Fore Play - The Best Fore Play of 2018

Episode Date: December 26, 2018

It was a big year for the Fore Play crew. Interviews with Tiger Woods on spinal fusion surgery; Bryson DeChambeau on the Frankie Butter Knives; Greg Norman on President Clinton falling at his house; Colin Montgomerie drinking whiskey and talking his near misses; David Feherty on golf's fans; Notah Begay on talking to Tiger before his Tour Championship final round; Keegan Bradley on breaking out of his slump; Kevin Kisner being Kevin Kisner; Stewart Cink on taking down 59-year-old Tom Watson at the British Open. And more. It's all in here -- enjoy the final show of 2018!!!  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's me, it's Riggs. I want to give a quick thank you to everybody to all the patrons out there. All the listeners you guys have doubled in size this year and come out in droves, and it's been awesome. It's allowed us to do everything that we want to do and that we've been able to do and that we plan to do next year. So you guys are awesome. Thank you for all the support.

Thank you for downloading and listening and sending in emails and tweets and Instagrams and saying high at golf tournaments and everything. You guys rock. You are the best. This is a best of. This is, first of all, happy holidays. This is a best of podcast. We comprise this of all of our best interviews.

This has Pat and Kazair, Mikey Ballo. If you remember, Ballo told the story about how we got pranked by Keegan, a bunch of the other guys. Stuart Sink told an awesome story about hiding in a bathroom. Kip Henley, who's, the caddy for Austin Cook played with Tiger this year. We did have Keegan Bradley on like 24 hours after he won, notably gay, one of Tiger's

good friends. He told an awesome story about how we saw Tiger in the morning that he won this year. We had Tiger Woods on, no big deal, Bryson D. Chambo, when he buries Frankie, Kevin Kisner, we love Kiz, David Farity we had on, Kyle Montgomery, Greg Norman. So all of those, we sort of comprised

a bunch of the best stories and parts of those interviews into one podcast, a couple hour podcast to get you through. And then we also have a little bit of a teaser on January 2nd, 2019, Wednesday. We're going to be dropping our first show of 2019. And we have on that maybe the biggest bang that we've had for a full podcast guest yet. I think people are honestly going to be stunned that we got this person. They're going to be stunned at this podcast. This is one that they've been waiting for that a lot of people thought we would maybe never get. And it's a lot of

it's phenomenal. So January 2nd, Wednesday, that's right after January 1st, that's right after New Year's. It's right when you come back from this big long break. You are going to have a new foreplay and it is going to be a full podcast with maybe, again, the biggest sort of kind of earthquake of a guest that I think we could drop at this point after we've already done the Tiger thing. We already did the Bryson thing and all that we talked about him. I think it's probably the biggest guest after those guys that we could have had. And it's the biggest guest that we could have had. And it's the biggest guest that we've had for a full-length podcast. I think people are going to love it. So a little teaser there. Before we jump into all of these interviews, we have to talk about

Peter Millar. Look, I've said it many times before I probably owned, I don't know, 10 Peter Malar quartersips and two or three Peter Malar belts before we even started working with them, before they even began working with us and sponsoring Foreplay. That's how good Peter Malar is. Every pro shop I've gone into. It's the first thing I've looked for, their Perth pullover. It's the one that they say they've got hung in the rafters at Peter Moore headquarters because it's so good. I'm wearing one literally right now. The one thing I didn't know was their pants. Their EB-66 performance five-pocket pant, the five-pocket EB-66 pant.

I sent like two or three pairs of these to my brother a month ago. He wears them to work. He wears them on the golf course. He demanded from Santa Claus that he gets more pair for Christmas this year. He loves them that much. So I cannot recommend the Peter Malar stuff enough, everything, all the stuff that we've got. I sent me a bunch of stuff when I went to the Rider Cup. All these different pullovers, these different sweaters, their pants, all their stuff is legitimately just the best.

So do yourself a favor. Get yourself a favor. Do your golf game of favor. Do yourself a favor. You can wear this stuff at work. You can wear it out. You can wear it on the course. My favorite thing in the world is fall golf.

Also spring golf when it's a little chilly out. You got to wear a couple layers. Peta Malar is by far the best stuff to rock in that. Go to petamilar.com slash four to get all your stuff while you're there. check out some of my other Peter Malar favorites that we've picked out for you. You're going to see on that link. It's petermalar.com slash four. You get complimentary shipping.

You get a free hat and on that link, again, you're going to see a bunch of my favorites that I picked out. Go to petermalar.com slash four. That's Petermalar, M-L-L-A-R.com.com slash four. Peter-M-M-A-R-A-R. Awesome year. Thank you guys for everything. Enjoy this best of. All right.

We are now joined by a two-time winner on the PGA Tour. Kezair. So I saw a couple limo shots on the Instagram story. Was that always part of the plan? Or are you like, you know, all right, we just, we won some cash, we want a tournament, let's get wild tonight. Yeah, that was a

nice little surprise. I said we have a limo waiting for you. I don't know if that always happens, but you know, that was a nice park. We literally got in the limo and rode maybe 300 yards to

the hotel and they dropped us off. Totally worth it. PJ Tour, that's money well spent right there. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I like that. Tour really bringing it for that 300-yard drive. That's nice. We are back.

We've got a very special guest to my good friend, Mike Ballow. Mikey is the assistant pro at Wingfoot. Bit of a stoolie, right? Oh, yeah, major, big stoolie. Boys with Keegan Bradley played a bunch of pro golf for a while? What, like 10 years? No, five years, five, six seasons. So, major story that I'm remembering.

Caddy times here. So I'm out in Palm Springs, Canford-John's. It's right after Hawaii, right after the bomb scare. Okay. And my college coach, his name's Frank Darby, he does a spot on PGA Tour Radio. And I'm going on there Wednesday nights doing like a course setup thing. Okay.

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

Okay. Came off like you were shitting on the pro amp. Well, I said JV and John and Keegan didn't hear one word after I said after that. There's like, you are a dick. So I'm worried about it. They're making me feel bad about it. Six weeks go by.

I'm at the Honda. Okay. I'm sitting down. It's Monday afternoon. Like we had played, they had a players meeting. And I'm sitting there, and this PGA tour official comes up to me. He goes, you, uh, John Kernshaddy? We go, yeah?

He hands me an envelope. He goes, I don't know what you did some, but it's really bad. Walks away. Keegan, love Mark and Kerners stand there. Like, what is that? I'm going to open it. It's a letter. PGA tour, like, heading on it, the whole deal.

Like, basically saying it was so unacceptable what I said. The sponsors of the events are so upset. You need to, like, make a film, like, make a movie. apology posted on the internet Instagram account like you need to apologize you have to make a video apology video apology and the letter the letter's like legit PGA letterhead and then

the player relations guy's name is Ross Berlin he like he's like the second man in control on the PGA tour his signature is on it like real signature so I'm like holy cow and I'd totally forgotten about this like I didn't even remember

so now I'm going home and I'm taking the show to my car and I'm freaking out. I'm texting John. John, I'm so sorry. Like, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to, like, bring any bad karma. Like, I'm sorry that this is happening.

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

I'm like, it's not working out. And then, of course, Keegan and John the whole time are like, oh, like, send us this. video like we please we'll make sure it's good before you post it so in the meantime i'm like i'm going to email ross berlin and kegan's like no you don't need to do that just just post it so i email ross berlin and uh like a three paragraph apology like i'm so sorry like i've always wanted to play the pj a tour i would never want to offend the tour yada yada yeah right he sends me an email back call me in 10 minutes here's my number so now i'm like that's the fucking answer i get i just poured

my heart out and you're going to say call me. You just wrote him a love letter. So I call him screenplayed. Calls me back like five minutes later. I'm still pissed off. Kegan and John, I sent them the damn videos. Oh, come on, dude. They're like, dude, you look so bad. Like, you need to refilm it. This is not good enough. And so I'm on the phone, Ross Berlin, and he picks up, and he goes, Mike, are you sitting? In my mind, I'm like, are they really going to, about to, like, suspend me for this? And he goes, your boy's got you. I go, what are you talking about? He goes, you know this is all a joke, right? I go, what are you talking about?

He goes, yo, that letter's not real. I just signed it. Your boy, this is all a joke. And I honestly, handed to him six weeks, great work, well done. So, like, even the next day, so I'm walking to the range the next day.

And I'm named job, but, like, so I'm walking past Ricky Fowler. Fowler goes, Bella, what happened yesterday? You get a weird letter from the PGA tour? I'm like, God. I'm like, this is. is awful. So now I'm sitting on like, I have like a five-year plan to get them all back. Yep. But that was, it's the best prank I've ever seen in my life. I mean, they hit you,

they hit you with the long play. You got to hit him with a longer play back. The guy who handed it to me deserves an Academy Award. I mean, he was so serious. Even Keegan and John were like, oh my God, that guy was amazing. Because if he screwed that up, I would have been like, this is bullshit. Dude, you know what sucks is that they have those videos? That's the worst. It's what they say to this day. Keegan's like, I cannot believe that we got videos out of this. Like, like, I would, we were never going to let you post anything. Like, we, we, we thought, we knew we were going to get you, but the fact that we got videos out of this is insane. I love the fact that they're like, yeah, you got to, you should tweak this and refilment.

Oh, guys, you should see these videos. They're so, it's like a mugshot. Like, I'm sitting there, I'm pissed. I'm like, I just, this is an apology. I mean, I'm like yelling at my brother. I was like, get the, like, get in my face in it. I'm like, in my room. Like, it was, and it was really, really funny.

You got a hand, hey, listen to you guys. Sometimes you tip your cat and say well done. Tusha to those guys. Yeah, really well done. All right, we are now joined by 2009 Open Champion, six-time PGA tour champion, Stuart Sink. So now the playoff, going into the playoffs, you kind of touched on it already, but, you know, Tom Watson, almost the whole sports world was kind of focused on. He's 59 years old. A lot of people would think because, you know, clearly just because of a lot of the emotions of it, a lot of the uniqueness of it, it probably felt like everybody was pulling for Tom Watson, and I was going to say, you know, I wonder, did that hurt you at all or whatnot?

But you almost make it sound like I feel like that might have freed you up and helped you a little bit. It helped me because I knew that I didn't think anybody was pulling. To get myself ready for the plan, was to get to the T second. I didn't want to get to the T first. I wanted at least Tom to have to hear some applause for me because I knew he would feel the support. And after he bogied the 72nd hole, I felt like he was a little bit. pretty overwhelming one. I wanted to beat to the T second, and Tom standing there on the T

off the way. And so, so I knew that there was a Porter John off the off the T, about 100 yards in front of, we started on number five, and walked the Tee and heard the applause, and then that was my cue, and I popped out. There it is, a little applause, and they clap for me, and then, you know, so I worked my plan, even though, you know,

probably did my, awfully go in the playoffs, and Tom hit his drive down the middle, and I had a good one, too, and and I had a one-stroke lead after the... Wow, I really, I respect that you were, you know, you were trying to make sure you pulled off anything that you could to get an advantage, make sure that, you know, you felt comfortable, you felt like you're in the right spot to win,

and I mean, Tom's got five, we're going to get one, right? Like, come on. I just want to reiterate, I can't stress this enough, actually. I completely understood what I complete all of what he was doing. That situation was sort of juxtaposed with me. I remember seeing Tom Lee and, who's one of my great friends. My own friends are out there to not watch me

and probably pull for the other guy. Well, I mean, regardless, it's really cool to hear the other side, right? Because we've all heard the Tom Watson's story and a lot of people have focused on all that. But, I mean, you won, you know, winning the Open Championship at Turnberry is one of the coolest things somebody can win in golf, and it was well-deserved. So it's really cool to hear from the other side.

All right, next up, we have a very special guest. buddy, Kip Henley, he is the looper, the caddy for Austin Cook this last weekend at the Northern Trust on Saturday. You guys are matched with Tiger. Talk about that, you know, the excitement leading up to that, how you're feeling going into the Saturday round. So Cookie shoots three under on Saturday, and I know Tiger's just like a couple of groups in front of us. You know, we have one the opposite ways, but we got on the same non-bredgered two rounds. You know, we were both even par, so he was done early or late, and we were done early, so he went out first. He's like two or three groups in front of us.

And we get done, cookie shoots three under, and I don't think, you know, I think, God, that's a good score. We're moving on up, you know, and so it's nice. And then as I was fixing to leave the building, I go, hey, does anybody know what's Tiger shot? Somebody said he shot three under. And I went, oh, oh, then that's almost a lock that my guy and his guy are going to be sitting right under and right over each other in the, uh, in the, um, in, on the, on

the scoring list. And that means, you know, you've got to, if he played two since the next day, you got a 50-50 shot. And I looked on my phone and sure enough, it was Tiger than us. But under us was Perez, who's a complete badass and I love him and his caddy. But so I knew we were going to catch Perez, but our tiger. And I went back to the hotel that afternoon and sweated that like you've never, like I was trying to get my tour card. I was, you know, and it bumped back and forth. One guy would make a bogey and then that would put us back down with Perez because it goes, you know, it runs one two, one two, one two from the top. And as the guys make birdie and bogeys, you go from Perez to Tiger.

I mean, we went back and forth 15 times Perez, Tiger, Trent. And then the last thing, got down to where it was only like three guys on the golf course, and they would have had to make like three bogeys on the last three holes to all of them would have to do it or something. One of them had to do it. And I sweat at that and it was over. Man, I was so 14 years, boys, I've been doing this. never practice around.

You know, I spoke with the tiger a couple times when you can corner him. He's hard to corner him. And so it just turned out that, man, it hit and it came good as it's like a lottery. I was a big tiger fan going into that Sunday, but, man, I left the biggest of tiger fans Sunday afternoon. So it was Sunday, not Saturday? Is that what it was Sunday? Yeah, it was Sunday, wasn't it? I got you.

Yeah, I think you're right. I think it was Sunday. What a stressful back and forth that was. That was, yeah, you're right. That had to be, that sounds like a very stressful. So, so then talk about that morning, rolling in, like, when did you first interact with them? Were you kind of, like, more nervous than you were? Because we talked to Taylor Ford.

He caddied for Stewart Sink on Saturday, I think. Maybe that's where I got mixed up at the PGA with Tiger, and he was kind of talking about those jitters before. What were the jitters like before? Well, you know what I was? I didn't sleep Bertha Dickens of Saturday night at all. and, you know, this toss and turn on out for thinking about it. But honest of goodness, you know, Tiger had done his homework

because, me and Cookie, because Tiger entered the ring like the champion last. He came up, like, I swear. He didn't have 50 seconds before. Joe started looking around, like Joe walked up, like, three minutes before our tea time, and then he starts looking off the end of the tea, like, is Tiger coming through the crowd anywhere?

Because he got, like, a minute. And, like, 50 seconds ago, he'd come busting up through the tea, just like George Foreman, you know. And he walks straight. up to me and he goes looking forward to to a Kipper. And so he had done his homework. He'd ask somebody, who's that asshole

that Caddys for Cookie with a funny hat that he wears or wear? What's his name? I mean, he may have known my name, but I'm pretty sure he didn't. But that made me feel good. But you know what? I wasn't even nervous. For some reason, a condus came over me, and

all I do is stand there and carry shit. You know, Cookie had the hard job. He's the one. And Cookie, get this. Cookie looks at me, and he goes, I'm more nervous than I was on Sunday of Sea Island. It's what he said to me on the tea. And I go, how did you do on that Sunday, little buddy? I said, you didn't miss a shot, let's go.

He piped it right off the first tee. It was beautiful. That's awesome. Yeah, let's talk about Cookie. I mean, how was he, you know, I guess was he jacked up for the round? I imagine he's a young guy. He must have been a huge Tiger fan growing up. Yes, he's a huge Tiger fan.

And it shows, you know, he contained himself during the day. He was, you know, polite and thought when talking to Tiger as much as he could. But after the round, you could see, man. He wanted pitchers with him. He got his dad and his wife pictures taken with Tiger. Tiger was just as accommodating as he could be with it. But all 18 hoseboys going out with Tigers, it was more than you could ever imagine. The guy is just his forthcoming and, you know, and respectful.

And, you know, he'll put out. He'll wait to put out sometimes. because he know people will go crazy if he taps it in. You know, he's so thoughtful of everybody in his group. And, you know, he's still got the eye of the tiger in his eyes. But, man, he's a great cat to play golf with. What about Joey La Cava? How was Joey out there?

I've heard good things. Oh, Joey's the best. You know, he's a sports nut. But, you know, you've got to poke joy to get him talk. He's the old smart, smart caddy, you know, the old school caddy. and he's not going to, you know, he's not going to come in and slap you on the back and laugh and have a great time. You know, he's a beautifully pleasant cat, but he's not, and he's not like me. People don't get sick of hearing him talk.

You know, everybody wants to hear Joy talk, but he chooses his words, but he was just a dream to go out with as well, man. He talked to me all day, and this was helpful, and, I mean, I can't describe how great that, even though Cookie Shot 2 over that stunk, but the whole experience was everything I could have hoped for. Yeah, I thought he grinded great because he clearly didn't have his best stuff, but he got up and down from a bunch of different places. He was putting well. Oh, my God. Yeah, I thought it was impressive.

Yeah, Cookie hit it like me Sunday, and man, he got it up and down like crazy everywhere. And then we pulled a couple of West A. We, I pretty much pulled, I pulled two bad clubs on him on 14 and 16. We were between 7 and 8 on both of them, and we hit the 7 on 14. and the eight on 16, and we should hit the eight and the seven. I pretty much talked to me, the both of them. We had crosswinds, and I blew the wind. But he still had a good way.

He could have shot even far, no problem. And it's so bad because the short game bailed him out. All right, folks. Next up, we are joined for the second time by our good buddy. The champ, the BMW champ, Keegan Bradley. How good does that sound, my man? It sounds so good. It was so long in between wins.

And, you know, the last couple days have been a whirlwind, but it feels amazing. So let's get into the BMW now. I kind of want to get into it, you know, on a bit more kind of break it down type level, get kind of what was going through your head and all that, just because it's so fascinating to me, you know, even thinking about the fact that you could be somebody that could win on the PGA tour and beat the best players the world is just crazy to me. Kind of a weird week with the weather and all of that. Do you feel anything kind of different at the start of the week?

I got it this week. What were the vibes going into Aronimoic? Well, you know, I've been playing really, really well this last couple months. And like I said, I didn't put together some weekends. But I got to Aronimic and, you know, I love the course. It's just in these FedEx Cup playoffs, the opportunity that you have every week is crazy with the amount of points. And you can, winning, yeah, it's incredible, but you can change your whole year by coming in fifth because of how many points they have. And for us on the PJ Tour, if you're not in the top 50 in the world, to make the Tour championship is a duh thing to do because you get in all the majors and all the WGCs.

And it's just the opportunity is there. I mean, it's so exciting these FedEx Cup playoffs. But I just felt good. I, you know, I was excited. You know, we're getting towards the end of the. year, you know, it was just a, it just had a good vibe the whole week. So you go 66, 64, 66, you're in great shape. You know, you're right up there toward the top.

Weather comes in as kind of what was the feeling Saturday afternoon when? I mean, a lot of people were thinking this might be a, this might be a 54 hole finish. We might not play till Tuesday. Nobody really knew what the hell was going on. Yeah, so when I was out there on the third round, everyone's talking about. everyone's talking about this storm that's coming in and everyone's saying this is going to be 54 holes so

you know I'm going out I'm coming down the last four or five holes and my goal for the last two years is been to make the tour championship and I know this could be my last four holes of the tournament and I need to finish I think it was

fifth or sixth to make the tour championship and Rose is way ahead of me at this point he he's shot 30 20 on the front. And so I'm coming down the stretch thinking this is my opportunity to make the Tour Championship, get in all the majors. And I birdied 16, and then I made an incredible up and down in 17,

and then I had like 15 feet for par on 18. And it was dark, and I was thinking this is, it was, this part was either make it and get in the Tour Championship or miss it, and I'm out. Because I'm thinking it's 54 holes, and I made it. And I was so excited because I thought, okay, we've done it now. I've made the Tour Championship. And this is going to get canceled to 54 holes. And, you know, that whole next day, it's Sunday we're sitting around.

And I'm so conflicted because here I am, if they call it, I'm in the Tour Championship. But then again, I'm only three shots back. So, you know, it was the weirdest couple days I probably ever had. terms of how I felt going in because I'm thinking I'm okay if they call it because I'm I'm happy with getting the tour championship and then I'm feeling guilty about thinking that because I'm only three shots back but it was wild yeah I guess it's uh I wish they did a better job of kind of showcasing you know what that means to guys to make the tour championship and and I guess I'd love to hear you talk about it a bit I mean it affects being in all the majors the big events it affects

the whole way that you're able to plan like the next year and a half of your life basically. Yeah, so for a guy like me, at the time I was outside the top 50, this is your ticket to get into the majors and the WGCs. It's actually, it's pretty extreme that you're able to do this. It's right. It's kind of controversial with the guys on tour because you get a guy that plays great all year and plays well, bad in the playoffs. He's out. But, you know, so my goal, I missed out last year. by not a lot. And so this year, I,

you know, I was there and I'm, and I've, you know, it's, it was difficult because I'm in this position of, they call, it's just so,

so bizarre because I, they call it in my whole goal. Now I can, I go, okay, I'm in the U.S. Open, the British Open. I don't have to do these stupid 36 whole qualifiers.

I don't have to, I can't set my schedule. So, you know, and to have that kind of dangling over me, it was the, it was just was brutal. It was, it really was. So then going into, you know, the, the final round, during that whole Sunday, which is a washout, I mean, what kind of, what kind of information do they give you? Do you guys get, like, different updates than we get? Yeah, so we get, we get text messages from the tour. and they did something that I've no one thought they were going to do they just updated this every hour they said so we at six o'clock in the morning they said due to heavy rains we're going to we can't start the first round till no earlier than nine and we're going to update you in an hour and they did this all throughout the day so I'm pacing around my hotel room getting the text messages trying to stay ready because if they go

even if it was at 4 o'clock they could say all right guys come out we're going to play we're going to play for two hours so the whole day you've got to try to keep yourself ready to play but you know you look outside it's pouring rain and you're like we're not playing yeah yeah everyone is saying we're not playing but

in that you've got us try to stay mentally ready to go out there and uh it turned out you know they called it i think that three and then but then everyone was still saying and it's supposed to rain even more tomorrow. Everyone, no one thought we were going to play. So then you guys end up playing Monday. You know, you come out, you come out hot, five birdies on the front nine. You get yourself in the mix.

Kind of at what point does it change for you from like, all right, Keegan, let's keep it going steadily. Let's get ourselves into the Tour Championship to like, holy shit, we're going to win this thing. Yeah, well, what made it cool was, the players that were up there. You know, I was in the second to last group. The group behind me was Rory, Rose, and Zander. And so with those three guys in the back there, I mean, they could go out and shoot 60,

any one of them could shoot 62, 63, and then I can't win. I mean, I'd have to shoot in the 50s. And so at one point, you know, I'm going down there and I looked at the leaderboard and I was at 18 under. And I was tied with Rose, might have been Rory, and then Tiger was at 70. And, you know, so I'm looking at the leaderboard, and I'm there.

Now I'm looking and I'm like, I could win this tournament. And what made it cool was the guys that were up there. You know, it was Tiger. It was he had the red sweater on. It's just, you're very aware of what's going on. I was playing so well. It was when I made like a 30-footer on 8, a really tough part 3. And Tiger was the green is next to the 10th green.

And that's when I saw Tiger was at 14. And I made this putt. And then I was like, all right, now we're, now I'm right there because no one behind me is going super low. So, so then, you know, kind of on the back nine, you're, You're buzzing, you're birdie 14, 16. You come to 17th, tough par 3. Talk me through 17 a little bit. Yeah, so I was so calm the whole day.

The whole day, I was so calm, which is very strange for me. I don't, I'm kind of a intense guy, but I was really calm. And then when I birdied 16, and I was like, holy cow, I, that's when it was like, this is my tournament really to win or lose now and now now it's been a long time since i've had that chance i've i've been there but not in the lead i've been a couple shots back so you know i'm standing on 17t now with control kind of and uh i just hit the most incredible shot in the 16 17 is probably my best shot of tournament and made the putt and that's when i started to really it was surreal at that point because

you know I now I'm really in control and you know the 18th hole I played so poorly I was so bumped out I just hit bad shots and I thought it was over I really did yeah the T shot on 18 I got to be honest I thought that the I think the the top tracer might have done you dirty because when you hit that thing I gassed I mean they made it look like that thing was going into like New York, basically.

Yeah, it was, it was bad. It was really bad. I had been driving the ball. I don't think I had missed, like, one fairway in two days. And I just, I just hit a bad shot. It was awesome. And I got up there, and I was okay. But I had mud all over my ball, and I hit my asses.

I did a decent eye shot, and the mud just shot it way right. And, but it was, it was bad. I was so bummed out just at how well I had played and how poorly I had played that hole. It was tough. Yeah, it's funny. I'm pretty sure Johnny Miller was like, oh, he's got the great live balls sitting perfectly, nothing on the ball. I was like, I don't think that's correct. Yeah, I mean, it was so wet, too.

And it's amazing what mud does to the golf ball. But I still had, I think I had 210 adjusted hole into the win. It was playing 225. I mean, it wasn't, that whole, the hole was brutal. So, so then, you know, you bogey 18, what's that, what's kind of that weird, long wait like when you were, I think you were over on the putting green while Justin Rose is finishing up? Yeah, it was, I just, it's funny when you're in, when you're on the other side of that, on my side, you think there's no way he's going to bogey 18. It's over. And so I'm, I can't see what's going on. I'm trying to ask the TV guy. who's filming me, like, because he can, he can see what's going on in here.

I'm like, what's going on? He said, oh, he hit it short of the green. And then I'm thinking he's going to chip this to a foot and make it. Justin Rose is, you know, obviously he's number one player in the world now. But so then I'm waiting. You just, I can't see anything so you're just listening to the crowd. So we heard a put hit and missed, and we all thought that was Justin. So I'm like getting, I'm like, okay, you know, we're getting ready to go.

the playoff and then the guy goes that wasn't just it was Xander or somebody and I'm like oh shit and so then we're like all right here we go we're just really quiet so we're just kind of looking at each other you're just waiting you're either you know you're going to hear a big cheer

or what we heard and he he hit such a great pot I hadn't seen the pot until recently he hit the most incredible put that didn't go in yeah he really did I thought that thing was in but then you know you go to a playoff what uh you hit any balls or anything? You just kind of roll out there and feel in pretty common.

No, because I had finished five, ten minutes prior. And, you know, they wanted us to do this, like, walk out together through the, I don't know, it was weird. And I was like, oh, I'm just going to go. They wanted us to, like, walk out together and make it a, I don't know, it was hard to think, to understand, but I walked out of the tunnel, you walked through the tunnel back on the 18th Green and everyone was really cheering at this point. They're changing, USA, they're doing the whole thing. I just kept telling myself, I've finally gotten myself back to where I feel like I belong.

And I just tried to enjoy the moment of feeling like I'm back to it, maybe this more of an elite level of the tour. And I just kept telling myself, this is where I belong. This is where I've worked so hard to get back to this exact moment. And I just wanted to not let this moment get too big for me because I've been in these moments before, and I wanted to, I just wanted to really enjoy it, to be honest.

Yeah, I mean, you've played under about as intensive pressure as it gets in terms of winning a major championship, kind of dominating during stretches in the Ryder Cup even, so you had to feel a little bit confident being like, I can handle this, I got this. I did. I felt good. I was really, really nervous, too. I mean, it was, there's so much at stake to win a tournament on the tour.

Like, there's so much to go, especially in the FedEx Cup playoffs. And you get 2,000 points of you, you get, it's equivalent to four wins on the, on the regular season. So I, and then you get two-year exemption. You're in, you're in, you know, you're, I end up winning, obviously, and went to 30th in the world. I mean, there's so much at stake. So, you know, all that stuff's in your money. mind for a guy like Justin Rose who's been winning

stuff may not pop into his mind as much as it would be for me and but I just I felt I just kept telling myself I'm I belong here I should you know I'm there's no difference from anybody else I should I should feel good about being here in this playoff so you played great you get the win in the playoff

how special was it to have your son Logan your wife Jillian out there afterwards That was the coolest part. I mean, we, as tour players, you dream of that moment when your family runs out on the green. You know, I told Jill, I go, players go, a huge majority of the tour go their whole career without getting to experience that. Whether they don't win or, you know, a lot of times they'll be at the tournament by ourselves. And, you know, I had to keep, I could, I could see them. So I had to keep looking away because it was giving me emotional and I was thinking, man, if I win this, where I'm going to get to do this with them.

And when Justin missed that pot, I was shocked, but I had to move my coin back. And I was so, I probably shouldn't even admit this, but I was so nervous over that pot. I was like shaking. I was literally shaking. It was a foot. I think we looked at back up. It was 17 inches. but, you know, I was really shaking.

Like, I don't, I don't, I don't, the same thing happened to me when I won the PGA. I don't even remember, like, hitting the put. Like, I just was blacked out. But it was, it was incredible. They ran out. You know, we're, all my other wins, I've been by myself. I haven't, you know, I, have been later that night, we're hanging out in the hotel room. And we're just like, we're laughing.

And we get back to the hotel room after all the ceremony and all the, stuff and when you win a tournament you've got to go and you've got to sign a thousand things and I get home and the replay from the gault channel is on and I'm on like 16 so I've never been able to do this too we sat down and watched the whole thing happen again it was pretty cool that's so cool I've always wondered if you guys do that if you watch yourselves a little bit I don't normally but I don't know I I but when I was on 18 I I couldn't the original 18 I can't watch this this is it's going to make that I didn't watch that part That's smart. Selective. You're selectively watching it too much.

Notabagay, I know you just traveled from the States over to Paris for the Ryder Cup. So we really appreciate you taking the time, my friend. Oh, absolutely. Great to be on the show. Thank you. So, you know, you're, of course, a reporter for NBC for golf channel, all of that. But you're also a really good buddy of Tigers. Like you said, you were there after some of the surgeries? You've seen him, you know, at some of his lowest points. How nervous were you yesterday watching him trying to close that? thing out. I wasn't nervous. I know this guy too well. I know the cues. I know the facial expressions.

I know the body language. I know the shot patterns. I talked to him at the hotel before he went out to the golf course and there wasn't there wasn't any nervousness. There was just a real. A real, sense of understanding of what he had to do. He knew that the field wasn't just going to roll over and let him win. He had to go out there and he had to earn it. And I think that's sort of why you just constantly saw him throughout the round, continually, continually pressing, continually just pushing forward and fighting for every single shot. And when it got, I think it got to five shots.

13 holes, five-shot lead through 13. And then that's kind of my, the mental marker in my head was if he could get through the T-shot at 15 without hitting it in the water. It was close. And he came pretty close. Way too close. Then I knew that he would protect the lead coming home. So we're about as big a Tiger fans as there are in the world where we should, we, we, we,

shamelessly talk about that all the time. So hearing you know to say that you talked to him at the hotel before he went out and that you weren't nervous at all makes me want to run through a brick wall. Yeah. Well, I think he could have run through a brick wall after that win yesterday. All right, we're here at Shadow Creek in the locker room with Tiger Woods.

Tiger, you might know this big fan. We're going to go rapid fire quick. Very quick. First question, I've had a perfectly healthy bat. Never had any back issue. never any back pain. However, after watching this year, I'm very much thinking about getting swine fusion surgery. Your thoughts? Just skip that. Just keep what you got. I know that I've been very lucky with the outcome of

my procedure, but it was the last ditch attempt. Most ridiculous, preposterous thing you've ever seen or heard from the gallery. Oh, that is, well, I've seen a lot of different things. I've heard a lot of different things. whether they've gotten on me or said some pretty interesting things. Yeah, it usually happens late afternoons on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday when they're a little bit more late. It gets a little rowdy. Yeah, I think it does.

What are your thoughts about the fans this year? They've been too much, or they've been kind of what you expect? Because, you know, Rory made some comments that maybe it cost you a couple strokes. You know, I think that they've been more supportive than they've ever been. It's been very different. The support has been off the charts. And more than anything, I think they're much louder now because we have camera falls in our hands. Right.

There's no clapping anymore. Everyone's just yelling. So I think that people have supported and the volume's definitely gone up. So we've had a lot of caddies on the show. We got Joey. Yeah, I had to go beers with Joey before. What's the biggest call he's made thus far in his career with you? We've read a couple good putts, one that really matters.

At the Tour Championship, we read a couple puts that's, um, were huge. But I think more than anything, it's Joey knowing how much adrenaline I got my system for a club to hit if I'm in between clubs. He knows my system. He knows how I'm hitting that one particular day. And he's missing pretty good calls.

You ever tell him, like, hey, I'm a little juiced up right now? He knows it. He can see it. He can see my speed and what I've got. And where I'm walking. I'm talking to him. He's got a pretty good beat on there. So 2019, there's three major championship venues that you won't have before, Augusta, Beth Page, which would I turn the street from us.

And obviously Pebble, if I were to bet on one of those, which one are you most likely to win at? Jeremy, how are I probably filled the most comfortable fact. I always held her to come by them all their old players, and we're looking forward. I'd love to hear that. Last question, if you heard the, or saw the letters, V-I-V-A, how would you pronounce it? How do you know? V-I-V-A. V-I-V-A. V-A. V-A-L-S-O.

Thank you, Ty. You appreciate it. Good man. Thanks a lot. All right. Next up, we are joined by a very special guest, the guy who has been discussed at length on this here show. Five-time winner on the PGA tour, including the last time that he teed it up. Bryson D. Shambo, welcome to the show, my friend. Thanks, dude.

Appreciate you having me on. So you might not know this, but a lot of people are saying you got kind of a rigsy bar. basketball bump after Bel Reve because we chatted on the range for a couple minutes. And then after that, you went on a goddamn tear and you won your next two starts. Yeah, I've played pretty well. It was pretty nice. You guys did that. And, you know, obviously it was well received, I think.

And, you know, people, you look, no matter what, you're going to have naysayers, you're going to have people that are going to be like, do, this guy's an idiot. This guy's a nerd. You know, he's just doing his own thing. He's a weirdo. But at the end of the day, if you look at it, I'm still out there competing. and as of right now winning. I almost feel like Bryson is doing the eight mile

where he says all the things that we are going to grill him on before that we even bring them up. He's getting ahead of the game. I love it. Anything negative, you little clowns over here are going to say. He's ahead of you. This is tough. He's rattling off every.

I'm sitting here just stewing. And Bryson's over here sitting in a hot tub. He's winning golf tournaments and he's just, I can't, he's just rattling off my list right now. Not rattling up my left. Let me talk for a second. The house is killing you. Come on. Bring it out.

Oh, my God. All right. We're going to do it. Brison, this is Frankie here. I've given you some, I've given you a lot of shit, right? It's on this podcast. It's on Twitter. I've always felt that it's come off.

Very disingenuous with the science stuff, right? Like, all right, you're shoving it down our throat. Everything, every time I type in your name on Twitter, on Google, it's about the COR, the coefficient of restitution of the flagstick. See, I shouldn't even know what that even means. I love that you know what that means. I love it. But because you're bringing it up, like, we're talking about the science. And to me, it always felt like you were doing it more for your brand.

And I understand that you're using it to win. Riggs has often made that argument for you on this podcast. Every week. Well, hey, Frankie, I just don't butter knife my wedges like. Oh, no. You're dead. No. You are dead, Frankie.

You are on your head. You just dominated me. I mean, there's no coming back from this. This guy's fucking dominating me. Frankie, you did it. I mean, Bryce, I'll give you the answer. I'll give you the answer, though. Like, people, people say that, you know, I'm disingenuine with what I'm doing.

I'm just doing it for the brand and marketing. And look, honestly, like my whole entire life, I've always been intrigued with trying to figure shit out and trying to be the absolute smartest out there. And I'm not going to be. I fail all the time. And that's where I learn the most. And people don't realize that that, you know, people think I'm smart because I'm smart. I'm actually not.

It's because I've failed a lot more than other people, and I learned from those mistakes. And that's the true honest to God answer with that is that I've failed so much that I'm trying every single week that I fail. I try to learn as much as possible from that. And that's where I accumulate some of this knowledge that helps me and pushes me to be better. So I got a question. At what point did you first start looking at kind of golf differently? Like when did you first be like, okay, I'm going to take the scientific approach? I got handed this book called The Golfing Machine when I was 15 by my coach, Mike Shai.

And he gave it to me, he was like, dude, if you want to understand the game on a whole different level, you know, honestly a crazy level, you got to read this book. So I started reading it, and it was very, very intriguing. It had a lot of physics in there that I didn't understand at the time. And around, you know, 15, 16, I just started taking physics classes. And so it kind of coincided and went hand in hand with, you know, what I was doing. I was playing golf and then learning physics. and I was like, hey, why don't I just try and kind of apply some of the knowledge and physics to the game of golf so that I could, you know, maybe gain an edge somehow.

And fortunately, through this journey about trying to understand the game of golf and all the variables that are associated with it, I've just reached a level that hasn't been there before in regards to understanding the variables in the course. Was there ever? You know, at 15, that's kind of when it struck me and it's taken a while for me to understand what really matters out there when playing golf. Because, dude, at the end of the day, I'm still trying to hit a shot. I'm still trying to, you know, play the game of golf. It's not like I'm some nerdy dude out there doing all these calculations and have a computer on my head. It's not what I'm doing.

I'm out there playing golf. But I use all the information that we've prepped for early in the week to help gauge our shots better. It helped me execute on a whole other level. And fortunately, it's been, it's proving itself week and week. And honestly, I can tell you that the best golf I've ever played, and technology to my advantage. Man, I really came into this podcast. I wanted to make Bryson neurologically uncomfortable.

That was my goal. I was like, I'm going to come on here. I'm going to rattle him. He came in firing shots. This is insane. I mean, he murdered you in the beginning. I didn't even know you were still alive, Frank. I thought you were getting here just in all of like, you know, we, so our guy, Dave Portnoy,

he started Barstool. He, his main, I'd say, enemy is LeBron James, right? He goes after LeBron James. He goes to all the events that whenever they're playing. his team he'll wear like LeBron sucks shirts and all this stuff. He destroys him on Twitter. He destroys him everywhere. But he also said that if LeBron ever had, you know, the self-confidence and, you know, the

awareness to come on one of our shows, I would have all the respect in the world for him and to be able to just like shoot the shit and like actually hear that they're a real person. For me, you know, I often thought that you, Bryson, were like, like I said before, this like, this just this guy that just wants to get in our head about science. Like even like the little things where you're telling us like, why can't you just say it's a feel thing? Why do you got to tell us, why are you going to say, why are you going to say the words like neurologically uncomfortable?

Are you explaining? Are you like, are you golf-splaining to me? Like, I don't know this sport that I sit there and watch and I talk about. I love. I do it mainly to piss you off. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, and to do this back and forth, it is crazy, you know, you really do have to speak to someone to hear, like, you know, who they actually are.

Right. Because you would never know. We were ragging on race. He met you for three minutes and all of a sudden he came back raving about this guy, He's a genuine guy. He's a genuine guy. I will say. say he is a genuine guy, but is there no part of you, now that you're racking up all these wins,

because I will say it was easier to poke fun of you on this podcast when you weren't winning all the time. So now that you are, is there any part of you that wants to say these things that are going to rattle people like me and Frankie who think you're doing it on purpose, but you're just, you're just want to get us all riled up about it? Um, I mean, honestly, it's what, yeah, it's, it is what you, it's what I believe in. I truly believe that the scientific method will prove itself over and over again. And, you know, as you look at gravity, it's a theory, but it's been proven for hundreds of years now. You know, and so it's become law.

And I'm not trying to be a geek or anything like that. I'm just trying to play golf in the most consistent manner, the most consistent way I possibly can. and I found the only way I can produce consistency over time is by understanding the variables, being able to make proper decisions, and have it back at week in and week out, doing the same thing. It's like beating a drum,

just going to the rhythm of a drum, boom, bumps every single week proving it again and again. And my whole thing is like, I want to be able at the end of the day when I'm on my deathbed to say, look, I was able to explain golf. And I'm not going to be able to explain all of it. I know that,

but at least up to a certain level, I can provide something helpful for everyone in the game of golf to be able to say, I can play at a higher level now because of this information, not because of how I swing, not because of what I do in the golf course, but because of the information that's out there. I'm telling you today, and everything you do in life,

it's all information and data-driven, you know. And everything's backed by a theory, backed by a thought, backed by an idea. An idea is the most poisonous but hopeful thing you can ever draw up. An idea. And for me, this idea, it's in my brain right now and I'll let it out eventually, but I'm serious. And I'm not doing this to rattle you guys. I'm literally doing this because in the end, I want this to be expressed to the world so people can go, wow, that's really cool.

That's cool as shit that he figured that out. That's really what I want at the end of the day. Not to make people like you get pissed off. Even though it's fun. What's up? What's up, man. Shilling, what's going on with you? We're just hanging. I'm here with Trent Daddy.

What's up, kids? What's up, big dog? Not much. President's Cup, we haven't talked about that yet. We talked to you a couple days beforehand, but President's Cup is fucking awesome. I did like that. Obviously, you had your little dance thing with Phil, which was kind of weird, but we also liked it. And then you also had your Saturday.

you're kind of up in the crowd. Our favorite part of the whole deal was that it was like you and Ricky up into the crowd and you could tell a lot of the people are like, oh, Ricky, father, what? And then they're like, who the hell is this guy when you came walking up there? They had to ask me my name when they asked for my autograph. I don't want your autograph, but we're not sure who you are. No, that was awesome. Real talk.

I mean, it looked like you had as much fun as you've ever had. playing golf. Was it, I mean, because you played great, you were buzzing, you and Phil were buzzing. I mean,

were you nervous as hell? Were you just happy to be there? What was the feeling like? The first day, first shot, most nervous I ever been because I knew I had to hit the first T shot.

It's like a, you know, entering a ring to fight that first T shot and water's all down the left, wind pumping right to left. I went to the course like three hours early.

My wife said, where are you going? I don't know. I just got to get the hell out of here. And, but after that, it was all good, man. I striped one down in the middle, and Phil did his thing. We had a good time together.

And, you know, I don't do for that team stuff. I grew up playing all kinds of team sports and love the team atmosphere about it. You don't get that anymore in our game. So I love that type of atmosphere. Yeah, it was awesome. It was rowdy. I was all jacked up.

I was out there Saturday, and it was you and Phil. We're walking by, and I ran over to the rope line, and I was like, he's going to be all game-faced, but I'm just going to be there and yell on his ear. And I walked by, and you just go, oh, what's up, Riggs? Right as you walk by. I was like, Jesus Christ. I don't think he knows he's in, like, an arena right now. No, but that's all good.

I'll talk to you at any tour event you come to, especially the president's couple, and I don't have to do the next shot. I'm sure there's a little shot next. Yeah, true. Another very serious question I've got to ask you. Has anybody ever told you that when you put, you look like you're taking a massive shit? No. Yeah, you might want to look at that. I just know that people say, man, I went if I could put it like you.

You do putt well. I just, I think you should watch the tape, and you might want to notice that it just, it looks kind of funny when you put. Most people sit down when they shit. I'm not just trying to sit down. Fair. I mean, boom, roasted. I think that was a, I put really well. I'm going to keep doing what I do.

Yeah, don't change you. You can still keep swinging that club face up there that I could eat dinner off of and hit those toe hooks and we can have a good time. You always got to like getting them going. Okay, we are now joined

by our friend David Faradie for the second time here on the four-play golf podcast. First of all, Mr. Farity, realized we might have scared you off last time because you didn't come back into the office this time. No, I'm, you tell I work harder to frighten me. Let's talk a little bit about the comments that JT.

He's made, you know, about some fans and things like that. There's a million reasons to like JT, and we know that you were, I believe you interviewed him at his place right after he won the PGA. So, you know, you know him pretty well. You've seen him in his natural habitat. that if people like us may see, you know, J.T. kicking a fan out for making some comments about his golf ball as a negative. We'd love to hear from you, you know, what do you see in J.T. that reaffirms that he's nothing but positive? Well, you know, it's just such a high-quality individual.

And they all are, you know, whenever I interview somebody on my show, I never have to check a rap sheet first, nothing like that. You know, they're cool. And I didn't see the incident that you were talking about, you know, just having come back from Korea. I heard a little bit about it. He had somebody ejected that was, like, you know, tackling or something from the crowd. Yeah, it sounded like the guy had, you know, J.T. talked about it afterwards.

He said that the guy beforehand had made some comments about, you know, I hope you hit it in the water. and then after J.T. hit his ball, and it's, you know, sailing towards the fairway, the guy yelled, you know, get in the bunker, and J.T. had him ejected for that. Right. Well, you know, I mean, I hope you hit it in the water and all of us. You know, I hope you leave the premises. Oh, look, you did. It sort of leads to a larger conversation about we had actually made our first appearance on the golf channel about a week ago, and we were talking. Oh, I heard you were on morning drive. Yeah, we're big TV stars now, David.

You're asked a giant plummet in the wrong direction. But one of the things we were asked about was, is it okay to root against certain players in golf? How it's sort of a, it's a thing in other sports, obviously you root against other teams or other players. Is it okay to root against somebody in golf? And I mean, we're curious of what your thoughts on that would be. Yeah, I mean, I thought, I mean, it's absolutely okay to root against

and it's just not okay to do it in public, you know, or do it, you know, out live. You see people with noise makers, you know, behind somebody on the free throw line, you know, trying to... That's part of that game. It's not part of our game. It never has been, you know, and it shouldn't be. Our game is way too hard. It's much too hard.

And, you know, if you believe the ruling bodies, you know, the game's getting too easy, you know, but you ask the average player out there, you know, how easy the game is, you know, The last thing you need is people, you know, trying to, you know, screw with your mind or whatever. It's just, you know, it's not golf. So a lot of these comments stem from, you know, raucous crowds, rowdy crowds, which are, you know, becoming more and more prevalent now that Tiger Woods is back.

You know, he's... I got no problem with that. Absolutely. I think it's great for golf. The Phoenix kind of experience, you know, I mean, we don't need that every week. but, you know, when you do it a little more of it, you know, fans getting rowdy and that sort of thing, as long as they're not, you know, rooting against players or making stupid comments.

Yeah, I agree. And I guess that'll lead us a little bit into Tiger Woods, speaking of crowds, you know, getting rowdy, et cetera, et cetera. Tigers back, you know, he finished 12th this past weekend, which was the best finish he's had since the Wyndham in 2015. You've been inside the robes. You've been watching Tiger for a few decades now. What are your thoughts on this latest comeback from Tiger? Well, you know, he's had the surgery that he probably should have had in the first place. I think part of the problem was, you know, he had a little done at a time.

He had only just what was necessary instead of having the damn thing used the first time. So if he can stay healthy and only a fool would think that he can't win, And the key is, you know, can he keep that back in good condition? I saw him a sports center this morning and the first chance I'd had to see him swing. And it looks pretty darn good to me, that's for sure. Yeah, he, you know, he seems to have answered the health thing for the, you know, we're all crossing our fingers here. You know, we don't want to say anything too crazy, but assuming the health thing is good to go, you know, what do you need to see or what would you like? to see that would make you think, okay, this is more like the guy that I covered in the

mid or early 2000s? In the way that he walks, you can see it in his body language, you know, the attitude. It's, you know, he gets, you get little reminders of it from time to time, the way that it was, and it's not going to be the way that it was. You know, my children aren't going to see that kind of golf, you know, their children aren't going to see the kind of golf of the Tiger Woods later on the turn of the century. it was an extraordinary thing to witness. But the point is he doesn't have to play that well to win.

He can win with A-9. People have really short memories, boys. They forget just how dominant Tiger Woods was. And as good as these kids are, you know, Justin and Jordan and Dustin and the guys up at the top of the money list at the minute. They're not Tiger Woods. We're not going to see another one of those. So I mentioned it before.

You know, you've, of course, walked inside the ropes with Tiger many, many times. Guys like us, you know, I was out there yesterday for a few hours. I saw him from about 300 yards away and I could barely move. What's Tiger like inside the ropes, you know, during a four or five hours of a competitive round of golf? You know, it depends, obviously, in Harry's playing. It depends what round it's in, you know, how close you get to finish. But one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me was whenever I became a broadcaster, Tiger Woods turned pro about 10 minutes before.

And in the early years, we would walk along, you know, and there was some juvenile behavior, I'll admit it. And, you know, we'd tell jokes. And, I mean, he really, I kind of missed that, that Tiger, the one that I watch grow up. because he got beaten up by the media so badly, you know, so quickly. It was, it wasn't about a couple of years before he was talking to me underneath the bill of his cap so that he couldn't be lip-red. You know, so, I mean, that's how it went for him.

And you talk about, you know, the crime being righty and people shouting and yelling. I, you know, I saw so many and heard so much of that kind of abusive, you know, behavior early on in his career. Every week he gets it and he still gets it to this day. Yeah, Rory McElroy said after Riviera that, you know, he thinks Tiger probably loses nearly two shots of tournament because of, you know, how

crazy the crowds are that follow him. Do you, you know, do you see some truth into that, haven't been inside the ropes with it? Yeah, yeah, it wouldn't surprise me at all. You know, I mean, the focus that he has is extraordinary given the distractions that are on, you know, the cameras and just people that want to get a glimpse of, you know, of this guy. The effect that he has on the game is extraordinary, even at this point.

Yeah, I, again, being out there yesterday, it was appalling seeing, you know, the difference between the final group and, you know, Tiger, who was several groups in front. I mean, you couldn't even get anywhere near the ropes on two holes in front of Tiger and the leading groups that's from Sparse crowd. so he still brings it. Well, then you got the Sam Burns kid who he shot a 68 to Tiger 70 yesterday. That's some real metal right there. It's very impressive. Yeah, he was, he was gutsy out there. Is there anything, you know, is there any one or most memorable or anything that sticks out that tigers said to you inside the ropes that's kind of stuck with you at all?

Yeah, there are, but there's nothing I can say on the radio. Damn it. It's a touche. Pretty good sense of humor, but I wouldn't want to go with it. All right. We have a very, very special guest. Colin Montgomery, one of the great players of his generation. Obviously, a ton of accolades.

You have 31 European Tour wins, which is fourth all time, I believe, the most for any British player. An unbelievable Rider Cup record, arguably the greatest Rider Cup player of all time. We had a lot of things to get into, but welcome. You are in studio, first impressions of the office. Busy. It's very busy, which is, hey, isn't that a great thing? You know, I mean, you say you've run out of space, which is super. You know, most companies have space, space beyond their needs.

You guys don't, so it's super to find an office that is cramming out and you need more space. So, fantastic. I will say you came on the right day. The air conditioning is working today. Okay, okay, great. Well, I'm glad it is. Yesterday. We don't have air conditioning in Scotland.

We just open the windows, okay? And then it gets a bit colder. So that's fine. So I'm glad the AC's working. Yep. It's a bit of a madhouse right now. The AC is working, which is huge. You mentioned Scotland.

You're obviously a Scottish guy. I am. Let's start with some Scottish golf talk. What is your, you know, I went over last year. This is probably the most, maybe the most interaction we've ever gotten from one of our podcasts. I went over to Scotland kind of a last minute. trip i went to st andrews came back talked all about it people asked me questions nonstop so i'd like to ask you um what is your favorite course or the best course in scotland best course in scotland

it's a it's a difficult one because it's all opinions isn't it you know if i say one someone or say another or whatever but emotionally i suppose iconically unique would be st andrews wouldn't it you know you've got a any golfer has to really try the best an opportunity if it arises is play the Homer Golf and that's that's St. Andrews, that's number one. And then you go on from there. You go to the, obviously the open venue spring to mind. You know, your Turnbury or should I say Trump, Turnberry, to use its proper name, excuse me. Very proper. I like it. Yeah, yes, very proper, Mr. President. And then you go on to, you know, Turnberry, Trun on the West Coast and then you go inland, inland itself is beautiful inland course. And then you go to the east side and you

have Carnustim Muirfield, St. Andrews, but other hidden gems, like your King's Barnes, like your Castle Stewart, like your North Berwick. So it's all, it's all a matter of opinion. You know, there's a number of great courses, and hopefully we look after you when you come over. It was the, you know, the coolest golf trip, you know, I've ever been on. I went on alone, I went over the Labor Day weekend last year. Okay. Great. Great. You know, I met a couple random people that happen to follow our stuff and I played the old course. We're all random really in Scotland we are random. That's right. You guys were very

random. Random. Incredibly random. What is if someone's in St. Andrews, what's the number one pub that they have to go to? Very good. There's a place called the Dunvegan, which is just opposite Octorlone's golf shop, which has been there since Tom Morris's days. There's a

Dunvegan pub that I went to with my caddy just after round once. And there's your vice president, Dan Quail was having a beer and we sat down with him and talked golf. He was a very good golfer at the time. I think he was played off three at the time. Nice guy, really nice guy and talked about, obviously, politics and talked about golf.

It was super. So the Dunvegan is a super place that I'd recommend in St. Andrews. I was in there. I think I went there three days in a row. Oh, really? Okay, well, there you go. It lived up to the hype. I will say that.

The vibe there. It's one of those places, too. We did the full caddy experience, and then we go in there and, you know, all the caddies that we had two times I played it, we're in there having beers, buying us beers and all that. So it's an incredibly fun experience. Is there a better first-tie shot in golf than the old course? I don't think so. I don't think so.

There's a number of great first-tee golf shots. Of course there are, you know, but when you think about Pebble Beach is hidden in the trees a wee bit, you've got, you know, the classic northeast seaboard courses, you know, where we're talking here in New York, but you've got the winged foot congressional and stuff. It doesn't really, but St. Andrews, that's got a win, hasn't it? with the clubhouse behind you, with the old gin and tonic brigade, the RNA brigade behind, watching, hoping you don't take a divot out of their fancy first tea. And yeah, it is unique, obviously, it's 110 yards wide.

It's the widest fairway in golf. And yet you've got to hit it, haven't you? You've got to hit it. It doesn't matter how wide it is, you've got to hit it. And the expectation is high. And it's just brilliant. the whole scene you're walking off the first two you think right I'm on I'm here

I'm at the old course I'm playing the old course there's a lot of old courses around the world but that's the only real one is that it and you go off and then five hours later or it should be quicker but it's not five hours later you come back in and you cross that Swilken bridge and you play that last hole on the second shot

into the last and you're on the green putting and yeah it does get emotional it does yeah there's a definite romance about it and uniqueness about it because you're playing back into the town. Right. I mean, golf courses don't finish in towns, but this definitely, it's in the shops. It's in the carpet. You know, it's unique in every way.

And it gets so much, you know, I was stunned. I had a beautiful day the first time I played it, and we, you know, we turned and played back into the wind on the back nine. Yes. And I guess, you know, for whatever reason, you know, you always think of 17 and 18 and the first tee and the views and all that. But what you don't realize is that at any moment on the front nine, if you just turn around, you can see the town. And you realize that when you start, you know, after you go through the loop, when you start the back nine stretch, the town just gets bigger and bigger and closer and

it's almost like an intimidating crawl towards the town. It is, it is. You're talking very professionally here, the loop. Oh, only the locals talk about the loop. But the end of St. Andrews, that's just very good. The amount of very impressed. The amount of things that I read on this. This is good.

This is good. To be honest with you, things might go off the rails at any time. So it's good to impress him early. To be honest with you, Colin, I was deep in the... The YouTube hole when I was watching, I believe you and Padra Carrington, who we also had on the show, were sort of debating the best opening teas. And he was making the case for the first tea at the old course. And you were like, it's 150-yard-wide fairway.

But it is intimidating because it's like anything in sport or anything in life. If you're expected to do it, like hit the fairway at the first at St. Andrews, it's more difficult to achieve. It's like a number one team playing a number 30 team or whatever. in any sport expected to win. Well, go on, do it. You know, it's sometimes hard. Right. And the World Cup is proving that already, just starting the World Cup soccer.

A number of the fancy teams haven't won. Germany, number one team in the world, they've just lost to Mexico, number 30 in the world. It's weird. You know, we just had today there what Japan beat Colombia. Well, that shouldn't happen either. So there's a number of upsets happening, and its expectation is probably too great. And that's what it is at St. Andrews. expectation of hitting the first fairway.

And it's not you hit in the first fairway, it's the people watching. There's always people milling around that area of the first tea in their last green. There's always people just walking down from the town with the shopping and here you are. Oh, God, come across you. Let's see what you got. Exactly. Well, you obviously incredibly experienced. You've played in opens everywhere, majors everywhere.

You've played the old course probably countless times at this point. Does that ever, does that nervousness, excitement, whatever on the first tea at the old Or, is that ever wear off? No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Not as a Scottish professional. No, and we'll have that again coming up. The Rolex Senior Open is there.

The week after Carnoustie, the open, and every player, 156 competitors, will feel something on the first tee, definitely. And also walking over the bridge. You cannot walk over that bridge in the last hole, the Swilkin Bridge over the Swilken Burn. A burn is a stream to you guys. A stream, folks.

A stream, folks. Small Creek, otherwise. I did, but I didn't want to show off my knowledge. I mean, you know everything. I'm not talking to you. I know. I know very little. But it is unique and you walk over that burn and you think, okay, everybody from Arnold Palmer onwards has walked over this burn.

And it is special. I mean, everybody stops and takes a picture on that particular burn. And why not? It's one of the most photographed, it is the most photographed clubhouse in the world. And from that, from that burn, you get a fantastic picture of this. of the R&A clubhouse, which is our home of golf, and we're very proud of it. Yeah, I would say that has to be

the single most iconic spot, you know, Swoken Bridge and all of golf. And shout out to me, I buried the 18th hole there, so. Okay. So I knew that was coming, didn't you? Yes, I did. I mean, me, me, you know. The whole point of this interview is that he can talk about his Scotland trip

and brag about it. It's all really about him, isn't it? All the time. They were all. Should we now change this and ask him questions? Or, no, no, should we? He would like that too. You'd have to really, no, he'd like it too much,

he would. There were a lot of things we could have led with this interview. There's a reason I led with, like, the old course. I started talking about that. Yeah, yeah, because you birded the last. I told Trent. And you hold from how far? I had like 10 feet.

10 feet. But, well, into the, so me, it was like driver four. Just kidding. A hole's 300. It was a driver flick. That's right. Now it's a four-out. And it was a tapping, but now it's a 10-foot.

That's right. It keeps getting more distance. It's like catching a fish. I told Trent I couldn't believe they didn't bring out the Eclare jug when I made the pot. I mean, come on now. They should have had a big celebration. It was stunning. So St. Andrews is, of course, the big ticket item.

But what is an underrated spot or trip region of Scotland that folks should look into if they're going to go over outside of St. Andrews? Okay, very good. I'd stick to the east coast. I'd go south of Edinburgh to an area called East Lothian, which is where Mulefield is. And there's two great courses just there. One's at Archiefield and one's the Renaissance course. And then just down from there, you've got a hidden gem,

the west course at North Berwick, and also Dumbar just down the coast further. So that would be a real hidden gem trip. You've got four or five great courses there. Don't have to play Muirfield. Imagine never get on Mealfield. It's not trying to go on to Pine Valley or... Which is rare over there, because a lot of the courses are accessible.

It is rare, yes. A lot of courses you can get on to. There's more opportunity. We have 600 courses in Scotland and most per capita of anywhere in the world. There's only four and a half million of us. There used to be more. It's the only population that's decreasing. It's a worry.

What's going on? I don't know. It's a worry. It's a definitely a worry. It's a really worry. It must be the weather. Nobody wants to go there. Obviously, no, it wants to be born there.

Never mind anything else. So we've got 600 courses and an opportunity is given. There's a golf course around every corner. So we all play golf, you know. So, but Mulefield is a one-off where it's very private, a la Augusta Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Seminole type of thing, you know, that are very difficult to, you just can't turn up and I've got some money I want to play, you know. So, but the courses around the area are very good.

And also where they're playing the Scottish Open this year, Cullen, number one, two and three, there's three courses there are also very, very good. So that area called East Lothian, just south of Edinburgh, is one that I would, pick. Mark that down, folks. So the U.S. Open. We just finished up. We did finish up, yes. At the time of this recording, it's just about 48 hours after they finish, not even. Shinnock. We, of course, had all the controversy about the course in 2004. There was some more controversy about the course in 2018, especially on Saturday with a couple of pin locations. Yes. Thoughts on, you know, the player of complaints, 13, 15. Did they lose the course? What do you think?

there's a few questions all in there isn't there you know i must admit you know after 2004 which was ridiculous having to water the greens between the groups to keep it going and the first few groups through the seventh hole all made six at the par three i mean it was it was it was a calamitous affair surely you would have thought i mean without being disrespectful to the us gaughey who you know who who are great for the game of golf and don't give me wrong there are close friends too yes surely i mean you'd have thought they would have learned from the mistakes that were obviously made in 2004. Here we are 14 years later, and similar mistakes were made again.

You know, the course on Saturday, the forecast didn't change. So there was no excuse there. They knew it was windy, the new it was warm, they knew the greens would dry out. So why did they put the pins, and you're talking about 13, 15 in particular, why did they put those pins in, well, eventually in possible places? and it caused controversy and it was a huge controversy for one particular person will come to but others others others felt the same you know that the ball was coming up to the hole and almost coming back to the

back backwards why not put 13 and 15 which are severe greens anyway knowing the courses I do put them in the flat bit and get on with it you know they have the USJ seemed to have this this this this this this thought that level par should win the national championship So therefore, instead of minus 20, which I sometimes feel that people have said that sometimes US tour events are too easy. So you get 20 underwinning. And I tend to agree with that in certain ways.

But the US Open goes too far the other way. And to keep it at level par nowadays, to keep that score at level par with the standards of golf improving every year, therefore the course has to be, it's unfair to say, tricked up. It has to be on the edge to keep the scores at level par. There's nothing wrong with winning at 10 over, 10 under, excuse me, which means, yes, it's still the toughest test, because it's not 20 under like a normal tour event, but it's fair.

And that's what the players want to play. They want to play fair. They want to have the good shots rewarded and the bad shots penalised. They don't want the good shots penalized, and that's what was happening on Saturday. Yeah, and so, you know, our character, I guess, or my question would be, you know, if that is the goal, right? If that is their goal, and that's the identity of the championship, the United States Open, to be golf's ultimate test,

the toughest test this year. The big buzzword was carnage and all of that. And that's a lot of what the championship wants. Yes. Is the big, I guess, complaint or gripe that, you know, someone like you might have that it played significantly harder in the afternoon than in the morning? That would be a gripe. That would be gripe with the weather not really changing. Yes. Okay, if the wind suddenly picks up to 30 miles an hour and the rain comes in, okay, you've got unlucky. But the weather forecast was set in the morning. It was set throughout the day.

It didn't change, so they knew what was going to happen. So therefore, should have set up the course accordingly. And that unfortunately didn't happen. And that's what Mike Davis wrote to the players on the Saturday evening Sunday morning and said, look, I'm sorry regarding. Saturday evening. And then Sunday, we got a great day's play Sunday. We did. We got a super days play Sunday because the course was set up, hey, somebody shot 63 or credit to them. If someone's going to score 63, fantastic score. But that was the best score. I think Ricky Fowler shot 65, fine. But there's very few others. You know, I mean, the winner, the winner shot what, 68? Yep. Well, that's not. That's not 62. I mean, you know, and he won the thing. So the course was set up properly on Sunday it just wasn't I'm not on about the course itself

the course is great it was just the set up on Saturday which was wrong unfortunately so um you know excuse me while I have another sip I'm also going to have another excuse me excuse me please because this is just too good no you're very excuse me just take a time out last okay I'll be that can you

that's good that's good that's good sorry sorry listeners we just have a wee break there For some more whiskey. You should go out and grab some whiskey listeners and you can join us. Absolutely.

Fine endeavor that we're on. So, you know, I guess what we would say is that, yes, the golf was fantastic on Sunday what was presented with the course. But we also, when you look at it, I mean, Sandy Tatum in 1974 was responding to player complaints by saying, you know, we're not trying to embarrass the best players. We're trying to identify them. It's been that long, 44 years at least, that controversy has been a main part of the U.S. Open. It has. It has. So in our opinion, I mean, that is the tournament.

If players aren't complaining about the course from our viewer standpoint, the USGA isn't doing their job. So what I, you know, what we said is. Yes. Well, there is that argument, yes. But surely, surely they don't want, they don't want annual controversy. I mean, I mean, the rules infringement to Oakmont. We had the broccoli greens at Chambers Bay. I mean, that course really shouldn't have been played on.

They should have changed venue when they realized the greens weren't suitable. for a course in the 21st century. And then you get this one, Erin Hills wasn't a great success. It was just a big field, really, you know, that was set up for the bombers. This one had its controversy. Of course it did now.

My big worry is we're going to Pebble Beach next year. Surely. Surely America's iconic course here. Surely we can't this up. Surely we can't mess this up. How can you, How can we mess, you can't mess Pebble Beach up. Surely not.

I mean, let's hope that we get back to a tournament that is a championship, excuse me, where it is talking about the golf and not the course, you know? I mean, of course we'll talk about Pebble Beach as a course because it's dramatic and iconic and unique and all these things. But let's hope we're not talking about the setup of the course on any of the days and let's talk about the great shots that are coming in and the birdies that are made. Phil Mickelson drew a lot of headlines with his actions on the 13th Green on Saturday. Just a few.

I haven't heard. Nothing? Sorry, sorry, what was this? What was this? Quick reaction on the whole incident, on the fallout. A lot of people are outraged. Some people almost were saying, what about the children? People were losing their minds a little bit in the golf world, which I will tell you

that we have mocked those taking it overly serious, but we will allow you to give your thoughts on the action. There are two opinions. one that don't... The mocking of the incident, I think, comes from non-golfers and non-golfers that don't know the etiquette of the game. The older generation, which I'm included now since I'm over 50, I know that's difficult for you to see, you know, but I am. The younger generation will think, well, what's the problem there? But the older generation would think, hang in a minute, there's an etiquette to this game.

and unfortunately that etiquette was broken by Phil and I know Phil very well I know Phil very well he's a good friend of mine our lockers in championships were together because our names are very similar in the alphabet so we're so we're together in championships he always used to call me Chris I don't know

he got the first letter right but the rest of it was wrong close enough close enough I just called him Frank and we got on with it and it was it was you know it was a weird scenario where you saw him hit the put and then

I mean literally start running he did he jogged right over to it I mean he ran over to it and and it was yes it was funny at the time but then unfortunately

what he to me the worst thing about it was that in his interview with Curtis Strange afterwards the premeditated version of it came out and

And that was the thing that got us all by saying, oh, actually, God, he meant it. I mean, if he'd said to us all, look, I lost my head, I wasn't prepared to go down the hill again and embarrass myself. So I just stopped it. Hit it. Yes, I know, I think it's a two-shot penalty. I'm not sure. But find me, whatever it is. Sorry, move on. Sorry, everybody. I mean, you can understand that was a crazy pin position, the USGA, get on with it. Yeah. And it would have been, I think it would have been dropped a lot more than to try to justify his action. as to stopping the ball for purposes to use the rules to his advantage. That was the main issue, really, to try and justify it. So it's made the headlines.

Let's hope for Phil's sake, because we love Phil. Everybody loves Phil. Let's hope for his sake and for the USGA and for us and everything, that it finishes almost as quickly as he took to hit it. You know what I mean? Let's hope it dies a death. Yeah, and I agree with you. I think, you know, the action itself, I think when you marry that with his interview,

and he obviously had five holes in an hour and a half to think about exactly what he wanted to say. Yes, that was my point. He could have thought, now, can I sort of just nullify this, or do I want to make this into a huge story? And then he tripled down on it, and on 13 the next day, celebrated after he made the buck. He was really, he was over the top on, well, When you hold one on 13, he went over the top. Really running with it.

Yeah. So it was all a little bit, well, to say controversial was light. I mean, I don't know how you guys feel. That's how I feel as a professional, that the etiquette of the game, the spirit of the game, wasn't taken the way it should have been. Would you say that? Or are you in the younger view? Because I'm sitting here with two young guys here.

Would you say that, hey, come on, what's the big deal? hit a moving bowl. I would say, and we talked a little bit on our show last week where it's like, we were definitely stunned when it first happened. But the reaction of how over the top some people were, he had mentioned the people think of the children and this tarnishes Phil's legacy in some way. I think you can swing too far in the other direction. I think there's, I think you're being very rational in your reaction to how there's an etiquette and people should perform a certain way. But there's the other people who are taking it a little too far in saying that this is going affect Phil in the way people view him for the rest of his career.

Right, okay. I don't think, let's hope, let's hope it's not. Yeah. And let's hope, yes, I'm sure he went home and it regretted it. Definitely. Yeah, I think so. I'm sure he does, he got him regretted and we all regret things we've done. Hey, hell, who's perfect out here, you know, for goodness sake? Not us, you know?

Well, I know. Yeah, I can understand that. I can understand that. That was obvious. You and I are okay. We're pretty good. Yeah, we're pretty good. I'm not even close.

You were pretty good, but this guy. No, no, no, no. So. I'll just drink some more whiskey. Yeah, please. Oh, well, if you're doing it, I'm joining. Let's do it. Joining you. Thank you. Excuse me, listeners, please. We just have another drink of Loclover whiskey.

Hold on a minute. Excuse us. It's delicious. It's actually very good, isn't it? God, it's so good. That is good. Did you send Phil a text or anything being like, hey, come on. I didn't.

I didn't. No, no. We can text her if you want to give us his number. I have his number. Let's get you. Let's give you more whiskeys in, yeah, and we'll... Just call them up. Get that bottle halfway down.

I'll be... I'm going to move on 13, pal. What were we thinking there? I'm sure a few of his colleagues have text him or emailed him or sent him, sent him vibes. But at the same time, let's hope it diminishes as quickly as it came, you know, and let's hope so. And let's hope it doesn't diminish Phil Mickelson's career or his legacy, because his career legacy have been one of the greats in the game, second only really to Tiger Woods in modern

times. So let's hope that it doesn't affect his career that way, and he can move on from it. But no more. I mean, my view is what do we do here? We all know the 15th Augusta's severe, and he goes big at 15 Augusta, and you've got to chip back and the pint, and he's a bit heavy-handed with it, and you're, oh my God, it's going to the water. Well, I tell you what, if I can run. How fast are you, Colin? My ball would go in the water because I wouldn't catch up with it. But some players could catch up with it and stop it.

Now, and then if it stopped by the hole, you could judge it where it, well, you know it's going in the water, and you saw Sergio how it doesn't take much to go in. So as it's nearing the hole, tap it in. Now, there's a, there's a, no, it's actually a four, two-shot penalty, six. well that's better than having it go in the water and having to go round the pond again in front of 15 and have another shot well you're not going to make six

because you're playing your fifth shot already and you're going to get up, you know, you're struggling. So let's hope that they might well, they might well, the USGA and the RNA might get together and they might well change that rule. Yeah. Where if you intentionally move the ball for gain,

for your own game, then I think the rules of golf should change accordingly. Yep. I will say next year of the masters, if someone hits their wedshot into 15 and then runs up and taps it in as it's going by the whole movie, they should give them the green jacks. Yeah. Even if it's on Thursday, just stop the tournament. Amazing. Bring out the green jacks. I mean, you have to have a bit of, you know what, for that to happen.

But it opens up, it's a precedent, isn't it? It opens up all sorts of scenario that we don't really want to. to see. Right. So you've had your own interactions, engagements with the fans over the years. I have. I have. There's been a lot of talk about the boisterous crowds. Rory's commented on it. Justin Thomas had somebody kicked out of the Honda Classic for it. Are the crowds more boisterous now than they were in your day? Oh, very much so. Very much so, yes. I think, you know, over the years, I think it was building and building and the Ryder Cup

is where we saw it more than most especially when we came over here to the states whereby my first was 91 which was called the war the war I mean my god were allies for God's sake you know the war on the shore wasn't it with the war on the shore at Kiwer Island that's what it was called

war is aggressive war is pretty aggressive pretty very aggressive 95 was building and then 99 was quite bad at Brookline and then in a very negative way but a positive way for the golf circuit and the golf fans and all sports fans, you know, in that time, after 1999, 9-11 occurred in 2001. And it brought everybody together more and more.

I think people here in New York, there was less honking of horns in New York. People let people out the streets. Everyone was kinder to each other and respected each other more and more. They knew we were allies, you know. And I think. think that helped in the golf sense in my own game, putting it into my own game, that it quieted down a wee bit. It definitely did. The 2002 Radic Cup was quiet. Four was quiet. Six wasn't boisterous. It was more delight in Ireland. And it's building up again a wee bit, but nothing like it was. And the players are playing together more and more now and they know each other. It's just the odd minority that that wrecks it for the majority.

You know, there's always the guy that wants to hear his own voice and be on screen and wants to get a Hollywood position for screaming or whatever it might be. And he tends to ruin it for the majority of fans. They are few and far between, but it does, every shots that's hit, you don't want to hear mashed potatoes or get in the hole or something. It is a bit silly, you know, so let's hope we can,

we can evictive. these guys or whatever you do with these guys, because they're not really, they're not really golf fans as such. What's the most outrageous thing you've ever heard from the gallery? Oh, well, that's unrepeatable on air. Not on this air. Oh, yes.

This air is a wildest. No, no, no, no, no, even this air. Believe me. Even this air. This was bad. This was a word that's never said. And happened to me, I was playing the late, the late Payne Stewart,

actually, in the 1999 Rider Cup singles at Brookline and on the ninth tee happened to have Prince Andrew there. The Queen's son was watching as an avid golfer and my father and brother and they all seemed to walk off at the same time that had enough, you know, and that was the worst I've ever heard. But yeah, you know, we were winning. America hadn't lost at home for a long time and we were winning and yeah, you know, we didn't understand, or the one thing that we didn't respect for the Americans is, is they wanted, they couldn't afford to lose this Rider Cup three times in a row, and they'd never,

ever done that. You know, we won it in four, we won it in, we won it in, no, we won it in four, six, no, hang on it, no, no, I'm off, we won it in 95, won at 97, excuse me, and this was 99 to win it three times in a row. We'd never done it before. And what we didn't realize was the Americans didn't want that to happen. And they all credit to every player that played that day, they played fantastic golf with a huge patriotic support. And we weren't ready for it. And it was our fault in many ways that we weren't ready for it.

If you expect something to happen, you're fine. It's the unexpected that you don't want to happen, and that's what happened there in 99. But it's changed, as I say, it's changed since, and it's got better. It's just louder now, and especially in the afternoons, you know, the sun and the heat and the odd drink doesn't help them. Yep. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we are joined now in studio in the office by a very special guest, The Shark, Mr. Greg Norman. Greg, first of all, welcome first impressions of basketball sports walking in.

Well, my first impression when the elevator door opened, I went, holy shit, this place is packed in here. So very impressive, guys. We're running low on space, as you can see. But things could be worse. So we appreciate you coming in and all of that. First question, how did you get the nickname The Great White Sharr? Oh, great first question. 1981, I played my first U.S. Masters.

Now, in 1981, I'd been a professional golfer for four years, right? So nobody knew who the hell Greg Norman was, what he did, how he went about things. But lo and behold, after two rounds of the market, I was leading it. So obviously I go on the media room, and they wanted to do a deep dive into my background. I had long blonde hair. I played really aggressive golf, and I told him I grew up on the Great Barrier Reef, and I, you know, dive with sharks and Great White Sharks and Tiger Sharks and all that.

And lo and behold, Saturday morning, the Atlanta Constitution, the headline was Great White Shark leads U.S. Masters. And that's how it stuck. And it stuck. And actually it was the best thing any editorial media guide ever done for me. Did you love it? I'm saying there's worse nicknames out there than the Great White Shark. It's pretty good.

In Australia, for four years, they call me the Golden Bear Cub. Okay. Because I was actually, my whole golfing startup was reading Jack Nicholas's books, right? So they really cloned me as the golden bear cub. And I hated that. I hated the idea of being in somebody else in a Seattle. So I said, screw this, screw this. But there was no real name coming out until Saturday of the Masters in 81.

I said, perfect. That's what I love it. It's so me, blonde hair, aggressive style. You know, and I tack and eat things. And that's it. Yeah, and you did have kind of the Nicholas Shaggy, blonde hair and whatnot. So I bet you were talking about that. Yeah, well, my physique was a little bit different than Jack's.

Which is a good thing. That's what you want. Sorry, Jack. No, we're not taking shots of Jack. We're just saying. That's great. We grab a couple of headlines. Greg Norman takes shots of Jack Nicholas

all these years later. He gets on Jack Nicholas's physique, yeah, right out of the gate. Do you think anybody in golf has a better logo than you do? No. I don't think anybody in sports has a better logo than you. No, mine is pretty cool logo. Yeah, I feel like people would say like the Jordan logo,

but the shark is so good looking. So how does that come to be? Because you get the headlines, people, it obviously catches on. Then do you just circle up with a marketing team? Like, hey, we've got to get a cool great white shark logo. Man, you guys are starting off of two great questions. Okay, how that all started? I became an endorsement player for Reebok, right?

My dear friend Paul Feynman owned Reebok at the time, and Reebok was really a woman's sneaker shoe coming out of the UK, and he bought it into the United States, wanted to bring it into an athletic brand, right, to be competitive to Nike. So I was number one player in the world at the time. I signed an endorsement deal with Reebok. I was wearing Reebok on my sleeve.

And around the late 80s, around 87, 88, Paul comes to me and says, hey, you know, I would really like to start up the Greg Norman Collection. I think there's a great opportunity for us. Why? Because he had distribution. Right? Because of all the distribution outlets he have with all the athletic apparel that he had from sneakers to athletic clothing. So I go, sure.

Okay. Paul go ahead. So we had to come up with a logo. So his internal team within Reebok came up with the logo. And, you know, when we started going out to register it as a trademark, We were bumping up against another company called Paul and Shark. You're familiar with that? Paul and Shark is a monochromatic shark logo,

swimming in the opposite direction of our logo. So we had to do a settlement deal on a global basis, and there were a couple of carve-outs of a few countries around the world, especially in Europe because Paul and Shark was Italy. So we actually did a carve-out. We paid them a fee for the rest of the world, which was in those days, I won't say what it was, but it was in the millions of dollars,

which was really a substantial amount of money. back in the late 80s. So we got control of the logo, but it had to be a multicolored logo swimming in the opposite direction of the Portland Shark was huge. Swimming in the other direction. That's what it came down to. I used to imagine like a huge board of very important people.

What can we do to make these different? We just make it swim in a different direction. Let's do that. I got to be honest, I think you nailed the direction. I think this is the right. I think this is the correct direction. It never takes off of it swimming in this way. Your name goes this way, the shark comes this way.

It's incredible. I agree. How much did you embrace it, you know, like, walking out of the range, you're like, oh yeah, here comes the shark? How did you feel about it? You know, everybody was called, like, in China, they call me Da Be Shah, which is a great white fish, a great white, right? In Mexico, they call me Tiburon, which is shark.

And on the tour, when I played, people were out there with sharks' t-shirts, shark this, shark this, shark that, and, you know, I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And what it really did teach me, guys, was I knew how to play golf, and what made me so special because I could hit the little white golf ball from point A, point B better than most people. It was, I learned very, very quickly that if you could put bums on seats, if you could bring people through the gate, if you can move TV ratings, you could actually put that logo out in front of more people more often

and get more visibility about it. And Paul Feynman taught me all about branding and marketing for a novice. And over the period of time that I was an endorsed player with him, I knew there was going to be a time period where, there was going to be separation of the church and state. Reebok would go off my shirt and there'd be the shark logo on the shirt and that's what happened. And under the

Reebok umbrella, we were doing plus 300 million domestically in the U.S., which was a pretty impressive number very quickly out of the gate. So you've won, I believe, 91 international tournaments. You've won 20 times the PGA tour. A couple major championships. You're number one in the world for 300 and something weeks? 31, yeah.

331 weeks. What is the, in your, opinion in your mind, what's the single most important shot you ever hit? Geez. All of them? No. The first thing that came in my mind then was Saturday TPC, the year I wanted by going away, I beat Fuzzy. And it was the 16th hole, par five.

I actually missed the fairway to the left. and I'm standing on the carpath in spikes, and I had 217 or third, 27, something like that, to the flag. And I could have laid it up out, pitched out, and just had about 150 yards under the green. And I saw this shot that I could hook this two iron out or over the water, back on the green, and hold the green. Of course you did.

Yeah, I saw a shot. You've been practicing that shot. Exactly. So that, I pulled the club out of my bag and I could hear my catty go, hmm, like, what do you do? And Greg, we talked about this. I pulled on the reins up back there. I pulled the shot off. I land on the back edge of the green.

I had two-part of for a birdie, and I kept my momentum going. And, you know, just shots like that, you go, first of all, you've got to be an idiot to think about it, right? Second of all, you've got to be super confident in your ability to pull it off. and third of all, two pull it off. And there's just situations like that in about a period of 20 seconds, your whole demeanor and attitude about yourself and your confidence and your belief in yourself just get skyrocketed. I believe 24 under is still the record there.

I believe so, yeah. No big deal. No big deal. Now, that week I was pissed. I tell you why I was pissed. Even though it won. I had gone 18 holes at Bay Hill the week. before without making a bogey on Sunday, right?

I walked into the TPC and I was feeling great and I said to myself, you know, I've never gone 72 holes without making a bogey. So I put that in my mind early on the week and, by the way, Pete Dye and I were just starting building the medalist golf club and I said to Pete, I said, Pete, you know what, I'm going to go up there and destroy your golf course. And he looked at me, yeah, yeah, great, yeah, for sure. So anyway, I had two interiors. internal messages to myself, right? So on the Sunday of the TPC, I hadn't made a bogey going into

the par 3, 10, 11, 12, 14, 13, 14, anyway, and I three-potted for a bogey. And I was so mad with myself, so mad, because I missed about a three-footer for a par, and I, and that really kicked me into gear again to say, okay, you've lost that goal. I actually have gone 72 holes because if you include fourth round of Bay Hill, I'd actually go on 72 tournament professional rounds plus more without a bogey. I thought, okay, that's kind of achieved my goal in some way. That's pretty good. Yeah. So a lot of guys, Tiger talks a lot about how he's a percentages guy. He always plays the percentages on, you know, risk or war and all that. Were you a percentages guy or not really? I was, actually. My percentages were probably a little bit more aggressive

in situations. Look, there were times when I should have laid up, there's no question about it. There those times when I should have been a little bit more conservative in my approach. But look, everybody's different about how they approach their game. You know, I was Arnold Palmer different than Jack Nicholas. It was Tom Watson different to Raymond Floyd. You know, yes, we're all different in our own way. And it's our DNA, and that's why people like to follow certain people, right? Right.

And I just enjoyed the process and the people enjoyed my style of golf, and they wanted to kind of emulate me in it. some degree and some shape, shape, or form. And here we are today, you know, the memories of the past to still resonate so deep with people because of my approach and attitude towards the game. So as much as you won, you had a lot of close calls. If you could have one shot back and do it over again, which one would it be? The 86 Masters, the year Jack won. I had 187 yards to the back right pin on 18, a 72nd hole.

And I was just playing so great all day. And I was completely in control of 80 to 90% of my swing speed. And I decided, because the hole was cut back right, I decided to really carve in a little soft four iron instead of going at it with a hard fire iron, which I knew a hard fire iron would have carried that ridge. It was like 185, 182 to carry the ridge.

No problem carrying that. And I said, no, no, no, I'll just hit a nice high-cut four-iron back in there. And, you know, if you've played Augusta National, the 18th hole is quite a steep slope going up there. I think a lot of our listeners have played. Yeah, I know. All the listeners out there last week. Remember when we played it on the Tiger Woods 13 video game? He did.

So, we actually pretty familiar with it. So anyway, gravity got the better of my, because I was trying to hit a soft shot in there instead of hard shot. My hip speed slowed down a little bit, and I didn't fire up the hill as much as I should have done with my hip. hip speed, gravity pulled me back a little bit, flared it open a little bit, and missed it out to the right. So that was probably one shot I'd like to have back again. So 87 Masters, Larry Myers, they always say you're supposed to in a match play setting, expect your opponent to make it. Did you expect him to make that tip on? Hell no. No, no, not at all. You know, when he hit his second shot in there before my second shot, when I knew, I saw where it was, I knew where the whole location was,

I knew that I Now you're talking about going to conservative then Then I went really conservative I aimed at the back right bunker And I said okay even if you push it Six feet to the right you can have 45 feet Instead of 35 feet No big deal

So I played that one a little bit more conservative Than I would have Larry hit it to where my ball was on the green I would have been a lot more aggressive With my second shot And probably put about 20 feet 18 feet 20 feet right of the flag Or maybe a little bit short

But so his second shot but set me up to be a little bit more conservative, knowing that his chances of getting that up and down were very, very slim, because it was a tough, tough shot, let alone just make it. That even came into my head, right? So, you know, I'm lining up the putt, thinking, okay, I'm going to figure out, just going to die it down there. It's about a seven-foot break.

I'm just going to let it finish down there, about 18 inches under the hole, and I'm going to put two put put put in, I got a good chance of winning the tournament. Right. And that was going through my mind as this whole thing was Larry was lining up for shots. and when it went in, I went, oh, fudge. And then you have to completely change your entire philosophy, mentality, regroup, re-line up the putt. You know, and it was very hard to do all that. And it was just the loudest, loudest cheer that had ever heard anywhere in the world.

So then you also had the one with Bob Tway, who holds out from the bunker. again, I mean, is that, do they start to add up in your mind a little bit? Of course. I'm just getting unlucky here. Well, it was back to back, right? When you go back to back, people hauling out to beat you, you kind of sometimes you sit back and sit on the beach with a, you know, reflecting mood go, you know, is destiny against me on this stuff? Right. Because even with Bob's shot, I mean, if it doesn't hit the flag, it's 12, 15 feet past the hole.

Right, both of them, really? Both moving. Yeah, both moving pretty quick. And look, you accept the fact that sport, I can't control what other people do. I can only control what I have over myself. And, you know, those guys were trying to play the best shot they possibly could. I bet you neither one of them expected they were going to make it. But at the end of the day, history shows they did make it.

And I was the recipient of getting fucked. I think that's right. I think that's correct. So my good buddy's cousin Mike and cousin Murray wanted me to ask you, what happened to Bill Clinton's leg in 97 at your house? He slipped down my front stairs. There's a little DJ, how a DJ slip down the stairs. Getting a lot of stairs slips going on these days.

Should we take that at face value or should we? No, you can take it as face value. Look, I mean, there is a situation where it's the President of the United States number one. He's in your house number two. We had sat up and we, you know, President Clinton didn't drink at all. Contrary to all the fake news at the time, you know, that he was drinking. blah, blah, blah. He didn't have a drink. He drank Coca-Cola, and we had a sandwich until about 2.30, something like that. And we were playing golf early in the morning. And he's an insomniac.

He probably two, three hours sleep a day. And, you know, he'd give him, I got on a little sidebar when I was with him up in the White House. And I was staying overnight with him. We'd go to bed around two. He'd come to my room at 4.10 in the morning, like two hours later. Get up. Come on. Let's go. I go, Mr. President, what are you? So we'd walk through the halls of the White House having a conversation, you know, and I thought that was pretty cool because, you know, he's a guy who's a real guy, you know. I don't care whether you like his politics, not like his politics.

At the end of the day, he was an engaging human being. So in that situation in my house, you know, I invited him to come down and play the member guest with me at the medalist golf club because we're friends. We're still our friends today. and it was just about friends and golf. Anyway, we're walking down the stairs, and he still had his suit on, no tie, and he's heel caught the bottom step, and went from Woodward down into Coquina,

and the Coquina's a little rougher, and his heel caught, and he just fell forward, and he tore his quad off his kneecap of what it was, and it was excruciatingly painful. He fell on my left leg, I actually caught him, and my left knee has been destroyed, ever since. Everybody talks about his leg.

My knees destroyed. And we sat there and it was actually, it was a testament to how quickly the, the Secret Service reacted, the cat team, the counter-assault team. Because they heard him scream, they thought something happened. I'm holding him. And within probably eight seconds, six to eight to ten seconds. six to eight to ten seconds, we were surrounded by people. And then I won't go into any more detail after that

because how they control the situation, got him under control. You know, I will say this, he had a brand new Navy blue suit on. So the doctor comes running out in his underwear, right? And he goes with the scissors because they think he could have been shot in the leg or whatever, right? There's no blood or anything like that.

So he goes and with the scissors and cuts up. He's trousers. Don't you mess up my suit? Manly suit. I thought, okay, that's a lighthearted moment. And it was incredible for the next four hours, really. The process went down and how he controlled himself and how much pain he was in. And then, very impactful moment.

He was going to go to the hospital. Then he came back to the house. then they want to bring him back to the house, and then he wanted to go to Air Force One. So around about 630, 6.40 in the morning, I get a call. And he's on Air Force One, about ready to take off to Washington, D.C. And he was dying to meet my kids. And my kids were going, getting ready to go to school.

So he said, bring him to the plane before I leave, because I never got to meet your kids. Now think about this. He's a guy. All he's doing is taking asses. because you can't take narcotics where you're an active president. You've got to hand over to the vice president, right? While you're on narcotics.

And he said, bring your kids to the plane. So I go, okay, kids, slow it up. The president would like to meet you, blah, blah, blah. So we drive to Palm Beach International Airport, walk up on Air Force One. There he is sitting in the nose of the aircraft in a track suit, ice on his leg. And he just sat there and talked to my kids.

And I thought, my God, what a human being. Right? What an unbelievable human being where he would take that moment in time to actually do what he did to my family. And so they walked them around Air Force One. I could picture my son sitting in his chair on Air Force One at his desk and all that stuff. So it was pretty those moments that people don't talk about. Right. But those moments make the human being who he is. What a scene that is.

I'm just imagining the shark in the president of the United States just laying there with like broken legs. screen. How did we get here? ESPN body issue, actually. That was, I did enjoy that actually. You knocked that one out. You knocked out of the point. I did. We looked at the pictures last week. We heard you come over here like, the sharks still got. I got to be honest. Actually, I've said, damn you, Greg Norman for that picture because my buddies

and I were all in this like fantasy football league. And whoever finishes in the last, this year has to take an ESPN body issue type picture. And for me, they're choosing the Greg Norman picture. There you go. Which one? Of course. Well, you know the one where you You're like your whole body's, you're on the, you have the driver. Okay, yeah. I mean, it's something.

Look, I'll tell you, the most interesting, interesting shoot of that six-hour shoot, because I don't know, I was doing a full swing with my driver. Well, my golf club wasn't the only thing swinging. So, you know, I have practiced kind of naked before, but, but it's interesting how your body, it felt, different. I'm sure it did. So, look, if you're not comfortable in your own skin, don't do it. And I felt really, really good about it.

I was honored to be thought of, number one, but a lot of that had to do because of Jay McNeill and you directed my corporate communication. She knew how I love health and wellness, I love fitness, and knew how much I put into keeping my body fit on a daily basis. So she went out on her own, and she actually, for six months,

kept asking, pushing, pushing, without me knowing. And then all of a sudden she calls up and says, hey, I got some good news for you. So it didn't take me long. That may be five seconds today. They said, yeah, sure. But it was really a fun shoot.