Fore Play - "Masters Week At Gary Player's" Recap

Episode Date: April 6, 2018

The boys spent Masters Week at Mr. Gary Player's house and recap the entire experience. From dinner with the Black Knight to workouts to house tours to driving down Magnolia Lane heading to the Champions Dinner, this was an unforgettable week. The guys breakdown their experience walking around Augusta National, and recap Thursday's play in the 82nd Masters! 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 Podcast, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Folks, you're hearing from two very close personal friends of Mr. Gary Players. That's true. We're his best buddies now. We stayed with them all week. We are just leaving Augusta, Georgia. We're actually driving through Augusta right now towards Atlanta.

We've got to catch a flight back to New York City. We have had a massive week. We've been on the grounds. We were in there for practice rounds. We were in there for the par three contest. We were in there today watching Tiger Woods. We spent a bunch of time with our friend, Mr. Gary Player. We're going to get to all of that.

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It's been an eventful one, my friend. Oh, man, it's been as eventful of a week for golf fans as you could possibly have. We came down, you know, not 100% sure what to expect. We're obviously excited, right? We're staying with Mr. Gary Player. We had been invited down. We had had him on the podcast.

You know, all of us are generally aware of Gary Player and what he's like. He's very outgoing. He's Mr. Fitness. So he's, you know, he's obviously won the Masters three times. So every year around Masters time, he's in different spots, in different promos for the tournament. He's at the Champions Center, all these different things. but when you go into any sort of house or any, you know, especially when you're staying in a house with people you don't know, you're always a little kind of nervous.

Is it going to be weird? Am I going to have to tiptoe around? What's the deal going to be? Well, and honestly, my first thought when we had decided to go on this trip, and it's a little bit what you were just saying where his week before the masters, I mean, he's Gary Player. So he's going to have a lot of appointments, a lot of meetings, a lot of interviews. I mean, he's Gary fucking Player. He's Gary Player.

So I went down thinking, all right, we have all these promises that we're going to, you know, hang out. with him and this and that and we're going to interview and we're going to try and do some workouts with him i thought but also in the back of my head i was thinking he's gary player it's master's week maybe we're going to get shafted for time and he's not going to spend any time with us it was the opposite he could not have been more generous with this time we stayed in the same house as him we saw him we bumped in and we're getting breakfast we got there the first day we were so early that we had to tiptoe around so we didn't wake him up it was just it was you go in kind of with you don't know what's going to happen because it's gary player the week of the masters and then it could not

have worked out any better for us. So, first time we meet Mr. Gary Player, he's sitting in the kitchen, literally in the kitchen, in the house, we come down from the stairs, we walk over, he's like, oh, the barstool guys, Riggs and Trent, welcome, stands up, looks us right in the eye, shakes our hand. Yep. How are you guys doing? So we're standing there. It's myself, Trent, Mr. Gary Player, a couple of people that are his assistants,

that help him out. He's literally sitting at the kitchen counter, signing autograph after autograph after autograph, after autograph. He had been up all day. This was 4 or 5 o'clock. in the evening. We're standing there as well with his son, his son, Mark, great, awesome guy. And we're all just hanging out for a good 20 or 30 minutes. We're shooting the shit in the kitchen. He's telling stories. Couldn't be a more humble, a nicer guy. So our first day, Tuesday morning is when we're finally getting into the real stuff in Augusta.

We grab our tickets before we were able to meet Mr. Player or any of those people. We went into the tournament. We get into the practice. round at like 8.30 in the morning. We heard that Tiger and Phil were playing together with Freddie Couples and Thomas Peters. Tiger Phil, kind of a crazy dynamic. Never would have thought you'd see it. Never. Ever, never. But they're playing together. I guess they're boys, all that. So we get on the grounds at 8.30. We sprint over to the 10th hole, which is one of, maybe the most, maybe the sneaky most beautiful hole on the courts, by the way. Love that hole. We fly down 10, which is easy to do, actually, because 10's so unbelievable.

downhill. As long as you don't have like bad knees, you can just cruise down 10. As long as if you get a little momentum going on 10, you're going to be to 11 in no time. No time. Zero time at all. So we fly down, boom. We see Tiger putting on the 10th green. That was the first time. That first time that I had

seen him at Augusta, that's the first time you had seen him at Augusta. You don't know how to prepare for that moment, and then it just slaps you right in the face and it just happened to be that he was playing the practice around with Phil and Freddie and Thomas Peters. And he's just standing there on the 10th green rolling in putts. and you're thinking that's Tiger fucking Woods at Augusta National.

It's a special experience for anyone who has experienced that themselves. It was very cool. We ran into a million stooleys right out of the gate. We followed Tiger and Phil and that group down through Amen Corner. We saw them play kind of the first half of Aman Corner. And then we said, hey, look, we haven't been to Augusta since last year, long time for us. Hadn't been to Augusta since last year. No big deal.

So we're like, we've got to hit the concession. We get a couple of pimento cheese sandwiches. A couple sports drinks. I get a lemonade. Huge lemonade guy, by the way. Big lemonade guy. I'm big on the sports drinks. I'm not sure I'm so much into the flavor as I am the color blue that it is.

It's a little bit when we talk about the icy blue Pro tracer. It's very refreshing, dude. I'm walking through the concession tunnel, which maybe we can get into a little bit because we talked a lot about this over the weekend between you and I. And you see the blue Gatorade or Powerade or sports drink, and you just got to grab it. And, of course, I got a couple pimento cheese sandwiches as well. So we talked about the concession situation with our good friends, Big Cat, and PFT commenter on part of my take. If you haven't listened, go listen to today's episode, Friday's episode of PMT.

We're on. I believe that's our debut on PMT. It is our debut on PMT. We made our debut on PMT to talk a little masters. We talked about the concession. The concession, the fact that the format and the setup of the concessions at Augusta National has not been adopted at every, basically every spectating event on Earth is amazing. They have this tunnel system where everything's just kind of pre-prepared but not in a gross way

and like the classiest most fresh way imaginable. Pre-prepared, they've got like five or six different aisles or tunnels that you go through. You grab what you need. You're in and out. They've got like 100 people all at the end ready to ring you up with their hands in the air. Like, hey, I'm free over here. You buzz over, swipe your car, bam, you're out. It's amazing.

I'm shocked that it hasn't been implemented at other places, but I'm also not shocked. I'll tell you why I am shocked at first because there's a lot of rich people that go to the Masters, you would imagine that a lot of sports owners have ventured to Augusta National at some point in their lives and have seen the tunnel system. And the fact that they've seen it and haven't thought, hey, I want to implement this at my next stadium that I'm going to build is crazy. I'm not that surprised because it'll take a risk for someone to do that because people will be like, you're crazy or crazy. Keep the concessions the way they are. But they honestly should adapt this way of doing it. The current concession model is so dumb.

We just stand in a line facing nothing. It's like a dead end. We're all standing in a dead end line. whereas the Augusta one, it's a flow thing. It's about the natural flow of everything. You're just going to keep moving forward. It's what you're saying. The traditional concession stand, you're basically standing,

you're walking towards a brick wall. And once you order, you're just still standing at a brick wall. At Augusta, you're just walking through, and you start somewhere, and once you come out the other side, you're still in where you want to be, and you haven't stopped once. And as you're walking, you're able to acquire what you want, and then you swoop up, and then you can, they have, layers basically of where you can pay so that it's not getting this brick wall

format that we've got at most stadiums it's just so dumb it's everybody just everybody it's like everybody congregates and ends up getting all bunched up at one spot up at the front and you have to stay in how you have to introduce yourself and then say what you want and then they have to get what you want and then they got to ring you up meanwhile you're just standing there all the whole time this one everybody's moving it's the flow of things is so lovely so anyway we went to the concession it was great just as remember remember remembered it from last year, maybe even quicker. And then we buzzed over to, we were very heady.

It was a very heady, smart play. We buzzed over to 15. And we thought, well, if they're on 12 or 13 now, let's get ahead of the massive crowd, because there is a gigantic crowd on Tuesday morning at 8.30, not even 9 a.m. yet. It was fouling these guys. Huge. Just waves and waves of people. So we sat in the bleachers to the left of the 15th green. We were right in front of our faces, right in front of our eyeballs, was the 15,

hole because the green of the hole because the pin was far left tucked unbelievably left and then we could also see the 16th hole we couldn't see the t shots we could see the green the pond the skipping shots and all that great spot to sit so we sit there for about 45 minutes saw a couple guys come through charles walker come through charles swarzzles swartzel came through Hoffman might have came through and then all of a sudden the security guards stand up they start lecturing everyone in a nice way in a very Georgia way. This is what you do at this moment. No one, unless you leave right now, no one's allowed to stand up or leave until after Tiger's group gets off of the green, this, that, and we were like, wow, they're taking this very seriously. And then all of a sudden,

thousands of people started flooding in. When we sat in the bleachers, there were only maybe, 50 people in the entire bleachers. Maybe, yeah. Maybe that many people all, like, kind of huddled into one little area. They start flooding in. Bleachers are jam-packed. People, People begging for seats, trying to make deals with people for seats. It's funny, they do this thing where it's basically the line of the club. So there's a big line of people going out the back. And if someone gets up stupidly, if they, for some reason, get up, they go, all right, there's one sabbat open.

See, they call one person up. And if we saw it multiple times where there were groups of two people waiting in line to get in, and they were like one. And the buddy just ditched his other buddy. He was like, fuck you. I'm watching Phil in Type. Yeah, you got to. I mean, it's no brainer.

It was awesome. See you later, buddy. You'll find your own seat. So then we look up the fair. The fairway, you know, it's 15th, par five. With the trees on the left, you've got to kind of feather a good drive-in so that you can have a shot at the 15th green, trying to reach it in two. We look up. We see a couple balls in the fairway.

We see one way down the fairway. We're like, oh, interesting. Start to see the guys, like, walking to the different balls. We get super excited. The far ball was obviously Tiger. They're playing a great match. The other three guys all hit good shots on the right side of the green, but the pins far left. They had like 50, 60, 70-foot putts.

How about Freddie couples? He was probably the furthest back, I believe, and he just crushed an iron right to the green. I didn't think Freddie still had it in it, honestly. Yeah, he was way back there. I don't know what he hit, but he was way back there and hit one that barely got over the front edge, landing on the green, and he ended up two-putting for Bertie. But then Tiger's up, and he hit, I mean, this pin is so far left. It looked like it was in the bleachers.

It looked like it was more with us than it was with the green. And Tiger sticks one to like four or five feet. It was so great. We start going crazy. Then he walks across that little, like, dam slash bridge. I can't remember which one's called. It might be the Sarazen, I think it's the Sarazen Bridge. He walks across that, which is right in front of our faces.

Everybody gives him a standing ovation as he walks by. He obviously makes the eagle putt. We all go crazy. Then afterwards, the guys do the thing where they all chip and putt around the green for five or ten minutes. Phil's behind the green. He's hit normal pitches, but then Tiger walks over to him. He starts pointing because the guys they think. throw out these little targets on the green the caddies do for the players to hit to and all that

tiger starts pointing to different targets and phil's hitting giant flop shots giant flop shots the ball's going like 40 feet in the air flop shots from behind the 15th green which is super tight little lie there's nothing really to go over except for kind of a little hump um that you could play a bump and run into but phil's hitting these crazy flops tiger points at the hole Phil hits this giant flop it barely lands on the green trundles down on the last revolution trickles into the hole we go crazy the place goes crazy and like riggs was saying before the security guard before they made their way to the hole we're like all right everybody stay you know stay seated be quiet don't go crazy and all every rule went right out the window when that flop shot dropped

the place went crazy like it was like an and one mixtape tour it was unbelievable um so we got to see that that was again right in front of our faces we're high five and people are like in tears in the gallery this is a tuesday practice round like now it's like maybe 10 a m 10 in the morning people are going nuts. We found out later that while we were sitting in the bleachers, we heard a little bit of a roar back from Amen Corner. We didn't know what it was. Tiger had Eagle the 13th as well.

And then he hit one really tight, made a nice birdie on 16. So the holes that we saw or heard about, he was five under through three holes. Unbelievable. So people were buzzing. We ended up, we take off. We had to get back to the house to meet Mr. Player for the first time. We meet him around three or four o'clock in the afternoon. We already mentioned how that went in the kitchen and all that.

So then, you know, we're hanging out, we're trying to figure out what our plan is. We know we have a little bit of a dinner reservation, but of course Mr. Player has, because it's Tuesday, the Champions Dinner. Of course. And his boy, Bo, shout out to Bo, who's the guy who kind of helped us, hooked us up with all of this. He's Mr. Player's kind of a media PR guy, also kind of assistant, just helps him with pretty much everything. He's a Swiss Army Knife. He's a Swiss Army Knife.

shout to Bo, awesome dude. He says, hey, we've got to run Mr. Player to the Champions Center a little early is filming something with Mr. Nicholas. Do you guys want to go back to the course? You can ride with us. Yeah. These are the types of things that happen when you go down and you stay with Gary Player at the Black Knight House. You're staying at the Black Knight House.

So you're just kind of hanging out. Don't know what you're going to do. You're waiting around for dinner. Hey, do you want to go with us while we drop Gary Player off at Augusta National for the Champions Dinner? Yeah, we'll do that. So we did. We decided, you know, we're trying to think, like, can you film in the car? This thing's going to drive down Magnolia Lane.

We've never been down Magnolia Lane. Who the hell even gets to go down Magnolia Lane? What's going on? So we grab our phones. We're thinking, like, maybe we can try to sneak some stuff. But it was like, yeah, you can film, not a problem. So we end up, we had a good, probably, hour ride with traffic and all that? There was so much traffic, yeah.

A lot of traffic. Our house is probably about 20 minutes away from the course, but that master traffic. During tournament time, it's tough. It's tough. So, which we were more than happy about because that just meant we got to spend more time with Gary Player. So the situation is we're in this beautiful Mercedes-S-C-V. Is that what it is? Yeah, that's one of the sponsors. Yeah, it's a tournament car. No big deal.

Shout to the sponsors. Love the sponsors. So we're sitting in the car. I'm back left seat, Trent's back right, Bow's driving. Mr. Gary Player is riding shotgun. And he's telling story after stories talking about what the Champions Dinner is going to be like. He's saying that he's got a couple flags. So he obviously runs a ton of charity events. And a big part of the charity event is memorabilia that they, you know, that they raise money for by people bid on or people buy them or whatever.

So he's always got items at all times, especially the champions there. He brings a bunch of flags, I've got some national flags and other items, to have a lot of the different guys sign. And he starts talking and he's like, oh, I've got a couple different flags for Tiger to sign. I really hope Tiger signs him. And more like, do you think Tigers are to sign him? He's like, I think I'll sign him. And then he starts saying, and he's like, you know, I'll just go up to him. I'll say, Tiger, just sign the flags.

And it was really funny. And then he was saying afterwards, he was saying, in fairness, Tiger is always great. He always signs everything. He was excited to talk about, you know, his bag and his health and how he's feeling about his game and his workouts and his fitness and all that. He's telling us stories about sitting next to Bobby Jones. We've got all of this on camera. We got it in a really funny manner in the car. Because, again, we just had our iPhones.

And we look like people that are, like, trying to catch their Uber driver saying something, like, wrong. It's true. It's kind of what we look, like, what the footage looks like. But it's great. We're right there. We end up making that, we turn right down Magnolia Lane, which, like, we were so caught up in the conversation. Well, when I was going to say is that it was a surreal moment, it was a week full of surreal moments, but we're sitting in the backseat.

Mr. Gary Player is sitting shotgun, and he's talking the whole time. He's a big talker. He's telling all these great stories. And I had an angle. where I could see his face in the side mirror, and I would catch it every once in a while, because up until that point, it's a guy talking, telling great stories. You know it's Gary Player. But every time I would catch his face in the side mirror, I would, like, shit my pants.

I was like, I can't believe I'm sitting in this backseat. I can't believe all this has come together. You lose yourself in the moment a little bit. You do. You forget the absurdity of, like, we're riding in a car to Augusta National with Gary Player for the Champions Dinner. You do, and it's kind of nice. get lost in the moment a little bit and then you you kind of snap out of it and realize it and then next thing you know we're we're booking down magnolia lane with so we make this right turn um

on the magnolia lane you can obviously see the view that you've seen a million times in pictures and in videos online um and the guards greet us and the hey mr player and he's like how are you he gives him it gives everybody knows everybody and they're like you guys go right on through so we drive right down magnolia lane uh we're kind of looking like oh my god what is going on here? You drive real slowly down Magnolia Lane. Going down Magnolia Lane with Gary Player, I would imagine, is a lot like if you went to Vegas with Frank Sinatra.

Things just open up. People are the nicest in the world. You feel like you could do anything you want. It's really... It was almost like the Magnolia's like parted when we drove down. Like the Red Sea. Like the Red Sea. Except it was Magnolia Lane.

So when we're driving it down, we pull right up to the clubhouse, you know, right in that little circle right there that they've got. We're kind of buzzing by a couple spectators, a couple patrons who are there that are taking pictures. Because you can take pictures right on the front by the logo there, the flower logo that we did last year. Yeah. So we're driving right by those people. Everybody's looking like, oh, my God, who is that? Is that Gary Player?

Yeah, and the Ford Play Boys. And Trenton Riggs. And Bo. So we drive right up. We drop them off. He's like, all right, boys. See you later. Have a great day.

He's going to the champions dinner with all of the champions of the masters. You and I talked a little bit about that as we, because we eventually went into the the course after that and walked a little more. But the conversation we had was Gary Player talked to you and I in the car ride and then he got out. And then probably the next eight people he talked to were all Masters champions, probably Jack Nicholas, Tiger Woods, all these guys. It's another one of those surreal moments.

So it was very cool. We headed back into the course, except we got to walk kind of like right through a little like kind of entrance to the side of the clubhouse, kind of like the bad boys coming through. Yep. Even like the ticket people, the security guards are looking at who are these fucking idiots walking from a place that they shouldn't be walking from? But I guess it must be legitimate because this is Augusta. There's no way you could get back there.

Yeah, yeah. It's like it's both. These guys look like they're not supposed to be here. True. But it's also they're already back here. So there's got to be a reason. So we went back onto the course because we had rolled in with our ride. Our ride was like, hey, I'm going to need an hour and a half for two hours.

Our boy, Bo. Not a problem. So we walked around Augusta again Tuesday evening, beautiful evening. out. A couple of guys were playing late rounds. We saw Rory. We saw just a couple of different guys out there. We saw Rory. We saw Pat Perez. We saw Justin Rose. We saw Zach Johnson. A lot of guys are out still. So it was a nice little Tuesday evening. We hung out just kind of around the first T, the ninth green, the 18th green, and the 10th T. And then there's a practice green right there as well. All in front of the clubhouse is just a beautiful area like

that kind of overlooks. It's kind of the higher point of the court. So it overlooks a lot of stuff. We hung out in that area. We ran into, again, a million. million stooleys, a million platrons. It's appalling that people at Augusta National when you walk around, there's people that know who we are. Yeah, I don't. That is just a shocking thing. I don't know if it should shock me because it's the biggest golf tournament of the year,

and we are a golf podcast. We're a popular golf podcast. Golf people out there. Just a golf thing. But it does seem strange where Barstool is a certain brand, and Augusta National is a certain brand that don't necessarily mix. So then you got a bunch of stooleys out there, you know, yucking it up with us. It's a pretty cool feeling, to be honest.

It was awesome. We met a bunch of really cool people. Shout out to all those guys. We had a great time. We shared some beers with some folks. It was really fun. So then we buzzed back to the house. We had a nice dinner at the house with Mark Player, who is Gary Player's son, who again kind of runs a lot of the business and the brand that's all been built up for Mr. Player's success. And they run an incredible, incredible business with their sponsors and with different golf projects that they've got around the world. So he's telling us about all that. And we had a couple other of his family, Jordan, who Caddy, for him. What is he? He's in a fraternity at Florida. He's Florida State. Florida State. Must be fucking nice, Jordan. He's a good kid. He was a great kid. He was caddian for Mr. Gary Player on Wednesday in the Part 3 contest. Yeah, he got to tell all his friends he was saying that,

oh yeah, I'm going to be on ESPN, caddy in for Gary Player on this week. So feel free to check that out. So we had a great dinner. You know, we're hanging out. We're having a couple drinks, just like six or seven people at the house having dinner, including us. That's it. And then around, you know, I don't know, 10 o'clock or something like that.

I don't really know what time it was. Mr. Player returns from Champions Dinner. Comes walking out. He's like, hey, boys, he sits down and give him the head of the table. He, for a good hour or so, maybe 45 minutes, tell stories from the Champions Dinner, who he talked to. What are people saying? He talked to Tiger about, you know, his fitness and how Tiger was saying that he gets bummed out

that a lot of the pundits kind of shit on fitness and the work. out because he thinks it's so good for people and he thinks that it it it uh it would be way worse for his back his back would be in a much worse situation if he didn't have kind of the workout regimen that he has so mr. players telling us all the details from these types of these types of conversations he's talking about everybody he's signing the flags he starts telling hoagher stories about ben hogan's comments um about signing things from back in the day he's talking about how he sat next to bobby Jones one time Adam Master's dinner so he's

we're just sitting there and we're like what is going on right now what is this what is this I tell you what what I didn't expect him to come back from the Champions dinner I don't know I did expect him to come back but I didn't expect him to come out and then be ready to like tell stories you might forget he's an 82 year old guy now

yep and you think he's going to be drained from all this interactions he got he had to go there early to film something with Jack Nicholas and then he's got this dinner and all this conversations. He had played nine holes that day with a couple of his grandkids. He's a big family guy. So I expected him to come back, make a beeline for the bedroom and go right to bed. But then he came out, like you said, sat at the front of the table.

He ate some berries and just he just told stories. I was a sure of you. We were going to make that up. He just ate a big old bowl of berries. Loves berries. Told stories and went to bed. God, he's the best. And he couldn't have been nicer.

He came in. He said, oh, Riggs and Trent, how's everybody treating you? They were great, Mr. Player. He sits down. We took a great picture afterwards. Again, he's a big-time trooper. He's like, oh, yeah, let me get right in the middle, boys. Let's do it.

He's the best. So we get to bed, you know. I wrote a big recap of a lot of that on the blog, which some people saw. But then we wake up Wednesday. It's part three contest day. We had a couple hours slated in the morning where we got to spend some time with Mr. Player. He gave us a tour of the house.

Yep. The reason that's very cool is there's memorabilia all over the house. There's different pictures. There's different plaques. He's got badges from all the different masters. There's newspaper clippings. And he basically walked us through the house and sort of pointed to a different thing that sparked a memory or told the story of how we won that week or how we lost. And even some of the devastation, some of the triumph and sort of tied all that into like his life philosophy.

Yes. It was just, again, we have all of this on. film we're filming we're camera we have we brought a camera we're all we've got all of it um so all that's going to be all people are going to see it but it's surreal just being in his house and again this is a very intimate setting it's it's a lot of um it's his kids his grandkids and then the people that work uh closely to him and then us the bars to a boys rigs and trent um and so pretty much the the thing he did before he went to august and on Wednesday to play in the part three contest was he spent the morning with the four

play boys the thing more specifically he uh he's a big workout guy obviously I've become a fit person or more of a fit person thank you again so we had him kind of put us through some of the workouts out on the front lawn uh of the house so before the part three he got in a quick workout with the four play boys he sure did so that's that's something and he was we we ended up getting into a ton of funny discussions during all that about a lot of different things. We're not going to spoil all that because, again, it's going to be in the video, but a lot of really funny discussions with him. He loves to laugh.

He loves to have pretty funny hot takes. He also takes things very seriously. He takes fitness seriously. He really wants people to be healthier and happier and all that, which Trent Daddy has clearly taken up. And I will say, Trent, I have never, ever in my life heard as many people comment on the same thing as every person we saw at Augusta, which were a lot that we spoke to, were like, Trent, you look fantastic. It was very nice of the people that come up to me and say that I look, that I look

healthier and skinnier. And I'll tell you what, I said this at the dinner. That's the reason why I do it. It's not because I feel better. It's not because I look, well, this is because I look better. It's not because I'm sleeping better. It's not because I feel better emotionally. It's because of the compliments. People are very nice. They come up to me. They say you look way better. And that's what keeps me going. I wish it were something else, but it's just not. When you stroke my ego about how much better I look, I'm going to keep it up. Of course. Yeah. That makes sense. That's just how the world works, really. A hundred percent. So the Mr. Player goes off to the Part 3 contest. We worked for a couple hours, trying to get some blogs up, keep everybody updated

on the whole week, on the Masters, everything that's going on. Then we headed into the course for the Part 3 contest. A lot of hot action of the Part 3 contest. Mr. Players group on the 9th hole, Mr. Jack Nicholas's grandson, whose name is Gary, ironically enough, gets his first hole in one. I think he's 15 years old. Is that right? Fifteen, yeah. Fifteen-year-old kid hits the T-shot for Mr. Nicholas on the ninth of the part three contest, cans it first hole in one. They're going crazy. Sure enough, our good friend, Mr. Gary player, was miced up for the entire part three contest, and he narrated the entire hole in one. Like the second the kid hit it. He's like, oh, you're going to love that man. And then the ball hits, and he goes, good.

the hole. Go in the hole! Go in the hole! And it goes in. Just absolutely electric stuff from Mr. Player out there. And then as we saw, we watched them play three or four holes. The crowds were massive. So it was actually really tough to watch. Then as we're walking away, Tony Fienow gets a hole in one. We knew it because we, the crowd would go, oh, we turn around, ball goes in, everybody goes crazy. We didn't see him go down. No. We were right there. we were we were they were the group right after nicholas and player and watson so once we saw them go through it was the final time we watched him so we decided to go back up and our backs are to phenow when it goes in and obviously the place goes crazy once it drops and i saw i remember feno running down the uh me too

i've never seen that i remember seeing that and then just being like holy shit he must got a whole one and we must have turned around back around right when he snapped his ankle yeah because i don't remember the crowd being like ooh no i don't that i don't remember but uh yeah that i don't that i don't remember but uh yeah that ankle snap did not look very good. We saw the replay once we got our phones back after we... He snapped it back in place. If he wouldn't have snapped it back in place, it would have looked okay. It would have been like, oh, okay, he rolled his ankle, whatever.

When he snapped it back in and it was like, oh, it was a full, like, poofs. I was like, are you an alien at that point? Like, you looked like that wasn't human. He snapped it, and they got back up, and, you know, he's playing the Masters. And then now he's playing great. We're going to get into the Masters and what happened on Thursday at the end of the show. But he's playing well, so thank God he's okay. That would have sucked to see him his first master as well.

How awful would that have been the highest of highs to the lowest of lows? You hit a hole in one of the part three contest at the Masters, and you celebrate and you almost snap your ankle on half. That would be just the worst. So then, again, the crowds are massive. We're already tight with Mr. Gary player. We know we can't get that close to the action. So we decide let's roll out to the course.

It's about 4.35 p.m. at this point. We're like, let's roll out to the main course and check it out. So we stroll down to A.man Corner. At this point, nobody's on the golf course. It's Wednesday evening. The Master starts Thursday morning. Nobody's on the course. Nobody's playing the course.

A couple lawnmores around. That's about it. We go down to Aeman Corner. There's like nobody down there. So we grab a couple beers, a couple sports drinks, a couple snacks. And we just hung out an A.man Corner by 12T and 11 green. Then we walked all the way up 13. We got all the way down into that corner as close as you can get to 13 Green.

which is very close. You're only like 30 yards away from Rays Creek, tributary to Rays Creek, down by the 13th Green. We hung out there for like a half hour. It was quiet. It was perfect weather. It was peaceful. You could like hear the birds chirping as you're having a couple beers.

Again, ran into a couple stories that we knew were shooting their shit, chatting it up, but there's no crowd to speak of whatsoever. That's the beauty of the masters, right? You can go out there. There's nobody out there. There's nobody playing golf, and it's still just as exciting as if there were. It might have been more exciting. Yeah, because it's quiet.

And you're just like, there's so many things that have happened here. And this is one of the most iconic golf courses, most of the more one of the more iconic sports venues in the world. And we're just out here basically alone with a few other people. There's nothing quite like it. It was awesome. And again, we stood out there for a half hour. So nobody else really around.

And we just soaked it all in. And then we went back to the house. We had a South Africa. African bry at the house on Wednesday night, which was an event hosted by Mr. Player. They had this, they called him like the bribe master who he had. What, it was it a, it was like a boar? Yeah, it should be noted. Before we left for the par three contest, we wandered out into the backyard.

And the brine master had already showed up. And he was, what, he got him on a spigot there. And it's like a boar. Just, you know, marinating for, it has to go for about four or five, six hours. Smoking it for. smoking it and then we got back later that night and he had chopped it all up and he was literally the brimaster was walking around with plates and handing you pieces of meat it was so good it was absolutely fantastic there were a ton of people invited over so it was a way bigger scene in kind

of the backyard slash um a little uh kind of family room of the house we were staying at they have live music um it was just it was a blast couldn't have had more fun and and again it kind of uh eased us into kind of an in easy finish to the day uh had a couple drinks passed out get up thursday morning passed out yeah i mean that's what we did i wouldn't say we went to sleep as much we just kind of passed out they're exhausting days yeah very exhausting days you're out in the sun all day um you know you're trying to make sure that we get good stuff with mr player because it's such an unreal opportunity but then again you're also trying to soak it all up right you're trying to like you're trying to kind of kind of kind of

savor those memories forever and make sure you're paying attention so that it all sticks in your brain. It's both, right? We come down here where, granted, this unreal opportunity where we get to hang out with a legend like Gary Player for a few days. So we're, you got, we have two brains that going, essentially. We want to soak in all these memories, but we also want to, you know, make good content and give it out to the people at the end of the week. So you're kind of juggling that the whole time, and it's, you know, I think we did a very good job. I think we got some very good stuff. I agree with that. I think we, I think you, you want to try to, you're right. You're trying to balance it, basically.

You're trying to make sure that you get everything. You're trying to make sure you get the memory. Trying to make sure you get the material and the things that you need from a work standpoint to justify the trip and all that. So a lot of that going on. It's very draining. Therefore, it's why I said you pass out. You just pass the fuck out. That's what we did.

Get up Thursday morning, and it's Masters. It's the Masters. The Masters has begun. We watched Mr. Player hit the opening T-shot. live on masters.com and then we you know we had badges to go in but it's tricky because you know we are the golf guys at barstool if we're not covering it nobody's covering it um so we wanted to watch tiger tee off wanted to watch tiger play as much as we could um which we did i went in for about two or three hours Trent daddy stayed back in the car made sure he didn't miss anything um i spent a salad

$1,300 at the pro shop came back i waited for you i would pick you up and Riggsie had so many bags I couldn't even believe it. $1,300 worth. $1,308. I spent at the Pro Shop. A couple things for myself, but not much. A lot of items for others. A decent amount of requests, but also just family stuff. And once you start down the family road, it's like, well, if I got something for this person,

I have to get something for that person because I don't want that person to be mad that I got something for this person and not that person. So it's like you're doing all that in your head, and Xino, $1,308. We should also mention that the Pro Shop is underwent. Unbelievable this year. They redid the whole thing. Reded it. They dropped the video on Monday, I believe it was. Master's Twitter account was like, oh, by the way, we rebuilt our entire merchandise place, and now it looks kind of like an awesome, super cool mall. So feel free to come in, and we did, and we spent a lot of money.

That's right. And so I rolled in, made sure there was no line at the shop, which the shop is a happening spot. So anytime you can catch it with minimal line, you want to take advantage of that. So I did. My first stop when I went in this afternoon, I knew Tiger was on the back. but I went in to the shop, bought all that stuff, and then just carried around the rest of the day because you can check stuff, but it was full, because it was so late in the day.

So I just carried all that stuff around. Walked over to the 18th Green. I knew Tiger was coming by in about 45 minutes. So I posted up on the 18th Green. Sure enough, let's see, we saw Zach Johnson's group played in. Pat and Keziah was in that group. A couple other, who else did we see? A couple other big names came through,

but eventually this moment was all we're all waiting for it but you know when i when i rolled over to the 18th green it wasn't that packed it's like it's packed it's the 18th green but it wasn't that packed i was able to stand and they have kind of the stadium vibe where there's a lot of mounds elevated around the green so you can get a good vantage point all that and then all of a sudden you know you start to feel you start to see people coming up the masses are coming up because 18 so elevate you can see them coming up from the lower points on the course from up near 10 up near the spot between the 18th fairway. There's kind of like a dead zone in there and then 9 and 18, all that area.

You see people just start coming up. You're like, oh, man, and it all sort of starts to fill in around the 18th green. You're like, man, this place was not, this place was kind of like sparse like five minutes ago, and now it's just jam-packed, shoulder-to-shoulder, like 30 deep, what's going on here. And then he comes turning around that corner down to the 18th Fairway. in all black and legitimately everyone around the 18th green just gasped. There he is. Everybody starts whispering.

There he is. It hits a great shot in 18 that just landed and hung up on the fringe. It could have trickled down to inside, you know, 12 feet or so. Hangs up on the fringe. He comes rolling up, gets a standing ovation, you know, takes the hat off, all that. I'm kind of like, I'm like crying. I'm like, oh, my God. Your cheeks are soaked in tears at this point.

barely misses his birdie bid taps in for a par for a an opening 73 one over interesting round from tiger very interesting uh you know you went back to back bogies twice he pared all the par fives um his driver looked okay i thought it looked look it on the front weird because on the front you know he first of all yanks his three word on the first all shocking that it's just the most tiger move of all time he always always always, always goes left on the first T-shot of a turner. He did it, especially on that hole. He goes into those left trees all the time. He did it. Had to hit this crazy low hook up to the front of the green. Did it. Great lag putt.

Then bombs a drive, like 350 or 360 on two. Crushed it. With an iron in hand, and you're thinking, like, here we go. He pared one, and he's got an iron in hand. His driver looks good. Wipes one out into the bunker. Makes kind of a disappointing five. Then Rips Driver again on three, which is a bold play.

Makes a great birdie. He hits a great iron on four that comes up a foot short, ends up making bogey, sloppy bogey on five, six. Hits one tight and misses a putt, 70. Should have had that putt on six. That would have been nice on six. Seven, kind of a standard two-putt par. Eight, again, he hits a good drive, doesn't make birdie. So you're starting to think, what the hell.

Then things get out of hand on 11. Yeah. Blast won way right. What, he hit a fucking spectre? on his second shot? It was kind of tough to see on we were streaming it where... We're like yelling at the master's coverage.

We were. Joe Lekava and Tiger were repeatedly yelling at the patrons to get back, get back, get back, get back. And apparently they didn't get back enough because he still... It would sound like he struck one of the patrons. The ball didn't roll nearly as far as it was going to. So that kind of started a little bit of a downhill for Tiger.

Makes a bogey on 11, then rinses one on 12, and you're thinking, oh my gosh. You're going to, like, miss the cut? What's going on here? And then hits a terrible shot from the drop zone. They're like, holy shit, this is actually going to, the wheels are going to come off. And then he somehow makes his bogey putt, which if he doesn't make that bogey putt, I don't know what the rest of the round looks like.

Still, then he doesn't birdie 13. You're thinking, like, what is wrong with this guy with his power and all that? He's not birdying into the par fives. He lives on the par fives. They're rattling off stats, Trent. I can't remember he's like, he was like 30. He's like 26 over something career on the par three's. He's like, you know, 15 over career on the par four.

is at Augustus he's like 150 under bar in the par five supposed to be eating those things up pared all four of them today but he did birdie 14 he birded 16 and then par par par to get in at what felt like a great 73 yeah it's one of those days where it's it's a grind people's all people are going to say grind or gritty performance but a lot of grind comments today so many that was a big tiger golf guide tweet today it was if you were tweeting about tigers round today you were like, he grinded today. What a grind. Ultimate Grindr Tiger. But it really was because that round could easily be 76, 77, and we're talking a very, very different outlook on the tournament. Now, I think he's only a handful of shots off the leader, so he's still in it.

It's an impressive 73 if it can be one. So let's go through this leaderboard a little bit. This is going to change slightly when this podcast comes out from what we're seeing right now. It's about almost 7 p.m. on Thursday evening. we got Jordan Speeth is 4 under through 14 holes. Tied for the lead with Tony Fina, who's obviously in the clubhouse. Another guy on the course. We got Rory and Coacher are 3 under.

They're still on the course. Fills 2 under. These are all inside the top 10 right now. Patrick Reed with a 3 under day. He draws the ball a lot, so that makes sense that Patrick Reed. People have been saying forever that Patrick Reed should be able to play well in the major championships in general, but especially at Augusta. Yeah.

see Patrick Reed up there. Charlie Hoffman, Thursday, Charlie, Charlie. No way. Thursday at the Masters, Charlie, he's there at 3 under. He had it even deeper. I think he was 4-5 under at 1 point. He was 4 at 1 point. Yeah, 4 under at 1 point. We had him on the podcast, President's Cup. We, awesome dude, they call him the Seagull, because he just flies over and shits on everyone, they said.

He's a cool dude. He's a cool dude. He's a cool dude. He's a cool dude. Really good dude. Love Charlie Hoffman, but he always does play really well on Thursday and, like, Friday of the Masters. Henrick Stenson 3-under. That's a great name. He was the solo leader there for a little bit early in the day, I think, at four under. A lot of people are kind of sneaky picking him, especially with how good he looked at Bay Hill. He didn't win there, but I wouldn't say he collapsed there as much as Rory. Just went kind of off.

No, Rory straight away took that tournament. Off the reservation there with all these crazy birdies. He was chipping in and all that. Cool story with Finaw with the ankle, and he's up there. I'm looking right now. Ricky's anything under part of it. I mean, the course was playing tough. They had a lot of tricky pins today, which I was, when they posted the pin sheet.

I was like, oh my, that back right pin on one to kind of kick things off. To kick your masters off with that, it's like, okay, guys, interesting. You're going to do that to us. The front right pin on three was like a foot onto the green. Even Tiger, who he blasted his driver up there left, damn near green high, and he had like an awkward, crazy little pitch towards that pin. So it was just, it was they had the pin on four was kind of like middle back, which that hole is just impossible.

as is. They had the back right pin on 18, which I saw up front and personal, which was great. So it was a tough day out there. It's been a tough day out there. It's always fun when nobody goes crazy love. Yeah. I mean, even outside of the like keeping, we want Tiger to stay in it, but it's just nice when it's a hard course, it's a hard tournament. There's a lot of big names up there, but they're still struggling a little bit. That's exactly where you want to be when you kick off the Masters. Quick little reminder. This podcast brought to you by our friends. at Supreme Golf. You go to SupremeGoff.com or you go to the app application, get the Supreme

Golf app. You're just not smart if you're using anything other than Supreme Golf because they have all the best tee times. They have the most by far. They have everyone else that you've ever used. They have those plus thousands, thousands, thousands of others. So go to Supreme Golf. I'm looking.

Speed just got it to five under. He was, I think he was three under through four or something like that. So he's, obviously he plays really well at Augusta. He loves that. Quick reminder out there that I have a. bet with a good friend that Jordan Speath wins more majors than Justin Thomas this year. We have a fun little bet for a member guest that we're playing in August. So I'm very a happy person if Jordan Speeth prevails this week.

It is funny how people were shitting on Speeat for the beginning of this year. He was missing cuts. His putters, terrible. People are, they love the narrative of like, oh, Spieth can't play if he can't putt. He's just kind of a miracle putter, blah, blah. The Masters, the guy knows how to play Augusta National. Yeah. And he's going to be fine.

He shot a 66 Sunday round of the Houston. He's going to round into shape, and he might win this thing by five strokes. Yeah, he looks good. I would have loved to have seen him up in person out there, but again, it's tough. We just didn't have enough time on the course. I'm so, God-dam, damn, excited, and just sit out and watch the Masters Friday through Sunday. Just soak in all the coverage, just be in the comfort of the office or my own home, have all the tools, all of the coverage, all the stuff.

streaming readily available and just soak all this in. It's going to be fantastic. It's, you know, even before you work, we work at a barstool, it's my favorite weekend of the year. It's probably your buddy's favorite weekend of the year because you just get to sit at your house. You can nap, you can drink, you can eat, you can just sit there all damn day. You can listen to Jim Nance. You can hear the piano music. And it's the best weekend of the year.

And I'm excited. We got all this stuff with the great Mr. Gary player. We spent a couple days of them, but now we get to fly back to New York and be in the comfort of our own home's covering, you know, the greatest tournament of the year. Shout out to Freddie Couples, 58 years old. He is even par 72 he shot today. He's tied for 21st. Freddie Couples every year, it seems like he plays well at Augusta.

Every fucking year this guy. It's awesome. How about Tom Watson winning the par three contest? Oh, my kind of kid that we didn't talk about that. What an insane thing to happen. He's 68. He gets, you know, he gets group. He gets put in now with player, Nicholas, and that group of the three of them,

and just goes ahead and wins the whole. goddamn thing right in their faces. That is so cool that you can be 68 years old and win the par three contest at the masters with the best players in the world. Obviously not all of them play the part three contest. Tiger plays practice round all that type of stuff. But he won the part three contest at 68. Very very cool stuff. He was in it, of course, in the group with our good friend, our good personal, close friend, Mr. Gary player. Close personal, good, potentially best friend, Mr. Gary player. Dustin Johnson, who I've been, everybody's been very curious about it.

He's even par through 14 holes, it looks like, right now. Justin Rose, who was kind of my big pick this week, also even par through 14 holes. He was two over on the front, shot of 38, so it looks like he's kind of getting the ship, getting the ship going, pointing the ship in the right direction. Is that the right? Is that what I was looking for?

I don't think so, but it's fine. What's the ship one? I can't think of the ship. Writing the ship. Writing the ship. There it is. He has written the ship. Nope, I can't be right.

No. He's in the process of riding the ship. Yes. He has been riding the ship. I'm trying to say the past tense of riding. He's rotted the ship. He rotted the ship. He righted the ship.

Jordan Speed is currently leading at 5 under par. Where's my good friend Thomas Peters? He's only one over. He was another big pick of mine for a couple different reasons. One, that he finished T4 last year. but another one was that he played a practice round with a combined eight green jackets. Did we ever get the story behind that?

Why did Thomas Peters get it in the group with Freddie couples, Phil Mickelson, and Tiger Woods? I don't know. I really think... Is Phil kind of taking him under his wing? I noticed that when we were out there, Phil would tell him kind of what to do on the greens and he'd stand behind him and, you know,

this is the way this goes. There's got to be something there. Well, it's kind of the beauty of the cross-generational thing in Augusta. They always talk about how if you're one of these young guys, playing in the masters for one of your first times, you should always seek out to play practice rounds with the veterans that have won there because all the little nuances of the course of the greens,

all the tricks of the trade out there are so unbelievably important. And so it's very, very smart and heady for someone like Thomas Peters to seek out a Phil or a tiger and say, I really want to play a practice round with you. Not even just for the fact that you're playing with a legend, but I mean to get that knowledge and all of that, I think like Ben Crenshaw was always a big guy that the younger guys sought out to play the course and get knowledge from and that type of thing. They would always talk about Tiger would play with Nicholas and he was young and all that.

I'm certainly not denying that it's a good idea, but it's just a group of legends and Thomas Peters, but I do like Thomas Peters. Hadeki Matsuyama, who if you remember, I went through a short period last year when he was my favorite player in the world. You had a big time crush on him. Love Hadeki. Love him. He's won over. So, I mean, the leaderboard, Daniel Burger, Duffner, just won over. All those guys are still, again, right in the middle of the tournament.

I mentioned her to DJ's even par through 14. He's playing the, oh, he's back-to-back birdies he's got on 13 and 14, and he's playing the par 515th right now. So, I mean, look, we had all this. Our boy, Kiz is even par. Love to see Kiz up there. Hell yeah. He posted 72.

So good stuff from Kiz. I saw him play the 10th hole today. Look sharp. Look good. Way to go, Kiz. I mean, so a lot of these different names, Louis Ooste. who, of course, lost in that playoff to Bubba. I think that was 2012.

He's at one under par. So the leaderboard that we've been hoping for, you know, we've been praying for. Again, Roy's at 3 under all these guys. These guys are still playing good golf. Absolutely. It's Thursday. It's just the first day. They're feeling out the course.

It's playing firm and fast and difficult. Speed is at 5. There's one person, Tony Fee now at 4. And then a good 6. 6 guys, it looks like. at three. So no one's running away with it yet. It's early.

A lot of guys still on the mix. It's Masters Week. A lot of good things going on, Trent, Denning. Yeah, and we just got done hanging out with Gary Player for a few days. Really, everything is on the up and up. Everything is coming up, it's coming up, roses. We are going to be back on this podcast, Sunday evening. We're going to record as soon as the Masters is over, as soon as it concludes.

We're going to record a podcast, get it up. So that Sunday night, when you're hungry for that reaction, what's everybody saying? that people think of what I'm thinking, do they notice this? Did they notice that? We're going to give it to you. We're going to feed it right to you Sunday night. It'll be up Sunday night,

and then you can listen to it Monday morning even for your commute, whatever. You can listen to it Monday morning or you can listen to it five years from now if you want to. It's true. A podcast, they just go up and then they're just up. They're just eternal. It's just kind of how podcasts work. But listen to it Sunday night or Monday morning. That's when we want you to listen to it.

Enjoy the weekend of the masses. Check out all of our, we're going to be covering everything on barstoolsports. dot com at four play pot on all the social media channels good stuff this week better stuff this weekend that's all i got hit it hard