aaron Hills. They lit that fucking place up. We saw Chambers Bay two years prior where it was like, what is this circus?

Back to the classics, Wingfoot. I mean, is it going to play where we like it to play in 2020? Yeah, it's going to be incredible. It's going to be exactly what we want. I mean, I'd be willing to bet that it's over bar. Yes. I really do. I really do.

Even now with how good guys are, like, when you think about golf and the scores, there's two things that make scores high. Firm, fast greens, and high rough. Yeah. Wingfoot has them both in August this year. We have firm fast screens and high rough. So when the U.S. Open comes, it is going to be ready to go. And we're going to have it a little longer.

It's going to be really hard. It's going to be fun for us to watch because I love it too. I want the carnage in the U.S. Open. I can't even imagine to because, like, you know, when we were there, so I was at Wingfoot for the first time in August of this last year, I already got the 2020 U.S. Open napkins. Like it's nuts to think about, and, you know, you were telling me, Shano, who brings me out there, was telling me, is, again, we get the USGA guys come by here quite a bit.

They check things out. And it's nuts because, you know, we, like, as a random spectator, you go week by week goes so fast in the PGA tour that all of a sudden it's just U.S. Open time. You're like, oh, cool, let's put on a U.S. Open. You don't realize it like two, three, four years out. It's so much work. They're gearing it up. Yeah. I mean, they're doing, like they said, they're doing stuff now to get ready for 2020.

And then I'm pretty sure that the second Shinnock is over, like the next day, USGA official will be at Wingfoot. Yeah. Like, apparently it's like a two-year thing where like USGA guys are there. Like, let's get this right. Like full time you're talking about 40 hours ago. Yeah. Like I'm pretty sure that there was a guy living at Shinnock like last summer,

making sure things are going smoothly and everything's looking the way it's supposed to look and all that stuff. It doesn't surprise me because we noticed when we were at Bethpage in the parking lot, they have a PGA of America trailer right next to the range. Yeah. And what's that? So that's next year. Right. PGA next year.

So, I mean, they're like, they got people there all the time checking it out. Yeah. And it, luckily for Wingfoot's the can't miss U.S. Open. I mean, we're not going to get like, oh, the greens weren't good or, oh, it didn't play the way we wanted to. No, this is going to be clockwork. Like, they've done it before. It's going to be, I think it's probably going to be one of the best U.S. opens ever. And it's crazy.

people don't realize so the you know you get all these different like in Aron Hills right they were like while the scoring was high the wind didn't blow and they didn't have it firm and fast and I'm like Oakmont which is in the exact same category as Wingfoot in terms of just classic tough US open golf course Oakmont in 2016 when DJ won

it was so wet on Wednesday and Thursday the place was soaked they had a bunch of people that didn't even tee off on Thursday because they had so much rain. That tournament didn't cower to that. Are you kidding me? DJ won at like 400 or something like that. Yeah.

No, it's going to be legit. It's going to be legit. That's why they need to go to these classic U.S. Open tracks, like, Oh, come on Wingfoot and, you know, Marion, the country club, Pelham Beach. I like that they're mixing it up. But they're learning that, like, dude, the classics are great. We're getting one this year. Anything on Shini?

Any thoughts on Shini? I've never been to Shini. Dude, it's hard to get out there. So if anyone is listening that wants to bring me, I'm available. But I've heard it's amazing. I mean, everything I know about it, that it's amazing. It's going to pop up on us quick. You know, we got Tigers playing, you know, this week, next week of the players.

Then there'll be, you know, a couple weeks after that, you're going to start to be like, oh, shit, it's U.S. Open time. I think Tiger is going to play well in the U.S. Open. You heard it here first, maybe second. You think. You don't need, it's going to be so firm out there that, like, I think he can just hit those Stinger two-irons and stuff all day. So it's funny, we had Hank Haney on before the Masters, and he said, look, Tiger, the problem with Augusta is going to be

that he can't get around it with his two-iron like he's been able to do at Bay Hill, at the Honda, at the Valis Bar, stuff like that. Funny enough, I mean, his driving wasn't great at Augusta, but it wasn't what actually killed him. It'll be really interesting. I mean, if it does play super firm and fast, then hopefully he does. doesn't have to hit driver everywhere, but, you know. Like I said, I've never played Shiningcock, but from what I know, like, basically is just keep

the ball between the tall grass, right? So there's, like, Heather on both sides of the fairways. Right. Fairway rough. And the fairways are relatively wide. Yeah, I think, yeah. I mean, they're like, they'll be U.S. Open, which is, uh, weak, so Wingfoot West, we keep the fairways U.S. open with, like, 24-7, like, between 27 to, like, 32 yards

with. Which is... They are fucking narrow. They are now. They're narrow. Yeah, they're hard to hit. I mean, it's like a legit... So, like, at Wingfoot, they won't need to, like, narrow up the fairways a ton.

Right. I heard at Shinnecock, they, like, they kind of brought the Heather in from where it usually is for the country club golfer. Okay. Yeah, because they, there were rumors that right after Aaron Hills that, like, that week that the USGA was seen, like, on property at Shinnacock, like, bring it in the fescue being like... The story I... That shit needs to get narrow. This is the total rumor mill. Cannot confirm this story.

Love it. Give me the rumor mill. But apparently, like, Rory showed up and played around and, like, drove the first screen, and people were like, holy shit. We need to, we can't have this. There's like a siren goes off. Yeah, like, yeah, like, hold on. And so they, like, brought the heather even further. And I can't, I can't confirm that, but it's a fun story to think about.

So DJ, I finally found it. DJ was four under at Oakmont in. 2016 and again that was with an insane amount of rain. Wingfoot has all historically played just as hard if not harder. So 2020 we got that coming up. We got Pebble next year, which is the centennial. And we've got Shinny this year. And we've got Bethpage fucking next year at the PGA, which is in May.

So we've got three major championships in New York in the next three years. New York areas has a major run here in golf. And the U.S. Open, they're kind of correcting the plane here. Right. The next, like, five U.S. Open venues are insane. To die for. Yeah, yeah. It's like Wingfoot Pebble, like LACC.

It's in there. The Country Club. Back to Tori Pines. Which is great. Like, it's the golden medals of the U.S. Open venues. It's an exciting time. Mikey, we're going to have you back on plenty going forward. You know your shit.

It's good to hear from you. So you got anything else? Yeah. I want to give a shout out to my boy. His name is Mikey Schneider. So at the beginning of the podcast, you kind of talked about teaching and stuff like that. When I first got to the club, I ended up with these three kids, Mikey, J.T. and Ryan, they're like 9, 10, 12. Okay.

And I started teaching and I taught him all summer. And Mikey actually got diagnosed with some cancer this past fall. So he's in a pretty, you know, pretty big battle right now. So I'd like to show him some love. And, you know, everyone can go check out his Instagram page, Mikey Strong, 2006. Just show him some love. You know, these kids need support. Even he's 11-year-old kid, he doesn't deserve this.

So it'd be nice to, I'll give him all the support we can. Mikey, stay strong out there, kid. It's Mikey Strong, 2006? Mikey Strong, 2006. All the platrons out there, all the Stoys, everybody listening, go show Mikey Strong, 2006. Go on his Instagram, show him some love. He's only 11. Yeah, he's a little kid.

He's battling hard. He's the best attitude I've ever seen. I mean, I went and saw Infinity War with him last week. He's just happy. Like, he's like, he's like, he's, like, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, like the best kid ever he's got great brothers and sisters great family wingfoot family so they deserve some love and and some good fortune bala i've heard you talk about the kid before sounds like an awesome kid so mikey stay strong palis go show him some love and ball thanks for

the time pal i love being here thanks boys absolutely all right that's it for this week's show uh big thanks to my buddy mikey ballo for hopping on a quick reminder everybody out there uh four play digs is going to premiere this Thursday morning. It'll be right in your foreplay feed. So make sure that you go in there. You subscribe if you haven't already to ForPlay. The plan is going to be to put them out biweekly. That means every other Thursday.

You're going to get a new episode of Foreplay Diggs. Big stretch of golf coming up. Thanks for listening.