Fore Play - The John Deere is dead, and our friend the USGA joins the show

Episode Date: June 2, 2020

The John Deere Classic is canceled. Does anybody care? Anyone? We discuss the tour returning and why so quickly, pre-round routines, and if we could beat the 19th century’s best golfers. Then we’re joined by USGA Chief Brand Officer Craig Annis (75:07) to breakdown rescheduling the U.S. Open, changes to the live viewing experience, fans onsite, and more!You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/foreplaypod

Hey, 4Play listeners. You can find us every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. It is the month of June, which is crazy. Time feels like it's going. I don't know. It's like it's fake life. It doesn't make sense. How's it June already? Everybody's been inside for months. It's supposed to be U.S. Open Week. So we have Craig Anis on this show, who's the chief brand officer for the USGA. He's a buddy of ours. He's worked with us for a lot of different things. when it comes to U.S. Open access credentials with the U.S.GA. He was there at the first Mulligan Challenge. He played in the group with Dave. So we're going to get into a lot of fun stuff with Craig

and talk about the challenges about moving the U.S. Open, doing a fully exempt field, all that good stuff. So that's coming up at the end of the show. I do want to say it's not lost on us, that there's a lot of troubling things going on in our country. And here we are to talk about golf. I do think that our show for most people for almost all the listeners is an escape. I think it's a reprieve.

I think it's very much a chance for people to feel like they've escaped from work or from the troubles of life and just appeared on a golf course or at the 19th hole with their buddies. We're here to make people laugh. It's also not lost on us that we're for fucking white dudes who talk and play about golf. So like we're about as privileged as it gets. If you haven't, I thought that Dave Portnoy, who is our boss, his video on the whole situation, pretty much laid it out about as well as I could. And he said, look, there's obviously bad apples. There's bad people in any industry and any profession.

And what happened is horrible. It's murder. And we, all we could hope for is that people, everywhere across the country, everybody feels the way that we do, which is like, if I see a police officer, I feel protected. I feel safer. And it's obvious that not everybody feels that way. So I thought he laid it out very well. We're here to talk about golf and try to make people laugh a little bit. If you think this is not the time for that, totally understand, turn it off. But that's what we do. And we are very, very, very much aware that we don't feel the right things to necessarily be like, oh, yeah, we totally get it because we don't. We're for white dudes to talk about golf. So those are kind of my thoughts on the entire situation. Yeah, another one I

This morning was Token CEO podcast, which is hosted by our CEO, Eric Nardini. She had our co-workers, Trill Withers, and Willie Colon on. Just great perspective from them. Again, like Riggins is saying, I'll just kind of repeat what he said, where it's like, we're four white guys. It's hard to be able to say, like, yeah,

we totally get it when it's sort of not something that we've experienced throughout our lives. But, I mean, all you can do right now is just kind of listen, be empathetic to people in situations that you don't understand and listen to them and hear what they have to. say before you step in and hear and you say, oh, well, wait, what about this? Just sit back and listen. And if you feel the need or you have an opportunity to support the people that are going through these things, definitely do that. But I think it's a good time for people to practice empathy

and support people and just listen to everybody else about what's going on. Yeah, I very much agree. I think, I mean, there's been some moments, you know, we're all kind of watching the news and seeing what's going on. And, you know, you pick your, pick your channel, pick whatever you like to watch. but you do get some folks on there on the streets that that will be able to get a camera and a microphone in front of their face and they're incredibly articulate and they talk about kind of what it feels like to them and you're absolutely right, Trey, and that like listening right now for a lot of us is just the best thing that you can do and sort of understand and when people lay it out how different of an experience they've had throughout their life than you have.

it's important. It's, it's very interesting and sort of exercising that empathy, I think, is very, very important. So, so again, we're not, it's not lost in us and all this stuff's going on. We are going to try to talk some golf, try to make you laugh a little bit, and do our thing. I think that, that's pretty much my stance on the whole thing. I think you nailed it. Yeah. I mean, I'm as white as, look at like, I got a little sun yesterday. Dude. Oh, my God. You want to talk about how white I am? I just,

so I have no place to talk about what's going on in the world. I sit in the sun and, and I just get burnt, all right? Like, that's, that's how it is. And for anyone listening,

I just pulled up my shirt. And it's probably the most skin you'll ever see out of me. But boy, oh boy, am I a burnt little toaster oven here. I mean, that'll be a highlight. That'll be a promo for sure.

I can't believe. Your stomach's a highlighter board. It's literally a whiteboard that you can mark. Honestly, it's not as bad as that looks. Okay? It's a tone of pink. I'm pink now. But like, I was so white that it needed to get some sort of color.

And it wasn't going to go straight. You're day one. You're going to get worse. You're going to do it. It's going to peel off. Where do I start? Like, I want to get somewhere. I can't keep being a guy that every time I touch a son, I shrivel like the guy in

benchwarmerers. Yeah, I like that. I mean, it is, you're on the right path. I agree with the path. Day one of my stomach seeing the sun in three years. So it's like, it's looking at the sun like, no. Boy, did you get across the point that you're white?

You got that. You did. You nailed it. There's no confusion. I agree with everything you guys say, especially talking about golf. It's very privileged, predominantly white sports. So I think that the sport,

and I think sports in general, we all need to just have more of an open-mindedness. Because like you said, rings. Like, not everyone has the same. way of life or way of thinking. And it is okay to say black lives matter. And you don't have to always be like so afraid to speak out about these things. And honestly, like do I agree with a lot of the riots?

Like people burning down targets. Like no, like that stuff's crazy right now. But like the actual thought of like getting this stuff out there, like we need to start talking about it. Because it's obviously a problem. It's not the first time we've seen it in our lifetime. And it's not going to be the last time I've seen it if it doesn't get changed. And that sucks.

Like you should be able to walk down the street. Regardless of whatever color you are, You should be able to just not be afraid of getting shot, like, for doing nothing. You know what I mean? Like, there's people out there that legitimately are afraid to go from point A to point B because of the color of their skin. And that makes me sad to live in a world like that. So I don't want to live in a world like that. And I want to make it a better place.

And I think that it can find all different areas. It can be in your work. It can be where you go in golf. It can be country clubs accepting certain races and stuff like that. I mean, I think the change can happen on a global scale, not just in what we're talking about. So I'm all aboard that for sure. Agreed. I very much agree with everything that that you guys have said.

And like I mentioned off the top, we're going to try to make you laugh. We're to try to talk about the U.S. Open and get you back in that golf mindset. It is June. It is the summertime. This show is coming out on June 2nd, 2020, which, I mean, once you get into June, you're talking golf season. You're kind of in the heart of it.

We would be like two weeks out from the U.S. Open, which is crazy to think about. John Deere Classic has been canceled, which we'll talk about that. Holy shit. From the gallery, we've got some great ones, including like, do you shower before you play around of golf? Are there going to be more lost golf balls now? There's no galleries and crowds to be finding them on tour. So we've got a lot of good stuff to get to. Other good stuff is Owens.

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for a very long time it's coming from us and owens mixers owens craft mixers you go to owens mixers dot com barstool 15 you're going to get 15% off all right uh youtube page we got our number two piners number two video is out as we have mentioned uh of us playing the course for the very first time seeing it for the very first time de greening getting stuck in the sandy waste areas trying to chip onto the turtle back to the crown greens. The whole experience for Trent, Frankie and myself, it's all on our YouTube page for Play Golf. We've got a bunch of new gear.

We just released like three or four new polos that are very, very sharp. We've got a Peter Millar cooler bags. You want to throw some ice in there, maybe some Owens, maybe a little cocktail, maybe truly, whatever you'd like to put in there. You can get it with your little cooler bag. So store at barcelesports.com, we got a lot of good golf stuff on there. And then I released a, we released an update

for the Barstle Classic today. Tournament's going to change a little bit. Obviously, it's still going to be very fun. There's still going to be a lot of really high competitive golf. There's still going to be Trulies being Drake out there. But we're going to have to limit some of the gatherings before and after. We're going to have to probably do tea times instead of shotgun starts, again, to kind of limit the congregation of a ton of people in one area.

So pretty basic, obvious stuff. If you've been paying attention to what's going on in the world, global pandemic, hello. That obviously affects a big golf tournament with over 100 people at it. but the show will go on. We're going to be continuing to do the Barstall Classic. Barstall Classic.com's got all the updates, all the updated literal dates on, you know,

when we're going to be playing which event. A few of them have had to move. Hopefully we don't have to move anymore, but we may, depending on, you know, restrictions and when people are kind of allowed to go do certain things. So, all right, that's housekeeping. I think we've gotten through it. Trent, are you ready to discuss the fact that the John Deer Classic is so

unimportant? No. They just canceled it. No, you know, I've been thinking a lot about this, obviously, since the news broke. The John Deere Classic has been canceled. The reason is because by the time when it was supposed to be, which was mid-July, Illinois is still expected to be limiting gatherings to 50 people or less.

So you can't hold a golf tournament with those type of restrictions. So they canceled it. It's devastating, honestly, because, you know, we talk about that tournament all the time on this show. I talk about it in a positive light. You guys talk about it in a very immature and negative way. But this was, well, this was. That's a mischaracterization. That's not a mix.

Every single opportunity you guys get to sucker punch me and the John Deere Classic, you guys take every opportunity, even when I don't see it coming. We're talking about some random thing with some random guests, and you guys will just take a jab at me of the John Deer Classic. It sucks, man, because like we've mentioned on this, or I have mentioned on this show before, that, like, this was the year that we were maybe going to get a top 50 player. We were maybe, because all the other years were the week before the Open Championship,

guys skip it because they want to already be across the pond, getting their practice rounds in. And, you know, unfortunately this year with the global pandemic, it made it so there was going to be an opportunity for top 50 players to be there. And it just gets canceled. It sucks. I don't know what to say other than it sucks. What was our bet, Trent, Daddy?

We had a bet that number one or two players were playing the John Deere Classic. We had like an over under. I think the over was one and a half or maybe. even a half. The top five or top 10 player would be there. I don't think that bet should be honored at this point because the whole fucking tournament got canceled. Just wanted.

I just want to know your take on. I also heard a rumor that Tiger Woods was going to play at the John Deere Classic. There was a rumor that that was going to happen. It doesn't know. You can't know now. But like, Tiger Woods is going to stay in a fucking barn and play in a golf tournament. Like there's no chance he's going to the John Deer Classic. Somebody get Trent is Baba and Applesauce because you're crying all over the.

the podcast, okay? It's 20-20, you're 30 fucking years old. Stop crying, all right? Like, this is what I'm going to tell you right now. Look at your fucking face. Look at your face. Listen to me. Listen to me. If a tree falls in the woods and no one's there to hear it, does it actually fucking fall or does it make a noise? Like, honestly, no one knows if, like, no one cares if this thing gets canceled because no one was watching it and no one was playing. in it. So they're just canceling something that is just like a little blip on my calendar. I don't give a fuck about the John Deere Classic. You think that's news? We're about to talk to Craig about the U.S. Open. All right, bro? That's a tournament. We're talking about the Masters. We're talking

about the players. The John Deer Classic. Boo-hoo. Come get some pizzas at Pirelli's before we cry about the John Deer Classic, all right? In your little corners. Frankie, I got a question for you, before we move too far from what you just said. I'm staring at Trent's Corner. So I'm looking at all four years. I'm staring at Trent's Corner. Like, yeah, that's right, you little bitch. I'm glad it got canceled, all right?

Oh. All right, I don't want to take it that far. I don't want to take it that far. I'm not glad it got canceled. I'm just saying, like, what's the difference? I mean, it dominated the golf news cycle when it got canceled. People couldn't stop writing about it. Because it's a joke of a tournament.

No. Green and yellow. Just yet another one of the majors that got canceled. The Open Championship, it got canceled. And the John Deere Classic, the well-known as the fifth major, it fell to this son of a bitch coronavirus. I do want to say that I think my dad's favorite company in the world is John Deere. Like he says that that John Deere Green, that it like does something to a man.

And when he says that, I feel like less of a man every time he says that. Well, I feel like those tractors, like a dad wants a John Deer track. Like you do. Every dad out there wants a John Deer. Got it. You got to have it. It's right around them. Like that's...

When I get going, I say things. I didn't mean to bring up your age. And I didn't mean to bring up the location in which this golf course is played. This golf tournament is played. My point being is that it's a tournament that just comes and goes, right? It's just the John Deere classic. No one plays in it. It's a bunch of no-name guys.

Matthew Wolfe goes over there with this grotesque swing. Bryce and Deschambo, Jordan's speed. These are no names, I guess. D. Chambot, what a loser. This is what I'm talking about. like all these guys show up to John Deer Classic. They cancel it. Whatever, man. I'm trying to get real tournaments on the docket right here.

I don't have time. The whole world's canceling. You think I have to shed a tear for the John Deer Classic. Grow up. The one thing I will say is this would have been a great opportunity if they just went across the border and it hosted it somewhere in Iowa. Like that would be the biggest win for me of all time. Because Iowa, I don't know if you guys have been following the news for the last couple months,

but Iowa has not put on the restrictions for the coronavirus that all the other states have. So, dude, they'll have a fucking Marty Groves golf tournament in Iowa. So I think they should have looked into that. I know they're thinking about going back to back in Ohio, but they should be, like, looking into golf courses in Iowa because that state does not give a fuck about social distancing. So let's finally bring the John Deere Classic home and have it in Iowa so I can shove it in these guys' faces. I can be bought, and I think I've proven that in my years here in the podcast, if the John Deere Classic wants to come back with some grand reopening,

and they want to do it in Iowa, and we're going to hit balls from Casey's General Store pizza, and we're going to do all the little tidbits and all the buffet a bit, and you want me to be a part of that, and you're going to roll out the red carpet before play for us to come, I will be the biggest supporter of the John Deere Classic. But until then, I will continue to act as though it's in my back, pocket beneath my grundle. Like, I don't care about it. It's just something that's just,

it passes me. Who gives a fuck? Yeah. I mean, when this tournament happens again, which we've now, we have to wait a year, I have no inside information, but I bet they roll out the red carpet for the four playboys, whether it's in Iowa or Illinois, I think they won us there. I like Casey General Sorpita. I appreciate that. That makes me, everything you said about me before, I don't care about. You said that, I'm all good. I've never had it, but I predict that I will really, really like it. I like that.

It's not pizza. It's just, it's a breakfast. Like, we do breakfast pizza at Borrellas, too. I like, it's like not pizza. It's like you got some eggs on it. You got the cheese and you got that bacon, man. That bacon is something. That bacon was controversial when Dave did the review when we did the college football show.

It's not too bacon. It's the perfect amount of bacon. It's cheese. It's eggs. It's so good. I mean, I consider breakfast pizza because that's what it is. Dave took your dad's breath away, right? Two bacony?

Yeah, I introduced. Stopped him in his tracks. The first time my parents had ever met my boss, Dave Portnoy, I've been working for the company for four years, but obviously he would never be in Iowa, and they'd never be in New York City or Boston. And yeah, I introduced them, and they met, and it was all nice. And the review had already come out. And as my dad was leaving the room where they had met, he just sort of under his breath

said, I don't know how something can have too much bacon. It just, it completely took my dad's breath away. He's a Midwest man. He's never. he could see a large pile of bacon and he would never be like that's too much bacon. So for someone to say something had too much bacon on it was something he just couldn't understand. Trent, you want to, we left pioneers together and we had a, what, nine-hour trip home? Yep.

We made a pit stop in Washington, D.C. What did you think about our little rendezvous up the East Coast? I mean, it was great. I hadn't been to Washington, D.C. in a long time, and I had only been there one. another time before. But it's, it's magnificent. That's the word that I would use. Like, I know you, like Frankie kept saying, you feel like you're in a movie. We went to the Lincoln Monument. We went to the Washington Monument. We got these little, these little scooters that they have laying around the city where you can just download an app and you, they let people just leave

them wherever they want. And you get an app and you can just get on these scooters. And we just ripped around the entire city. We went to the White House. We went everywhere. It was, it was a magnificent trip. How old were you guys in? We were ready for. Too long. Like, we were like, why don't we just pull over on this exit for 10 minutes and just check out the things and like, I don't know, three and a half hours on five, four hours on five. We were just cruising around. I remember because when I was driving, we had like the your arrival time in New York City is whatever. 12.15. I think it said 1215 midnight and we ended up getting into New York at like 3.45. Wow.

Dude, one of the situations were driving home from Pioneers. You know, we were all jacked up. We had a great victory against Kevin Kisner. We're on our way down there to Pioneer. We got a little bit of a freedom boner when we drove past D.C. We're like, oh, shit, D.C. is like right off the exit here. So then we're coming back up. And I'm like, I see Washington, D.C. to our left.

And I'm like, man, if I just type in like Lincoln Monument, how many minutes is that going to be? Is it going to be like 27 minutes away? It said three minutes. I'm like, what's cool? I just said to try. I'm like, just get off on 25 TV. Like, we're getting off. We pulled up. You can just.

park on the street and then we were just inside Washington, D.C., where, like, Jenny right across the little pond and Forrest Gump gave his speech and Martin Luther King Judy. I mean, it's just everything about that place is so inspiring and it gives you

the chills. And when I get the chills, like, tear up. So there was moments where we were staying out there just tearing up. The fact that you went like Forrest Gump, then MLK. Well, the problem is moments in history. Nobody do. Yeah, just big, you know, moments in history that just popped into my mind.

Forest Gump is, that's a movie I watch all the time. It's a big one. It's a big one. Also, earlier, I didn't cut you off, but you said if a tree falls in the forest, does it fall? And then I quickly correct. Okay, just making sure that you make a noise.

Because you'd know that it fell. Would you know that it fell, Frankie? You wouldn't know, actually, no. You wouldn't know if it fell? If a tree fell in the forest, would you know that it fell? You're saying that it falls, but. Lurchercher, are you,

aware of the saying? Yes, I don't think Frankie can solve the puzzle right now in front of it. Yeah, I can't. I mean, you're saying a tree falls in the forest so does it fall? Like, yeah, you're saying, if if exhibit A is correct, then exhibit B must be that it fell, correct?

Oh, no, Frankie. What do you mean? Oh, no. So on. So on, ready? Here's the picture. You so you go by a forest, you see a tree. You go by a week later, down. The saying the saying is something else, but if a tree falls in the forest, does it fall? Frankie, answer the question. Yes, it fell. Yes, it fell, right? Because you saw it fell.

The saying is the noise, but why is the noise? Because no one's there to see if it made a noise. But here's my point that you're missing. It's like, if for the same reason that no one was there to see it make a noise or hear it make a noise, the same reason no one can actually tell if that fell, and though they'd end up seeing it on the ground. They weren't there as it fell. Same reason they can't hear it when it falls. That's fair. Sometimes there's...

What if it just grew sideways? Sometimes when I think we're the dumbest collection of four people in the world. Right. I'm not saying... Let me say we're dead in the middle of one right now. By the way, by the way, 21 Guns to Lute for sure wasn't about 1776 added up. No. It has something to do with like when you're on...

I mean, Captain Kahn's... Captain Kahn's takes out his right hand and just massages his penis every time we bring up anything like that. And just, you know, let me tell you about the 21 gun salute, okay? At home, let me just pull out my dick here real quick. Let me just get a little massage going. The 21 gun salute is actually, and then you're like, okay, like, what is it? Apparently, it's you have a certain amount of, or you shoot a certain amount of cannons to let the, I mean, Riggs, he tweeted at all of us. You shoot a certain amount of cannons to let the opponent or the Pearson that you're trying to go into battle with or not going to battle with.

You try to show them that you're not hostile. So you're shooting out your cannons. So like on land they were shooting out three and on, on the water they were shooting out three on land. They were shooting out five and somehow some way into 21. I don't fucking know. It was something that was clearly wildly different than the numbers just adding up to 21. I knew. I didn't know.

I took away from it. I don't know if I was on that two of cons. but as soon as I heard it, and I did love that fact. If you go back, I'm pretty sure that was one of my favorites, but it just couldn't be one plus seven plus seven plus six. It just couldn't be it. It's got to be more to the story, man. There just has to be more to it.

And I said, you know, anybody who thinks Fanky's facts are based on fact, you're an idiot. I mean, that's just the whole series is kind of based on, you know, maybe, I guess we'll call it. It's just kind of, uh, could be, you're not really sure. And then we just leave it at that and we move on. So it's kind of up to you, how you want to take it whenever you get a Frankie fact. I heard from a little birdie yesterday that the reason the PGA tour is hustling so quickly to get back and now talking about, well, if they can't do the John Deere Classic, they have to do something else. Whether it's sawgrass was being floated, back to back at the memorial was being floated at Mirfield Village, is because they have to get 35 events in in order to keep their contract and satisfy the contract with.

the FedEx. So all of that money, which FedEx is a giant, giant sponsor, obviously, could be foregone if they don't get 35 events in that. I heard that from a pretty trusted source yesterday. So I don't want to get all, you know, Mr. Sorcy, Mr. Journalist guy going again. But something to keep in mind, oh, why is the PJ tour rushing back? Well, if they don't get 35 events in, FedEx can opt out of that contract, there goes all that money. It wasn't crazy to me that FedEx wouldn't drop their amount of things like they wouldn't think all right you guys just didn't have a chance to play because of a global pandemic we're going to make it 25 events and then whatever like well that sounds crazy i will say i i was curious about why they were like the john your classic body wasn't even cold and they

were like we're going back to back in ohio we're going to tpc sawgrass it's like what's happening like you can't just have like a gap in the schedule you can't not like piss on the grave of the john dear classic with a immediately have a moment of silence for the john deer such a big tournament They really got a blog up about it. And they were already like, we're going back to back. And it's like, damn, that makes a percent the FedEx thing. And it's like they've canceled golf for three months now. You can't just like cancel like one more tournament.

And it's a John Deer Classic. It gives a fuck. Just canceled. So you're right. The fact that they were coming out, there's got to be more of the story. Remember even back like two months ago, we were like, the Tours coming back June 11th. That seems way too early.

And now here we are. So could be a little bit of truth to that. It would make sense. Regardless, the PGA Tori. is scheduled to start up next week. They're going to have testing. They're going to live in like some bubble type, you know, environment. They've got a charter flight to go from tournament to tournament.

So people don't really have to interact, hopefully, with folks outside of the tournament. So that will be starting up next week. We can get more into that as we get closer to that event. As some states do start to reopen, which kind of what we're talking about, going out in public again becomes a greater possibility. It's time to start thinking about whipping that quarantine body back into shape. We just saw Frankie's. I hate to keep harping on it, but what we saw was troubling.

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That is CBDMD.com. promo code 4 play you're going to get a full 25% off. I'd like to shout out Band of Dunes, a place where Frankie was supposed to go to, but just got like kicked off of their family trip or something like that. It was brutal. The Sheep Ranch. So Sheep Ranch is their new course. It opened Monday today while we're recording yesterday, if you're listening to this podcast,

on June 1st, grand opening of the Sheep Ranch. It's core Crenshaw. It's nine greens are on the cliffs. literally nine green sites are on the cliffs. It looks spectacular. I walked it last summer, you know, obviously about a year before it opened. So it was cool to see it. There wasn't like sod, but they had pins and you could kind of get a feel for the layout and everything.

And it is spectacular. There's no bunkers on the golf course because it's so windy up there that the sand would just blow out of them. So there's legit, no bunkers on the course. Really, really cool routing. Place looks spectacular. were core cranchar about as good as it gets and then they got that green site which is or that course site which is high elevated on these cliffs right down the street from pacific dunes abandoned dunes old mac band and trails and everything that is banned and they just added a new

course so go check out some footage go find some footage of that if you haven't yet um all right from the gallery we got they've got bunkers that look like bunkers but they're just grass them yeah they've got like yeah they do like grassy grassy bunkers exactly that And they've got a few that they left on the course that I think are like old bunkers that they just kind of left. So they're kind of like almost pinehursty feel like waist bunkery area where it's just kind of a hit or miss with what you're going to get in there. But yeah, no bunkers in the whole course, which sounds awesome. There's not many better feelings in the world than when you hit a nice pocket in the sand. And you know you just like you almost look like a pro to the people's sand on the green.

Today I played, I did a little of the golf. I played the game of golf today. I played well again. I've been playing up this place for Rockville Links, and I'm just like, I'm buzzing around that place. Like I know the joint. I'm just like hitting like the corners I need to hit too. I drained in two long birdie puts.

I was walking shit in. I felt good today. Also had a couple double bogeys. So, I mean, it all equal to an 85. It's not like I was like, I didn't break a course record. But, you know, two birdies, four double bogeys, not that bad. But there was just one time where everyone was on the green, and I was just in the bunker.

and it was a nice flat bunker, had a huge runoff from the green. So I had a lot of room up there. And I just was like, let's make something happen here, Frankie. Went right underneath. It made that pop noise and the sand just perfectly sprinkled onto the green

and no one saw the ball first and then the ball just appeared and just made it onto the green and trickled up to the point where the guy up on the green just hit the ball back to me. It's a good shot, Frankie. I'm like, thank you very much.

Like, I'm just walking back to my bag. I'm going to go to the next two. That's an easy game. And that makes you feel good. Yeah. make you feel good because you're afraid to go in them. And then when you defeat them, it's like more of an accomplishment than anything. It also, it does more than any other shot.

Like you could get any person who's sort of like a physical athlete could step up to a driver and like connect with one and be like, oh, okay, nice, nice swing. But like hitting a really good bunker shot, like you need to kind of know. Like you kind of need to know the secret and like know what you're doing to some degree more so. Like things need to come together more so than with like one drive. So when you do get lucky and like hit one perfectly out of a bunker, it's kind of like, oh, do you boys see that? I'm pretty good at this game, even though none of us are. It's the most different shot you can have.

I think bunkers should be illegal. It's like it's not your grass, grass, grass, grass, grass, sand. You got to hit it out of the fucking sand. It's impossible. As rewarding as it is when you hit a shot like Frankie just described, the rest of it is just a horror show. It's the worst place you can be. And when you're stuck in there, motherfucker, you're stuck in there.

You're stuck for a long time. Am I crazy to say that I'd rather be in the bunker than like the hard pan, tight lie stuff right off the green? From what I've seen from you, no, you're definitely not crazy to say that. Is the general public with me on that or no? I would take any other shot over a bunker shot. I think if you're super skilled, though, and it's like a pin sloping away, you'd want to be in the bunker because that's the only way you can get spinning

and potentially stop it. I know, like, the pros, right? Like at U.S. opens, they would rather be in the bunker than the rough because the rough's impossible and unpredictable. And the bunker, you know what it's going to do. So I think, yeah, there's definitely times where it's better to be in a bunker for sure. Yeah, I'm just thinking mentally when you hit that second shot and you know you're going towards a bunker, would you rather it be just off of it where now you have to chip like to the right of it or over it or would you rather have it just gone in, like you personally?

Wait, say that again? So you're on a par five and you drill your drive and your next shot, you have a three wood in your hand and you know it's going to run out. You put one all the way out there, but you can't see it because there's a huge dip in the fairway, but you're walking up there being like, oh, where did that ball end up? You know it's either in the bunker or it's just outside on the lip. But if it's outside on the lip, you have to now chip over that bunker kind of to get it onto the green. You've got to deal with all that shit. As you're walking up to that ball, are you rooting for it to be out or in? Like, what are you mentally saying?

Out. I'm rooting for out. Out. I'm just so... If it's uphill lie, I'm golden. I'm just so unpredictable out of a bunker. It could take me one shot or it could take me five. And at least the other way I know,

I sort of know what I'm getting myself into. Bunger shots. And that's really just to me personally because I'm so bad in them that like it's, I want to be out of a bunker every single person. I would say I have, yeah, I have a bigger mirror. from the bunker, like, because it's a big hard swing that I have a miss where I catch a blady

a decent amount of the time, and that ball is fucking gone. See you later. So I feel like I don't do that as often from the fairway. So I would rather be in the fairway than the bunker. See, that makes more sense because I like big hard swing. I hit my drive better, hit my iron's better, and then out of the bunker, I'm able to take this huge pack. And I don't have to worry about the delicateness of my dainty wrist that somehow become

these strong Hulk-like hands when I have a wedge in my hand. It's the craziest thing of all times. The only time I become aggressive and, like, mean and bad when I have a fucking little wedge in my hand. By the way, I'll close it on this. I got a tip today that could be, like, life-changing with a wedge. Hit me. Hit us. It's hard to explain because I don't have a club with me right now.

But basically, I played with this guy. This guy, Phil at Rockville, Links. He's a pro older guy. Guess 55, 60 years old. He spends his winters in Arizona comes here for the summers. He is a stick. Just look. like George Bush really weird. Every time I talk to him, I'm like, are you George Bush?

George Bush, good golfer. That's fucking weird, man. This dude looked and talk just like George Bush. At one point, he gave me like the thumbs up when I hit a good shot. I'm like, now, are you fucking George Bush? Because I've been playing with you for two hours, and you're acting like you're not George Bush, but I'm going to fucking slap that hat off you. We're going to see what your head looks like. I think you're George Bush. Anyway, Frankie, I think you played golf with George Bush today. Dude, this guy looked exactly in George Bush. Anyway, and one of those sweet Freddie couple swings where it's like, I look at a at like my dad and people I'm playing with, I'm like, how come you guys can't do that? My dad

always talks about he doesn't have enough strength or enough power. This dude's like older than you and he's just got a fluid swing. His swings like a, his swings like a Fiji water, just perfectly, whatever. Anyway, he sees me struggling, you know, and I'm like standing over the ball and someone made a comment like, wait until you see this. Like they made that comment when I'm saying over away. And immediately I'm a mental case. I'm like, yeah, wait until you see this, Phil. It's going to really make a day. And he's like, now, wait a minute. Like, like, take a practice swing and I hit the ground and he goes now hold up your club right at my face and I'm holding it up and the face was just was angled down so like I'm a left end it was to the right basically what

I'm looking at and he takes he goes loosen up your fingers and he twists the club all the way so that the face is basically looking at the sky and he goes now grip it and look down so I'm like this looks fucking weird to me man he goes that is correct like what you're looking at right now from your vision point. The club face has to be open. Now, use the soul and the bounce and smack that thing on the ground. Don't be afraid of it because now you're not going in with the edge anymore. You're going in with the bottom and it's going to hit the ground and it's going to pop the ball up. Well, what do you fucking know it? I'm 30 yards out. I just take it, pox right up next to the green, tap and par. I'm like, Phil, you fucking dog. He made it happen, man. And no one's ever once told

me, not Kevin Kisner, not Bryce and Deschambeau, has ever told me that I was rotating my club like that. It was constantly facing the ground. He said you're, because when you hit this, it's like a miracle that you can get the ball up in the, in the air because you're not using any law. You're turning a 58 degree into like, I'm trying to do the math, what he said, like, would a 90 degree be, no, you're turning it into like a five degree. Anyone that does that, look at your club, hold it straight out from your belly button. And if your club face is closed after you take that first practice link, adjust your grip, turn the club a little bit and then re-grip it. Were you better the rest of the round or was that a one else?

No, I was better the rest of the round. Like, significantly better. I was in some high stuff. I was able to get under it. I'm telling you, I was finally using the lock. I still sculled one, which everyone laughed and we're like, oh, he made a comment, like, one man's medicine doesn't cure all illnesses. And I was like, ah, fuck.

Bill said that to you? Yeah, he's like, well, one man's medicine doesn't cure your illness. I don't know. He said it much more profoundly. You're like, hey, why don't you go fuck yourself, Phil? That's great. I'm telling you that little tip was good. Do you ever worry that you've gotten, like, the best advice that you can get on the wedges?

And then time goes on and you go back to your old ways and you think you're using the tips, but you just aren't? Like, I feel like you've gotten every tip in the book. And for some reason, aside from George Bush giving you this one, like, I think, like, everything else just sort of goes back to normal. It's, I do want to, like, I don't want to do it because I hate reading. But I think at some point I've got to read, like, one of those mental golf books and like see if the mental part of the game really is that important to me because I like I'm just thinking about a million things before I swing and we always say like after I chunk one or I blade one I drop that second one down without thinking and I perfectly hit it up there

like if I did one of those personal man scrambles like the two ball scrambled I'd be an elite golfer on that second ball I'm convinced of it um I just got to figure out why I'm constantly like on top of the ball thinking of a million things and like trying to robotically hit the ball to only go 10 or 15 feet it's crazy to me that I can't do it did I see you playing a video game to try to fix it yeah I was playing the golf club dude I've been playing a lot of the golf club 2019 getting ready for that that new one uh the 2K because like the game's hard but it's fucking sick like you have these societies and let me tell you about these societies in this video game You can join these leagues that people have made.

And, like, yes, the game doesn't have all the licensing that it should. Like, it doesn't have all the golf courses or the players. But people create these mini tours and these societies. You can join, like, the Bushwood Country Club, like something funny, like someone made it. And they have, like, the golf course from Caddyshack. And it looks just like it. And guys play tournaments. And you see leaderboards as you play.

And it's like live updates. So, like, I played in one the other day. And it was at this, like, perfect rendition of Pebble Beach. And it was like a pro-air. And they guys like made celebrities, like look like celebrities, like someone made a Charles Barkley. Were you like nervous on the tee? Yeah, because then they put like when you're playing in tournaments, there's like people on the crowd, like this crowds going down. And you can practice your chipping.

So like you can go into like the high rough, you can go into the bunker. And it teaches you like you're going too fast. Your approach like the fastest part of your swing needs to be when you make contact. All the shit that we hear with Lurch. Like it's crazy in the video game. They have it all. It's nuts. But you're still just swing.

swinging a controller stick. Yeah. Okay. Right. Someone DM me saying that the golf club 2019 shaved strokes off their golf game. That's psychotic. Whoever said that is an absolute.

It's course management. I was going to say it. I bet it's course management. I could see that. I will say it would be sick if you could put sensors on a golf club and swing it and it would mimic it whatever like that other Nintendo. Isn't that just the we? Yeah, yeah.

But like make it like I could put it on my club. and actually play, that would be sick. Explain to me what you mean. It's really just the golf simulator. What I'm getting to say is the golf simulator. Yeah. Imagine if you're so good at golf on the Wii that you had your grips that were a Wii controller.

That'd be pretty cool. I think that'd be kind of nice. Golf Pride made a Wii controller grip for your clubs. I think people might actually buy that. If you've been dealing with acne, redness, dark spots, or wrinkles, finding treatment that works can be complicated. You need skincare that actually perform. but getting started can be overwhelming.

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All right. We got some from the gallery to get to. For Play at Barstool Sports.com. That is how you submit them. I will read them as long as they're not too long. And if they're good, if they're interesting, they will make it on to the show. Very simple. For Playup, VarsfulSports.com. Kyle asked a very simple question. Do you shower before a morning golf round? 100%. Have to. I mean, also, I can't be awake or alive or a human being if I don't shower. Yeah, I was going to say it's more productive. I shower every morning no matter what. Seven days a week, I get in the shower in the morning. I feel like I can't be. be a productive human being if I don't get in the shower.

Yeah. I do too. I shower every morning. But I'm noticing that some people have responded to this with like, why would you shower? You're just going to go get all sweaty and put sunscreen on and all this. Like what's what you should shower after the round? I'm like, well, no, I'll just do both. Yeah.

Why can I do both? Every morning is a better human being after I shower. Like I'll be a better golfer. I'll be a better person. I didn't shower this morning. I was running late. I didn't shower this morning either. You guys are just liars.

I shower every morning. You both said just 10 seconds. I try. I do shower every morning, but like this, like, I don't know. You don't.

You do not shower in morning. You shower most mornings. All right, my plan is to shower every single morning. Okay. Things like this come up where I'm supposed to be on the tea at 8.30 and I wake up at 8 by accident. I just got throwing some clothes and hit the,

and getting the fucking car. That's what happened this morning. I didn't have time to sit in there and soap my undies and shit. All right? Like my, I don't think you're showering correctly if you're wearing underwear. My undercarriage. Oh, I see. The logic of like, oh, just shower when you're done.

Like, then like you should just never shower. Like shower once a week. Like, ah, my week's over. I'm going to shower now. It's like, saying, why brush your teeth are going to eat later? It's like, wow, you got to brush your teeth at some point. That's fair. So, yeah, I think we're all shower people, although, Frank, you not lied and we didn't shower today.

I just couldn't. Anybody have anything like pre-round routine that you do? For me, I just show up. I don't really have a routine. I just kind of show up. There's a couple times where I'll show up to the first tee, and I do that first swing, and it makes, like, a crazy crack in my back

to the point where the guys I'm playing with. Like, that's disgusting. I try now, my new pre-routine is to eliminate that before I get to the golf course. I think it's actually open. I've gotten to the first tee where I've stood over the ball, and I'm as stiff as a board. So I've now incorporated some stretching, I think.

Like when I get up, I'm like constantly stretching. Even in the shower before Kisner, I did a couple lunges and I got my legs going. Like I'm trying to get a little more nimble in my older ages now. As I, as my age keeps creeping up to the 30s and the trends, I want to now not be as tight when I golf because, you know, that's the worst. And especially when you can't get to a range, being on the first tee stiff, there's no bigger fear from it. Yeah, but you have no routine.

It's all based on what your body feels like that day. And like if I get to the driving range, I'll hit two balls or I'll do that thing where I play the first hole, like a couple times until I feel confident. But like, no, I don't have anything like that. If I step on the first T-box and I'm like tight, I'll just roll around the T-box and stretch. Yeah, we must see that. Yeah, you do do a T-roll thing. It's weird. Oh, yeah.

I'm huge on the lay on your back and take your leg and just throw it over top the other side because that will make your back crack 30 times. but it feels great. Sturbing. It's the ultimate baseball stretch. Everyone in the outfield used to do that before the games. Just, oh, I used to fall asleep when we did that. Right, it's a great stretch because you're just, you're almost, you're so close to a nap, but you're not right there.

Yeah, I like to shower. That's pretty much my pre-golf routine. That's about it. Make sure I'm ready. Pre-baseball practices, we used to do that stretch and like, guys would sit there for 10 minutes. I remember, like, waking up, maybe you had a long Friday night. You had a Saturday morning, baseball. full practice and that was the first stretch you didn't everyone's just everyone's grown in oh it's a great

stretch dude it was the same incorporating that with me as well it was the same with football when football stretching you almost like you tried to get a quick nap in like yeah if it's a full pad practice like we're about to go to war with each other we're all 17 years old we're trying to rip off each other's heads i'm going to do this stretch laying down and i'm going to fall asleep for 15 seconds because i'm going to need my energy because this is going to be quite a practice Kyle asks, could you beat some of the games greats if they had to use what they used back then and you could use all of the technology that you use now? How far are we going back?

Well, that was kind of going to be my answer. I went back and I was looking at old British Open scores. and in 1873, the open championship was won by Tom Kidd at San Andrews, and he shot a two-round total of 179, which is like an average of 89 and a half. So, like, I think I would dust Tom Kitt. I think I would, I'd be blowing it past him, even though I'm not a big hitter. And like, yeah, I just think like I would, I would, the ball, a ball that I'm using is so much better than his. Like, I saw Harold Hilton in 1892 one at Mirfield.

This is the first time they went to four rounds. He had a four round total of 305, which is around like a 76 average. Harold Hilton would kill us, I think. Like, he would destroy us. What was the year of the first one? 1873. So Royal Dornich just sent me some stuff, but they also. sent me a golf pencil. And the thing that I was blown away by is it says Royal Dornick

golf since 1616. Whatever they're using in 1616, I'm going to say right now that I'm better then. With whatever technology I've got, there's no way that somebody's going to beat me. Well, the thing is that gets interesting in my brain is like, all right, so say I play JT and he's using whatever they use back in 1616. If we play the distance that they played back then, it might be a good match. But if we play, like, the distances that they play now, I think I beat him without question. Yeah, I don't know, like, in 1660, like, they're basically just, it's a big putt putt course, right? Like, they can't, it can't even get the fucking ball in the air. So, like, we got Tom Kidd over here. I'd be laughing at him. Like, why are you putting there,

dude? Like, uh, it's a fucking four-ire. Like, those clubs, those clubs don't have sweet spots. They're just, it's just clunk every single time. Yeah. That's probably why they only played two rounds. Their hands would be destroyed. It would be like, accident. Yeah, true. So, yeah, now, I will say Kyle put in his that he was watching something from, like, the 70s. And it was, and it was Byron Nelson and Gene Littler, and they were playing at Pine Valley.

And they were both, like, seven or eight over. Like, those guys would kill. Like, what are you talking? It's not even, that's, that's like saying, do you think you're better now than, like, Bobby Hall was at hockey? you're like, uh, what? No. No, no, what? No, it's not even a conversation.

So, no, I think you got to go way back. Like, I'm thinking pre-1900 to, for sure. Because once you get into like Harry Varden and those guys, like, those guys would kill us. Are they? Yeah, type in, um, what did the first golf club look like? And there's pictures of golf clubs in the 1700s and they're just, they're not even golf clubs. They're curved.

They have no grips on them. It's just, I think it's just. for advancing the ball some distance. Yeah, like 16-16? Like, what do you... What do you got a stick? Right, like a whittled... It's basically like a cane.

Yeah, you can't. You can't beat me in a golf course with a fucking cane. Now, I'm not saying they couldn't beat me. I won't go that far, but I'm just saying that the quality of their tools weren't that great. How far...

I don't know how far I'd have to go back before I could beat somebody. You know what your John Deere was born? Do I know what year John Deere was born? born? Yes. Nope. I'm going to say I'm going to say

1857. 1888. 1804. Whoa. John Deere founder almost goes back to the 1700s. Wow. Whoa. Isn't that crazy? That was a Frankie fact for you. I didn't think we were going to get a John Deere birthday.

No, I didn't see it coming out of it. Yeah, like, I was stunned. I feel like in the like the 1880 British Open if I got to just tee off as me now with all my stuff I would win the British Open They wouldn't know what hit him like that's the sound of the driver They'd be like what is this dude I'm hitting it off the toe the heel it's going fucking 245

260 out there like what the fuck is this guy doing they would like disqualify you're like burn you like you were a witcher that's what I don't think they like would not allow you to continue after your first drive like the balls alone would make the biggest difference I think yeah my when I if I took out a 58 degree and hit a couple of those chips like you know pitch it over a bunker with spin they would transfer it they'd be like that's witchcraft you witchcraft you can't do that like you're you're eliminated from the country you're not allowed to be here so yeah but I think we'd kill people like 18 now like you said you started to get towards 19-700 76 average

these guys hit that they would destroy us. I think that's no problem. But I don't know how long the course was. I don't know how long St. Andrews was in like 1880, 1890. Could have been that long. Right, I was looking at the first map of Pinehurst when we were there. And like the coals are short. I think like a par four

was like 254. And so, yeah, it is interesting, but I do think as soon as you hit the turn of the country, I lose. But if you go back to mid-1800, I think I got a real chance, but I do think you're like you're hung at the end of the round. Like you're considered something foreign.

Don't deserve to be here. Also, I'm just laughing out loud, but like everything that they're wearing and then Riggs just gets placed down in the 1800s of like Riggs bar or barstool like gear and whatnot. It's just laugh out loud funny. Yeah,

I've got like the Kisner long sleeves on and I'm like my, you know, they're just like, what the fuck is this guy? And yeah, you'd be a problem. You would just be a serious problem to that whole society. So it would be fun.

I'd love to tee it up. You come in, like, you take it all seriously, and you're just stopping on people driving the balls. They've got nicer swings than you do, and your ball's just going straight. It would be awesome. What's the number one sign of a bad home security system? A home security system that's so complicated, you never use it.

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and a 60-day money-back guarantee. That's Simplicef.com slash foreplay to make sure that they know our show sent you. Marcel says, how do you handle people talking in your back swing? Am I a mental midget

for letting it get in my head? Is it okay to tell them to shut up or does that make me a heart of? I would say people even whisper and you're discussing something in like a back swing. I think it's like the sudden noise

that's the problem. Like if you have a constant conversation going on who gives a shit, but it's when somebody like pops a noise or says something out of nowhere right before or right as you're about to hit that's the problem same with like music like if you got music on and it's consistent it almost becomes like white noise at that point who cares it's when you like jam it on right in the middle of somebody swing that's when you have a problem like the birds frank you remember the birds at pioneers we're talking about there's a bird going off when frankie's

about to hit a drive and and as soon as he was about to take the club back the bird stopped and once you got done i was like did it screw you up that the bird stopped and you were like yes It would have been better. You're right, Riggs. It's either constant noise or, like, if something stops making noise, that fucks you up. Or if someone starts a noise aggressively, that messes you up. Yeah, today I actually stepped up to one. And we were, like, the only people out on the course at one point.

And then beyond these, like, these hedges, I guess guys had started to you off. We were on four. And I guess they were team off on two. And I didn't even know guys were over there. I thought we were out there by ourselves. And I stepped up there. And I took my back swing. And it was dead quiet.

And then someone just ripped the driver. and it came out of nowhere, and it was like, he hit it in a stadium. And I was like, oh, like, in my brain, I'm just like, where'd that noise come from? And then I finished my swing. I ducked it. And I don't want to say like, that ruined me, but I for sure thought about it instantaneously. I'm like, that's a noise. Bang.

And like, that's all I'm thinking about is like, oh, shit. I just went from a total vacuum to someone just shot a gun in my ear, basically, because, like, came out of nowhere. It was crazy. So, yeah, the sudden noises are, for sure. sure the problem like you can talk all you want especially if i know you're like discussed like you said riggins if you're discussing something with a caddy or something like i mean who's who am i to say that's ruining my thing i don't know what i'm doing up here anyway but anything that's startling or jarring for sure and anyone i've ever played with is usually pretty aware like if they're they're

aware if they cross some sort of line where like if they're talking a little bit too loud and somebody you know tees off they like it's like a self-correct i've never had to go to someone and be like hey, could you shut the fuck up when I'm trying to swing this golf club? People have a pretty good, like a general sense of whether or not they're talking too loudly. And if they get caught one time, it's a self-correct system. I've got a buddy who he's not going to know what just hit him that I'm calling. Like, he doesn't know it. I think it's a problem, but I'm just going to say it now because he listens to the show.

I got my buddy Kyle that. Oh, you dropped his name. Wow. Yeah, my buddy. He's my buddy Kyle. Well, maybe we can even beep it out if we want it. It doesn't matter. I don't go.

No. So much regret filling. No, just regret filling Frankie's head back. I was he's going to have to see this person. Everybody else he can talk shit to. They just leave him forever. Go ahead, Rose Kyle.

Tell Kyle he's just the worst person to golf with in the world, Frankie. He's a great guy to golf with. And we have great matches. I love playing with him. He's one of my best friends. Is this good, good, Kyle? Is this the same guy? Yeah.

I think that he often picks up his bag when a guy starts to put his back. So we're all dead quiet. And this has happened multiple times that I've noticed. Everyone's called him out on it. Everyone's dead quiet. The guy takes his club back and then Kyle grabs the bag and we're off. Like the only time you need to be quiet is pre-swing.

You know what I mean? Like once the swing starts, he commences to walk towards. Like the fourth guy that's up, Kyle's ready to go to go to his ball. And he's picking up that bag as the swing is happening. I often think Yeah He has the wrong starting point, right He has the wrong starting point

The starting to face of what Contact should be the starting point Yeah Yep There's people that really do line that up perfectly Right? Like you've seen it before Like contact guys are already walking

Great shot Ed and you're walking down the fairway But this is just you're jumping the gun man Bring the horses back in the cage Wait for the fucking The ring to go off because you are going a little too quick for my liking. And it happens. Dude,

I'll be up there on the P-Box and I'm thinking about it. I'm like, Kyle's going to walk when I take this back. I know he is. I'm thinking about it. And I take it back and I see him rustling his feet behind there. I feel it. I'll never call him out on it, though.

Oh, clearly. People have used this podcast. They'll write in and be like, hey, could you tell my buddy John to stop doing this super annoying thing? We've never done it to one of our own friends. We're like,

we use this as the delivery system to get Kyle to stop picking up his damn bad. in the middle of a guy's swim. He's undoubtedly going to deny it. Once called him out on it. So this is coming out. I can't tell you how far left field this is coming out. He's going to be stunned.

He's sitting in his car right now. He's just going like, him out, me? Is Frankie talking about me? Does he know a different Kyle? He's not going to know what hit him. I'm telling you, I've noticed it, and it's not that bad.

It's just, we got to just hold, hold the raft is just a little bit. He's a thousand percent going to call me out for saying you called me out in front of the whole world for something. I didn't know I did, but it's just one of those things that irks me. I feel like all of us have that on the golf course with our buddies that you may not ever call him out on. But that's just the one thing. I think you just pick up your bag a little too early. And I'm sure there's a million things that I do wrong.

I mean, I'm a mess. I'm a menace on the golf course. Like, we all know that. I'm hopping fences. I'm peppering greens. I'm a complete problem. So before you say anything to me, I'm eight mile myself.

I'm a mess out there. I'm a complete detriment to society on the golf court. I'm just saying that you pick up your bag girl. That's all I'm saying. There's another one you got to be careful about is, you know, I always take my glove off after every shot has been very well documented. And you don't want to do the Velcro right when somebody's pulling it back.

I'm always, I'm talking about pulling clubs out too. Or putting clubs back. Yeah, any of that noise is like, I think just, any noise that's not, like, somewhat understood that it's about to happen is a problem. You just try to avoid those. Like, if the person on the T, if there's constant communication, like, they know people, there might be like a slight break in the conversation where people, somebody's telling his story.

Like, as long as it's perceived that it's going to happen, it's fine. It's those like, well, that noise I never would have accounted for. The ripping of Velcro, boy, is that just an attack on the ears? If someone does that face, you look at your whole force and like, because you don't think about it and you do that face, like, and you tense up your shoulders and you're like, did he hear that? And then he stripes when you're like, all right, fine.

Especially you hit a shit one and you kind of, you kind of unvelcro it, a little frustrated, you know, a little bit of frustration. You do it a little hard. And you're like, oh, I'm sorry. I was, I messed up. I blew it. I missed up.

Have you guys ever done, like, made a noise like that? And then the guy had a bad shot and you're like, that's on me. I can re-teed up or something. I've done that before where I've, like, trip. Oh, yeah, for sure. Phone is rang.

Everybody makes mistakes. Yeah. Yeah. I would say, like, 90% of the time people are like, no, no, I don't even notice it, even though, like, the Lodge line. And this stuff to me isn't like, because we always talk about the vibe at these golf courses and you don't want to have to be stepping on eggshells and all that stuff.

Like it says nothing to do with that for me. Like I think, like you said, we should be able to still talk and have normal conversations as long as it's constant. And she'll be able to play music. But it's that when you're in a vacuum on top of the ball and you hear nothing and anything that's jarring, we got to get rid of. of it. That has no place in this game. Okay? We have to figure that out because

for us mental patience, me, for someone that doesn't have the mental fortitude to be able to block things out, I need something to be constant. You throw anything at me, you throw a joker at me, my whole card, my deck of cards comes crashing down. It's over. Right. Like even a song change though, like if you know the song

stopped and like the next song's just coming, like you have no problem, I'll pull the club back and like hit through that, no problem. Like a song change or like in the old days when I have like Pandora, you know, if an ad came on, it was like, what the fuck is that? Yeah. I was always a good ad player.

I remember those days where people would be like, oh, I'm not going to hit because there's an ad. And I'd be like, no, I'll go. I had a long street going where I'd hit great shots during the ad. My hot swings, right? Yeah. It was awesome. There was like a Honda fucking commercial that would come on all the time that I just

couldn't miss when that thing came on. It's great. Remember when we lived in a world where people like listen to ads in the middle of their music? I think my buddy, my other buddy, Rob, when we last got, like, we got last year. You're not going to have any, dude. You're not going to have any friends. No, you're friends. No, you know, you have seen these people.

Like, Coimstein's going to end. He was listening to YouTube, like, like, clips, like music. And I remember seeing just, like, like, over the golf course? Yeah, he was, like, hooked it up to his thing, but he wasn't listening to Spotify. It was, like, YouTube. And I remember, like, a Ford Focus commercial came up. I'm like, what in God's name are we listening to out here? Like, it's a dollar 99 for music streams or whatever it is.

Like, let's figure out. that we don't have to hear this forward-focused commercial, as I'm saying over the ball. Like, I'll listen to anything else in the world for the forward-focused. What was amazing to me is it was always the people that cared about music a lot. Like, it was always the guys that would like, they'd be like, no, we got to have music on. I'm going to play my playlist.

And then they just wouldn't have the $199 premium accounts. You know, what are we doing here, man? You listen to music 24-7. Why are you listening to ads between every song? I'm not paying for music. Line-wired geeks. Right. It's like, why not?

You love music. Why wouldn't you pay? Be like, I'm not paying for food. Like, I love food, but I'm not paying for food. You just take a random shot at Lai. I'm looking at you. I know. Yeah, we talked about that.

Would we talk about that on the podcast or anything? No. No, no. I was just, we were talking about something about music. And I was telling Jake and Frankie, he must have been on the drive down. I was like, yeah, I was there when, like, Napster was hot in the streets.

And they looked at me like I was 150 years old. Like, they're like, did you like, or did you grow up in the Stone Age? Like, what's wrong with you? It's like, yeah, dude, I was, I remember when Napster took off. That's how I got all my music. That's how I got all my porn. That's how I got everything.

Like, I don't know. Dude, when you say Napster, I feel like you, like, coincidentally shit your pants because you're like an old man. There's no way you can say Napster with any sort of youth to yourself. Napster, that word might as well be in ancient Greek history. Well, let's, I mean, Frankie, you're the youngest guy in the show, I'm pretty sure. I bet these guys. Yeah.

Frank, you're the only person who hasn't used Napster on the show. That was like, that was the breakthrough. Did you ever use AOL, Frank? Oh, yeah. Dial-up? I didn't know if you used the dial-up. I used it. I had AOL and then.

And then Napster got shut down, obviously, and then lime wire sprouted up. And then it's, you know, that's, you know, I was on fucking Myspace at one point. Oh, yeah. I tried MySpace out. MySpace was after Napster, no? Yeah, I think it was.

Had to be. MySpace was just the creepy Facebook. and they could not get rid of that stigma. But it was pre-Facebook. It was like MySpace existed when Facebook, like, you had to go to like a college of the Northeast to have Facebook. Right. And MySpace existed.

You had your top eight friends. You could put like the music that you liked on there. It was an interesting world. That was our first ever social media. I remember stumbling onto people when I was really young, people's MySpace and like some of them were dark world. Like you said, you could put the music on there and you'd stumble on someone who had, I don't know, like, seather

or something like weird music going on and it was dark and bats were flying around. All the pictures were gossipy and you're just like, I hope mom doesn't walk in right now because I'd almost rather be looking at the other stuff than get caught at this because this is, this is

dark shit. This is dark. I actually just watched the social network for the first time since when it came out. Great movie. It's a fan, you know, Quentin Tarantino, and I don't know if he was being sarcastic when he said this, and I don't think he was. But I read something that he said the social network is the best film that came out in the last decade. Yeah, I think he was being serious. I read the headline. I didn't read

the article, but he definitely said that. I watched it for the first time. I'd never seen it. I watched it for the first time like two months ago. The way they tell this story, because it's such a complex story with all the lawsuits and stealing the ideas and obviously you're building something like Facebook. You have to tell the whole story. They tell that story. I don't think you could draw up a better way to explain it, where it starts with him getting sued, and then it tells all the stories. As each person's lawsuit comes out, the story form that lawsuit now goes back in time.

I can't even fathom, right? I might watch that tonight. Griggs, don't take this the wrong way because I could have the years way off. Did you overlap with Zuckerberg at Harvard at all? Zuckerberg was three or four years before I was. Okay. I couldn't remember how old he was and when that all happened. No, he was like three or four years before.

But it is funny to like the portrayal of the, the very funny part is like the portrayal of like the finals club party where they're like busing in girls from like wherever. I remember when that camera, we were all like, well, that would be great. That's just not what it's like. No other school in the country and in the world has that like that nature to it

where people who went to that school, because there's so many movies about Harvard. Like that's the most famous university in the world. And I actually, that's an interesting insight because I look at that and I do wonder like, is that what it's really like? Yeah, no. The finals clubs are, they do drive like the social.

I mean, they're glorified frats. That's just what they are. Like I was in one and that's nobody in college has the money really unless it's obviously like some people at Harvard if you've got parents credit card or whatever, but most people don't have the money to be going to like bars in Boston because bars of Boston are very expensive. Right. So like the finals clubs and like the dorm parties drove the entire social scene. So like, yeah.

And there's definitely a certain, like, ritzy aspect to it. And, you know, it's Harvard. So you get some folks that are, I mean, you kind of get it anywhere, but you definitely get some folks who got some status and some money and, like, in their driving parties, they're going to be like that. But, I mean, us, like, the recruited athletes, like, we were kind of the idiots. So we just went to normal parties. We didn't do any of that stuff.

That's really interesting. Really interesting. And the whole, yeah, the whole movie makes Harvard look like a movie, which is like everyone walking around trying to invent shit. Yeah. That's how I picture. sure it's like anywhere you look like oh there's the new instagram and it's like just people sitting there in the library do we like our biggest thing was like how is somebody going to get

the 30 pack of like keystones and we had like the 30s that was our that was our beer for like two years with the stone lights and it just said 30 stones on the side of it we just go get a couple of those bad like that was what we were doing so this whole this whole idea of like everyone's in this fucking incubator creating new companies that are worth billions of dollars like what are you guys talking about like drawling out drawling out algorithms on the fucking windows. And then you also got Goodwill hunting comes out too. Everybody's like, oh, you went to Harvard.

Like, are you, you know, are you like goodwill hunting? Are you like more social network? I'm like, you know, I don't know. That'd be such a good question. So you're on the Goodwill hunting side or social? Well, then you got like, you got like the national lampoon with like Conan O'Brien. Like, oh, are you, are you that type of humor? And you're just like, I just play hockey and I drink stones.

It's like, I scored a couple of goals at high school hockey. and I finished the SATs. So like that I'm here. It's like what we're doing. So no, I wasn't like that. It is a great movie, though.

I will say that. Also, I want to say I, I'm on Zuckerberg side there, right? Like someone had an idea and he just made it better. And he ended up paying them out, right?

He had to get sued. They had the idea. He paid them 66. The Winklevoss twins got $66 million. And there's a line in the social network where he says, he's just like, what are we doing here? If you guys invented Facebook,

you would have invented Facebook. That's the line. That's the line. I will say if they got paid out $66 million, they were pretty close to inventing Facebook. If that's like what they deem. And also, I don't know about you guys, but I would rather have $66 million right.

Well, this might not be true. But like what Zuckerberg's going through right now sucks. Like he's just like, I created this thing to try to get laid, and now I shift elections. Like that's the leader of a world. That's well said. Facebook's it's world. He is the leader of a world.

He has to speak for it. He has to regulate it. He has to go in front of Congress. If someone does something wrong in his world, he is responsible for it. I mean, people are hacking into Facebook. They're changing elections now. Like, Zuckerberg got himself into some real deep shit. Right.

Like his net worth that algorithm. His net worth is like 90 billion. That's pretty good. But like I, you could also be sitting on 66 mill or whatever they got, have like a nice beach house. and never have to work ever again. If you would have invented, if you invented Facebook,

you would have invented Facebook. That's just such a perfect guy. In the middle of deliberations and all this bullshit, he's like, what are we doing right now? Because you guys didn't do it. I don't care what you say.

I'll give you your check. You didn't make it. Now let me just go on and take over the world while I smoke meats. Sweet baby raise. Most underrated video on the internet. Mark Zuckerberg smoking meats.

His first fake, look it up on YouTube. It's the first Facebook live ever and somebody cut it up in like two and a half minutes. Ken Jack. Is it Ken Jack? I think Ken Jack's the one that went viral there. I'm pretty sure. That's amazing. It's such a funny video.

It's just, yeah, we're just smoking meats back here. Just smoking meats. Oh, it's some sweet baby rays. And he says it 500 million times. It's just a human, it's a non-human trying to say human things and communicate with it with the world. Exactly. All right. We are done here.

We'll be back on Thursday for the second show of the week. We have Craig Annes from the USGA up next. He and I chat about the U.S. Open, about moving it, about all the decisions to cancel certain tournaments, his history with us, USGA kind of partnering and working with us, all this good stuff. So a little bit more of a kind of serious talk with the USDA about everything it's going on from there. Hit it hard. he's going. Waiting for that last question. Someone would give us a prayer.

I don't know. I was like I think I forgot something. I think I don't know. I'm supposed to say something different. Fuck. It was hard, boys. June 9th is International Dark and Stormy Day to celebrate. We have teamed up with Gossings rum to give away.

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Winner may be asked to complete an affidavit of eligibility, not open to employees of Barstall Sports. Bummer. Castle Brands, Gosseligs, nor to employees of any wholesalers or retailers of Castle Brands and Gosselix products. Get involved, folks. All right, folks, we are now joined by the Chief Brand Officer for the USGA. You've held several different titles since I've known you over there. But Craig Anis, my friend, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. So Chief Brand Officer, what exactly does that mean? I obviously know a lot about what you do, but for all the folks back home, who might not understand what exactly is the chief brand officer for the USGA do. Yeah, well, I mean, I think I have the greatest job in golf. Feel fortunate, lucky to have it to work for the USGA.

I mean, essentially what I'm focused on is probably two elements. One is you think about the communications of what we do, the U.S. Open, all the impact we have on the game. And then on the marketing side, the promotion of it. So it's the earned, owned, and paid element. of all that we do. So content, social media, communications, and marketing. So, you know, obviously this is, it's June. It's June 1st when we're recording this to go out on June 2nd. Typically, you guys own June. That's usually, you know, U.S. Open month. It's supposed to be in a couple weeks up at Wingfoot. It's since moved to September 14th through 20th week.

what kind of what was the whole process like from you know the beginning in terms of of moving this thing and and you know when did you guys kind of know hey we're going to have to move this thing yeah i mean right now we're i typically would have been in houston at champions club about to kick off the u.s women's open so a lot has changed for us and look it really goes back to i mean I think March, the week of March 11th or 12th that week, we like everyone else, were engaged in serious conversations about, you know, what we were going to do, how we were going to manage this, to what extent this was going to impact both our people, our championships, our organization in the game.

And there were a lot of unknown, you know, unknown questions, unknown answers then. And so we took it literally one day at a time. We went from, you know, planning for 14 in total championships. to really thinking about what we could do in it. And it all started with our people. I mean, we're headquartered in New Jersey. A lot of people don't know that. And obviously, New Jersey, you know,

second hardest hit state in our country by most standards. You know, we've been for the last 12 weeks and stay-at-home orders. I guess this is our 12th week. And so, you know, I think March 13th was our last really official day in the office. And since then we've been working remotely. So, you know, first we sort of, We looked at what was happening on tour with the LPGA and the PGA tour and other sports. And, you know, many things started to cancel, get postponed.

And we had to think hard about what that meant for us. And really, you know, Riggs, it came down to a couple of things when it came to the U.S. Open. You know, one, it's being played in Westchester, you know, one of the epicenters of COVID-19. And that came with a lot of complications, you know, immediately in March, one of the first things we did was stop the build. we didn't want to put anybody at risk. That was our first decision. And from there, it just sort of snowballed into many other decisions that we needed to take over time in order to keep people safe.

And that's always been first and foremost for us, is how do you have championships? How do you think about qualifying in a way that keeps people safe? Yeah, it's interesting to look back, right? Because there was kind of a quiet period for a few weeks in golf where nobody, Nobody knew really anything. Is the masters going to happen? When's it going to happen? Is the U.S. is going to,

how is everything else going to fall? And we had Seth Waugh on from the PJ of America a few months or so ago now. And obviously the golf world learned that you guys were all kind of having meetings with each other to sort of put together the best schedule that you possibly could. So, you know, there were different. I'm down here at Pinehurst, obviously on, I think, week like 12 or whatever. It's been there were rumors going around that, oh, the USJ is going to move it to Pinehurst. So the U.S. Open is going to move to Oakmont.

How many different scenarios were you guys seriously entertaining? We've thought through a number of them from the beginning. I mean, playing the championship, crowning a champion was important to us, both for the U.S. Open, the women's Open, and frankly all of our championships. But again, we were thinking about it through the lens of health and safety. So that really required us to think about things like, where do we, where do we have it? You know, can we still have it in Westchester?

And if so, when's the best time based on all the other dynamics at play of when other championships, majors, tournaments, sports were being played? So we were kind of thinking through all those things and, you know, doing our best to scenario plan along with, you know, how do we have fans, you know, how do we keep players safe? And so we considered things like moving at the different times of the year, as well as potentially different places. But really our goal was to always, you know, make sure that we could do, you know, that we were doing whatever possible to have it at Wingfoot. And September presented itself as a time that was open for us to consider. And that's what we've been working on ever

since. What's what's going to be different about it from your guys standpoint in terms of doing it in September versus doing it in June? Like how, you know, what are some big changes for you guys now that it's a different date. Yeah, well, I mean, there's a number of things. I mean, you know, typically by then we've had a number of championships that we've hosted. This would be, if it goes as planned, this would be our third. I said we're having four, the U.S. and the women's am, the U.S. Open, and the women's open. And so, you know, from a, from a logistics perspective, it's different. I think what's different is all of us who work at the U.S. We haven't been together since the middle of March. And so at some point,

not sure when, but at some point, you know, we're going to need to get in the same place and start working on this. And typically that starts a lot earlier in the season for us, obviously. And so that would be different. You know, the light in the day will be, will be different. You know, we play in middle of June. We finished the championship on Father's Day. That time of the year, you typically have the maximum amount of light. We don't have that to work with, which is going to be a change. Obviously, the weather is different. And those are things that the team is factoring in from an agronomic perspective. But really the size and scale of the U.S. Open is fundamentally going to be different. We're hopeful, you know, and that when we're still planning, you know, to have fans,

but of course, you know, the size and scale is going to be very different than it typically. As you were at, you know, you're at Pebble Beach last year, you saw, you know, upwards of 40,000 people a day. We're, you know, we obviously don't think that that's going to be positive. We're working, you know, closely with the state and county local officials to really plan for what is what is going to be possible in September, but we certainly know it's not going to be 30, 40,000 people. So that will be different. So a lot of emphasis on, on television coverage and digital coverage and other things that, you know, that we're always, you know, working on. But I think we have to be much more intentional now that there's a potential to not have as many fans. What about media? What are what are guys like us going to do, you know? Well, we're hoping to have you all there as well. I mean, you know, it's, you know, part of our planning. But really, it's going to depend.

What we've done, Riggs, is we sort of try to build a model that is, what is it, what's the minimum required, minimum number of people required to put the U.S. open on. And from there, we're going to build up in partnership with, with the, you know, government authorities in a way that, you know, that keeps people safe. So we're not sure what, what are the social distancing guidelines going to be in September? You know, obviously they're different in many different states and they're evolving in New York, in New Jersey, in places that have been harder hit. So it's hard to predict what those will be in September. But obviously our goal is to have, you know, a celebration of this major championship and to crown a champion and have people there to celebrate it. So we're working to do all we can to make that happen in a safe way.

How, you know, how important are these next several weeks going to be for you guys watching the PGA tour? I mean, there, you know, there's going to be several tournaments that have, that have gone off, that have run, that have been played by the time that, you know, hopefully the U.S. Open is held in September. So, you know, are you guys going to be going to these if you can, send in somebody down there? Or, you know, how can you guys acquire as much information as possible from these tournaments to be better prepared, you know, for your tournaments going forward? Yeah, well, first off, I'd say PGA Tour, LPGA Tour. They're amazing partners. We're in constant conversation with them, you know,

learning a lot from each other. And look, we're golf fans. So we're rooting for them. We can't wait for golf to come back and to be able to see it and experience it in whatever form it takes. You know, we were excited to watch the last couple of weekends,

some of these charity matches and look forward to the tour, PGA tour and the LPGA tour getting back into the swing of things. And we'll continue to be in contact with them and, you know, in hopes that we can learn from them in terms of how they manage everything from player safety to crowds, you know, to all the kinds of things that go into

to big tournaments and championships. So I'll talk a little bit about our relationship. The first time that you and I ever communicated was the Mulligan Challenge in 2018. And so if people remember, I mean, the Mulligan Challenge started on this show where you did a from the gallery submission. somebody said, you know, if you got, how many Mulligans would you need to win the U.S. Open? And then we ultimately turn it into like, if you had unlimited mulligans, could you do it? Dave was like, I could definitely do it.

I said, no chance. How did that end up in front of you and on your desk? It's a funny story. You know, I'm born, raised in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. So I obviously know a lot about Barstool and what you all do. I did not hear the show where you were all talking about it, to be completely honest with you, but a couple of my colleagues, Mike and Alex in particular, did. And my phone was blowing up, you know, text messages, phone calls, and, you know, saying, hey, listen, you know,

they're talking about this Mulligan challenge, you know, they're bantering with each other. Is this ever, you know, is this something that we'd ever consider? And so we had a very quick conversation about it. And I found a way to figure out what your cell phone number was. And I think I sent you a text. I remember it was maybe it was a Saturday at the time. So maybe it was a day after. I remember I was watching golf with two of my boys in the living room.

And I was like, well, I'm just going to send him a text and see if he's actually interested or if this is in fact just banters. And so that's how it all started. A couple text messages, few conversations. and I think really a few weeks later we were at we were at Shinnock and welcoming all of you there for the for the challenge it was it was incredible because my you know my parents were actually in visiting and I was sitting there it was a Saturday afternoon and they were flying home that evening and we were sitting having like our last little lunch and I was like I I just got a message from the USGA inviting us

to play Shinnacock and challenge you know our little Molligan challenge debate that we've been having, which, you know, to any golfer, like, Shinnecock is unachievable. And not only is it unachievable, but going out and being able to do something that's a little bit of a circus show in like unlimited Mulligans on camera at Shinnock was such a, it was such a hypothetical. It was never something that we thought. And so you guys obviously kind of extending and saying, you know, inviting us out, please come to us.

That was crazy. And I remember that day, it was you, Matt Parsley. Ali, myself and Dave were the foursome. And I don't know that any one of us really knew what to expect that day. No. And yeah, I definitely didn't know what to expect

for sure. And, you know, you may recall, I mean, you probably do because you had to hit from the T's. We had it set up like it was set up for the U.S. Open. It was media day, so there were lots of media around, and we were all playing. I don't think I played more than

a couple of holes because we were we were running up against time constraints with people right behind us. In fact, I think Nick Price was on the T behind us. And the last thing I wanted to do is make him wait to hit his ball. But I just recall, I mean, I think Dave came in thinking that this was going to be pretty easy. And there were a few holes that I remember it may have taken him 20 or 30 shots just to get it off the T because the landing zone was so far out there was maybe like 260, 270 and some. But look, he was a good sport.

I think it was fun. And it was a great chance to introduce the U.S. Open to a lot of your followers and a lot of your fans who maybe hadn't seen it for a while, maybe hadn't seen Shinnecock. So it was good for us to build some excitement. I also remember walking around and there were a lot of people on the edges of the course who were waiting for him to come around, clapping and cheering him on, which was also kind of fun to see. Yeah, you must have been like, what the hell is going on here? Well, I didn't really, you know, it's funny, I didn't realize there's that, for those of you to have been there, there's a road that actually cuts through Shinnock. And so there were, there were some cars going through and some people getting out and cheering, cheering Dave on.

You know, you kind of mentioned it there, but the opportunity to get the U.S. open, to get kind of, you know, your guys flagship events in front of more people. We all talk about grow the game. You know, how big is that for you guys in terms of, priority of actually trying to reach, you know, new people and get them involved in golf? It's part of our mission. It's, you know, it's really important to us. There's a lot that we do as an organization that a lot of people aren't aware of, but whether it's supporting junior programs, whether it's working with golf courses on golf course sustainability and maintenance, I mean, the grass that you, you know, that you might have in front of your lawn, the grass that was at the Kent City

Chiefs Arrowhead Stadium, that's all. you know, from our research and development. So there's a lot that we do in the research science and innovation area, a green section area, supporting golf courses, as well as I said, junior programs and other things to really help grow and support the game that we do. And so the more that people know about the USDA, you know, the more we have the opportunity to work on these things.

And I'd say in particular the U.S. Open, which is really how our relationship started is, you know, also a lot of people don't know but the U.S. Open delivers about 75% of all the revenue of the U.S.GA. So the more successful the U.S. Open is, you know, the bigger the opportunity we have as a golf organization to grow the game and to support the game in all the ways that I talked about. So we, you know, we've been talking a lot about the U.S. Open and you're, you know, chief brand officer marketing. You're very involved with the image and the brand of the U.S.GA. we talk all the time about carnage. We want carnage at the U.S. Open.

We want people crying and complaining. We want the U.S.O. to bring them down to their hands and knees and beg for mercy. We guys like Zach Johnson says you've lost the golf course. We laugh about that all the time. From your guys' perspective, what are those kinds of comments doing? And how do those kinds of comments and feedback about the courses and the tournaments, how do those affect what you guys do?

Well, if we realize that the U.S. Open means different things to different people, and player feedback is critical to us. You know, last year we brought on a former PGA tour player Jason Gore to lead up player relations. He's really helped us with a dialogue with players understanding what they expect out of a U.S. Open. And look, what we hear is that, you know, everyone expects it to be different, you know, than any other week.

the courses, the challenge, what it takes to get through and to be champion. You know, those are all things that are part of the DNA of the U.S. Open. But it's also important that we get, you know, we get a balance. So, look, we appreciate your perspective. Words like carnage and other things we probably wouldn't use. You know, we want it to be tough but fair. That's what players have come to expect. The courses that we bring the U.S. Open to lend themselves to that.

And so, you know, I think what we try to do, you know, in terms of the setup and what we offer is that it really, it really examines, you know, all different parts of an athlete's game, you know, both the physical aspects as well as the mental and emotional ones as well. And so, and we hear that from those who have won and become U.S. Open champions that, you know, it takes a lot out of them, but it's, it makes it, it makes it worth it in the end. And so, look, we just try to, we try to, we try to, we try to, you know, provide that platform to really put all their skills on display, because in the end, that's what fans want. Fans want to see, you know, players do great things. And part of the, you know, part of the journey, you know, to the glory of being champion is, you know, is that seeing that sort of that human element on display. And that's what's so special about the U.S. Open.

So Wingfoot this year, you know, there's been some high scores that have won at Wingfoot before. I wouldn't hate it if I solve like 10 over-pourable. par one at Wingfoot this year, just saying it. I think I've heard you say that a few times now. Well, Craig Annes, he's the chief brand officer at the USGA. What are you guys got planned, you know, for U.S. Open Week? What would have been U.S. Open Week?

Is there anything coming up that's going to get people hyped up? Any kind of replays or what kind of content's coming out this month around the U.S. both the women's and men's open weeks? Sure. Yeah, so this week is the original week of the U.S. Open. We're going to do a lot. You'll see a lot with our broadcast partner Fox, as well as Golf Channel, doing replays of past championships. We're doing a lot to celebrate. This year is our 75th anniversary of the Women's Open, the oldest, most prestigious major in women's golf. And so we're going to be

telling a lot of stories about the trailblazers in the game that have, you know, created a path for the women of today who are competing. And then during the original, week of the U.S. Open. Same thing. We're going to be doing lots of watch parties, rebroadcasting, you know, really trying to get people excited again. That's the week that the tour is scheduled to come back. And so I think the timing will be great to get people, you know, focused on golf again, on watching the TV and looking forward to September. So we're trying to celebrate in our original week because, you know, moving forward after this year, we intend to go back to that week and, you know, use Father's Day as championship Sunday. So, you know,

look for a lot of activity in that space and we hope that you'll celebrate that week with us as well. Well, look, people should keep their eyes peeled, check on that stuff, get hyped up for both the women's and men's open. Like you said, they're going to be running the amateurs as well. And Craig, you guys have been obviously great with us, with a partner with us, giving us access. We do call you our close personal friend a little bit of a joke, but also, but it's been great. It's elevated us, like I said, giving us access our little chat with Tiger at the pebble. None of those things happen without you guys,

the Molligan Challenge and all that. So keep up the good work. Stay safe. And we're looking forward to the championships that you guys can put on this year. Thank you. You too, Riggs. Thanks for the time. Yep.

Have a good one. All right, too. Bye.