Fore Play - Memorial Tournament Week 2017 w/ Ollie Horovitz

Episode Date: May 30, 2017

On today's episode of Fore Play we interview Ollie Horovitz, author of "An American Caddie in St. Andrews." Ollie shares many of his hilarious stories and lets us in on his experiences golfing in some of the most unique places in the world. The boys talk Tiger Woods, The upcoming Memorial Tournament, and some great From the Gallery action.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. It is Memorial Day. We are back in the office. After a long weekend, we've got the Memorial Week coming up, an event that has been won by Tiger Woods five times. I think we're going to talk about him a little bit today. He's going to come up on this very podcast, believe it or not. Trent, how does it feel to be back in the office?

It feels good. I feel like my voice is a little, I got a little hangover voice. I can't drink three days in a row anymore. That's what I've really learned about myself now. Yeah, I would say in the last year or two, I've really come to learn that about myself. I mean, I'd do it, but I can't do it. I think I already knew, and I already knew I couldn't drink two days in a row. So three days is crazy.

I go out once every weekend, and then I go home and I don't do anything else. It's amazing how horrific I feel like at the beginning of drinking the second day. But it goes away so quickly that you're like, oh, I should do this. every time. Beer, maybe a beer and a half in and you're like, you're back. Yeah, I went to Chicago this weekend for a wedding of a buddy of mine who I've known for a long time. It was fun. I hadn't been to Chicago in a while, but you get there Friday, they kind of have their rehearsal dinner thing.

I wasn't in the actual wedding, but everybody's there. It's kind of reunion with my high school buddies, so that was fun. Wedding Saturday, you drink all day long. This reception that I went to, it ended at 1 a.m. Does that feel late to you? Yes. It's like most receptions end at like 11. Yeah, so the reception or the ceremony itself was at like,

1 o'clock in the afternoon, and then the reception didn't start till 6 or 7, and we just drank the whole day until, you know, the reception ended at 1, and then we went out after that, too. Yeah, that seems aggressive. It was aggressive. And I mean, once you turn 25, the hangovers are so bad, I don't even know why I drink at all anymore. So I was down in Avalon. Yeah. In South Jersey Shore. With Smitty.

With our boy Smitty. It was kind of, you know, it was like a peak under the hood of like the Smitty. Smitty life, his whole life pre, like all of us being in the office and what he would do all the time. So it was his show. I was following Smitty. We had a great time. You said before you left, you were worried that you were going to get down there and it was going to be just the land of all Smitties, a bunch of blockhead hardos. Yeah, I wasn't sure if it was going to be like 2,000 blockhead, just total hardos.

That's exactly what it was. Basically, exactly what you would possibly expect. We had a great time. We went to Atlantic City first. Okay. We'd gambled. we got, we had some good, some good luck. Did you really?

Yeah. Okay. Both won a little bit of money, so we were feeling good, and then we checked out in the morning to head down to Avalon, and Smitty tried to pull the like, well, let's just, let's sit down for one shoe at the blackjack table. I was like, nope, nope. And we didn't. We left up, so we were all pumped about that. Went down, you know, we drank the whole time, and we played a little round of mini golf as well. Smith, he has talked nonstop about Pirate Island and how good he is.

He just tells a story endlessly about how he held the record for a long time when he was a kid. He shot of 34. I called his bullshit bet him a bunch of money. He beat me by five or six strokes. Yeah. You can't go to his home course and expect to win. Mini golf, I just always over, I always underestimate how important home course advantage. Yeah, because he's probably played that 500 times.

And we made a deal where he had to go first in every hole. Okay. Despite honors and all that. but it didn't matter. When you know the course, you know it. It helps big time. Smitty roasted me. It sucked.

He had a couple of his buddies with him too, and like they weren't very good gobbers or anything, and they roasted me as well. I was just getting fucking toasted left and right. That's what happens when you go down to Avalon with Smitty, I guess. So it was tricky, but it was a fun weekend. It was very nice to be back. Oh, another thing when I went to that wedding,

I dressed up, and I dress up probably two days a year. Getting dressed up, it's underrated for guys who dress like Slobbs 360 days of the year. I was going to say it's really nice when you never do it because you look at yourself and you're like, whoa, I've never, I never look like this. Yeah, and you feel like, oh, you're like, you almost got a little pre-buzz before you even start boozing. You're like, I look good today. I'm going to get classy drunk. Yeah, also, Smitty's dad's a big-time golfer. So we were talking a lot of golf.

We jumped into the backyard. He had a couple chip shots. You know what I hit my chip shots with my bomb tech wedges? Fantastic. Even he was like, wow, these things are actually really nice. They're really clean. They really perform. Bomb tech, we got to tell you about this direct.

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Okay. A big story broke today. The biggest story in a long time. Yep, maybe the biggest story, which sucks and it's sad and it stinks, but maybe the biggest story in golf since we started the podcast. I would say, yes, just because of how much Tiger moves the needle. We've had Tiger News, and we've had news, but the Tiger News recently, it's just kind of like, oh, is he coming back?

Oh, is he hurt? When is he coming back? This and that. This DUI situation is a whole different, completely different thing by itself. Yeah, and I was thinking about it too, because even with the scandal and all that, like, yes, he had to come out and apologize to, like, the kids who he didn't uphold the role model thing to and all of that. But it was never like, it was always he could still be like,

please respect mine and my family's private. This is like, that's illegal. Yeah. You got arrested, dude. Yeah. Everything he can't get a deep. Everything he'd done up to this point was legal. This one was illegal and the situation surrounding it is sketchy.

Like anything else that happens to Tiger, we don't know if we're going to get all the details or not. No, and this one, it's like they're, okay. First, I don't... Where do we even start with this? So he gets pulled over like a, or three a.m. ish. He's driving southbound, which was away from both his house and his restaurant. Okay. Gets apparently the video, so you folks out there listening right now might already be seeing the dash cam video.

Yeah, we're recording this Monday night, and the word on the street is that the dash cam video is coming out on Tuesday and that it could be some wild stuff. Yes. And so then he gets booked, I believe, at 718, and then he finally gets released on his own, whatever. They keep using that big word. Recognizance. Recognizance at 10.50 a.m. It breaks pretty much within 15 or 20 minutes after that. The internet starts going cray cray. I mean, the obvious thing is how in the literal fuck are you Tiger Woods and you have to resort to, on the Sunday night slash money, morning of Memorial Day weekend. Yeah. Driving yourself home, shit-faced or drug-faced or whatever he's on. It doesn't even make sense.

No, see, I disagree with that. I've been seen that a lot. But we're talking about, we're not talking about me and you. We're talking about Tiger was a guy with who once had an ego the size of Jupiter, who, like, thinks he can get away with just about anything. But it's been proven that he can't. But when we talked about this before we came on air, Tiger doesn't live in the world where he can do something wrong and he doesn't think he's going to get caught.

He doesn't live in that same headspace as anyone else. He can do this because he thinks he's above the law, 1,000%. So, I mean, get... No, I know. I have a private driver. He's definitely... I get that he doesn't want to use Uber, but even Uber black car or whatever, like, nobody's going to know.

You just get into it and, like, you go home. I think you're focusing on the wrong part. It's not about an Uber. It could be the nicest Bentley in the world. It could be what the president drives around in. He wants to get in his car and he wants to go wherever the fuck he's going. Then even if you're... you're going to do that. You have to know that you've got the setup and the clout in town

that no one would ever arrest you ever under any circumstances. Which that's another thing. This is kind of a... How do you fuck that? How does this team fuck that up? Like, you got to be making donations, helping these people out. You're always with the fucking whatever you're doing. Preach and palms. Yes. You're not getting in trouble driving your fucking Mercedes. I will say... That's one of the more shocking parts of the story is that he got arrested. I to me something like this can happen and it's probably happened before or it has happened to famous people all the time where we just never hear about it The fact that Tiger Woods got arrested in Jupiter Florida is crazy Yeah and you would think the you know the cops got to be who wouldn't recognize Tiger Woods

Okay they definitely recognize it's like and do Tiger was a favor like just let me golf wherever I want forever Anything like hey Tiger you're your train wreck right now like I'm gonna drive you home or something you're fine you know anything other than what happened I would be The deal that I would make with him is that I'd make him play like five rounds of golf with me. Yeah, me too. Because I love Tiger very much. Me too. I don't. I just can't fathom how I got to this point.

Then, this evening, he releases the statement. Do you want to read some of the statement, Trent? Yeah, I've got it pulled up here. Okay. It starts out pretty boilerplate. I understand the severity of what I did, and I take full responsibility from actions, blah, blah, blah. But the second paragraph is where things get interesting. Tiger says, I want the public to know that alcohol was not involved.

What happened was an unexpected reaction to prescribe. prescribed medications. I didn't realize the mix of medications had affected me so strongly. I would like to apologize with all my heart, blah, blah, blah, all that bullshit. But not, no alcohol involved part is something that I do not believe with all of my heart. And is it, it's right, too, that he refused the breathalizer? He refused the breathalizer on the scene, and now he is claiming that the DUI was caused by a severe mix of pain medications.

Dude, your picture's already out there. The story's already out there. Everyone's already judged you. All you can do now is you just. You just own up to it. And then you, Trent said this before. You go on the redemption story tour and you dominate and everyone loves a good redemption story. You don't try to fucking lie again.

Or there's spin zone or whatever the hell is doing. There's no way that's true. Nobody believes that. Nobody. I love that. You're an idiot. The redemption story is different with Tiger because people say, oh, haven't we been looking at the redemption since the scandal and since his male or many failed comebacks? No, a DUI is different.

People have a lot of sympathy for a situation like this. Yeah. Where it's, okay, this is his bottom, and that's what everybody's saying. He's finally reached the bottom. Now, if he just says, I fucked up, I drank too much, I got behind the wheel, and I got it, I'm going to take my punishment, my public ridicule, and let's turn this fucker around. His picture, once that picture hit the internet, it was, it puts such a, like, stamp on how real and, like, it just makes it infinity worse. Yeah, as soon as you see that picture, and it's a bad picture. It's a horrible.

He looks like the biggest train wreck, like deadbeat person in the world. I've written it in many blogs when he gets hurt after, you know, trying to make a comeback where it's like, all right, this is as low as it gets. I have never been this low with Tiger, blah, blah, blah. But there's never a picture. There's, yeah, oh, my back hurts and all this and that. But the DUI picture, this is the actual bottom. Yeah, and they were talking. I was a head golf channel on in the background.

And somebody was on there making a really good point that the picture, I mean, even if you. go on Google images right now and you look up Tiger Woods now the first picture that comes up is that and it's like in terms of your legacy in terms of remembrance in terms of what people are going to go to it's like

until he starts when it majors again which who knows if that's really going to happen I hope it does. Yeah. This is going to be front and center I mean that that picture just makes it such a preposterous picture. He looks horrific in that picture. And you and I have had the argument on this very

podcast is the way that he has played and not been able to play after he was so dominant. Has that affecting his legacy? You could make an argument either way, but now you have to always talk about the DUI moment. Like that's another part of the story now. Yep. It's running. It's putting him through the ringer again, and he's going to get hit again tomorrow, Tuesday, after we're done recording this with the video comes out.

And whatever he said in the dash cam video or his attitude towards everybody, whatever it was, all of that stuff is he's going to get put through the ringer fucking again. And again and again and again. You want to talk about Sunday slash Monday Scaries. If you, the listener, thought you had them last night. Tiger Woods right now has to be feeling miserable, especially if he doesn't know what's on the tape. At like 1230 today, maybe two hours after this broke, an hour after this broke, I was sitting in my apartment a little bit hung over because we did a little bit of drinking yesterday. And I was like, man, I feel kind of like miserable and shitty.

Imagine the place that he was in throughout the whole day today of being hung over his balls. He didn't even sleep because he was in jail. Yeah. You know your shit's all over the internet. You got arrested. Your team, you've been trying to rebuild this whole TGR thing. He just said last week that I have never felt this good. I want to play professional golf again.

Things are trending in the right direction. And then three days later, his mugshot is plastered over every wall of the internet. It's fun to make jokes. And we do it for a living. We try to. We have a lot of fun. The whole thing is sad. Oh, yeah.

I was like very sad. for him. You can, I keep bringing this up, but in the previous instances where he would try to make comebacks, you can be on the side where like, oh, he's failed, I don't care about him, I don't care about him anymore, or you can be like us where we're like, I want him to do well. This one, it's all just sad. It's sad. It's just a mountain wave of sadness.

I was a sad person thinking about it. I was sad rigs being like poor tiger, sad tiger, illegal in jail, got arrested for DUI Tiger, sad rigs. It's just, it's just, my stupid head, though, is what I said earlier where this just makes the comeback even more special. Oh, yeah. That's the bottom line. Just another piece.

Yeah, the overall theme here is that the further he drops, the higher his climb back up is, and the cooler and sweeter it's going to be. Yeah. He's still going to win the Masters next year. I mean, duh. I hope so, but I'm looking at that picture right now. That is a man. I don't know what his deal is.

I don't recognize that guy in that picture. Do you think it's like a, that was just like a, a one-off, like, could have happened to anybody, or do you think this is like, oh, there's more going on? Well, that's been the big discussion, too, throughout the media. Is it, yeah, do we have to start discussing him as, like, an alcoholic, or was he the type of deal where he had a couple too many drinks at a Jupiter restaurant, and he just wanted to get his car home?

I... Allegedly he just had a bad, bodily reaction to a fucking drug. That pisses me off, because I've been defendant Tiger for so long, and I know he's an asshole. I know he's an asshole. I know he's not going to be ever as good as he was. But for him to like spit in my face with a pain medication lie when it's clear that he was just drunk behind the wheel, is, I take that personally. I agree.

I think it's very, it's offensive. If I had to guess and I have no knowledge or information behind this, I would hope that this is just a one-off deal with Tiger. I love it. He's still going to win the Masters or go buy his shirt. Make Sunday's great again. You're wearing that shirt right now. I'm wearing it right now. It's an excellent shirt.

It's a statement. I mean, you're sticking to your guy. I like that. He's my guy. You know, I feel, again, I don't feel, I feel sad for him. I'm mostly sad. Anyways. Do you think he'll call a press conference and face it publicly?

Please, God, no. The last one was bad. I think he's got to just hold off until he does, until he returns to golf and then that press conference. Because that's kind of what he did after the scandal. I mean, yeah, he came out and did the, like, apology thing. Yeah. That was one of the weirdest 15 minutes of television. That was like mom was in attendance.

I've ever seen in my entire life. That was so, and like ESPN, like, oh, that was awful. But then he kind of, then he didn't really do anything until Masters again. And then he had that big interview right before the math, the presser right before the Masters. And he had Billy Payne kind of shit on him and all that. Is there a chance that he just up and retires? No. Okay.

I had that thought earlier. Well, only because he, there's no way, he would not have released the statement last week where he said, like, unequivocally, I'm going, I want to. return to golf if he was even close things things done change since then though that could be a DUI would make him go from like I can physically play in win majors again to um I'm done the only thing I was 41 the only thing I would say to that is maybe the things that he was saying in a statement is like he's trying to convince himself and then you just go down one more peg and you're like I don't want to do this shit anymore I'm hoping it was just the whole thing is just as simple as maybe the kids were with elin for a couple days in the holiday weekend he went down got a little cranked was

like, fuck it, I'm not doing Uber. I'm Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods does an Uber. You got a little unlucky. Poor judgment slash unlucky. We're going to... That dash cam video is going to say a lot. Yeah, that's...

I'm very nervous about that. I can't imagine what Eldrick thinks about it. Anyways, is that all the Tiger we needed to say? I think so. I mean, we're, again, this happened just earlier today. We presented all the information we have currently. He just came out with the prescription thing where he said alcohol is not involved. Yeah, I think...

I mean, that's all we got so far on this. Oh, actually, there is one more thing. The foreplay reverse curse that we talked about last week where we shit on Tiger. Well, basically what we decided was the people we shit on end up doing well. So we want to do that with Tiger. We did that with him. It went well for like three days because he came out with the statement that we talked about before. He's like, I've never felt this so good in years and blah, blah, blah.

And then he gets a DUI. So what do you think about that? Yeah, it's still unclear if the Tiger Woods reverse curse is working or not. I will say that today was probably a big hit. But this could just be like stage two. Stage one is him saying he's back and we're like, all right, it's working. Stage two could be his downfall and we're just working it towards going back up. Yeah, like the reverse curse is kind of a long con.

It's a long con. Okay. See, I don't hate that. There's also the theory that like bad boy tiger's back. Yeah, I understand that theory. And that like, oh, we're still on course with the reverse curse. Tiger's on his way back up because he's on his way back down to be in like the bad boy. golf he had all kinds of tumultuous shit going on in his life that we didn't know about when he

was playing yeah you know 2000 whatever six 2007 2008 he was going all those winning streaks he was banging all kinds of people he was a little bit of a bad boy yeah and then he became he got in trouble he became publicly a goody two shoes and all that so maybe he's on the bad boy life again maybe all i know is 2006 tiger does not get arrested in jupiter florida even if he gets pulled over in the same situation you know what i mean Yeah, it's true. It might not be the same thing. Look, I said it's probably a hit to the reverse curse theory, but it's unconfirmed.

Hey, what? I mean, Long Con. We'll see where it goes from here. Long Con. This was just, this was like we took, you know, you take a couple steps back, or a couple steps forward, maybe one step back. We're going to take a bunch more forward. There we go. I like it.

All right. On to the Dean and DeLuca down at Colonial. We're going to start by saying that if you're spending your entire Sunday of the long weekend, inside watching the Dean and DeLuca. It's probably not great for you. I would be curious to see the TV ratings for the Dean and DeLuca compared to all the other weekends. Can't be fantastic.

Nobody's really sitting inside watching golf during this time. Especially up in the Northeast, we had beautiful weather on Sunday. It was fantastic. It was beautiful in Chicago as well. Oh, that's nice. Beautiful weather. You got a nice three-day weekend.

Oh, that's good stuff. But I did watch the highlights, so shout out to me for that. Kevin Kisner, who is a stud. He's had some tough losses. He's 0 and 4 in playoffs, but he was able to, he made like a five-footer on the 72nd hole to win out right. We had a couple big names charged up. There was close to being a lot more drama.

Kisner doesn't make that. I think it would have been a four-way playoff. Right, with, I mean, Romm, Spief, and, what is it? Sean O'Hare. Yeah, and it looked like, so it looked like John Ra, who, that guy. I mean, he's on every fucking. We talk about him every week He's up there every week

We talk about him every single week He's young in hell He's a big body As we saw the Masters When we were there And he has a short little swing And he fucking pipes the golf ball Which is

Which must be really nice To be able to do that I'm already nervous about him In Rider Cups Like that's whenever I see John Rom I get nervous about him Yeah I mean I don't blame you He's just that he's gonna be a stalwart

That sucks Sorry I know I wish you were in a seven I know. No, that's, when I see John Rum and he's always on TV because he's one of the hotter players in the world right now, that's all I see. I just see him just like fist pumping in my face during Ryder Cup. He's very gutsy, too. He had on 17, he was, so he's a couple strokes down. On 17, he had some tree trouble and hit this gigantic slice to like five or six feet made it and then gave himself a chance for Bird on the 72nd hole and barely missed that.

So, I mean, he's gutsy. He's proved it down the stretch with that. Eagle at Farmers, the Farmers Insurance when he won there. So he's a gutsy master that's going to suck playing against him in the Ryder Cup, but I wish Trent would have never said that. That's my bad. Your boy, Zach Johnson, had a little bit of a meltdown. Yeah, he, uh, there was no video, which I was frustrated with. Yeah, we just saw the picture that some, uh, some gallery person took.

Anything that happens like this in the world should be on video now. Everybody's got cell phones. But what, he, he just threw a bunch of clubs everywhere? So the photos showed basically he had like, he was on the green. and his bag was kind of down by the bunker, the green side bunker, and his clubs were all over the place. He issued, like, he sent a tweet out being like, you know, I'm better than that, or that was a regrettable moment. But then he also kind of Tiger Woods spin zoned it and was like, well, I was just kind of pulling my putter out of my bag and it wouldn't come out and all the other clubs came out with it.

Well, hey, I mean, I'm not here to side with the guy from my own hometown, but I'm going to do it. That's happened to me all the time. You try and pull one club out. The rest go, they spray everywhere. It can happen to anybody. I will say after you've hit a shitty shot and you're going through the bag struggle of when you can't get one out, I actually get more fresher when I can't get the club in. That sucks.

When it's like, it's clearly like way above the cart. It's like, yes. You just hit a dog shit shot. You're sticking way out like a asshole. You can't get it in. You're like, motherfucker. So I guess what gives E.J. A little bit of love there.

Yeah, he's lucky that they didn't get a video of it because he can make up whatever story he wants. There's no dash cam footage of that. Yeah. That's fair. I can't believe there's not a video. How'd that guy? Who just takes a picture? Yeah.

That's the real question. Like who's like, oh, this moment's awesome. I'm going to take a still photo like it's the 1700s. Yeah, and then if you got the video, maybe you see the cat, is the catty cleaning up all the clubs? Does he make ZJ do it himself? Yeah. Like, hey, asshole, it was you that threw the clubs? You pick up the clubs?

It's basically a Billy Horshiel situation from a couple weeks ago. We saw him throw the club and we're like, oh, Billy Horshaw is an asshole. If we had seen it on ZJ, now we still don't know. Now we're like, oh, ZJ just had a little trying to pull his putter out in trouble. Yeah. That's all we know. Happens is everybody. Yeah, it does.

All right. Up next, we got an interview with a very interesting cat, Oliver Horvitz, who was, so he's been a caddy at St. Andrews for 11 years. He's traveled the world with a bunch of stuff related to golf. Fascinating interview with him. Trent Daddy was delayed. Yep, I had some travel trouble on my way back from Memorial Day weekend, so my pal Rigsie took the reins by himself. So, yeah, I went one-on-one with Ali. It's very interesting.

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All right, we are now joined by Ali Horowitz, who is, he's got your very interesting cat. I want to do a little quick intro for everybody. Caddy at San Andrews, Old Course of San Andrews, for 11 years. has now wrote a hilarious book called an American caddy in San Andrews. You've also written for Sports Illustrated Golf Digest, Golf World, Architectural Digest, Golf Week, just to name a few. You've got a lot of other interesting life experiences all kind of related to golf from, you know, sand golf in Saudi Arabia.

I believe you said you hit a golf ball from the base of Mount Everest. So we're going to get into all of that. First of all, what's going on, man? It's good to be here, man. Thank you very much for having me on. Yeah, absolutely. So let's, obviously, you want to get into the St. Andrews stuff first, but you know, you're an American guy.

You obviously wrote the book, literally called an American caddy in St. Andrews. You're from New England originally. Talk about kind of how you started to get into golf as a kid. Sure, yeah, from Gloucester Mass originally, about an hour north of Boston. And I started caddying when I was, I think, 12 years old. And I started playing golf when I was nine, so I loved it. But it was golf every summer in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Learned to play golf hitting a Nerf ball in the middle of Gloucester High School field at a summer camp program.

And, you know, I was so small I couldn't play it out of the sport. So golf was my thing. So you're just going to be the golf guy. I'm going to whack this old Nerf ball around. That's right. Yeah, I couldn't get, like, beat up or hurt playing golf by other people. So that was my thing. So how then, as, you know, a young kid in Gloucester, Mass, with the roots there,

Do you end up in St. Andrews, of all places? Sure. So my mom's English, and her uncle, my great uncle, Ken Hayward, lived in St. Andrews for 50 years. So we always knew Uncle Ken is this hilarious old eccentric guy with a lot of sweaters and a lot of Tweed jackets. And he was town counselor in St. Andrews for like the 60s and 70s. He was a local politician there. Wow. So you've always had kind of a pretty strong little connection to St.

That's right, yeah. So we started going over there probably when I was like 12 or 13. And then it really took a turn when I was 17 because I was on the wait list to get into Harvard for college. And I got in, but I got in on a deferred admission. So I had to take a gap year before I could start. And I did that gap year at University of St. Andrews. And I played in the golf team there. I had the best year ever. And then at the end of that year, I decided to stick around and start caddying that summer.

on the old course, and that's when the whole kind of adventure started. I cannot even, I cannot explain to you how jealous I am pure every one of our fucking listeners is that you did just a full year at San Andrews. I'll tell you one thing. Our coach had no, sorry, our golf team had no coach. We had no adult supervision. We met once a week at a pub called the gin house, and we had 25 kids with the two handicapped or better on the golf team.

Jesus. How do you even get that many, where do they come from? It's something about Scotland. It's in the drinking water. Every kid starts playing golf when they're like three years old in Scotland. It's like, you know, it's like basketball or baseball or football over here. Everyone plays. And everyone was like English or Irish or Scottish in the golf.

We had a match once my freshman year gets this American college. I think it was Clark University. And on the first tier, our club captain, who is this sort of party animal from Northern England, he shows up on the first tee sleepless, hungover, and still in a team. tuxedo from the night before. Jesus. And he hit his opening drive, 270 down the middle and won his match

seven and six. God, that is awesome. Yeah, I was like, you're a lot cooler that I'm ever going to be. Yeah, no shit. So I've heard, I had a buddy that was over there and did one year of college golf as well, and he basically made it sound like you guys

would go and whenever you play, you go play another school or whatever, that you'd be like matches in the morning, lunch, and people would drink and then go back out? You get into coat and tie, and then you do a lunch and you sit at the table with your playing partners. And it's a little boozy, and then you go play again. And we had one of those matches against some Scott.

I think it was Sterling University, and I knew the kid I was playing against, was a three handicap. But I didn't know where he played on the first. I was like, so where are you with three? And he was like, oh, Karnoosti, which is like the hardest golf course in Scotland. I was like, oh, my God, I'm screwed. And he killed me. Yeah, well, let me ask you this, too, because there's it the rumor that,

You know, a three over there would be like a plus one or two handicapped here? No, that's right. You know, the main thing is when you get over there, you realize the wind is such a factor over there. Like we had a round that I caddied it in 2011. It was, it's going to sound like I'm making this up, but this is totally true. It was 70 miles an hour on the new course that day at St. Andrews, gusting in parts of Fife to 100. Jesus.

Now, over here, that's a hurricane. In St. Andrews, there was no cancellations, no. no refunds. We were like Sherpas going up Mount Everest. Oh, how do you? I mean, what are you just, you're just guessing at that point? I went into a downward, you know, depression cycle for those four hours, and I was in a very dark place for four hours.

I don't think I spoke to my golfer the entire time. So, all right, so many of our listeners, myself included, you know, we've never been to Skala, and we've never golfed over there. We hoped to someday. Sure. When you roll up as kind of a typical, you know, American amateur golfer, what's the first experience going to be like for somebody like us? Well, the first time you get to the old course, it's a very crazy scene because there's a lot of movement.

There's a lot of activity. The first T-shot is down the widest fairway in golf. It's 129 yards from end to end. It's really the first and the 18th fairway. So it's really, it's almost impossible to miss, even though Ian Baker-Finch did that exact thing in 1990. I think he duck-hooked his opening drive and it went out of pounds. Oh, man, that's tough, yes. So he went, what, OB left on 18, like the other side of 18?

That's right. It went through the – he claims a gust of wind came up, but I don't know. That's a serious gust of win. But, you know, it's – I wouldn't say it's scary, but it's certainly intimidating because you got caddies watching you. You've got the starter who used to be a really hilarious guy named JJ was the starter for like 20 years. And everyone's watching you, and you've got four caddies in your group and four golfers,

so it's at least eight people in your group. And you just got to take a deep breath and hit. We have a saying on the old course you've got to keep it left the whole time because left is always good. Right is where all the bunkers are. We say left is right and right is shite. That's the thing. I like that.

So, I mean, how true is it because you just constantly hear that you cannot keep your ball on the ground enough. That's the best thing in the world that you can do over there. How true is it? Like if I'm going over there and I'm hitting, you know, trying to sky up. nine iron in there. Is everyone there just going to laugh at me? Oh, my, it took me a month to figure out really how,

because, you know, when I was playing the golf team, it really took about a month to figure out how to play golf over there. I mean, it's a sand-based fairway. So if you take too much of a divot, it's not going to be like over here. It's going to just chunk. And so I would say 50% of the guys on the first fairway will chunk it for their second shot. It's harder over there.

The bunkers are deep. The wind is blowing. the ball isn't spin into the greens. So, you know, for guys who are there for a week, I always try to get everyone to play the old course not first, but like in the middle of your trip or maybe even at the end. Because it takes at least a couple rounds to get used to it. Yeah, when you're going to finally take your stroll around the old course,

you want to be playing your best over there. That's right. But, you know, I got to say that the main thing out playing the old course is you just want someone who's having fun. the most fun kind of rounds are when the guy is just beaming the whole way around, and he'll say something like, you know, I never thought it'd make it St. Andrews. But I've had 70-year-old guys who've just started crying on like the second hole because they literally never thought they'd make the trip.

And I've got to say that's part of the job that we love is caddies is you basically are caddying for men and women that, for a lot of them are having the best five hours of their lives. Like maybe the birth of their son, maybe their daughter's wedding, whatever, but like for a lot of them, these five hours, it's like it gets no better. Oh, that's awesome. So how do you, how many, how many rounds do you think you've caddied out there? Oh, my God. A combination of caddied and played.

It's a good question. It's definitely in the high hundreds. It might be 700, 800, 800. I don't, you know, I've cadded there for 11 years now. I think I missed five days of golf the whole year. I was at St. Andrews as a student. And in the shack, that's nothing. Because they're guys that have cadded there since they're 13 years old.

and now they're 60, 65. And the thing that really I love about the shack and the caddies is that the expertise of these guys is mind-blowing. Like, inside those four walls of the caddy shack, for me, that's the mecca of golf. Because people like Jimmy Reed, who know the green's better than any other guy, people like Dave Sharp, people like Stevie Jones,

who just caddied for Barack Obama when Obama played here three days ago, It said, Andrews, these guys, for me, it gets no cooler than that. Those are my heroes in the shack. I can't even imagine what that circle is like. The stories that got to be bouncing around in there just have to be unbelievable. And you know, what's cool is that we get, you know, we get everyone coming over to play. Like, you know, it's just titans of industry, presidents, leaders. And, you know, for all of these guys out there, it's not like you're, I caddy for Huey Lewis every year in the Dunhill.

He's a six handicapped, but he's like a tournament six. So he's really, really good. And so we've, you know, we've had like Bill Marry's in our group a couple years ago. Is Bill Murray out there as Bill Murray as he seems all the time? It's five hours of the Bill Murray show. Yeah, because at the AT&T, he's the same. He's just, it's exactly the same here. And the cool thing is when you're catting for these guys, you're not just, you know,

you're not just meeting them. You're doing battle with them. It's like when we have this guy, Bruce Sorley, and he's caddick for Tiger. He caddied for Tiger and the British amateur when Tiger was over there. He didn't just meet Tiger. He was part of Tiger's team. Like Tiger was relying on him for every single put-reed, yardage, win judgment. And that's the coolest thing because they're just, you know, it's another golfer for us.

It's another guy we're steering around. Yeah, and it's crazy. I mean, you mentioned, too, that you've been in the same, you've caddied. I think this is right, in the same group with Rory, too, right? Oh, yeah, 2011. So what's Rory like out there? He's the nicest guy ever. He was so cool.

He learned every single person's first name on the first T, and he remembered all of our names after. So he literally said, like, thanks a lot, Ollie, the 18th Green. That's awesome. He did not have to learn by name. That's really, really cool. Yeah, that goes a lot like to. The other thing I remember from it is his iron shots,

the sound of his irons. I've never heard that sound before or since. Yeah, I was going to ask you, his swing is majestic in person as it is on TV. It's unbelievable. The third hole, he holds out his shot from 135 yards in the middle of the fairway. And you're like, I turned to Hugh and I was like, okay, we're having a weird afternoon right now. So you've, you know, let's say seven, 800 rounds, you've been out there.

How much different is your understanding of the old course now than it was when you first got out there? It's a lot different. But I mean, you learn basically a lot of patterns. You see patterns develop that you're just not going to see if you play at once. So things like – I'd say the biggest thing I've learned from all the rounds out there is you've got to be long on the old course on your approach shots, with very few exceptions. If you're between clubs, you hit the longer club.

Maybe not on 17 on the road hole, not on 11, the part 3, but on almost every single approach that you want to be long. If you're short, you are basically putting up a huge hill for your third shot. And that's so counterintuitive to any American golf. I mean, almost 99% of the holes we play. If you go long, you're dead. That's right. And so you start seeing all these weird things.

And you start really getting to know the greens. I mean, I know them pretty well now, but again, it's nothing like a lot of the guys who've been there forever. And the more you catty and the more you hang out with these guys in the shack, the more you want to learn. So you start, you know, you start studying your yardage books whenever you can. And, you know, for me, it's just these guys are my heroes. And they're, you know, I love to think of them as my friends. I hope they consider me their friend. And each summer I go across for, you know, another season of cadding, it becomes more and more important to me.

It's really St. Andrews has played a really big part of my life, and it's always going to be a part of my life for sure. So the place has, you know, it's got roots and being 500 plus years old. it stood the test of time and still host, you know, a major championship every five years, that's done hell every year. Bobby Jones has basically said, you know, you can take away every other experience in my life and just add St. Andrews. That's right. Well, he actually had a little tough time at the old course his first ever visit because 1921,

he's playing his first ever open at St. Andrews, and he shoots a 46 on the front. He doubled 10. And then 11, he went in what's called Hill Bunker, H-I-L, and apparently what happened next is he took three swings, couldn't get his ball out of the bunker. And he walked off the course, didn't he walked off the golf course. It's a true start. So they now call it Bobby Jones Bunker.

Oh, that's, yeah, if you got a bunker named after you there, I guess you're Bobby Jones. It's great, but it's, that's right. It could be bad. We've got, we've got Hellbunker as well on the 14th, and Jack went in there in 95, Nicholas. And he made it 10, and apparently he was getting grilled by the media after,

and someone, a reporter asked him like, how the hell do you make a 10? He said, I missed a punt for a 9. Right? So you've got these guys that go over there, and they, you know, at first, they don't love it. They don't love it as much as they do now. And then by the time they get to the end of their career, I mean, Nicholas, you know, he played his last professional round there. These guys rave about just how magical and amazing it is. Like, what is it about that place that just it turns everybody?

And by the end of the career, they're like, that's the greatest place on earth. That's a great point. It grows on you every single time. I've got to be honest to you, it's the most fun golf course I've ever played. There's at least three drivable par fours. You hit on 17 over a shed. You have a green on 5 and 13, a shared green, which is 96 yards from front to back. It's almost an acre. Like what other golf course has those things?

It's like a circus. It's unlike any other golf course you'll play. another thing that people were really shocked to hear, there's only four single greens on the entire golf course. So 1, 9, 17, and 18 are your only singles, and everything else is a shared double green. So two is with 16, three is with 15 on each green. The two double pins add up to 18.

Jesus. Yeah, that's the dorky piece of info you now now. Oh, I like it. That's why we got you here. You've got people hitting at you on every single hole. You're going to hear the shout of four. every single hole is just about. It's like Target golf sometimes.

Every year we have a caddy or two that are hit. It's just going to happen. I've gotten hit, I think, twice so far. We had a caddy named Alistair Taylor who got hit in the head about five years ago. This is one of my favorite guys, skinny guy. And he gets hit in the head. He's about 65 years old. He goes down.

Another caddy runs up to him. And his name is Duggy, and he goes, Alster, Alster, are you okay? And Alster's like laid out on the ground. It looks up at Dugan and he goes, just make sure I get paid. Then he goes back down. We thought that was classic catty behavior. That's okay.

I can see you guys are hardened over there. You can, you're just, you want that paycheck. You're good to go. You know, so I was saying before Obama played the course three days ago, and a couple of my buddies were in the group,

including Steve Jones who catty for him. And they said he's just the coolest guy ever. They said he was like having such a great time. Oh, I bet he's soaking up life right now. He's living the dream. He's loving it. Yep, he was smiling the entire way around.

So I missed that round, unfortunately, because I'm still in New York right now. But a couple years ago, I was catting on the course of English guys, and suddenly I get a text message that Bill Clinton's just teed off. And I'm like, oh, my God. So on six, we see him on 12 because the two holes share. And I turned to my guys, and I was like, guys, I got to go say how to my president. I'm sorry, I'll be right back. And I run over to him.

And as I'm running, I'm like, okay, what do I call him? What do I call him? Do I call him Mr. President? Which, in hindsight, yes, that's what you call him. And I'm like, oh, no, no, I can't call him that. So I'm like, do I call Mr. Clinton? I get over there and I yell, Bill, which was so embarrassing. And he looks over and he's like, hey, man, what are you doing here? I'm like, oh, can I get a photo with you? Apparently as I was running over, one of the caddies told me his secret service guys see me running.

And they look at each other like, oh, what's happening? You must say, yeah I mean, you're running like in a malicious way? Well, I was just running quickly. I was very excited. Naturally. So I'm going to ask you this. What is the, what's the town of St. Andrews like?

Because for me, I feel like if I had to pick one place in the world, basically, to go, like, check out a pub for the night by myself. It would be San Andreas. You've got a lot of choices because we have 31 pubs. We have more per capita than anywhere else in the entire United States. It's not very big. It's not for basically three. main streets. We've got 31 pubs. And it's serious over there. You'll get asked by other people

very seriously. Where do you do your drinking? It's a real question. It's like it's like an allegiance to where you go to take. But it's, it's, you know, it's such a cool place. Everyone plays golf there. You'll see a little old lady walking down the street and she's a member of the ladies putting club. So she plays on the Himalayas every Wednesday in the most competitive game in town. The average age is like 89. All your Taxi drivers are like three handicaps. Jesus. It's a town where people know what your handicap is.

They know if you have a good short game. It's weirdly the currency by which you win respect in the town is your golf. I don't think I've ever met people in a different part of the world where it's like that. I don't think I've ever been in a town where everyone's as obsessed with a game that I love. So it's really, and it's also really cool because it's a university town. So the university is a humongous part of the town of St. Andrews. And Prince William was there. He was a junior when I was a freshman.

So when I was there, female applications to the university, I'd like skyrocketed. That makes sense. Well, let's get into what's the toughest ever caddy round you've had? Ooh, okay. There's one that comes to mind because most of my golfers are great. And again, most people are just really. happy there. I'd say to Anders and playing the course. But I had one guy who right off the bat I knew I was in for the toughest round of my life because he's right off the bat. Riggs questioning

everything lines off T's, putt reads. And on the second green, I remember we had a 12-foot putt, and I call it inside left. I think it can move a little bit left to right. He pulls the hell out of the putt and it finishes a foot and a half left. And he spins around, he goes, that move left, that move left. This old Scottish cat, he comes up behind us and goes, that punt hasn't moved left in 600 years. I was like, yes, I've got a big brother in the shack. Yeah, and you're like, it's going to be one of those days with this guy. That's right.

So, they will, caddies will come to your aid if it's required. That's good to know. You guys are all, you've got each other's back out there. We definitely do. And, you know, and the great thing about the course is you're seeing your friends on every single green, because they're shared green, and you're seeing them on every fair way. So as you go around the course, you're seeing the whole shack. within the four hours of your round.

For me, probably the two most fun rounds every summer, as the first round I get back, you're seeing all your friends on that first round, and everyone's like, oh, my God, you know, you're back. What's up? What the hell are you doing here? And so you're seeing all your friends, and then the last round of every summer before I go back to America,

it's like a farewell, and you get to say by to your friends. And it's pretty cool every year to sort of see a lot of the same faces there and to see meet the new people. And, you know, it's like, it's going to be year 12 coming up. And it's, you know, it's a big number for me. But again, in the shack, that's nothing. So I got to ask you, you pretty boldly tried to start a little caddy program, I believe, called

Caddy models. Oh, yeah, model caddy. Yeah, that's, yeah, I was hoping you weren't going to burn that out. Oh, well, we can cut it if you don't want to talk about it. That's, that's in the book. That was a summer of 2005. and there was a model caddy program that was just been starting the university, and I was their secret trainer.

But you got to read the book to find out what goes down to that. That little teaser. That's smart. All right. So let's get into some of your kind of your global golf experiences. Sure. You just recently came back from Australia. That's right.

I was in South Australia writing a Condé Nass travel article about, But golf in the Australian Outback. And so I heard about this course called Nullabor Links. And it takes a while to play because it's 850 miles long. That's preposterous. Every hole is in a different town. So it takes five days to play. You're basically driving 100 miles between holes.

And so I went out there with my buddy Miles, and we played this course. And the most important thing besides using yellow golf balls, so you can see where your ball is, you've got to watch out for snakes because they're called death adders. And they're in just about most of the bushes. And before you go even looking for your ball, you've got to make loud sounds. Because if you get bit by one of these, you are probably not making to the next hole. Jeez. So, I mean, that is pretty treacherous.

Snakes. I don't know. It was really fun. I shot 112. So probably the worst round I've probably had in 20 years. but it, you know, it's hard because you're playing in dirt, you're playing in red sand. I probably lost 15 golf balls, which didn't help. And it's awesome because you're driving this really cool iconic highway.

It's kind of like Route 66 for Australia. And you're playing with hippie Australian house painters who are playing shirtless and like with suspenders and sandals. We played with one guy who was on a 1450 season. see Harley Davidson night train, and he had welded a pipe on the front of his motorcycle to hold three of his golf clubs. I was like, this is Jack Nicholas meets Easy Rider. Yeah, what a savage that guy is.

And we're playing with all these people, and the common thread rigs is they just love golf. And they're here doing this crazy, crazy adventure, A, because it's fun and B, because they love golf. And, you know, one of the things I discovered there, which I loved, because, you know, in Scotland, and golf is not an elitist sport. Golf is very of the people in Scotland. And one of the things you discover in Australia is there's a tradition. It's called scrapes courses, scrapes courses.

And they are sand golf courses that cost about five bucks to play. There's hundreds of them all over Australia, and they have sand greens with oil on them, so they're black greens. And they're, again, all over Australia, and you play in flip-flops, and it's just there's a beer waiting for you at the end of the round, and people have grown up playing on these scrapes courses. So, you know, I'd never heard of that over here. No, I've never heard of that either.

Right? So it was a really cool experience. It was a great introduction to those scrapes courses. And the only scary part of the whole experience was the second night of driving, I hit a wombat with our car. So that was not fun. Probably not fun for the wombat either. We're just lucky he didn't go into the windshield.

and end our trip right there. Yeah, it sounds like you encountered plenty of wildlife down there. People basically tell you don't drive at night because the kangaroos come out at night. And again, some of these courses, they have hundreds of kangaroos on them. And we were like, yeah, ha, right, okay, we'll be fine. And they're like, no, seriously, don't drive at night. You know, like, that is the stupidest thing you could possibly do. And we had to drive at night for the first three nights.

And again, that wombat really showed us that's probably not a good thing to do. I mean, Australia, Australia is, it's, It's the wild outback out there. That's right. It was great, though. And before we did that, we went cage diving with great white sharks, which was probably the scariest thing I've ever done in my life. God.

I mean, that's a hell of a trip. It was good. So now let's compare this to you also went sand golfing in Saudi Arabia. Is that right? Yeah. So I did a book talk in Utilia, Saudi Arabia, and discovered there's a golf course there. and it's a lot of the workers for Saudi Aramco on the base, and it is 114 degrees at 9 in the morning.

So you've got to play pretty early if you want to get your round in. And these guys are obsessed with golf. And I asked one of them, like, so how often you play out here? It's a guy, you know, not too bad, like eight times a week. Dead seriously. In Saudi Arabia? That's right. And again, they don't call them greens.

They call them browns because, again, it's a mixture of sand. oil on the green. And I got to be honest with you, it rolls pretty good. The oil really, you get a little check into the green when you hit it good with your irons. That is stunning. So it was cool. You know, what, like 7,000 miles away from America and people are playing golf and they all know San Andrews and they all are like hanging on every word about St. Andrews. And that was a moment where I was where I really realized like, yes, this is all over the globe. People know St. Andrews and it's important thing for people. That was I was going to say, too, is just golf.

It's, you know, it really is global and it really translates. I would have never guessed you'd be in Saudi Arabia and find a golf course, not to mention a whole crew of guys or whoever that are playing golf all the time. That's right. And it was the same thing last year. So last year I went to Nepal to climb Everest Base Camp. And I ended up writing a piece for Links Magazine about golf in Nepal, because when I was setting up the trip, we realized, oh, my God, there's six golf courses

in Nepal. It's Himalayan golf. So we played at Royal Nepal Golf Club Rigs, which is right about 11 seconds outside of the international terminal of the airport. You're literally on the first T as soon as you leave the airport. And there's hundreds of monkeys on Royal Nepal. They steal your golf ball if it's too shiny. So all of the members play with old golf balls so that the monkeys won't steal them.

Now, if the monkeys suddenly run away, that's really bad. because that means a leopard is coming. That's golf in Nepal. So over there, played a role in Nepal, went and played a course called Himalayan Golf Club, which has the scariest hole I've ever played in my life. It's called the Abyss. It's the 16th hole.

It's a par three over a thousand foot drop. So if you shank your shot, you have a thousand foot second shot up the hill. It was terrifying. I mean, a thousand feet. I feel like it's one of those, it sounds like one of those fake courses in like the Tiger Woods video game.

That's right. It was like, exactly. It was the fantasy course in Golden T-Golf. Right. And there's water buffalo literally eating the grass. And they're the original, you know, they're the original groundskeepers on the course. So you're playing next to water buffalo.

Hawks are flying over you. There's a hole called Leopards Lair, which is definitely for real leopards. And it's, you know, It's a really different kind of golf. You know, I've seen a lot with St. Andrews, but this was even even crazier. So you've also hit a ball from the base camp of Mount Everest. I've got to ask you, how far do you think you hit it?

Yeah, I was hearing from everybody, oh, my God, you're going to hit it so far. I could barely get the tea in the ground. I was so tired by the time I got up there. I was having trouble breathing because it's 17,600 feet. And it was really low, and it went into a crevasse. and I was going to go try to get it because I didn't want a litter on, you know, on base camp. And my Sherpa guide, Gelson said to me,

if you go into that crevasse, you die. So I was like, okay, I guess I'm not going to go in the crevasse. I guess I'm going to leave my ball over there. So I got to be out. I hit it like 111 yards. Oh, that's so disappointing. Come on, man. It was very disappointing.

The thing was, as I was teeing up, I looked to my right, and everyone who's about to go up to the top of Everest is in their tents, like getting ready. and my one thought was please don't slice this and hurt somebody. Like this is not good if you do that. Your karma is going to be really messed up. So I was more focused on not hurting somebody.

That's fair. I mean, I can respect that. It would have been nicer if you would have hit it farther, but I can respect that. So I want to ask you, I think we're about ready to wrap up here, but I want to ask what the highest score you've ever seen posted on the road hole? Oh, my God. there have been some high ones the road hole

is uh I got one story to tell you about the road hole do you know about the jigger pub the jigger pub or the jigger in is the official name it's a pub right on the 17th fairway okay and there's a game that uh you can play and the locals will play at the university kids sometimes play it's called the jigger challenge

and so here's how it goes you stop in the jigger um after hitting your second shot into the green You quickly stop if you have time, and you help yourself to a certain number of pints. Now, the number is up to you, but you then have to play 18 in fewer strokes than the number of pints you had. So if you had six pints, you've got to make a five on 18 to win the Jigger Challenge. Wow. It's a very tough game to win. I have never won it.

Yeah. I mean, how many people will win it? It's been done. The St. Andrews University kids are definitely up for a challenge like that, and it's been attempted quite frequently. And so that's led to some very high scores on 18, because it brings you to a dark swirling place very, very quickly. Do those kids, I mean, they're going to school there?

Are they just playing San Andrews all the time? Here's the thing, Regs. If you're a student at University of St. Andrews, you get unlimited play on all seven golf courses, including the old course, for the whole year for the equivalent of $160. That is ridiculous. It's the best deal in golf.

And so kids are, you know, they're playing golf every single day. Your classes are with hilarious old Scottish professors with like impenetrable accents. And then after your class, you're going to play the old course. So it's not too late for people to apply as grad students. Why would anybody go anywhere else? That's what I'm saying. Yeah, our producer, Sunshine's like he's filling out his application. Yeah, I'm going back right now.

I will try to write you a recommendation. I don't know if that will help you, but I will attest. I appreciate that. All right, All right. Well, that's it from us, man. We really appreciate you sitting down. You got a really interesting story. a lot of us are pretty jealous of what you do.

Thanks so much, man. When you come over to St. Andrew's next, I'll carry for you. I'm going to start booking my trip right now. Done. All right, man. Take care. Thank you. That interview with Alley Horowitz was brought to you by our friends at Wilson's staff and their Triton driver.

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You got to like that, Trent. I love it. It's always nice. Movable weights. Get that ball flight you're looking for. And adjustable hazel features six position settings for ultimate control off the tee. The sweet spot on this thing is off the charts. The one-to-one alignment aid on the driver's crown was designed to make hitting it in the center,

intuitive and consistent. And now for the first time ever, you can get your driver customized via Wilson's website, Driver versus Driver.com. With the plethora of upcharge custom shafts, grip options, and lofts, you'll soon be replacing your old driver with Triton. Visit Driver versus Driver.com to find how you can take Triton for a test drive. All right, that was a great little chat with Allie. Everybody makes sure to check out his book, an American caddy at St. Andrews.

It's supposed to be It's very funny But it's also got really interesting stories And it's just It's everything that you would probably write If you went and worked at St. Andrews For 11 years coming up on 12 years Yep

For Allie now which much be nice Also a little shout out To our friends at Wilson as well They sent me the Wilson staff FG Tour V-6 irons Woo girl This I am very excited about those

I have needed new irons for a long time So shout out to our guys For those, there may be some of the sexiest things I've ever seen. Yep. You know, along that with the Triton driver, you're rocking. We're on to everybody's favorite segment from the gallery. Yep. I'm going to take this first one because it's about golf courses and dogs.

Right up your alley, Trent. And anybody who follows me on Twitter knows I'm a big dog guy. So if you have dogs, send them my way. If you have dogs on golf courses, definitely send them my way. Trent likes good boys. I like good boys. I like good girls. I like good pups.

True. It's good times. Nice. And I just get to look at dogs all day. It's pretty good thing. It's really... It's really interesting system here. It's pretty good.

So somebody writes in, don't have their name, which is fine. Golf courses that allow dogs. Do we know any courses that allow dogs on the course with you? And thoughts on courses that allowed dogs. I got to tell you, I don't think I've ever been to a golf course with a dog or seen a dog on a golf course. That's not to say that I have never been to a course that allows dogs or doesn't allow dogs. I've just never seen it. It's a great idea, though.

I've actually never, I've seen dogs running around on a course. Usually with like an old man that lives nearby who's like taking strolls on the course and stuff like that. Yeah. I have also, I've brought a dog to a course before and just not told anybody. That seems like the thing to do. And just played around it off with my pup. Here's my next question for you. So around New York, I've seen people walking around with their dogs, not on a leash.

And the dog just follows them around, which I think is the coolest thing in the world. when you take your dog out there what's the what's the go-to plan because if you just if it needs a leash it's just going to run wild well she at the time it depends it depends fully on their training level yeah what was your dog at not she's very young at the time

so no but she got to the point where later I took her and she was good enough to like not go chasing the balls around which is that's the hardest part is that they see a ball get hit and they just run after his as they can't

and like around the greens and stuff. So one of the moves that I made was to essentially keep her on a leash, but then just tie the leash around like the edge of the cart every time you would like go to the green or something like that. Yeah, okay. That makes sense. So like let her kind of run alongside the cart with the leash and stuff when you're driving around. Or if you're walking and then like when you're on the green so she doesn't fuck with everybody while they're playing. Yeah.

Tie her up. I don't think I hate the idea of the ball of the dog going after the balls if you like lose a ball. and then they find it for you. If you can train them that way, obviously you don't want them going after every ball because it'd be like too much. But if you can find the ball that you lose, I think that's worth it.

Well, there's a theory that you could put, like, you could dip your balls in, like, a little bit of a scent. I always dip my balls in a scent. Always. Dip your golf balls in a little bit of a scent, and then your dog chases only your ball, and then instead of, like, just going and grabbing it and ruining and everything,

you can teach it like a bird hunting dog where they just point. Is that a thing, or did you just make that sense? thing up. Do people do that? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, shit. Yeah. I like that a lot. So the dog thing, this is not the first time of the dog thing. However, I've very rarely seen it. I'm surprised that you haven't seen it more because you're from a rural, you know, area. I cannot tell you one time that I saw a dog out on a golf course. I feel like city courses, you're never going to see this shit, but way out in the boonies, like people probably, like, you can go golfing with all kinds of fucking animals. I'm all for it. Anytime you can put a dog into a

situation that it wasn't in before, I'm all for it. So if people want to start bringing more dogs and more golf courses, I could not be more in. And golf, if you're just combining golf and puppies, dogs, I mean, it's a win-win. I really love the idea of going out there and the dog follows you not on a leash. Because when I see that happen around New York, I'm like, that's fucking awesome. Well, it's a, like a power dog owner, like, I'm the fucking man because my dog knows exactly what to do without me having to say anything, put it on a leash or anything. Yeah, but it's also the dog, too, the dog's like, I'm cool enough.

I don't have to be like, you don't have to tell me. You don't have to drag me, literally drag me around the city. I can just hang around. I know what I'm going. Yeah, I'm not getting leased around like you are. Yeah, look at you. Yeah, exactly. It's like a power move to the other dogs.

All right. I like that. Next one. This guy says, so it's basically about mid-round rain beers. So he's on a vacation playing part three course with his old man, torrential downpore traps him in the middle of the course without a car. which has happened to me a couple times actually you're kind of just fucked out there

said instead of playing just sat in her tree finished a 12 pack with my dad was this actually better than playing the round yes I think so too because it's your dad because it's your dad because sitting and drinking beers you're outside it's I yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah in the middle of somewhere when there's no one else around and it's raining all around you and you're just drinking beers is incredible. On top of that, like, if it was just with one of your buddies, like, maybe, like, you'd rather just be golfing because, like, you see your buddies all the time, whatever. With your dad, like, everybody gets to, like, just drink with their dad all the time.

No. Especially us. We live in New York. Yeah. Our parents don't live around here. They sure don't. I mean, if I can just crush a 12-pack with my dad with who knows going on around me and nobody else bothering us, that's way better than playing the round of golf. Oh, 100%.

Did you play a lot of golf with your dad growing up? A little bit, yeah. But he doesn't play a lot of golf. much anymore because he can't he like hates being bad at things oh and he doesn't play golf that much so when he does play he's not very good yeah just like he's like i don't i hate being bad at stuff it sucks so like maybe once maybe once once to twice a year i play golf my dad that's okay yeah my dad still plays all the time he's like he's i mean he's a pretty good golfer now because he plays so much so he just goes out there they go to arizona for the winter months and he plays like every

single day. So whenever I go back now, I'm going to play with him. That sounds lovely. It does sound lovely. So that's from the gallery. Remember, if you got any submissions, email us for Play at Barshal'sports.com. Send me golf dogs. Send golf dogs to us and more specifically to Trent. He loves them. He will retweet him. We'll put him on Instagram, golf dogs. We had a couple good ones this week of some pups reading greens. There was one, yeah, of a dog like reading. Yeah, it's when I, Mutz reading Puts. Oh, yeah. I was really happy with that. That's a good one.

Came right out of my brain and onto the internet. That might catch on. You never know. I hope it does because, again, that's just more dog pictures. You just never know. This week, we've got the Memorial at Mirfield Village, Jack's Place. This is, I like watching this track. Again, this is one of those tournaments that has always been on everybody's radar.

Well, obviously, it's Jack, Jack, Nicholas, those types of tournaments with Jack, Arnie, Byron Nelson, where you've got these legends. People are going to turn out, and they always do. Tiger would always play here. I mean, he wasn't in jail or have a fucked up back. So it's one of those tourneys that's always on your radar. You circled on the calendar. It means a lot.

I love this course. Yeah. It's a sick course. I think it's the 16th that's kind of modeled after the 12th at Augusta. So I'm looking forward to it. I think we got Rory pulled out, however. Was he just already out or did he pull out? I think I saw that he pulled out.

Okay. So is he just going to come back for the U.S. Open? That's what it's looking like. He's been dealing with this rib back injury for a long time now. That's a little sad. It is sad, but I'm guessing he's just planning a U.S. I think he even said he's just shooting for the U.S. Open. Do you think Tiger's going to be a storyline?

Like, are they going to touch it on it during the coverage? Of the U.S. Open? No, no, no. Of the Memorial. Of the Memorial. Yeah. Like, I don't know if it'll be... Part of me thinks they'll go complete, like, blinders on.

You think so? Yeah. I was a little surprised at how much they were covering it on the golf channel today just because, I mean, you think that, like, they don't want to, they don't want to piss them off. And, like, I guess you have to. Yeah, I know we talked about Tiger, so we don't have to keep talking about it. But he just, a story like that transcends the whole thing. So they have to.

They have, if they're the golf channel, they're not talking about it, then people will be like, what the fuck. It has to. But anyway, we've got, I mean, all the big guys will be there, DJ, ROM, who's just on Fuego and can't miss. Prepare for us to talk about ROM next week because he's going to be in the top five again. He's just always up there, which is awesome, except when we get to play the rider cup against him, because that's going to suck. Smith, had a great week. He's there. We've got, I believe I was looking, I mean, DJ, I think he, I saw that his last two starts, sawgrass and over at the four seasons.

He finished, those were his first times finishing consecutively outside of the top 10 in like a year. Yeah, it always happens with good golf runs. you don't realize how good the run is until you're out of it. And DJ, he's just on a great run. Expecting a lot of them this week. Of course. He's Dege. So it'll be fun.

I'm going to, uh, I really like watching the Sunday of the Memorial, like when Jack's around checking things out, stalking over the 18th green. Yeah. Where we've watched Tiger make a couple of putts over the years. Uh, you got any picks or anything? Um, no, I was going to say Ron, but I was going to say something about Nicholas. How nervous do you think that makes the guys out there? Like, he's got to know what kind of, like, aura he puts around.

I always felt like at Bay Hill, like, it maybe did, just because, because Artie was so, he's just the fucking man. Yeah. And, like, Jack's Jack, Jack, took it me wrong, but I don't know. I don't know if that really affects him. What do you think? I think it affects them in a big way. You think so? Mm-hmm.

What? I'm a little surprised by that. Maybe not, like, a huge way. But they definitely know Jack's around, and especially when he's, like, out on the course. They got to be like, all right. Yeah, definitely. carries a lot on with Gus though to the tournament too you're gonna you can win jack's turn yes I totally completely agree so I think I think it's in the back of guys minds which is

exciting this is a big one this is uh this again I like this term I love this track uh always have it always produces really good golf it's uh it's hard as fuck they always have the greens running lightning which is great so I saw some pictures of murfield that people are tweeting out it looks impeccable it's like ready to rock yes good I like this track it's always a fun week like I said so anyways enjoy the memorial um Stay out of trouble, Tiger. Stay out of trouble, Tiger and everybody else. I hope everyone enjoyed the video that we haven't seen yet as you're listening to this.

Yeah. Yeah. People are probably breaking it down like this is a Pruder film. Yeah. It's just going crazy, I bet. Yeah, I'm jealous. I mean, we'll see it eventually. Yeah, we will have seen it when you're listening to this.

But right now, in this moment, we have not seen it. You probably have. Yeah, we're like in some time warp, continue them in your brains right now. Whoa. Stuff. Hit it hard. Hit it hard.