Fore Play - "Tiger told me, 'I wanted to kill you,'" with Author John Feinstein

Episode Date: September 11, 2018

John Feinstein was considered enemy number one to the Tiger Woods camp in the early days of Tiger's career, and he joins the show to describe his 4-hour dinner with Tiger and how it came to be via an unexpected encounter on the practice green at Augusta. John recently published a new novel called The Prodigy, which details the struggles of a teenage golfer deciding whether or not to turn pro as he contends at the Masters. Outside of the interview, we breakdown People's Golfer 2.0 Keegan Bradley's breakthrough win at the BMW, Justin Rose rising to no. 1 in the world, Tiger's blistering 62 complete thanks to #ScottySZN, Tony Finau rounding out the greatest Ryder Cup squad ever assembled, and if it's acceptable to root against American guys you don't like in Paris. Action packed. Come play with us!You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/foreplaypod

Hey, 4Play listeners, you can find us every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, we have a very big show. We have John Feinstein on this show. I sat down with him and interviewed him. We spoke for about 20 minutes. For those that don't know, John Feinstein is an author, writer, golf writer, journalist. He's covered a lot of sports, but you've seen him on Golf Channel.

He's written, this is his 39th book. He said he's written 40 books. This one's called The Prodigy. It's all about a young kid who is on the border of deciding to turn pro or go to college, and he's in contention at the Masters, and it's all about what happens there. This clearly has its comparisons to Tiger Woods. John Feinstein also was the biggest adversary to the Tiger Woods camp, if you remember from the book, Armin Cattainan's book, Tiger Woods.

Which book are we talking? It's called Tiger Woods. Ah, okay. That one. the one about Tiger Woods. It's got the big old picture of Tiger on the front. Tiger Woods's faces on the front. Yeah, real easy to pick out.

That one, if you remember, they detail this dinner, where Tiger invites John Feinstein to dinner with him to basically hash it out over what he's writing about his father Earl. We get into that. I quiz him about that dinner. He tells fascinating stories about he and Tiger. They set down to dinner for four hours together. So it's an awesome interview.

That's coming during this show. But first, we've got to talk about. about Admiral Nelson's. Gentlemen. Oh. How delicious does it feel to even just say Admiral Nelson's? I am a mix between, you know,

my, my upbringing and drinking, you know, when I'm just turning like 21 and I'm like, you know, you're learning what you like. You're learning what you like. That's what I think of Amarlemnelson. And then I also think of, like, palm trees. Because when I think of rum, I just think of beaches. And I think of just niceness.

It makes me feel warm inside. Admiral Nelson also makes me think of tailgating season, which college football just started. We used to tailgate Iowa football games. They cover all the bases. Yeah, there would be a good amount of Admiral Nelson getting passed around. I mean, I mean, I'm not. I mean, Admiral Nelson's premium spiced rum.

I feel like it's something that you can just grab yourself some cola and mix it up. And from the very beginning of a long day of deciding to hang out with your pals and do some drinking, you could sip on that delicious spiced rum. That Admiral Nelson is just all day, every day. And I was thinking about it as the everyday rum. and Frankie, you seem to be a little surprised called the everyday rum. I just didn't think

that rum could be considered something that was every day. And then I was trying to tell you about Captain Jack Sparrow. Well, yeah, I mean, Captain Jack Sparrow is a cool dude. Do you think pirates are cool? I do. There you go. Do you think Jack Sparrow just decides some days

to not drink delicious spiced rum? Well, now that I think of it, no. Well, then it's everyday rum. Everyone else is your everyday rum. It's a doable. Everyday rum is a doable thing. Jack Sparrow, that's what he proved to us. And we're not saying that you should drink it every single day.

I don't think we're condoning. No, we're saying it is your every day. At any moment at any day. Exactly. It's going to be the perfect decision. Whether it's 62 and a nice cold, brisk, a wind, like, you know, 1 o'clock in the afternoon, you're sitting down, you're about to watch some football, or it's 9 o'clock at night in the summer,

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They got cherry spiced. They've got pineapple, coconut, vanilla. I mean, the 101 proof. You tried the 101 proof. I don't think I'm... You're going to have some serious fun with the 101 proof. I don't think I'm a man enough to try the 101 proof. You, it's so delicious, Frankie.

You just might like it. Even with your little, um, effeminate features, boyish features that you've got. You still, it might actually like... spring upon you some manliness. What if it made him grow a beard? He drank some 101 and just bam. You had some Admiral Nelson's 101 and you just like became a man.

Maybe I'll just like smack it around my face like some brute. Like I'll just smack it on my chest. Yeah. I think you should. Maybe we should try it. Just pour some on my hand and just smack myself a couple times. Just bathing it, my friend. Man, I would love to.

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Admiral Nelson's, they're the best. Let's talk some golf. The Golf Boys, Fresh Week. We got two shows. We're back. We got a ton to talk about. a ton to talk about a ton to talk about Monday finish wild week at the BMW we got John Feinstein later in the show boys how are we how we doing doing well I feel good uh you know

Monday golf is strange you get to watch it while you're at work but other than that I'm doing great how about you Frankie I'm feeling good I mean rigs you made me like sit back in my chair with your open the way you said foreplay I don't think you've ever been that enthusiastic yeah we have rider cup rider cup feelings you're even sitting up in your chair usually like you're going to further back you're like over the table. I feel like you're going to like prowl onto me. I feel like if I'm ready to bounce. You are. I'm just ready to pounce to talk

about some golf. I'm excited. We had a great day Monday golf today. It's also I feel like a lot of times on Sunday finishes for tournaments like this there's always something going on. I'm trying to get back to New York. I'm fighting traffic. Today we just got to sit back and just watch the golf. We got to watch every shot

today. Got to watch Olive Tiger. Got to watch Justin Rose. Ultimately our guy Keegan Bradley. People's golf are 2.0. People's golf are 2.0. Vermont guy. Huge stool. Huge Boston sports fan.

Huge. Friends with Michael Jordan. Friends with Tom Brady. People forget all these things. Keegan Bradley is so intertwined in like the barstool circle, but we just don't talk about him enough. I mean, I know he hasn't really produced that often. Well, the reason people forget is because he hasn't won it. I mean, that's literally why people forget.

It's good to be honest about these things. People haven't been thinking about him. We obviously went in some. saw him play Keegan v. the world. He was nice enough to take a picture with us. But other the outside in the outside world, people are he. Whoa, Trent. He was not only nice enough to take picture with us. He legitimately battled through the crowd and, like, threw children out of the way to find our crew of people. He tweet. After his round, he tweeted at us and was like, where are you guys? He thought it was like a DM. He doesn't know. He doesn't know how to

use Twitter. So he just literally tweeted at us, where are you guys? So Riggs and I were standing there just like, we are like in front of the clubhouse or something. And then here comes like, how tall is he? Like six, six. He comes storming out and just pushing people out of the way, take a picture with us and the people that were following him. He went around to everybody that was following us and shook everybody's hand. It was like, thank you so much for the sport. Thank you so much for the support to this whole crew of stoolways that we had up there with us.

He's six to, by the way. I wasn't going to let you get away with that ridiculous lie. Looking back, he looked. Six, six, are you? He looked. That's like when I said the ceiling was 45 feet tall. He looked, in my head, he looked taller storming out to us to take a picture. Six is like.

You actually, that is such an absurd number that I thought it was Frankie that said it. Six. Six. Six. Six. Six. Six. Six. Six. Six. Six. I'm willing to admit that I, that's too high. You weren't even close. No, I wasn't close. I thought he was taller than that, though. I thought he was six four. That would have been the real number I should have said. Six-six is crazy tall. I met Keegan Bradley at the Super Bowl when the Patriots won. We were in Houston. We went to this after-party thing with Dave and all the Boston guys.

and Keegan Bradley was just sitting at the table, just like waiting for us. He was like sitting at like a table and he knew what we were going to be there. We were just sitting there with his wife and like we just hung out with them all day. They took a picture with them. They were all holding like the Brady Five Fingers thing. And then when Dave put up the picture, he just like cut Keegan Bradley out of the picture. No, like a magazine cut him out. Yeah, that's right.

No, literally a magazine cut. Oh, yeah, that's what was. Yeah, that's what was. Celebrate Super Bowl win. And they literally cropped Keegan Bradley, major championship winner out of the picture. Yeah, they were like four. famous Boston, like sports sports guys. New England guys. Celebrate

the Super Bowl and then you just see remnants of the side of Keegan Bradley, who's by far the most successful person that's in the picture. He won a major championship. He's played on like, he makes millions upon millions of dollars. He won a bunch of rider cup matches with Phil. He's like fist pumping's won millions

and millions of dollars. He's super tall. It's hard to cut him out of a picture. Keegan Bradley, this is his first win in literally in six years. This is his first trip to the Tour Championship in five years. He, you know, he struggled for a couple years. And then the anchor band hit. Remember, he was a big anchored putter guy? And the anchor band hit at the beginning of 2016. And he struggled, struggled, struggled, worked his way back. Now, here we are at the very, very tail end of the 2018

season, breaks through, gets his win. I mean, the guy's in tears afterwards. He was crying. I was like crying watching him crying. Awesome win. He had his kid there. He had his wife there. He's all pumped up. His celebration when he put the last put in was very genuine. Like, he was like, finally, finally. Because he's a fiery dude. He's always, you watch him and he gets pissed off. He has such a weird swing. I was watching them break his swing down the other day, and they were saying he literally

has to move his back leg to get out of the way of his hands. He also has Trent hands. What does that mean? He holds his hands almost down to his feet. Oh, that is the dress. I thought that was like a, I thought you have. What are you going to say about my hands? I thought you were talking like, this is dangerous territory.

Yeah, I know. I always do this to myself. Here we are. I thought you were talking like where you can't. How's Pirelli's going? Where the books look like. What does that mean? So we talked last week that we said no one, no one digs themselves out of holes worse than Frankie Braille.

You dig yourself. I've never met someone that tries to explain themselves and just digs like a 900 foot deep hole every time. I thought you were saying you can't see his knuckles. I thought you said he had real chubby hands and you can't see his knuckles. I felt that coming. He has Trent hands. So the first thing I thought about was like... Talking about Keegan's golf swing.

You said he has Trent hands. The first thing I said, oh, shit, he's got like those mittens. He's got those, like, those round... He's got those round boxing gloves. You thought I meant like Trent has fat hands. Are you talking about it? Yeah, I mean, look at them. Jesus, Frankie.

They're big hands. You got big hands. Anyway, they're low. You're talking about the stance. The point is his hands are low at a dress. That's what I was trying to say. He's got to move his knee out of the way to get his back swing to the point where it needs to be. insane.

He's got crazy action. What do you think our guy? Brandel? Brandel thinks about this. So, Brandl was going crazy on Twitter today about how Keegan is the best driver of the golf ball on the PGA tour. He was saying he's like the best iron player on the PGA tour. And then he was saying that his putting, he's like 30th or 40th on the entire tour this

year in stroke game putting, which is a massive improvement from several years where he was like the worst guy on tour putting. So Brandl is going off on him, going off on how great he is, talking about how he should absolutely be considered for a rider cup pick. We're going to get into Tony Feeneau, getting the last spot. But he's got very, very unique action. We always like when guys have unique action. It's just it's interesting and it's comforting to know that you don't have to do it the one way.

Justin Rose is the complete opposite of that. He's got like the Adam Scott swing that is just like legitimately when Titleist has that robot swing the club to test their clubs. That's their golf swing. It's like the perfect golf swing. Yeah. Which is also nice to have that. It looks beautiful and all that. Keegens does not look beautiful.

It looks like a train wreck, but he's fucking sick. Last week, Brandel really put me in a blender when I said Bubba has a crazy swing. He's like, Bubba actually has the world's most perfect swing. I was like, okay. How are you supposed to respond? And you didn't respond that. You're just like, okay. With Brandel, he hits you with so many facts and graphs and everything that it's just like, okay, I believe you.

Net worth of Kegan Bradley, what would you say it is? $30 million. I got a number. Yeah, I was going to say $14. 85 million dollars now this is what's the first thing that popped up come on kegan bradley network that's like the first thing that comes up on players wiki kegan has an estimated net worth of 85 million dollars i love keegan he really cashed in when he won a major no chance keegan that he does he's probably got a decent

nikee deal because he always rocks their kicks we should ask him we're going to have kegan back on here pretty soon we'll just ask him what's your network i'm horrified that this is the wrong thing but like when you search the internet it well now you're getting into frankie this is a classic frankie this is a classic frankie where you're throwing out this preposterous number. What is players wiki. Everybody that listens to this show, you're going to get a million tweets of you being like, they're going to find out the truth that Kegan's worth like $4 million or something.

Well, no. I'm also seeing another one that says 11. Where are you seeing that now? Eight times less, Frankie. Well, an eight. No, players. I mean, you can't trust any of these numbers, but 85, and we all love Kegan, but I don't think he's worth that much money. 85 million.

$5 million? That's a gigantic number. We'll fact check that. Fuck. I mean, basically, there's just no way that that's true. I'm glad that you're a stupid fact that just trumped my other stupid fact about how to... What did I say? 30 million?

Yes. The first thing it comes up to 85 million is the one I'm going on. But anyways, regardless, Keegan, he won the first major he ever played in, which was the 2011 PGA when he beat Duff Daddy in playoff. So, Kegan beats Justin Rose in the playoff. Justin Rose, I thought Justin Rose is definitely going to win this. What's wrong with you, Frank? The more I search, the more it's not even close. You said 85 million.

He's only won a certain, like, he's only won around like 14, like 11 million from like his earnings. So if you cut that in half because of taxes and he probably spent a little money. He's not even close to 80. Unless he won $75 million off Michael Jordan in like a basketball game. There's no way he's worth that. Yeah, I mean, endorsements. There's endorsement money. He's major champion winner.

I don't want to get caught up on it, but fuck. All right. I think I'm just wrong. Yeah, I mean, you're always wrong. Like, you just say a lot of really crazy stuff. You also, I mean, you typed in one Google and then you just blurt it out the first thing you saw, which is a crazy tactic. You got to be pretty sure before you throw those things out there. Justin Rose, he beat Justin Rose in the playoff.

Kind of an interesting finish. We, of course, had the whole Monday, you know, finish situation. Nobody played a single second of golf on Sunday. There were talks they were going to do a Tuesday finish, which then surfaced this rule, where the rule is, if half the field doesn't finish their round on Monday, then they scrap the whole thing, and it's just a 54 whole event. So there was this crazy, crazy race going on, basically,

to get at least some of the golf in today so that they wouldn't have to cut it at 54, which would have meant that Justin Rose would have won, and Jordan Speeth would have finished like 31st. He ended up not even making it anyways. There's all this crazy stuff going on. They got it in. We watched golf all day today.

It was raining the whole freaking day. day. But anyways, it comes down to the wire. Keegan and Rose, both bogey the 18th, which I definitely didn't see that coming. Keegan hit like a snipe hook off the T that the pro tracer made it look like he went straight out of bounds. I mean, when he hit it, I was like, oh my God, it's out of bounds. It just turned directly to the left. And it looked like, from the back, it looked like the only thing that it could do was go over like a fence and just like the most out ofbound shot of all time. Ended up in a perfect spot, flared a little right, couldn't get up and down. And then Justin Rose comes

up and he hit like this necky like healy little like low cut that you know what these guys are so good that i was like did he do that fucking thing on purvis then i saw it flew like it carried like 250 yards and he had like 220 in or something on 18 on par four so i was like there's no way he hit that shot of purpose then his next shot comes up like 20 yard short wasn't even close um then he failed to get up and down from there despite he hit a great punt on how that thing leaped out they go to the playoff um and kegan makes par two rows who three jacked from like just off the green. So kind of a weird finish for Justin Rose,

especially because he's been lights out. His swing is like that flawless, you know, perfect, uh, uh, whatever you want to call it. I don't know. It's just like the ideal swing. It's literally like Sean Foley went and like crafted that swing out of mold

and was like swing like this. And that's what Justin Rose swings are. If you had one of those flip books and like each page was like another part of the swing that you would just see Justin Rose. You would create Justin Rose. Yeah. Um, so anyways, then he,

becomes number one in the world. Yeah. Regardless. After all that, number one. Number one in the world. Which is sick. I don't know how. I mean, he wasn't even in the top three last week.

He was fourth. Golf rings are so strange. Number one. I was stunned right. I was like, okay. All right. He's number one now. I don't know how the hell he got ahead of DJ and J.T.

Who have like their last couple of years, it feels like they're just winning huge tournaments left and right. Rose did go on that stretch. We won like three tournaments around this time last year, I feel like. But anyways, Jess Rose is the number one player in the world. Will Gray from Golf Channel tweeted some very interesting stuff. He said basically to keep everything in perspective, remind you to keep grinding all that. He said after turning pro, Justin Rose missed 20 cuts in a row.

Wow. It took him four years to win a single tournament in Europe. It took him 12 years to win a single tournament in the United States. Took him 15 years to win a major championship. And now 20 years later, he's the number one ranked player in the world. After you turn pro and you miss how many cuts in row before you're like, oh, I just can't do this? Because I don't think I get to 20.

I guess was he an amateur when he had that run at the British Open? He must have been. Yeah. He had to have been. And also, what is the, what's the logistics behind, like, how do you miss 20 cuts in a row? Are you, like, how does, like, your sponsors, like, how are you still a pro after 15 missed cuts? Like, aren't you just, like, dropped at that point? Don't you lose your card?

No, because you have, right? Like, once you gain status. So he must have had through his successes as an amateur or even maybe went through like back then. I mean, this was 20-something years ago. So who knows how different it must have been? We weren't like experts on fucking when I was 10 years old or 15 years old on how the European tour qualifying school is going. But my guess would be he had to have earned like full status on the European tour wherever he was playing. Which therefore he's granted he, you know, he's got status for the whole year.

and he could play in like probably 25 or 30 events and you just missed the cut in the first 20. Imagine if you're in his family around him like, all right, he turned pro, this is going to be great. And then he misses the sixth in a row. For me, it's like people that put money into him, right? Like anyone that's sponsoring them, you got to like, I'm assuming you have to like pay it again.

Yeah, you got like a rich uncle who's got like an extra 100K who'll give you. And then you're like, thank you so much. I'll repay you and then you miss 20 cuts in a row. This kid stinks. You know, like I need another 100K, bro. And I don't know if I, I kind of like never really like Justin Rose just because of the whole.

like America that aspect like I'm always rooting against him but what a grind like this made me this little stat from Will Gray here like made me rethink and I guess it sucks for Justin Rose that's coming at the end of his little run here so I got two anecdotes on Justin Rose okay one when I played Marion last year

with no big deal a couple stories who invited us down there played Marion and he of course won his US Open at Marion and I've told this on this podcast before but he afterwards you know when you win a major. It's pretty kind of custom for the club. Everybody does a little differently, but the club's like, you know, we'll give you an honorary membership to our club, especially because

you're in the lore, your pictures all over all the walls, you want a major championship there, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Justin Rose immediately said, I don't want any honorary type membership. I want you guys to tell me the full cost of what it is to be a member. I'll write you a check right now. And he wrote them a check to become a full-time member initiation fee. All that pays his dues. and the handful of members that we hung out and got drinks with after we played, they all told stories about how whenever the tour comes to town or whenever he swings by once or twice a year, he always stays and hangs around on property with his family,

and he's like the nicest guy in the world. All right. The second anecdote I've got is that a guy I played golf with this weekend out at Maidstone, another no big deal for me, Maidstone out in the Hamptons, he spends this guy spends a decent amount of time in the in the winter down in the Bahamas at Albany which is the club where they play the Hero World Challenge and it's like he said like the only people that are ever on property wherever he goes down there are Tiger and Justin Rose and he said Justin Rose seeing him in the locker room and whatnot he's like

the chatiest friendliest guy in the world so yeah I guess I've always had just he has a bad rap sometimes like you know he's kind of boring to watch he's boring and yeah he's got the whole Europe vibe and every time I mean even today we were just like basically waving American flags all over the place because Keegan won. Right. It just felt good for the country. I mean he's got a hard Euro vibe going. He does. He talks like a year. I mean, he's European. So

he's English is going to sound that way. He definitely sounds English, which is in Europe. So I mean, yeah, he's definitely got the Europe. Is he really? Yeah. Oh yeah. Johannesburg. Oh yeah. Why did his family move up there or something? I don't know. Wikipedia.

Well, I mean, just like you don't know about Q school when you were 10, 15 years old, I really don't know about Justin Rose's family tree and how he got from behind his fun facts. I just figured maybe he's 6'3. He's not 6'7 or 6.8. He's taller than he's even taller than Keegan. Yeah, he is. Justin Rose, I have these haunting, haunting images of like four years ago in the Ryder Cup

when Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson were playing together. and Justin Rose was just he every time they cut to him with a putter in his hand the ball went into the hole like every single time it was nauseating I got up in the morning like Friday morning and my buddies were all like having drinks gonna watch the rider cut we're so excited and Justin Rose just ruined our whole like he ruined the whole weekend for us it sucked I'll keep talking because I'm just gonna I'm just gonna hate Justin Rose now like the more you keep going yeah we had him Will Gray had us really loving Justin Rose Rider Cup not so much The other thing we got to talk about that we haven't mentioned because last week we did an hour and a half with Brandel so we really haven't had time to kind of catch up

with the boys was that I buried Phil Mickelson. Yeah, you did. You really did. See, I already forgot about that. I had kind of forgotten about that too until I saw it on that. Well, it happened at a weird time. It was on Labor Day weekend Friday night at like 8 p.m. That's right. Because Phil got off the course and you could tell that somebody on his team

or his team had told him to like go reply to a bunch of tweets, right? Because he wasn't putting tweets on his own timeline. He was just replying to a bunch of tweets. And clearly, like, my tweet responding saying, let's be friends, it'd gotten a lot of traction. This is the benefit of having followers, like, because everybody else is like, everybody else is like, everybody else is kind of goes by you. He's like, why is this keep popping up? It's getting favored.

Let me ask you that. You kind of alluded to it. Do you think it was him? Do you think it was his team? Like, I'm always going back and forth in my head about it. Yeah. I mean, I think it's him just because it's better in my brain if I convince myself that it was him. Definitely.

But I also think it's like 50-50 because he does post all these selfies. And I think that like posting a one or two tweets a day that are like hammered out by Frankie's team that he's got up in the boardroom that he created is doable for his team. But his team going through and replying to a bunch of people, I think seems a little far-fetched and like risky. Because what if like he gets asked an interview or something like about, hey, you replied to this guy like a, you feel like he needs to know? Yeah. So that's another reason that I think it was him, but also it could just definitely not be him. No, we're going to just go. We're going to go with the story that it was him.

For sure. Because it feels good. It feels right. You guys were pretty. You guys were mixing it up. You were kind of like, it's almost like you lulled him to sleep. So what happened was he tweeted out that video of him doing a roundhouse kickover some guy. Who was that?

I can't remember who that was. Or an old golfer. Somebody like that. I can't remember who it was. But anyways, he does a roundhouse kickover a guy who I can't, my guy. brain's not working. You can't think of who it was. He does a roundhound kickover a guy, post the video on Twitter.

Chris O'Donnell. Chris O'Donnell. That's right. And then I replied and said, let's be friends. Yep. And then that went by for 24 hours. And then that was on Thursday. And then on Friday night after he got off the golf course.

You totally thought, by the way, that you were going to get like a, because he clearly was going out with the boys that night. Like he posted that video. He was at some sort of like house party. Like you reply to that and he's going to be like on his phone mixing it up. Maybe he has a couple drinks in him. Like, well, no, there was Thursday night and the golf, the turststststst. tournament was starting on Friday because it was the B and the Dell Technologies up in Boston.

I knew he was like hanging at the house the night before the tournament starts the next day, all that. I just replied, just said, let's be friends. It wasn't like a big, I didn't have a whole conference. It was just like, well, you know, I thought maybe you thought it out a little bit more, but I guess not. Continue. No, I don't. I just kind of fire. Fire from the hip.

Yeah, you got a fire from that. Exactly. So anyways, then he responded to the next night and said maybe. No period, no nothing. He just said maybe. making you think a little bit like you're going to have to work for this So then I replied with the gif

of so you're saying there's a chance Dumb and Dumber. Dumb and Dumber. Classic. And then he replied one in a million Exclamation point. Just there was like picture someone throwing an alleyup to like Dwight Howard. I mean.

If this is Phil, it doesn't matter if it was Phil or if it's Phil's team. First of all, if they followed you so you got to know Riggs is the Tiger guy. Yep. You got to know bar stools in the business of boom roasting people. Like, we love just airing people out on the internet. For them to be like

one in a million, that's the dumbest thing you could have said to you. And then I came over the top and I fucking dummied him. I mean, I just buried him. And I said, so same as you beaten Tiger with the gif of Tiger fist pumping. He drains that put on Saturday at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, 2008. How did that

feel? I mean, it almost, it felt so good that I hesitated to send it because I was like, this is going to be a big tweet right Some tweets feel better than others. That's just how it is. I mean, I had people text to me.

Like, Big Cat text to me. Like, oh, shit. Riggs, like, with like three exclamation points. I mean, I buried Phil Nicholson on Twitter. That one, yeah. And that was, like, the first real bury that Phil probably experienced on Twitter. That's his first Twitter barry, no doubt. Nobody's doing that.

This is like, this is great. And then Riggs from Barcelona just buried me. Comes out of nowhere. And I'm having a nice little conversation with him. I'm like, we're talking about dumb and dumber quotes. And he just fucking. Well, it's also. The GIF is what was, the GIF really, the GIF really hammered it home.

Some people were probably like, because they know your tiger guy, they're like, they're getting a little too close here. Like, which way is Ray's going to take this? And you buried him. You just flat out buried it. Yeah, I smoked him. And then I didn't know what was going to happen after that. He took like an hour or two, and then he gave like a real kind of like a diffusing comment. I don't even remember.

Yeah, he responded back and said, like, um, tiger's a cool cat or something like that. Some BS like that. Might as well just not respond. Get out of here, Phil. So anyways, that happened the day before, or I'm sorry, the Friday of Labor Day weekend. That was fun. I had a great time with that. Now, it may sound weird, ladies and gentlemen, but hanging upside down is a great way to decompress

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Now I use it on Saturday. I wake up a little early before college football is going on. toss it on, it's great. You just get a little inversion therapy going. I'll be honest. For the longest time, the longest time, I thought it was called an adversion table. Adversion?

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You're inverted because it's like, it's the opposite of how you usually... I've just said the wrong word for a long, long time. This thing, this inversion table, I mean, it sounds so weird. I've been saying inversion for fucking ever. Frank's talking about something. Everybody's shocked. I'm not kidding. I've been trying...

I've been saying that forever, because I love this thing. Nothing makes you feel better than when you have like a stiff back and you walk up to this thing. It's this contraption for those at home that don't know what an inversion table is. You look like you're going to get, like, spun around. and then you're going to be, like, put into another galaxy. Like, you're going to spin around so many times. When I googled it before we got them sent to us, I was like, that's terrifying. You also feel like you're just going to, like, go lightheaded and something, like, really bad is going to happen to because just, or like, you're going to do it by yourself and, like, you're just going to get stuck upside down and no one's going to be around.

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That's t-e-e-e-t-r.com slash 4. We got to talk about Tiger Woods. Interesting week. He started with a 62. That was his lowest round, lowest opening round since 1999. Wow. That 62 feels like so long ago now. Since 1999?

Oh, this is his lowest opening round of a tournament since 1999. What does that even mean? It's the best golfer of all time. He's never shot a 62 in an opening round since 1999. Isn't that crazy? I mean, that's, and he's been the most dominant golfer in that time. Like, he never once, like, just dominated the round in the first round. Like he's never just gone like never been minus eight

I'm just reading the stats That's just what it is That's astonishing He then followed it up with a 70 Very disappointing Round of 70 in the second round He kind of bogeed 17 and 18 Same old shit that he's been doing all year man

He's rolling We're all getting hyped up We're ready for that next day Usually it's Friday This time it was Saturday Which was even better Because like we're all just like at home Or you're at the weekend

And you think like oh shit We have three more rounds of this This is awesome Tiger's just going to go like another 62 he doesn't just go off and then you just like parsed out everything it's so boring he just friday round wasn't great he made he shot 70 and then saturday he posted four under i think he posted a four under 66 right sunday was washed and then he shot 60 oh right i had those two days mixed though i'm sorry that's why i said saturday yeah then he shot 65 today right i believe for a 17 under total

ended up t6 um he had to go really low he had to go really really low couldn't quite get it done And like we said, kind of the second round when he posted that 7, he was disappointing. It slowed him down. His putter, he's got the Scotty camera back in the bag. Scotty season is what GC tracker whipped up, which was awesome. Scotty season is nice. We're Scotty guys now. The way he calls it to Scotty.

I mean, Tiger Tracker just like, yeah, Scotty's rolling right now. It's incredible. Yeah, it's nice. And he made, you know, the very first hole of the term. And he comes out. He's got the Scotty in the bag. Everyone's kind of going crazy the dare to before, especially because he had just come from Boston. So he just like teleports down to Philly area.

Boom. All of a sudden, putter switch. He's got the Scotty in the bag. He drains his first putt for birdie, like a 15 footer on the first hole. You think here we go. He ended up birdying like three of the first four. Then he eagles the 16th hole, which was whatever his seventh of the day. He was five under through like seven holes.

Ended up with a 29 in the front. Then he buried the next hole. So he's whatever, seven under through 10. You're thinking like he's going to shoot like 55. What is happening here? And it didn't end up. It didn't end up coming to be. He, again, we talked about he slowed down a little bit, didn't really get it going,

fired it back up over the course of the weekend. Fired it back up today. He was in the mix for a while. This is what I was going to bring up. It's been a great year, obviously, for Tiger. It's been fun seeing him play again. He's been playing really well, almost won a couple majors pretty close. But it has been an extremely stressful year to watch Tiger Woods because he's always

almost kind of in it, and then he's just not. Like there will be times over, it feels like in every tournament there are stretches where it's like he could really just win this thing. and then it doesn't end up panning out. But every time I get my, I get all amped up, and I'm getting all anxious at my TV or my computer, and then it just doesn't happen. It doesn't go anywhere.

You know what I mean? It's frustrating because, you know, the Vowsbar Championship was really the first time that he kind of, like, put it into our brains that he could win, and he finished second in the golf tournament. That was fucking eight months ago, seven months ago, something like that. So we've had so many of these now where, like, once he did that, you thought, okay, next time he gets in the men,

he's going to do it. He's going to get himself over the top. He's going to win the tournament. Boom. And now he's done it like 10 times since then where he's been close. So it's on one front, you hear him in the post round interviews too, and he talks about how, yeah, a year ago today, I think Steve Sands, who we had on this show, who Tiger calls Sanzi, who Steve Sanzi, who Steve Sanzas doesn't like that Tiger calls him Sanzi, which he said on this show. But he... He's like, just don't call me Sanzi?

I don't think he would never say that to Tiger. No, but he was like the only, like, literally the only person in the world that calls me, is Tiger. And he was like, and my friends, like, make fun of me. He treats me like I'm a baby. Man, I wish Tiger would call me. Well, yeah. I mean, God.

You guys will also, you'll find out in my interview with John Feinstein that he says Tiger at one point called him Johnny. And he's like, there's only three people on Planet Earth that have ever called me Johnny. One of them's tired of him. He just adds a white everything. Let's be perfect. He's like a hockey guy. Tiger's allowed to do whatever the fuck he wants. No, for sure.

But we're just talking about it. the fact that he doesn't. We're not saying he's not allowed to do it. No, I'm saying to the people that think it may be like, why is he doing this? Like the Sand-y and Johnny. Oh, yeah, he would call me Riggsie, Sammy, Frankie, Trenti. If I got called Trenti, see, that's what I just felt has to be what St. Has to be what Stans feels. You literally just.

Like, if Tiger Woods called me Trenti, I'd be like, awesome. But that feels like minorly disrespectful. That is the worst nickname of all that. Horrible. We're calling you Trenti. I don't like it. T, like the Trenti. Trenti.

It's like. Trenti. Trenti. You'd have to do a New York, N.T.Y. Like, Treeney. So, yeah, you just felt what Steve Sands feels. Because Sands is not supposed to be called Sanzi, and he's never called Sanzi, except by Tiger. And you are not supposed to be called Trenti.

It's awful. What a horrible feeling my body went through when you first said that. Hit me like a ton of bricks. You shuddered. You in Trenti. What were you talking about? I don't know. I'm talking about Sandie.

Oh, so Sansey brought out that it was like one year ago to the date that Tiger posted my doctor cleared me to chip and pot, something of that nature, like how crazy is it how far you've come. And Tiger did put it into respect. And it was like, the fact that I can even play in all these tournaments that I'm going to East Lake that I'm going to play in the Rider Cup in two weeks is just outrageous. and it is something that on one end, and this is like when we, it's tough because like when we're talking with each other, we could admit that it sucks that he's not winning. But when we're talking with others outside of our bubble, like Dave and Big Cat, we have to be like, can you guys even believe that he's playing? So it's very difficult to have to continue to do that.

But it is happening. He's swing. He hits so many more fairways this week. His ball striking was fantastic. His putting at times was there and it was back, but it overall wasn't. it phenomenal. I think, I don't know if Tiger Tracker quoted him on this. I didn't, I should have probably done more research on it, but he tweeted out at one point that Tiger was asked, do you, do you feel like the driver is a weapon again? And he just responded, yes.

That's nice. Like, I just looked at that tweet all night. I like put it, I put it on a pillow next to my bed. I mean, it was a weapon. It is a weapon. Every hole he stepped on this week, I thought that he, like, I thought he was going to make Bertie because he's so good with his irons that when he's in the fairway as he proved he proved this at the pGA championship when he was like the holes when he was slapping it all over and missing fairways he was still able to make some birdies right but he also his short game and all that is so good that he can just make pars and then the holes that he does put it in the fairway he was hitting it to six inches and the loudest noises of all time coming from st louis we can hear him from new york because

his iron play is so good so it felt like that this week that every time i like it used to be that we panicked right even even a couple weeks ago, we panicked when he pulled driver. Like, oh, my God. Oh, no. Especially when he was contending, like, in the open when we were like, put it away. Yes. Just put it away.

Yeah, at the PGA, it was like, please don't hit driver. Now, when he pulled it out this week, it was, like, fun to watch. Because he had kind of that free-flowing swing. He was ripping it out there. He was kind of like, it was almost like he was able to be this, like, this artist, like painting it around, moving it both ways. So we have to remove ourselves and, like, look at it from the sky. and just look down at what Tiger's doing, we have to.

He is putting it all together. The 62, obviously, he's not going to shoot a 62 every time, but the 62 is like, holy shit. Yeah. Last, like, last couple of weeks, he's been just all over the pin with his irons. His putter is starting to come back. Like, he is just piecing it all together. Now, does it suck that all the majors are over and, like,

the season's going to be coming to an end? Yes, but can he keep this going by just, you know, playing during the off season and just getting ready for the Ryder Cup and doing this? I think he can. I think he is going to be so ready come back. masters next year. It's, I think he's going to dominate next year. I don't just, I don't think, I don't think, I don't just hope. I, I, I genuinely think so. Kip Henley thinks that too.

As he said, he thinks Tiger will win over the next couple of years, more tournaments. If we listened to our foreplay from November when he was like going into the hero world, the hero tournament, and we listened to the way we were talking about, like, what we are expectations of him were this year, like, the fact that he's competed this much and has actually, like, had chances to win fucking majors. It's crazy. I get that. No, we get that.

We've said that. We've said that it's crazy. But we also, like, once we're in this bubble, like, that's not enough. We're going to say he's back. He needs to start fucking winning. Yeah. And that's just where we're at. It feels like a car you're trying to get turned over.

Right. It's just like, won't go. You know, we've figured all that out. We just need to get to a point where we're winning. Would be really, really nice. Great. And he hasn't quite gotten there. So I did see, you know, a couple of people where, you know, they keep trying to say, well,

every time he plays these. good tournaments. It's just not good enough. These new players are too good. I do want to read a stat. I'm pulling it up right now. My computer is loading. It said that this is the 13th time in Tiger's PGA tour career that he finished a tournament 17 under or better and did not win. So it wasn't like he posted the best score. You could have possibly posted and just the guys are too good now. This is the 13th time in his career that he's posted 17 under or better and not won the tournament. So it's happened many times before. It'll happen again.

I still do not believe that we watch Tiger this week and thought, wow, he played great all week. I think the one time that we get to that, he will absolutely win the golf tournament. Absolutely. So Tony Fino, final pick for the U.S. Rider Cup squad. Now everybody's been picked.

To talk about how good this Rider Cup, just the whole group is from both Europe and the United States, 18 of the top 21 players in the world, are playing in the rider. That's crazy, Tom. If that doesn't get you excited, then nothing's going to get you excited for the rider coach.

It is literally just the best players on planet Earth putting on the colors of their home country and battling it out in something that means more than anything else really in golf.

With huge crowds, rowdy crowds, and it's 18 of the top 21 players in the world. That's crazy. Why am I not surprised by that number? Who else would be in the rider coach?

There's a lot of really, really good players that are Australian, that are South African. True. You know, Hideki Matsuyama and the Japanese guys. And, like, South America has some good guys every now. You know, like, it's just there are so many places in the world where really good players come from nowadays. And to think that 18 of the top 21 on planet Earth are playing in the Ryder Cup against each other is, it's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

When you put it, I mean, the Matsuyama, that one, like, put me back in my seat. I'm like, well, yeah, that's one of, like, the best conversations in the world. Jason Day, like, Adam Scott, like, even, like, think about, like, Greg Norman back in the day. He couldn't play in the Riter Cup. Like, these guys are the best, the best players in the world, are all playing, pretty much all playing in the Riter Cup. Tony Fienow, he's 17th ranked player in the world. We talked a lot about his season, I think, two weeks ago when we were talking about our boy Colby. Our guy, Colby is one of our tech guys.

He's the man. He helps us out behind the scenes with a bunch of our stuff. He's bet on Tony Fienow to win like every tournament of the year so far. And Tony Fino, I mean, his results this season, he's got three second place finishes. He has 11 top 10. 11. He has 18 top 25s. He has made the cut in 24 of 27 tournaments. He is third in the FedEx Cup standings, I believe.

just had a phenomenal year. His major finishes are 10th of the Masters, fifth at the U.S. Open, tied for 9th at the British Open, and tied for 42nd of the PGA. So the biggest fields, the best fields, he's played phenomenal. And boom, he gets the pick,

kind of a no-brainer. I mean, he was the most talked-about guy by far. Yeah, I did it. Although we had Brattle on last week, and he wanted Kyle Stanley. I just pictured Brandel sitting on his couch, no cameras, no nothing, just being like, that's wrong.

That's the wrong thing. He was tweeting about it. You know, he was essentially, he was doing it. He does everything so analytically, you know, and he doesn't. So he's got it all boiled down. I think the foursums, which is alternate shot, is where he really believes that we need to, like, add this incredible talent to be able to beat Europe. We talked about it all last week for like an hour and a half, so you all can go back and listen to that. Regardless of Brandl's theory about Collie Stanley, regardless of Keene Bradley winning.

regardless of Zander Schofley, who was leading the tournament for a while this past weekend. Regardless of Kevin Kisner, had an incredible record with Phil Mickelson at the President's Cup last year, who's one of the straightest drivers on tour, who's one of the best putters on tour. Regardless of all that, it was Tony Fienow. He was the heavy, heavy favorite. He got the pick. Again, kind of a no-brainer. Our team is rounded out.

We got all 12 guys now. Stacked. I mean, our team. Stacked. It's a stacked lineup. Is crazy. I'm just trying to think of our team. off like the top of my head.

We got like DJ, Justin Thomas, Jordan Speeith. Bubba Watson won three times this year. He obviously just kills the ball. Brooks Kebka won two freaking major championships this year. Webb Simpson won the players by like 800 strokes. We have Tiger Woods, who's the greatest player to ever play the game. Phil Mickelson, who we get into it on Twitter. We have a really good time.

And he is, you know, one of the, he's probably a top 10, top 12 player to ever play the game of golf. Bryson D. Shambo just won back-to-back tournaments on the FedEx Cup. Tony Fienau, who we just listed his whole roster. That's 10 guys already. Who am I missing? Anybody know who I'm missing? Did you say Ricky? Did you say, say, Ricky?

Did you say, Steve? I did not say Ricky. Rieffler's been, like, in the top 10 for the last, like, seven years straight, one of the most consistent players on Planet Earth, despite the fact that he's only won four times in the PJ tour, which is crazy. I think that's 11 guys. We got one missing. Bubba? I'm sure it's somebody.

I said Bob, did you listen to anything? Yeah, I'm just like. Oh, we're just working it out in our heads. Yeah, no, you're just like... Well, I have it right here. I'm just trying... I wonder if I could look at the list. I'm sure it's like this crazy obvious name.

This is going to be so bad that we didn't say it. I'm sure it's some... Patrick Reed. Oh, Patrick Greed. Mr. America. It's literally Captain America. I was staring at his name. That's so...

You know what I should have done is I should have thought about it in pairings. Right. You would have done... Right. I would have gone, obviously, like, you could do the parents. I forgot about Captain America. I forgot about Captain America. But our team is unbelievably stacked.

There were a couple blogs in the last week or so where I've kind of listed the world rankings and how we, up until Justin Rose now, we beat every one of their spots in the world rankings and all of that. Although the European team, don't get me wrong. I mean, we just talked about how 18 to the top 21 in the world are here.

The European team is very, very good. I just think that right towards the end of their lineup, they lose in depth big time. And maybe like the eighth, ninth, 10th, 11th, and 12th spots. They got Ollison on their squad, which it's like, I mean, we're picking Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. They got Ollson who automatically qualified in their squad. You always get a little bit of that because the European system is based on a lot of European tour points and all that. So there's always a couple guys on there that necessarily aren't household names over here in the States.

And don't go wrong. They've dominated since the three of us have been alive. The Europe has just dominated us in the Ryder Cup. I don't think we've won on European soil since 1993. So we've got a lot of work to do, but the team's in good shape, with maybe the exception of Dustin Johnson, Trent Daddy. Yeah. You're kind of the resident expert on this, DJ Paulina. Yeah, I got the couple people tweeted me on Saturday.

They asked me why Paulina deleted all of DJ's pictures, so I went over to her Instagram. And to be quite honest, I hadn't really focused on the pictures of her and DJ so much over the course of my history covering them. So I wasn't sure if it was true, so I did a little digging. and she had, in fact, deleted all the pictures that DJ had anything to do with. So, yeah, the Ryder Cup. Do we have any leads on what happened? Right. So not up until this point, no.

So she deleted all the pictures, and that's as far as I got. And now she still follows them on Instagram, and I have not gotten any leads. Otherwise, I've had people obviously tweeted me some wild conspiracy theories that are hard to pin down. But as of right now, she just deleted all the pictures, and that's all we know. You got memed. I did get memed. You got memed. I forgot about that.

I got super memed. Yeah. How did that feel? It didn't feel great, but... Really? It felt okay. I didn't think it was like a bad getting memed. Well, I mean, it was about him sending dick pics to Polina.

It wasn't the best meme. It wasn't like, he wasn't getting mean for good things. He was getting meme for being like the number one Polina stalker on Instagram. Facts. In the world. He's good at his job. Yeah. He got a lot of pages on that blog.

That was another thing also. Well, no one's, like, arguing that. You just, like, you asked if it felt good. The, uh... They weren't saying, like, Trent. No, I said, how'd that feel? And then I said that I didn't think, look, I guess my point was, like, getting memed. Could have been way worse.

Like, think about, like, how Jordan feels about getting mean. Like, I guess so, but... He's bawling his eyes out, like, eight bazillion times for five years on the internet. Yeah, but the problem with his getting meme, Trent, well, for those at home, what was the actual meme? Because, like, we're just talking about it. What was it? They put up... There was like a screenshot of Paulina's DMs, like Pauline's DMs right now.

One of them was me that said... Well, no, you were the last one. All right. So the first one was Tiger. That was said, you up. Amazing. Second one was Brooks, said, you need to call Dustin back. Which is a great one.

That was a good one. Third one was Dustin being like, is it because I shaved my beard, which he did. Which I thought that was a really dumb one. Yeah. And then mine was, did you get the dick pick? Dick picks I sent. And people on the internet, like on Reddit and everything, like, I think it went to like PGA, like, like, meme.

Reddit and shit. This thing like caught fire. Yeah. And think of the company that you were in there with. You're in there with Tiger, DJ, Brooks, Kepka, and Paulina Gretzky, and Barstool Trent. That's great. Everyone, because the internet sometimes dumb, every single person thought that Trent actually, like this person

actually sent it. They're like, look at that last guy. Like, no one was even looking at the jokes that were happening three names ahead of him. Everyone was looking at, like, yo, look at the, look, someone get my man's Trent. Like, he just got exposed. I want to go on record. I didn't say, I don't give a shit about the meme.

Like, I don't feel either way about it. But it was like, people were like, a lot of people tag me, be like, oh, you're getting put on blast. I was like, no, but that's not actually me in there. You know that it's fake. That's why it's a meme. I promise you, like, I am the biggest Paulina follower. And I, like, I do the Paulina thing on Twitter.

But I'm not like sliding her DMs like, check out my dick. Like, that's not the type of things. I watched you do a Paulina thing live. And you were like, we were like driving. It was like a whole thing. We were driving to Boston for the thing. I get tidaless, yeah. Yeah.

And the Paulina dropped a picture where, I mean, it was like the hottest picture of all time. And I'm like, I audibly gasped. I was in the front seat. And I'm like, oh, like, have you seen this? And he just like basically stopped driving. I felt like I had to go over and just like hold the fucking wheel. We were on like the highway. And he just like had to get this Paulina Instagram comment out.

I mean, you just have to. You have brand. How many A's he could get up, Polina? It was just like. And to the point now where I, I missed one of them where she was like, her butt was just out. And I missed it and I was sleeping. So now Bob Fox, who I live with, any times it happens, he just calls me and texts me like crazy. Like, did you see it?

Did you see it? That's nice. It's nice. It's nice to have a little fail safe. Yeah. No, that's big. So when Phil tweeted back at me, I was on a ferry out to New Jersey because it was Labor Day weekend. And I didn't have service.

And so I didn't get any notifications in real time. And so when I checked my phone, I had missed them all. And so I was looking through and I just didn't really quite see them. and luckily a couple people text to me being like, Bill! And I was like, what? And then I looked and I was like, if you look,

I was like 12 or 15 minutes late to responding. But I, for like the first seven or eight minutes, I had no clue what happened. Oh, interesting. Because I was just out of service. I didn't even know. And like I said,

when you catch up with your mentions, you know how it is usually you just kind of rush to the top and see at the top for a minute or two if there's anything. And I just kind of missed it for a second. So it could happen to anybody. But it is nice to have a guy.

Bob's your guy. Oh, it's great to have a guy. Because, like I said, I fell asleep one night and he was like, the next morning, he was like, should I have, like, stormed into your room and woke you up? And I was like, yes. You should. Yeah, you absolutely should. But yeah, I don't know. DJ and Paulina, no idea what their relationship status is at this time.

So I want to preface this by saying that we get an outrageous amount of DMs in theories. If you did an ad lib of, like, what happens between DJ and Paulina, specifically when he skipped the masters. If you just did an ad lib, we've gotten every single one. Every single one. Name a player, name whatever, every single one. We still get them a couple times a week. Hey, you know, I heard from really good sources that he did this with this person's that. And like, okay, dude, sub in like 77 different golfers.

And you've just said the same story they've heard a million times. However, I did get a DM from a guy that the only reason I'm bringing this up is because he said, I have it on good record that DJ actually broke up with Polina. Oh, wow. Now, that's a massive, massive breakup if that actually happens. That shakes up a lot. It's got to be a breakup, right? Or at least a riff?

It has to be. Because she deleted all of his pictures. Don't do that. You don't do that. Nope. Now, I'm hoping for DJ's sake, this is getting real, like, basic Instagram talk, but you can just, like, hide the pictures. It's a classic, like, boyfriend-girlfriend move.

If you're, like, it's basically a threat. Like, watch what will happen. You can do that? You can just hide pictures, right? Yeah, so you can hide it from your profile. So hopefully for DJ's sake She just like went back Hit all of them and then she's like

Well if we get back together I'll just repost them It's also like DJ wants to have his face Plastered all over her Instagram Because that's his girl Like she's one of the hottest girls in the fucking world When someone goes on his Instagram On her Instagram you want to see at least that

You know DJ's all over there I also you know This whole Their whole relationship is weird I mean they've been engaged for five years And they've also two kids Who does that

Who's engaged for five years And has two children Well, if we want to get real here, I think Dustin Johnson's like past would take some, you know, time for her to make sure that he's like, you know, back on track and the real deal. Five years, Frank? Five years is a lot. That's not enough. Well, I mean, he was pretty fucking down in the dumps. I mean, for how high, for how high powered her family is.

And, like, I could imagine, I don't know. I just feel like that's something that they probably, like, let's just make sure this guy's, like, good for five. I mean, honestly, that reason is good as any because I can't think of anything else. Like, why would you be engaged for five years? You know, like, is saying to his daughter, like, you guys got to keep this going, like, make sure. They have two kids? Like, that's not. They do have two kids.

You don't think he would have, like, you shouldn't have, like, pop out children if you're not sure about this. No, who knows if that stuff was, like, planned. But he also doesn't get to, Wayne Gratsky doesn't just get to tell her when she can get married and when she can. I'm not saying Wayne Grissey said that. I'm just trying to think of a reason why that they're still engaged. Also, like, she was just as wild girl as he was, like a wild guy. That's why they were great match. Maybe that's why they're just.

just both waiting to get, you know. It is curious. Five years engaged, there's a reason. I'm very curious to what it is. That's different. That's a different type of move. So when you see something that's abnormal, you got to look at reasons why, and then you see the breakup thing going on.

If they'll be back together, then they'll break up again. I don't know if they'll ever get married. It's just, you got to be thinking about these things. Yeah. It's a scene, man. I don't know what's going on, but it felt good to break that news. I will say that. Great work breaking that news, Trenton.

Thank you. Next up. First person that did that? I was the first person to report. I had a couple people in my mentions being like, oh, are you going to give credit to the Stoolies who said, hey, you should look at Pauline's Instagram because she deleted all DJ fiction.

I've used Stoley's kind of as like sources. Like, I don't think they want credit. Like, I'm, we are in the media, so I'm just going to report it. And Stoly's, they're like our little sleuth reporters. Well, I usually ask people. Oh, I should probably done that. I just say, like, do you, are you looking for credit for this? I did say in the blog a couple people tweeted at me.

That's all. I was going to say you weren't just fucking looking at her. No, but you weren't looking at her Instagram. No. And like, a light didn't come off on top of your head. And you're just like, where are all the DJ pictures? Right. No, that would be an insane.

That was the narrative on the internet. Well, someone did do it. Right. Too, too. Yeah, then you'd be a crazy person. That's the thing. That was the narrative where I was, people were just like, oh, he must be staring at plays this one time. Like, no, I was just sitting on my couch watching the Iowa game.

See, I would have even invented credit there. Like, credit to, like, these people that scoured the profile, because high, This one guy is just like scrolling through her Instagram and he's like as she's doing it and he's like he's refreshing like oh my god another one's gone. It was two guys that did. Two guys basically back to back that did it. And then I just went and looked. So they must have been somehow they figured it out. They noticed.

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are the best that's what we use or go to supreme golf dot com slash barstool. First question is from David. I think this is a very prevalent question with the Ryder Cup coming up. We got a couple, right, a couple ones, by the way, a couple from the galleries. Email foreplay at Barstoolsports.com.

Send us your from the galleries. If you DM them to us, I can't keep track of them because you can't search DMs. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's going to be possible. So what I do, when I get ready for the show,

I go to the 4Play email, and I just type in the search bar from the gallery, and I just go through it. but when you DM me, I can't just keep track of those. So if you want from the gallery of submission, also I don't like to just go through my DMs all day because people send really mean stuff to me. So I don't want to read that stuff either.

People on the internet are mean. Yeah, people are very mean on the internet. So I don't love to go through my DMs all day. So just email for Play at Barclosport. Someone, a graphic designer made a video of me. It was like one of those little video picture things where she took a picture of me eating a slice of pizza and then put up an Instagram story of how she drew over it

and she drew this awesome picture of me eating a slice of pizza. And then so I put it on my Instagram story, and you can see what the original picture was and then what the final product was. And someone wrote, what'd they say? Oh, man, she totally missed your soft face and horrible chin. She's a horrible chin. I wrote back, thanks, man.

He's like, no problem, just let her know to just go real soft on that jawline next time. I'm like, okay, I appreciate it. which is like a bunch of thumbs up. It's just crazy, man, what people actually do. I love he said that. He said no problem. Yeah.

Yeah, no problem. Usually when a barcel hater or a commenter, you actually answer them. I love doing that when they'll be like, yo, you're lesbian, whatever stuff, and they'll say something to me. And I'll be like, I'm just kidding with that. Always. They always do that. This guy was like, nah. This guy was like, yeah.

And also, tell her to use a soft gray when she's doing that real weird jaw line of yours. Thanks, bro. So David, David submitted. He said, I can't listen to rig. Bryson's little pecker anymore. Here we go. Trent and Frankie, you're a million percent right. The guy is a fucking country club douchebag through and through as much as I want the U.S.

to win the Ryder Cup. I am very excited to see him get absolutely trounced in every match. That I disagree with. So this got me thinking. Yeah. Do you actually want the guys that you don't like on the Ryder Cup team to lose their match? No. No.

And we had had a similar conversation this months ago, probably over a year ago now, where I was so in love with Rory that you were like, would you root for Rory at the... the Ryder Cup and I said no. It took me a while to answer, but I said no. I'm not going to root against somebody on the... We've been very clear about this. I will say in an ideal world, I would not mind it if like JT went 0 and 4 and we won the Ryder Cup. But it's almost not worth the risk. But I know what you're saying. Correct. It's not worth the risk. I would love to watch Bryson be upset as a person. That would make me happy if I visually got to see that. But I'm not going to go in hoping he loses because

that would jeopardize the entire thing that I'm rooting for. Correct. Okay. I just wanted to ask. Yeah, I've been very clear about this. I hate Rising Deschambo, but I also would, I take this just the same way as I would, Henrik Lunkwis was an American goalie, and he played for Team USA during the Olympics, I'm not going to be like, I hope he gives up a million goals. It's going to fucking ruin my viewing experience. Right.

What do they say that? Cutting off your nose despite your face, is that a thing people say? Yeah. That's the approach everyone should have to the Ryder Cup. Okay. All right, good. I'm glad we're all on the same page. I wasn't sure.

Now I'm sure post round. Every time he makes a comment, I'm just going to get angry. but on the golf course, I hope he does well. For the country. I agree. Cool. We have Sai. S-A-I.

It's not Sal? No. Oh, wow. I thought that was an L. No, I read it. S-A-I. S-A-I. Is that short for something?

Cy asks, who is your ideal pick to play Ian Poulter in Sunday singles? Now you've got to think about this. Obviously, a lot of people would just jump the tiger. But there's also Patrick Reed in there because he's kind of our equivalent to Ian Pult. who's just a killer during the Rider Cup You could be one of the young studs Who just destroys him It could be like

Like I couldn't even imagine him Like Dustin Johnson And Dustin Johnson would just kill him I think Justin Johnson hit the ball like 200 yards farther than he would Picture him beating him with a sledgehammer I wish they weren't on the same team But I wish John Rom could play with him I just feel like he would

Rom would get so pissed off by Poulter He'd just snap a He'd just like snap a seven iron across his neck He'd be like shut the fuck up Like you Ian Poulter Shut up you little bitch I feel like you Ian Poulter should be like a diss. You're such an Ian Poulter.

Oh. You should. That makes you feel horrible. Yeah. That makes me feel horrible. You're such a Poulter. Oh. I just feel like spikes on top of my head and I just feel, I feel dushy.

I would pick Patrick Reed because I think he realizes what that means. Like, obviously they all do, but he would be like, I'm the American guy, he's the European guy. And that would get him in the mindset where he would just fuck Poulter out. Are we afraid that Patrick Reed is feeling pressure to be like the American? guy right now. Do you think he's going to go too much, though? You think it's going to get like corny? Yeah. Like I totally. I think everything happened so naturally last time. But no, the corniness is accepted. Cornyness is praised. Corniness is we. I know. We're going to get the high fives. We're going to get all that weird stuff. Tiger's going to be real corny. Yeah, but he was doing,

I mean, he was doing double arm fist pumps with his dumpy body and like his baggy clothes and stuff. And we were eating it up. We made t-shirts about it. Yeah, but that was more natural, right? Like, he had to make, like, I just feel like he's going to go into it. It's all natural. Dude, the emotion is so crazy at this thing. It's natural. I think he's going to go into this. Like, I think off the first tee, he's going to be fucking pumping because he knows like people are watching him.

And we're going to love it, Frankie. You think we're going to be like, oh, it's so corny. Are you kidding me? Patrick Reed steps up on the first tee of the rider cup, rips a draw down the middle and starts double fist pumping with this dumpy body. You think you're going to be like, that's corny? Right. You're going to be like, I'll suck your dick right now.

I just don't want to do. We're still a couple weeks away. You're going to be like, I spent two years wanting to hate this guy trashing him. We don't like him. We're not rooting for him. The second he rips a T shot and starts fist pumping, you're going to want to get down on your knees and do whatever Patrick Reed wants you to do. 100%.

And we've all known it. We talked about it for two years. I know. I'm just worried when Bubba pumped up the crowd. Like, that's how I felt. Correct. That's, you just, I hated Bubba forever. And then it's like, oh, wait, no, this is the rider.

When he pumped up the crowd, I was jumping through my living room ceiling. And there's Bubba Watson. I hated him at the time. Yeah, there's no denying that. I'm just, Patrick Reed, I'm just going to keep an eye on. I just think he's like, he's got an agenda going into this one, and it's not going to, the emotions aren't going to be what's doing it. I think he's like, I'm on shirts. I'm on this. I'm Mr. America. I'm going to be, he's going to be shooting out shirts out of a cannon. He's like, hey, Bada Bing. Like, he's walking up there. Like, I'm Patrick Reed. Like, he's going to turn into like one of these little circus acts. I don't want that. I want my guys to be all just fucking locked and loaded. And I want them to drain an 80-foot put. And then I want to see him go nuts. That's all I want. I'm just saying. I think that's what you're going to get. I think that's what I'm going to get. I just don't want to.

to get to his head. Let it happen. Make a birdie. This is his third Rider Cup now. So the first one, he became Captain America. The second one he handled it as well as anybody. He's hauling out from the fairway. He beats Rory in the most intense match of all time. Take him a tumbo. Yeah, Rory. Right.

So he's fine. Keep mad at him. Get ready to get excited for Patrick Reed. Peter. Peter basically said he needs a hanger update. Remember when I got the hanger, the swing tool? Yep. I get these all the time. That's why

included this. I haven't used it. I used it for like two days in my apartment. And then I realized that since I live in a Manhattan apartment, it's just I don't have the time to put it in to really get anything out of it at this point. So the other thing is that I can rehearse practice swings all day and get to a point that I like. But hitting balls, everything goes out the window. Are you supposed to hit balls with the hanger? Oh, yeah.

Really? Oh, yeah. I mean, you're supposed to practice both, but you're supposed to be able to hit balls with it. Wow. Oh, I didn't realize that. Oh, yeah. And so I can't do that. Like, I just can't do that.

There's nowhere. People don't realize, like, you either go to a simulator, which is shout out to five iron golf, which is a simulator down the street. Which I may be taking, I'm moving into the city in a couple weeks. I think I'm going to take a little stroll over there. Yeah, we're going to get a membership of five iron golf place is fantastic. But anyways, you either go there and hit balls at like a simulator, or you go to Chelsea Pier and pay like 40 bucks for a bucket of ball.

Yeah, that's no good. People have to realize that for $40. And I love Chelsea Pier. It's a great, like, novelty thing to stop by when you come to the city. And it's the best option to really go hit balls if you live in the city. How many balls do you get for 40 bucks? It's literally there's, like the small buckets, 30. And the large buckets, like, 40 bucks or something like that.

The one by me that I always steal balls from is like five bucks. Yeah, that's a normal driver. And it's math. So it's like, again, I love Chelsea Pier. It's cool. They're stacked on top of each other's, like, four layers. You're hitting out over the Hudson. It's very, very cool.

But you're paying it. You can't, like, that's not a sustainable way to practice call. You can't go pay $40 when you get a bucket of balls on mats and get better. So, uh, so it's tough in New York. I don't really get to practice very often. So we haven't made a ton of progress with the hangar. All right. I mean, it takes time, right?

You're going to need, you should take it to the simulator. I mean, I think you should. Yeah, probably should. Um, number two, uh, on that same note with, like, making your game better, I've been trying to figure out a way. I, I've been putting okay recently. It's like one of the things like I, I, my, my, my, My wedge game is a mind fuck.

I'm all over the place. Is it? Yeah, I just can't do it. Riggs, we haven't even talked about this. We played together. The Beth Page. Beth Page. We played Beth Page. Shout to PGA of America. Shout out to PGA of America.

They just like, we just got there and they're like, yeah, you guys are just on this PGA of America list. Have fun. Like, there was like this whole discussion the night before with me and my buddy who's from Canada and like he didn't know if he could play. He lives in New York, but he hasn't gotten a New York license. Yeah. So he didn't know if. you'd have to pay like the $175 fee for not having a New York State license. So he's bringing like lease forms with them.

He's bringing pay stubs. He's like, I have this Nassau County resident form. We're like freaking out. Like, all, man, if it's too much, we're just going to split it. I'm like talking to them into it. We just get to the booth. And Riggs is like, yeah, like we're just guests of the PGA of America. Like, just go hit balls.

Yeah, we're like special media. And they're like, yeah, you're on the tea at 10.30. Yeah, it's just your tea time. You guys are all set. Like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I, I want to say that.

It was the hottest day of the year, and we played Bethpage Black from the tips. 7,400 yards. Yeah, 7,400 yards. And it was the most, it was the biggest grind of golf I've ever seen in the history of amateur golf. People, I mean, you see pictures of the Bethpage. I've played it a hundred times. You just see pictures of it, and you're like, this is the fucking coolest golf course ever. It's a U.S. Open golf course.

They're playing the PGA there in a couple months. Like, this is just like... The PGA there. and May is going to be amazing. Amazing. I love that golf course. It's such an approachable golf course. You just walk up and play it.

Like there's no like craziness. There's no, you don't feel like sometimes when I go to a really nice country club or something, I just feel like a little weird, like walking around the grounds. Like Bethpage just feels like my backyard. I can just walk around wherever I want. No one has eyes on you. You step up to this amazing golf course. And then when you start walking, it's just like, it feels like a punishment.

That was the first time I've ever felt that there. All my other rounds have been great. It was a hundred to 15 degrees on the fucking pavement. I was blistering. And not from the sun, I found out. I think my skin was actually boiling, like, when you put, like, stuff in a pot. Like, when you, like... Frankie, no joke.

He lathered up sunscreen five times. And I walked out of that place with bubbles all over my face. And then you walk in Monday morning, you look like the Terminator coming off the elevator. It's crazy. There's just no shade there. And I don't want to talk people off. You have boyish skin. I do.

I have boyish skin. I'm very white. I'm very pale. I'm very, like... thin, it just goes right through me. I don't do well. Right now, this time of weather, quarter-sip season, I can't wait to go out. When guys were teeing off and there were no, like, trees around, Frankie could be seen 70 yards away under the nearest shade tree. And then when it was his turn to hit, he would come like, he would come like out of nowhere, he would

just appear and then walk up to the tea and be like, yeah, it's my turn. Now, what I needed was one of those bucket hats. My buddy, Tom, shout out to Tom who played unbelievable. Play great. Played phenomenal. I think he shot like an 86, which during those conditions, I mean, we all were just looking at him like, holy shit. He shot an 86 with like three triple bogeys, like a couple blow-up holes. Anyway, he had this bucket hat on. Amazing. You need that.

You need that at Bethpage. If there's any tip to go to Bethpage, go get yourself a bucket hat. Or walk around. What do you guys think about this? I think I'm going to start, honestly, you saw the way I reacted in the sun. I think I'm going to start carrying around an umbrella. Yeah, we saw a guy with a sun umbrella. Now, I don't know if that's the way you want to go.

I think I want to go. I mean, if you're playing with a sun umbrella, I'm not going to play with you. All right. That's, see, that's, that was the right response to that. I get it, but like, dude, just put some sunscreen on and play it off. I can't, though. You witnessed me put on sunscreen. You're like 24. Single. I'm 25. Every, well, what does age have to do with that? I feel like the older you get, the more used to get out of a sun umbrella. That's what I mean, though. The older you get, that's when you started using a thumbbril.

Oh, no, no, no, the other way. Okay. Right. You're too young and, like, hip, and you're moving into the city. I'm not hip. I can't be out there with the sun umbrella. I'm standing under, I'm looking at branches. So what are you? When you get ready to hit a shot, you're going to daintily set your sun umbrella down next to you? I never said I was going to daintily do it. I'll toss it on the ground.

I'll pick it up. I'll be real rough with it. You're going to walk over, bend over, and pick up your sun umbrella and then keep walking. If anyone knows about umbrellas, you do, you walk around this goddamn city with it. That's when it's raining, dude. There's a huge difference. You're talking about it's raining sun. I'm talking about it's raining like raindrops, precipitation.

Listen, it's going to make me feel better. I'm going all in on this. You know, you got to get these sleeves. You know, they make the long. I've seen them. I think they're, I always look, and I'm like, look how comfortable. They're walking down. They're wearing fucking long sleeves.

They're wearing pants. They're wearing, like, jackets out there, and they feel cool as a cucumber. The technology now is crazy. In fact, you can wear, like, jackets and long sleeve, and it makes you, like, colder. I'm out there. It's insane. Boiling. Trent, I looked up at the sky, and I'm looking for little parts of, like, branches that

just cover my eyeballs because I couldn't do it anymore. I honestly couldn't do it anymore. I was standing in the bunker at 18 on the Betpage Black, and I honestly thought I was going to die. I looked around. He looked around and I said, this is it. No, he said it out loud. He goes, and he wasn't laughing. He wasn't sarcastic at all.

He looked around and was like, I think I'm going to die. It was that hot. We ate nothing. Riggs made the comment that he drank nine bottles of water and didn't have to pick. Just once. His body was just absorbing. Literally. Everything.

Nine massive bottles of water that I drank over the course of four hours. Didn't even, my body didn't even come close to have it to piss. We don't need to. Not even close. Not necessary. Just to recap, the reason I brought this up is because Riggs saw my wedge game up front for the first time, in a long time, a couple months now we haven't played together. It hasn't gotten any better.

And the reason I brought this whole thing up is because I'm really trying to hone down my putting. We got a new Scotty in my hand. Scotty season. Scotty season. So I'm trying to figure out, Riggs, you seem like you practice your putting on your little mat in your apartment all the time. All the time.

What's the best way for me in my room? I have a carpet, which I won't anymore when I'm moving into the city. Maybe I'll get one. I'll get a rug or one of those little mats. I don't know if you can be able to do that in the carpet That's what I mean So what I did was I took two hangers And I put them on either side of the ball Just the width of the putter And I was taking it back

But then I didn't have like the height Right so you never knew if you were like I need like two walls Like do I just put like two books there Like is that but is that like Maybe that's not bad idea You got two textbooks laying out Like does that like help you

When you go out into the green What I would do is I would just put like You have like a hockey puck Yeah That's like similar size to a hole You put a hockey puck down And you just press practice from like five, six feet away, you just practice barry and putts right to the center

of that hockey puck at like a good speed, obviously. You know what? But that's what I would do. And that's honestly, like over the long winters in Boston and whatnot, that's why my putting is usually the best part of my game because that's the only thing you practice for like five months straight. And you think it translates. I found myself last night like putting and I'm like, I said to myself like, this is not working. No, because then the only thing in the world that you have to think about, especially on those shorter puts is, just like do I have the right line

That's it. You're not worried about like am I going to hit it straight or not? You know you're going to. Like you've been doing it in your apartment for five months straight. You know that you have the stroke down. You can drill that five footer in all day. It's just a matter of like is it a half a ball outside left. It is. I know how to do that.

Instead of thinking like, oh, I better pull the putter back straight back straight back through. You don't think about that. You just think about the line. All right. I'm going to do it. I'm going to take. That's a really good call on that because I was thinking of what looks like a hole. I mean, I have hockey pucks like sitting around.

especially is your carpet is probably like a lighter color it's dark what color black yeah it's like dark out as well then because i was going to say a lot of like we always grew up with like beige or like white carpet yeah and therefore or like light blue even sometimes it's like it's grayish it's great it'll it'll stick out all right then if it'll stick out then it's nice because it's like a very clear target maybe i'll maybe i'll paint it white maybe you should paint it white that be sick like like a cup be dope they also have cups that you can go by but i actually don't like them that much because I don't think they're oh it's like the flat one and it goes around yeah and like the ball doesn't I don't think it's I don't think it's simulates the right maybe I'll drill a hole in

my floor right above like my kitchen my family's kitchen family I love that frankly and then I'll just leave because I have to go to the city anyway I'm moving out maybe I'll just do it for this month and just leave them with a huge hole in there just become a really good butter than leave yeah I'll paint my whole entire rug green I'll just fucking drill a hole then my dad'll just be here and just like drilling noise is like what is going on up there he'll probably cry out of happiness when he sees like I'm practicing my putting all right we're done here next up we have john fines team a reminder we have some awesome awesome we get some awesome stories from him tiger calls him johnny he said nobody ever calls him johnny he has dinner

with tiger he gives all those kinds of details it's a fascinating fascinating interview he's got a new book coming out called the prodigy or it's out it's already out go check it out it's a novel it's a fascinating novel so check it out enjoy this chat first we got to tell you about shady ray shady ray shady ray is an independent sunglass company um they've got the strongest folks the strongest warranty among all sunglasses brands includes lifetime craftsmanship warranty with every pair and free replacements if lost or

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focus very heavily on golf. John, first off, welcome to the show. I've been reading you for a long time, so I'm excited to chat with you, my friend. Oh, Riggs. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Absolutely. So you have got, I believe, your 39th book out, The Prodigy.

First of all, write in 39 books. Not easy, so how we feel and have to finish in the 39th? Finish a book. It's funny because I remember when I finished my first book season on the brink, taking a walk after I'd finished it and thinking of myself, my God, I wrote a book. I mean, it's one of those feelings. Like, I never thought.

I always wanted to, but I never actually thought it would happen. And I can honestly say that 39 books later, I've actually finished my 40th. It'll be out in November. But each time I finish, it's equally thrilling, because I love the challenge. Each book is different. The book we're talking about here,

The Prodigy is fiction, so it was a different experience than when I wrote, write nonfiction and I'm lucky that I still get wired doing it. I'm curious, how much does the book, maybe the direction of the book, change from start to finish? Because a lot of things happen, of course, in your life and your career while you're writing a book. That's a very good question.

You know, in the nonfiction, because I usually have so many different characters and different storylines that I know I need to get to, I always feel the need to sit down and write. write an outline. Now, I don't necessarily stick to it 100%, but it gives me a guide as I'm writing the book. And for example, this book that I was referencing, that it'll come out in November, I'm playing quarterback in the NFL. While I was writing the book, Alex Smith, who was one of my main characters, left Kansas City and ended up in Washington. Well, clearly, I had to go back and talk to Alex one more time about all of that and how it changed his life and why it happened. But most of the time I stick to the outline.

With the fiction, I usually start out with a premise. In The Prodigy, the premise is there's a 17-year-old kid who makes it to the Masters and actually has a chance to win. And he's surrounded by all these competing forces for him, some wanting him to turn pro, run after the money, other saying you shouldn't. There are real characters throughout the book. But when I start the book, I don't know how it's going to end. And I just sort of write through and let the story evolve and hope. that an ending will come to me by the time I get to the end. In the case of this book, I was actually really happy with the ending that I came up with

because no matter which side you're guessing in terms of who was going to win, ultimately, the reader's going to be surprised by how the book ends. It is very interesting. We had Armicottian on a couple months ago now, and he's talking about the Tiger Woods biography. Right. Great book. It is very, very good. and there's a couple tidbits from that book about you that I want to get to.

But it was really interesting how he was talking about how him and Jeff Benedict in 2017 kind of had this conclusion to the book and it was kind of sad. And then the published date was pushed back. And then all of a sudden, Tiger did what he's done over the last nine or ten months and how that dramatically changed. So I just think of someone that's never written a book, you know, 99% of the people that are going to listen to this, never written a book. It must be really interesting to work on something for so long.

have things kind of change as you're writing it. Yeah, and especially in the case of nonfiction, that I mentioned the Alex Smith example. That can certainly happen. When I did my book on the ACC, 21 years ago now, in 1997, the last time I talked to Dean Smith, I said to him, look, this book is coming out in November. Are you going to retire?

Because he talked throughout the book, how he was feeling kind of tired. and he didn't enjoy coaching as much. I said, are you going to coach next year? And he said, my honest answer to you right now is, I don't know. And so I kind of, as I was writing the book that summer, I hinted throughout that perhaps if he wasn't at the end, he was near the end, and he told me that he thought about quitting

at the end of the 96th season. Well, in October, a month before the book came out, he retired. And we had to go back into the epilogue and add that. And fortunately, because he'd been as honest with me as he had, it doesn't come as a surprise when you read the end of the book that Dean Smith retired. But you always have to be aware of facts changing when you're writing. And in fact, the prodigy is said at the 2018 Masters. And to be honest, when Tiger came back and was healthy and was playing,

I kind of had my heart in my throat because if he had somehow won, even though my ending is clearly fictional, it would have been, oh, my God, you know, you wrote a fictional ending and Tiger Woods won the tournament. Well, it is a hell of a process, clearly, you know, writing a book, you finished 40 of them, as you mentioned, the 39th The Prodigy they were talking about. It very clearly has its comparisons to Tiger Woods. You covered Tiger very closely. Early on, you said in July you actually wrote, you wrote yourself early in Woods' career. one member of the Gulf Media who was critical of his father and of some of his behavior. Talk about early on sort of, you know, what led you to be, I guess, more critical than others?

What did you see that maybe some other people didn't see? I think my experience in tennis probably had a lot to do with that because I'd seen a lot of pushy tennis parents. The most obvious being Stephano Capriotti, the father of Jennifer Capriotti. And I remember when Jennifer first turned pro at 13, I was working on a tennis. tennis book. And when I went to Stephano Capriotti telling him, you know, that I want to talk to him, I want to talk to Jennifer. He said, no, no, no. Someday I'm

going to write my own book on how I did this. And I'm thinking, hmm, you haven't won any matches, have you? And there are a lot of, and Thomas Baker, the father of Frank Baker, is a lot like that in the prodigy. And then when I encountered Earl Woods and Tiger, to me, it just reminded me of

Stephano Capriotti. And that Earl saw Tiger as a human ATM machine. It was clear that he had counseled him, that you don't do anything unless you're making money off it. Everybody is, you know, you have no friends. And I thought that had a very negative effect on Tiger as a person, not as a golfer, but as a person. And I wrote a piece when Tiger first turned pro in Newsweek in which I compared Earl Woods

to Stephano Capriotti. Tiger told me later when we had dinner a couple years later that when he read that quote, I wanted to kill you. Because he knew just who Stefano Capriotti was because he's a bright guy and knew the point that I was making. But I stood by back then I stood by what I had said and what I had written and I stand by it today because I would make the case that

all the terrible things that Tiger has done to his family and has had happened in his life are largely a result of his father. Tired of your vape, always dying or losing your extra pods, you need kite, a new portable vape charger and pod case. That's compatible with Jewel,

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a limited time only. That's kitecharger.com. You're going to get five bucks off for a limited time only. Kite products are not associated with nor sponsored by Jewel Labs, Inc. So, and it is interesting because, you know, especially when you read the Tiger Woods biography and a lot of the things that you were writing around the time, it becomes pretty clear that they, not only did Earl Woods have sort of the impact that you were just talking about and saw them as an ATM machine.

and was kind of basically creating him to become what he needed him to become. But he also was very cognizant, very aware of trying to avoid the connotations that you were basically drawing in with those comparisons, which ultimately led to this meeting. I believe it was in San Diego. Talk about how kind of that dinner with Tiger Woods. I think you said four hours you had dinner with Tiger. Talk a little bit about how that came to be because that is just so fascinating

for one of kind of the Tiger Camp's biggest adversaries and Tiger Woods, to sit down for four hours at dinner. Well, I've always given Tiger full marks for the fact that we had that dinner. As you mentioned, I was probably the one voice among the golf media who was critical of Earl early on and critical of some of the things Tiger had done and hadn't done. And I was standing on the putting green at the PGA in 1997 talking to Tom Watson, and my great friend Bruce Edwards, who was Tom's caddy, who was, you know, passed away because of ALS a few years later. And Tiger was walking across the putting green.

He's got the usual entourage following him, and all of a sudden he swerves and comes walking toward me. And I remember Bruce saying, what's going on here? And I said, I don't know, but will you defend me? And he said, absolutely not. And Tiger just walked over and said, hey, John, how's it going? and shook hands with me. And I was stunned by that. And that later that week, Lee Patterson, who was working for the PGA tour at the time, said,

Tiger wants to know if you'd be willing to sit down and talk to him. Well, of course I would. I'm not an idiot. And what had happened, to make a long story a little shorter, was Tiger was baffled by the fact that in reading a good walk spoiled, it had been clear that many players trusted me. and he asked a number of players who he liked, Jeff Sleumann, Billy Andrade, Brad Faxon, why do you like Feinstein?

Why do you talk to him? Why are you so open with him? And those guys all told me their basic answer was, John is honest. John is up front with you, and John knows his stuff. And if you get to know John, you'll like him. And so Tiger took that and came to me and said, you know, Rudy Lee Patterson, can we sit down and talk? And I said, of course, and eventually we had dinner, as you said, in San Diego.

And it was really a very good meeting. I mean, we disagreed on a lot of things, notably his father. That's when he told me that he'd wanted to kill me when I compared his father to Stefano Capriotti. And for the next few months, we got along. In fact, he was calling me Johnny because, you know, he puts wise on everybody's name. Oh, yeah, Sanzi does like everybody. And I've told people there are four people in the course. of my life who have called me Johnny.

One was my mother. One was Bob Woodward, who I worked for. He's certainly in the news right now. He's still a good friend. One was another writer named David Marinus. And one was Tiger Woods. Kind of an eclectic list. And that August, Tiger had agreed to sit.

I was working on my second golf book, The Majors. And Tiger and I had agreed we were going to sit down at the Tour Championship and talk about his year in the majors, 1998. And at the PGA, he sent somebody to find me, and I went and found him on the putty green. He said, look, I feel very bad about this, but I just can't do the interview that I had committed to doing with you. And I said, well, that's fine, Tiger. Is there a reason? And he said, yeah, I just can't get past the things you've said about my father.

And I looked at him. I said, I thought we worked that out in San Diego. And he said to me, I thought we did too. And what I believe to this day is that when he told his father that he'd had this meeting with me and that he was going to talk to me for this book, his father went ballistic. And another writer, Pete McDaniel, who wrote both of Earl's books and was very close to Earl, told me one time that because I was going to walk over and introduce myself to Earl because I'm a big believer.

If you criticize somebody, you should put yourself in front of them and give them the chance to say or do whatever they want. And he said, I'm begging you, don't do that. And I said, why? Is he going to hit me? And Pete said, he might. And I said, well, I think I'm quick enough to avoid him. And he said, look, the man's got a heart condition, which he did.

He might get mad. He might try to take a swing at you. And if something bad happens to him, you'll get blamed. And he was serious. And so on Pete's advice, I didn't do it. Earl hated me. and I think he hated me because I was the one guy who kind of called him out. And that's one reason why in this book,

when Frank Baker's teacher is explaining who Thomas Baker, Frank's dad is, to his friend, the reporter, who's a key part of the book, he describes him as wanting to grow up to be Earl Woods, because to me Earl Woods kind of defined the pushy father. it's incredibly interesting i'm curious do you think you know how much do you think tiger now and it's all it's all very relative and and and comes back to the book because like you said there's so many comparisons and all that i'm curious how you feel tiger now um you know 20 years removed almost from the time period that we're talking about from the stories you're just telling

how much do you think he's distanced himself from clearly kind of buying into whatever earl woods was him back then? Well, that's an interesting question because when I was researching my book on the Rider Cup, the first major, which is just now out in paperback, and the players on the team told me in detail how into being a vice captain Tiger was. The Tiger was, you know, wanted to help in any way he could. The Tiger was constantly putting together lineups, calling guys on the phone, saying, And what about this?

What about that? To the point where Brandt Snetiker told me that one day he said to Tiger, Tiger, I got to go. You need a hobby. And that was 180 degrees different than Tiger Woods' approach to the Ryder Cup early in his career. He played it because he had to for PR purposes. But he didn't want to play. He wanted no part of it because it had nothing to do with the majors.

And that came from his dad. And I asked Phil Mickelson about it. And he said, you know, you could see a gradual change in Tiger's approach. to all the other players after his father died, that once his father wasn't there saying, you know, those guys are the enemy, you're not friends with any of them, even when you're playing Ryder Cups, stay away from him.

And he said it wasn't, it didn't happen right away, but you could see it gradually to the point where now, you know, Phil and Tiger are BFFs and are going to play this ridiculous money match together. And Phil and Tiger hated each other when Tiger first came on tour. I mean, really, really disliked each other. and now, you know, they're buddies, and they text with one another.

But Phil attributed it very directly to Earl's death. Do you think, I mean, do you think deep down, Tiger would, of course, never say it. We've heard a million times, you know, it's family before everything. You keep everything within the house. Do you just think, not even, you know, not even as a journalistic comment, but just you as John Feinstein, Do you think deep down that Tiger has gotten to a point where he looks back and is like, my dad actually wasn't that great. He wasn't necessarily right.

There's a better way to do things. I'm not sure that any of us are capable of thinking about our fathers that way. My dad died the same year that Earl Woods died, ironically enough. And when I think back on my dad, I mean, my dad was flawed. But I think back on all the things he did for me. and all the happy memories I have of him. And my guess is Tiger does that, A, because it's a natural thing for a son to do, but B, because to go to the other side of that would probably be very painful.

I mean, he has to deal with the fact that his father cheated on his mother all the time. I think that's really difficult for him. That would be difficult for anybody, like I said. But I think probably, you know, we all compartmentalize that if he's sitting in a chair at night and he starts to think about his dad and his dad did this, his dad did that, he goes away from that. And again, I'm no psychiatrist. But that's just my guess. And I'm speaking more as a son there than as a golf writer. So the prodigy is, of course, you know, I think the Baker's 17 years old.

So it is kind of this look at right at that if you're this elite, you know, young athlete kind of right on the precipice of should you go to college, turn, pro what should you do looking back and as someone who was critical of tiger around this time period you know what what do you think tiger woods could have and should have done differently around that time period well tiger did go to college of course right he went to stanford for two years and i think that was probably a good decision uh that if he had turned pro right if he turned pro right at high school he could have made a lot of money um but the that's one of the points i make about Frank Baker that the guys on the good side are saying to him, yeah, but you could make a lot of

money right now, but the money will still be there. If you're good, it'll be there in two years or three years or four years if you go to college. And you'll have had the chance to go to college, which is a lot of fun for most of us. You'll have a chance to be a kid to go to proms and frat parties and things like that. And I think Tiger probably benefited from going to Stanford for a couple of years. I think Michelle Wee benefited when she went to Stanford, too. But remember, she had already turned pro, and had a miserable experience as a pro when she turned pro in high school.

Going to Stanford, I think, helped her tremendously. And I think that, again, the biggest problem Tiger Woods had, and I'm being a psychiatrist again, so forgive me, is Earl Woods told him as a boy, the only person you trust is me. You don't trust anybody but me. And then he betrayed him by cheating on his mother. And I can only imagine how painful that must have been for Tiger to deal with when he found out.

And in terms of his golf, clearly he didn't do anything wrong. He became, in my opinion, the greatest player of all time. But in terms of his life, he would have been a lot better off had he perhaps listened more to his mother. than to his father. Well, it's one of the most fascinating stories of any athlete of all time and, you know, probably the most magnetic athlete of all time. So John Feinstein, The Prodigy, the new book, his newest book, 39th book. So congratulations.

I'm sure it feels good to, you know, have it out there now and be talking about it rather than just working on it forever. So John Feinstein, we appreciate the insight.