Fore Play - U.S. Open Recap with Dylan Meyer

Episode Date: June 19, 2018

Top-20 finisher Dylan Meyer joins the show to recap the U.S. Open. Fresh off graduating from Illinois and competing in his first event as a pro, we ask Dylan's thoughts on the course setup; on the player complaints; on the New York crowds; we ask about both the best and worst shots he hit all week. Then Riggs, Frankie and Trent relive being credentialed and inside the ropes at Shinnecock. From breaking down the media food spreads to reliving walking up the 18th fairway with Phil Mickelson, the guys recap the whole experience in this must listen show. We also offer our thoughts on the Phil saga, the course condition, the player complaints, and everything U.S. Open 2018.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/foreplaypod

Hey, 4Play listeners, you can find us every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. We have returned from the United States Open where we were credentialed, credentialed, credentialed journalists, the biggest week of our career, the biggest week of our existence as a 4Play brand. We take you all through it. It's myself. It's Frankie. It's Trent Daddy.

We have on as well. A very special guest, Dylan Meyer, recently graduated from Illinois. phenomenal amateur career there, collegiate career there, made his professional debut at the United States Open, finished T20. We're going to get into all of the details, the drama, the complaints, everything about the U.S. Open with a guy who was there, who was in the mix, who finished tied 420th. But first, we have to talk about the fact that my shirt that I was wearing on Saturday and my shirt that I was wearing on Sunday were the talk of the town. They were. I mean, those things, you were, you were something. People were complaining about what Frankie was wearing.

People were complimenting rigs on what he was wearing. I was glowing. I was stunning how good I looked. This, of course, is Peter Millar stuff. Peter Millar is a big fan of the podcast. If you don't know Peter Malar stuff, you absolutely should. You probably do. You go into a pro shop.

It should absolutely be the first thing that you buy. But I got these new shirts. Now, they were fire. They had these patterns on it, right? They're a little different. They're very, I had a lot of flare going on, a lot of personality. But on top of that, it's very hot Saturday and Sunday. Yep.

You might have heard about it. Players are complaining about the course drying out because it was so hot. It was so hot that it was literally changing the history of golf. And I was wearing this shirt. Couldn't have felt more comfortable. These shirts, I don't know even what the hell they do. It might be in this copy. I might have to read about it in a second.

Whatever they do to these shirts, they're the most comfortable things in the world, whether it's, whether it's just a normal, nice temperature, like 67, whether it's like 85, 90, like it was this weekend, out of the U.S. Open, the Peter Malar gear is just the absolute best. The fit, I mean, you know, we all, I'm not overly impressed with my current body shape, but I do have some nice features. Yeah. My arms are very nice.

I think my neck's nice. This shirt, Trent Daddy. Yeah. The fit on this thing, I looked fantastic at all the pictures. You did. looked jacked. I looked cute. Oh, I felt like I could have shot 10 under if I was out there in this shirt. Um, so everybody's got to go to, here's what you got to do. You're going to get, you're going to get a great deal through us because our listeners, you guys right now, you can go over

to petermalar.com slash four. That's peter millar.com slash F-O-R-E. You can check out some of our favorites. And if you use, uh, our link, you will receive complimentary shipping and a free hat. That's right. You use, you go to petermalar.com. that's Peter Millar, M-I-L-L-A-R-D-R-C-R-S-4-F-E, Peter-M-L-R-R-R-R-L-R-E. You're going to get yourself complimentary shipping and a free hat. Peter-L-M-L-M-R is the best stuff. They even sent us some of these five pocket pants that we've been wearing that are the most comfortable pair of pants I've ever worn.

I can say that about everything because I've been wearing all the Peter-M-M-L-R stuff. I was out there. Everybody saw it. There's proof of it, and I've been talking about it nonstop, because that's how good I look. That's how good I felt. So again, Petermalar.com slash four. Get yourself some gear. That's petermalar.com slash four.

I would look at pastoral all the time and look at, you know, there's stuff that they post. Some of it's like absolutely stupid, but some of it's actually quite amusing and funny. Stuff like that is what we need to get people to attract people to the game of golf. Nice to be here, boys. Congratulations on all that you're doing as mediocre as it is. These newer, younger, hipper platforms like Barstool Sport.

Tigers had three back surgeries. He's had one fusion. We welcome in from Barstool Sports. Riggs and Trent. Guys, welcome to the show. Ford Play, presented by Barstool Sports. It's the U.S. Open Week Recap. We are back.

We're back in New York City. What a week. What a week. It's the boys. It's myself. It's Trent Daddy, Slim Daddy, Trent. How's it going? Frankie Brelly, the pizza.

We got Hags on the ones and twos. This is his first official week behind the podcast. He's got a pen and paper in hand. Pen and paper. He's got, he looks like he's fucking running Air Force One over there. He's got just all kinds of stuff like it's a war room. I love it. Probably the biggest week of our existence as the four play golf brand. We were everywhere at the U.S. Open. We've got to talk about than we've ever had to talk about. Yeah, I mean, we've got everything. We had, we had credentials, we had everything. We had all the controversy over the weekend with the course and everything. else. So we got a pack show.

We got Dylan Meyer, who recently graduated from Illinois, he's a fighting a line eye. He was a phenomenal college player, made his tour debut, his professional debut at the U.S. Open, finished tied for 20th, made himself over 120K, big stoolie, awesome, awesome dude. We met up with him this weekend, hung out with him for a couple minutes before he teed off on Sunday. He was tied for 10. tied for 10th when he was teeing off. We shot the shit with him. He got there very early.

I was like, you must be nervous. So we chat with him about all this. He rocked a bar stool hat. Took a cool picture with us and all that. So he's a big stool. He's a really, really cool dude. He's part of the visor gang. He's got a lot going on.

He's got the glasses. Strong visor. Strong visor game. Not always a fan of the visor game. He's got a strong visor game. Yeah, it's tough. The visor gang is like Bubba and Polter, so that's tough to be in there.

but Dylan Meyer is a cool dude. So he's one of the good guys of the Viser Gang. He may change your opinion on the Viser Gang a little bit. He's helping them out. He's helping their cred and all that. So we've got Dylan Meyer coming up later. We're going to talk to him all about the course, about the controversies, about being in the U.S. Open,

finishing top 20 in the U.S. Open, all that. Okay. We should start with just the whole credentialed aspect. Yeah. You know, we talked about it a little bit on the Thursday, the bonus show that we did, but it just picked up from there. We had inside the ropes access on the weekend.

Yeah, when we were talking on Thursday, I mean, you could go back and listen to that. If we listened to it now, we'd be like, you guys don't even know what you're about to get because we got the inside the rope passes where we were basically playing in the tournament. We walked right behind guys.

You guys held Phil Mickelson's hand on Saturday was that, and then it's just having those, having the normal credentials is one thing, but then having the inside the rope passes, we definitely can never go back to another tournament and watch it the same way. What happened to me on Saturday was the best experience watching sports I've ever had in my entire life.

That's saying a lot, Frankie. Because I've been around for the two years with Dave Port and I, where we've been going to every big event. I've got to a Super Bowl. I've gone to playoff games. I've seen my own team in playoff games. I've seen victories. I've never in my life experienced something that we experienced on Saturday. Saying a lot, too, because you're a master's podcast.

You're 2017. Frankie at the Masters podcast with the Coochoochooch. the whole one the Sergio versus Justin Rose you know you are seemingly everywhere during that tournament for this to trump that is I mean that's saying a lot Frankie I um I have to agree I mean the best way to put it I told you this but we were basically a fucking drone and we could just go wherever we wanted during the tournament we were living breathing walking drones with no limits we were very I was very very confident and just walking on pretty much we should probably talk about that for a second. Riggs is the most confident man on the planet when he's got

a different color badge than like the rest of the patrons. Well, we can go through the whole process and we will get to how confident he was, right? I mean, you're right. We should, we should slow down. Yeah, we should slow down. Yeah, we should slow down. Because that was, that was a moment what we saw. We saw Riggs turn into a different person. It's true. I did. I transformed in the course of a couple hours. Yeah. So what happened was we, we soaked up the tournament Thursday, Friday. We did live radio from Top of the Hill in partnership with the USGA. It was us, Dave, Big Cat.

We brought a couple golfers on. We had Matt Parzeali on. We had Will Grimmer on. The two of them were actually battling it out for Lowell-Am, even though Will Grimmer kind of fell off a little bit, which was great because we were rooting for Parziali. Sorry, Wilgrimmer. So we did, the Thursday-Friday

deal was spectacular, but we also right, we had like a pretty good amount of stress going on because the big wigs were still there. Big Cat, the part of my take guys were there. The whole serious team with radio, they're all there. So you're not really necessarily strictly soaking it up, right? Right. That's your, that's, that was the thing we had to do.

It was for work. We had to do the radio. So we were always focused on the radio. We weren't watching much golf. And you're like, the eyeballs are on us. The company's eyeballs are on us. There's this big, uh, production to get out there. They're having meetings downstairs about where is this going to go.

We got to have this person, that person, all biz Pete's up there. So there's a stress factor where you're like a little nervous. Like I got to perform. We want this to go well. All that bullshit. Once that ended. Friday evening. And then, you know, we went out. We had a nice night in the Hamptons. We wake up Saturday. It's just the boys going to the U.S. Open. Obviously, we still have

the blog. We got to tweet. We got to cover that stuff. That's our job. But significantly less stressful. It's more of like the dudes, the guys, the four play boys. We just went to the U.S. Open. Our guy, Craig, at the U.S. GA, who is the man, our close personal friend, the U.S.GA, gets us these passes. They were green on Saturday. They're yellow on Sunday. they just say inside the ropes media in like a big one big word and like a white fucking like outline just like media inside the ropes and we first got these i was like all right great like where can i actually go with these he's like just find the other media and like hang back with them it was like okay what he didn't say was that for like 90% of the groups there's no media really

following them there's like a camera guy and that's it so you start going around you're following you might just like start walking right up behind people just like legitimately walking up behind them and I'm like at first I'm kind of hanging back like I'm basically we're basically all doing like two feet inside the ropes is kind of what we're doing like still basically on the ropes but like on the other side of the ropes then about an hour or two in I started a really like I just kind of wandered down one of the paths like behind a couple of the players like 50 yards behind them and I look around I'm like there's nobody around that's going to possibly say anything and the volunteers you can really take advantage of volunteers yeah because volunteers i mean unless they're an

absolute heart oh volunteer they don't have the balls to like look at someone with like three badges on like we had and be like you sir are you sure you can go there but get out of my way you volunteer what do you do uh so nobody says a word to you so then like two or three hours into this thing i'm fucking all over the place oh yeah and i'm by my i was by myself following parzialli um because we all had a bunch of buddies like we all met up with buddies and then we were like we'll meet up later so i was following Parziali's back nine on Saturday. He finishes up on 18. I'm like rooting him on.

He's giving me a little fist pump. It's going really well. I'm like, fuck yeah, pars. Keep it up. You're going to win low AM. All this stuff. It's great. He walks off 18.

And like 18 and 14T are right next to each other. They're like mowed into each other. So then I like waltz up around 18 at this point. This is like the center point of the golf course, the 18th Korean. There's fucking grandstands everywhere all that. And Phil and Beef are walking down 14. And it already teed off. so I just like hooked a quick left and just like fell into that crew and next thing you know

I'm walking right down the middle of the fairway on 14 I'm like 20 yards behind Phil Mickelson and I'm looking around and fucking nobody's saying anything to me and I was just like okay and you get you get stuck to at certain points where like there's like really thick fescue or something or a bunch of bunkers and you can't go like around near the ropes you have to just like go on to the green so next thing you know I'm on 13 and like filling them pot out and I just like walk across the edge of the green and people are yelling like yeah Rick Jake go get a credentials

and I was like shut the fuck up I'm not see what I'm doing over here I'm on the goddamn green legit on the green so then I just followed him like that like confident as hell and then I run into Frankie on like 17 yeah so that was the first experience I had of in the ropes we had the past the entire day

we had gone and met up with some buddies and I'll be honest like I was a little too nervous to, you know, see what the inside the ropes meant. I think on my way to go meet up with the buddies, I think I went underneath the ropes once, but it was kind of like maybe 15 feet just in front of where all, like the other people were going. I just didn't feel like walking to where the walkway was.

So I went underneath the ropes and then met in with the people who were walking. Got it. So no one even knew what I was in. I could have honestly not even had a badge on. I met up with the buddies. Ended up, you know, we were going to meet up for DJ. We all made that pack that we were going to go and see DJ on the first, also. I'm making my way back to number one, and I go up to, I think it was, there was 18 T-box,

and I just see Riggs, like, on the other, I'm waiting like a, like, in Pact and Sardines. I was waiting like a, like, a poor person. Like, I'm just standing amongst the people. I get Frankie like a disgusted look. Yeah. And I see Riggs, like, I see Riggs looking regal as fuck on the other side of the ropes, one with the golf course, like basically in the middle of the fairway. And I just like, all right, so I ducked underneath the rope. I'm like, hey, Riggs. He's like, what's up? I'm like, are we allowed to do what we are doing right now? And at that time, I had no idea Phil was there.

Oh, you didn't know? No. And so to the right, I just, like, I just look. Like, I think I may have been talking to you. Like, oh, how are your buddies? And I was like, oh, it's good. And then I just looked to the right. And then I just looked to the right.

And they just, maybe, what, two or five, two to five feet away. You hear everywhere they're saying. I mean, I could hear them talking through the grass. That's how, that's how close I was. And then Riggs just, like, ignored what I was about to say after. I'm like, oh, my God. He's just, just, just, just. just walked with them.

Like, Riggs was already in a system with this group as though you were the, like, the caddy. Like, you saw them walk ahead and you just bolted. And I just ran behind him. And then halfway through this, like, walking experience, we were on the middle of the fairway with Phil Mickelson up 18 at the U.S. Open at Chinook Hills on the fairway, walking up the green. Crowds going nuts. Probably singing his birthday.

Everywhere. They're both all grandstands he went by, everybody's singing him happy birthday. And then they kind of, like, die out and right as they die out, here comes Riggs, like trailing up the anchor of the group. strutting up there. So by the time you met up with me, Frankie, I was. My confidence level was off the charts. And I didn't even know that there was a point before that.

I thought that that's how confident you were all day. Like, I'm actually glad all I saw was extremely confident in Riggs. Because that's all I want to remember. No, there's a process, but mine just went really way quickly. Right. And also, I was just want to say, like, we're incredibly respectful and everything. Like, never in the way, never like doing anything. Just like there.

And just always, like, around. and there and tiptoe. And you realize, too, you walk with like incredibly soft feet. Oh, yeah. You're doing this. You're like floating. You're like floating around.

Like trying to make, trying to just be invisible, but there is basically what the whole thing was. Um, so Frankie on Saturday. Um, then we circled back around, um,

met up with Trent Daddy. Yep. And Hags. And we rolled up, uh, the ninth with the final groups. Yep. And we're right by the clubhouse because the people got to realize,

like the ropes, they get roped off, uh, between the first tea and like the ninth green. there's like this large vista of like really close fairway mown grass that goes all the way up to the clubhouse, all the way around the 9th, over the 14th T down to the 18th grade, like this beautiful vista, perfectly well-mowed and all of that, but no patrons go anywhere on that. And we just walked out there, obviously, walked right up with the Stenson Rose group,

and then DJ and those guys that were in the final group. And we're just standing there around 9, the clubhouse people, there's like sitting on the stairs the clubhouse there's like stoolies in there they're like, let's go bar stool boys, just going. All the crowds reaching in. They're like, oh, you guys, good, you guys, let's go. But Frankie, I got to say, a lot of people are commenting. Yeah.

On your outfit. Oh, yeah. Are you ready to address it? So, yeah, many, many of the haters and the losers were, you know, in the mentions, talking about my outfit choice for Saturday at the U.S. Open. And I will say this. I was extremely underdressed given the occasion and given the access that we ended up having. What people have to understand is we were there.

since Wednesday night. And I just didn't pack enough. I didn't even. I didn't bring any sort of like pant wear because I didn't think it was going to be cold. I brought shorts. I brought shorts and jeans. Like that's all I brought. And I wasn't about to wear jeans.

So I had the same shorts on every single day, even though it was fucking freezing for the first two nights. So it was cold. Yeah. So Saturday comes around and people that know me and people that may not know me, I think if you just look at me, you see that I'm a pale white person. True. Real pale. I'm 50% Irish-Ire, 50% Italian. I have 100% Irish skin.

So I douse myself in sunscreen every single day, right? So whatever I'm wearing, like, it kind of gets ruined. So I couldn't keep re-wearing these, these college shirts that we had. You wear so much sunscreen that it ruins your clothes? It does. Like, really, it's like I take a bath in it. It ruins your clothes?

It's just disgusting to, like, re-wear, you know? Like, I put it all over my neck and stuff. So I need, like, a nice, clean shirt. Because the shirts are soaked in, like, a combination of your sweat and your, disgusting. It's disgusting. In your sunscreen. So I wore, I wore, I wore,

the barstool college shirts Thursday and Friday and Saturday and honestly I didn't know we were getting different access Saturday until I went into the car and you guys were like oh Craig just texted me we're about to have some shit this today so you know I got a vibe from the group we were with all week you know Dave was wearing like a t-shirt and like kind of jean type shorts and like Big Cat was wearing like

I think Hank was wearing like a tank top PFT rolled in with like a tank top and jorts on and you know from what the access was for the rest of the week I thought just a t-shirt and like shorts would just be okay to wear and be comfortable. It was going to be freaking so hot out. I didn't feel like wearing an oversized shirt because really we were running out of them. Everyone was wearing all these same types of shirts. I would have had to grab one from the box. There was only like large as available. I'm like, I'm just going to wear something I feel comfortable in. I didn't know

I was going to be on the fairway of 18 with Phil Mickelson. You look very comfortable. And to be on the fairway of Phil Mickelson, I would have like ran. I would have got to the course early and went to the merchandise tent or something. But I heard all these horror stories about how the merchandise tent was like on the other side of the golf course and it was impossible to get in and Like, because there's so many people at the U.S. Open. I wanted to watch them golf. So I wore a t-shirt. You know what?

I don't take it back. I have no regrets. I like it. I mean, it keeps our, uh, we're, we're getting all this access. People are, oh, do you guys still have your edge? Yeah. I mean, we're still the four-plate boys and Frankie just wears a t-shirt inside the ropes and I was turning heads walking up 18 wearing a t-shirt.

Yeah, you were. I was turning heads. People were like, who is that bad boy wearing a t-shirt. It was edgy. It was. I mean, we're the common men, right? Right. No, we are.

You look common. He looked very common. I looked real common. Hey, Trent, in 2017, can you guess how many thousands of complaints about alarm companies at the Better Business Bureau received? I can't, but I bet the number is high. It is high. More than 5,000 complaints. Wow.

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That's a big feather in my cap. You know, you read these ad reads. You never know. and then it turns out your parents, they're safer people now. We were doing some simply safe stuff several months ago, and my parents were so convinced by what they're bringing to the table and by Trent delivering it to them that they got SimplySafe. And they've been safe as hell? Yeah, I was going to say, almost by extension, I keep your parents safe. Simply safe, you do.

Thank you, Trent. You're welcome. I feel like my family is safe because of you and because of SimplySafe. We know SimplySafe. They're phenomenal people. They are what home security should be. protecting my family right now. Here's what you guys do.

You've got to learn more about SimplySafe today at Simplisave.com slash forplay. Foreplay is one word there. That's simplysafe.com slash F-O-R-E-P-L-A-Y to protect your home and family, my family, with an A-plus home security system. That's Simplicef.com slash Foreplay. That reminds me, how did you guys feel walking around the media center? I felt like, obviously we had like the cool kid vibe going on,

but I felt like the cool kid in the, like, the cool kid in the, group project when you have like a six person group project and you're like the one cool kid with like five fucking nerds and they're all like looking at you like kind of judgmental but also kind of like I kind of want to like be like friends with that guy but also like I don't know if I like that guy I kind of shit I kind of shit on that guy all the time I felt like that was the look we got every time I went in thinking that's what it was going to be like we were going to walk in and people there were going to be whispers all around the media center like oh shit there's a barstool guys but I really I don't everyone was always just so focused on the food they

were eating or the computer they were looking at that I never felt like I ever got the uh oh there's those goddamn idiots who have all the USGA is in love with for some reason I really wanted to get slighted I almost wanted someone to heckle me I will say it almost made us um like targets and like like more disliked if we were disliked to the media center that the USGA was just handing us inside the ropes passes left and right like all these other organizations coming up like we have like we have 18 people here and we have like one inside the ropes pass that we all have to like share and the one guy that has it always mysteriously doesn't have service when it's his turn

to like pass it off to somebody else and meanwhile we're just like yeah we need like seven today he's like no problem there was a very feeling of being like made men in the mafia where people just like maybe that's why I didn't get slighted like I thought I was going to because I wanted people to be looking at us maybe even get chirped like you guys like whatever

people would say to us but since we had like the USG with us all the time people were just like I can't fuck with them. I mean we were sitting in the dining hall which we can get into I mean the spreads at this place were unbelievable Unbelievable. I don't know what the media pitch is about all the time. An experience unlike any other. Fantastic.

Because I ended up going in like some hospitality tents that were very expensive and like, you know, an extravagant experience that was being sold at. And like it was, I mean, I was just able to walk in and just get as much food as I wanted at the media tent. And I was like living life much better than anyone else in the entire world at that moment. I ate more ice cream this weekend this week than I've probably eaten the rest of my life. I had four snicker ice cream bars in a row in the same sitting. I grabbed four of them and I unrapped one, ate it, unwrap the other. Wait, you grabbed four, you kept going back?

I grabbed two at the same time. Yeah, okay, because I was just saying grabbing four is a psycho. Well, and they also, they melt. They melt. But I did grab two at the same time. I've been on this diet, as everyone knows, and I really let my crew down this week. You let loose. I did. It's tough because... It's not your fault. You know, you want to stay on the grind, but then there's this ice cream that's... You let loose. I did let loose. And I felt like it's a win-in-roam situation where it would be stupid to have all this access and all this experience and have a literal huge thing of ice cream in front of me and not eat it.

It's insane. Trent lost control. I wasn't sure if we were going to openly talk about how much you let loose this week. I mean, but it's fair, though, right? No, I said it wasn't your fault, but it did happen. If you didn't let loose, I think we'd have to send you to an institution. Okay. Because at that point, I mean, we always talk about being around things.

You always say, like, if there's pizza in the office, you're like, well, well, fuck me. Like, why are you guys, like, putting this under my nose so I can smell it? At that moment, when you're hungry at a golf course, you're walking around all day, when you walk back to a freezer filled with just unlimited ice cream, screaming, come eat me, Trent. You're a victim of your environment. There was a point where Frankie and I were hanging in the actual media center. I think we were, maybe you were blogging right before we went out to follow DJ and then the rest of the way. And Frankie saw somebody walk by with pretzels and chicken fingers.

And we weren't even hungry. And we were like, we're going to go eat pretzels and chicken fingers. And we went in and got heaping plates of them and just. sat there and ate even though we weren't all that hungry it was i mean you had to do it i i don't regret it at all if i was sitting here and i had eaten nothing i was just eating all the salad that they had put out i would be here filled with regret i am filled with zero regret and during that sitting with the pretzels and chicken fingers someone came up to us at our table and saw just i think i think hegs was over there too it just saw three guys sitting with like in the ropes passes just downing soft pretzels

with just like covered in all this shit and we just looked like disgusting animals and this guy comes up to us He's like, hey, like, how are you guys? And he goes, how the hell do you have, how the hell do you have all these, like, walking passes? He's like, we have 25 people here from the company. And we're like, I just can't get in because we don't know where the guy is. And, like, he's, like, afraid to, like, it was the look that we got from an actual media member who saw how many passes. Like, Higgs had a walking pass. Hags has been with the company for 72 hours.

Hanks had a walking in the Ropes Pass. I legit, I could have just gotten, like, any of my friends there and inside the Ropes Pass at this point. We were stunning people, stunning people. And we were very respectful. Our coverage was great. Great. We did those inside the ropes passes, a good service. And we said each time we went up to a hole, where is, so, like, there's all these

stories about, like, at least one person having it inside the ropes pass. Like, where were they? Like, it seemed as though we were the only people at the golf course. I stunned. I was stunned. We were falling fill by ourselves. My guess is, like, where is everybody? My only guess to that would be is that nobody was as bold.

Like, they just weren't their trend. Because, like, you would see them walking around the ropes if you, like, you wouldn't be able to miss them. Yeah, that's true. There's not one person with, like, a pet. You'd think, like, you'd see someone with a pen and paper, you know, taking notes on, like, the players interacting or someone with, like, a walkie-talkie or a headset, like, going back to the home base being, like, Phil just did this. You know, he just said this, especially with all that was going on, especially in the Phil group, with everything that's going on, like, and it was just crazy to me. Yeah, it was interesting.

So on Sunday, followed Matt Parsie Alley. We followed, Hegs and I followed every single shot that he hit. Every single shot we saw. I will say it feels a little bizarre as like an Inside the Rove's media member. like clapping and yelling at him when he like does good stuff i think that's probably frowned upon but who cares definitely yeah like you can't like uh like baseball reporters can't cheer in the in the press box no you're not supposed to be cheering but i was openly like clapping and rooting and yelling that's that's bad boy barstool um he played with steve stricker too and it was awesome seeing

steve stricker after like on the seventh hole the redan he came up a little short caught the false front roll all the way back down and he gave like a um he was like ripped his tea out of the ground with his club and then like whacked it because he was so rattled and I was like oh bad boy Steve oh see that savage Steve um so seeing stuff like that was very cool um have we talked about the media member in the bus on the way back that one day that was sneezing louder than anyone's ever sneezed oh yeah I don't think we've talked about that anywhere you're never addressed it was shocked you know the part about that and the guy was I mean And they were, they were category five.

I reacted in such a way that he had to explain himself. Do you guys remember that? I turned around and I said, wow. And he said, you know, it's all that dust out there. And then he made a joke and he said, or maybe the dust that's left of the golfers out there. Maybe that's just the dust left by the golfers. My favorite part of that, and he was with, I believe he was with his wife. And he kept sneezing.

The first one stunned everyone. They were catastrophic sneezes. I thought they were going to have to pull the shuttle over. And then he did it again. And then he did it again. That's his heart nut stuff. And his wife, who clearly hears these all the time and just like in public and is a little embarrassed by them, kept making little jokes about them.

Like, oh, there's another one. Oh, there's another one. Her routine is down. She has been dealing with those sneezes for two and a half decades probably. That was awesome. That guy, there was nowhere to go either. We were all in the back of this little media bus shuttle thing together. And there was just, I was looking around for like a.

escape or like put my head out of window or something and he just, it was this confined space where the sound was just like reverberating through the place and his sneezes were the loudest sneezes they were as fucking they were cries for help

he was screaming stunning that they didn't blow the windows out of that thing it was a scream it was a legitimate scream the first one got such a reaction out of me that I jumped out of my seat and looked at him and he looked me right in the eye and just I really thought after the third one we

were going to have to like call a meeting on the shuttle like everyone was like all right everybody everybody just we all hear the sneezes if there's a fourth one it's going to be really bad but just everybody it's going to be fine oh shout out to that guy man man that's funny I totally forgot about that it was startling every time it was so startling that I created my note for this podcast wrote four play recap US open and the only thing I wrote down was like bus sneeze guy so i was like we have to talk about you and i have strange uh run-ins with people sneezing on modes of transportation remember the lady on the flight down to the cousins retreat uh the mouse sneezes the mouse sneezes and then and there were 25 of them but on this

we just got three thunderous thunderous sneezes and the mouse lady they were very spread out they were like every 15 seconds she would do a mouse sneeze she'd be like chow and we were just like, what the fuck is going on here? If you had tried to film the guy on the shuttle doing his knees, your phone would have blown out of your hand. You would have no longer have a phone. It would have broken your phone. Yes. It was that. I was worried

for like the glass on the bus, on the windows. Insane. I was like getting my head away from the glass because it was so lost. It's like a tornado drill in middle school. You like stay away from the glass because these things are going to blow. It was absolutely outrageous, that guy. I'm so glad you brought that up. All right. We got to get into the

tournament. What a tournament. What a golf tournament, the U.S. Open, the United States Open. Phenomenal golf tournament. Just absolutely phenomenal. Start to finish. I wrote a big blog today, but I'm a firm believer. The only mistake the United States Golf Association made was apologizing. No reason to apologize. Absolutely zero reason. They got shredded by the players on Saturday. The players were bitching.

Now, everybody's focusing on that, on the fact that they were bitching on Saturday and trying to sort of use that almost like mob mentality to be like, yes, the USGA did mess it up on Saturday, the players started bitching from day one. Bryson D. Shambo was calling it clown golf. 20 minutes into it on Thursday. The beginning of the golf tournament. They bitch every single year. If you don't start bitching about it, it's not the U.S. Open.

Players aren't bitching. It's not the U.S. open. Sandy Tatum had to say, I believe, in 1974 is when he said, we're not trying to humiliate the best players. We're trying to identify who they are. that was said in 1974. You know how long ago that was? And they've been doing the same thing. I'm not a math guy.

I think it's 44 years. 44 years ago, he had to say that because the players and everybody bitches nonstop. That is what the U.S. Open is supposed to be. This was Shinnecock. The course was phenomenal. It was hard. It was very tough. At the end of the day, you had the defending champion right in the mix, who obviously ended up winning.

You had Dustin Johnson, who won the year prior, in the mix and was leading for much of the tournament. You had the Masters Champion, Patrick Reed, who was threatening the lead on Sunday. You had, I think it was like, I wrote in the blog, it was like the number one, three, four, like 10 and 11 ranked players in the world were all in the mix on Sunday. That is not an unfair golf course. That's all about luck. That is a golf course that produces the best players at the top of the leaderboard. What I don't understand about this whole people, the players complaining about the course, that I actually understand. and I think that's awesome when the players complain about it.

That means it's a really hard golf course. What I don't understand is the people that aren't playing in the golf tournament complaining about how hard it is. Like, why do you care? Why do you care? Completely. I completely agree. Just like take one step back.

And the fact that the players in the tournament are complaining about the course, that makes it that much better. Like, that means it's really hard and it's a real test. But for people who are watching it or other media members are just fans being like, yeah, it's too hard out there. You should be saying that in a positive way and not a negative way. It makes it so much more fun to watch the best players in the world struggle as opposed to, what do you want to another Aaron Hills?

People are mad about Aaron Hills too. Like it's too easy. Right. You can't have it both ways. People are like, this is an RUS Open at Aaron Hills when the winner was 16 under, Brooks Kepka. You're 100% right. We said that to the USGA because he was like, you know, they kept being like, well, we've got a couple of players. I like, you know, we're going to refer to the USDA as just a person.

Yeah, our friend, the USGA. Yeah. So our friend, USGA was like, you know, a couple players are complaining it looks like. like the complaints, we're like, why do you, we literally said to them in the media center, where we had credentials, we literally said to them like, why do you guys care what the players say? Literally who cares? Yeah. This is the best thing ever. This is, this is an event. And everything that comes with the event, it's about interest, it's about prestige, it's about eyeballs, it's about people talking, chatter, all of that. The Masters has Augusta National, the back nine

at Augusta, the birdie fest. You can make an eagle. It's absolutely electric down the stretch because it's, you know, there's all these fireworks. It's awesome. The British Open, obviously, is Link's golf. It's old school. It's a throwback. It's like the ball's bouncing and rolling and all that. PGA, we're not going to get into because, you know,

the PGA's fourth. Everybody knows that's why they had to move it on the damn schedule. The U.S. Open is about controversy. It's supposed to be controversial. That's the whole point. They're supposed to push it to the edge. And when you do push it to the edge, and then the wind picks up more than anybody expected, and the course dries out a little bit and it's hot.

Hey, a couple of those pin locations where the pins really close to the edge. Guess what, dude? you're not going to be able to make birdie there. You have to hit it into the green. If you miss the green, hit your approach or your bunker shot or your chip or whatever, into the middle of the green. Two putts, be very careful about it. Get out of there with a bogey and move on and pick your spot somewhere else.

Brooks Kebko teed off in the afternoon on Saturday. He shot a 72. Stayed in the tournament, shot a 60 on Sunday, boom, won the whole event. So this whole mantra that like, it was completely unfair, blah, blah, blah. The British Open every single year they talk about, well, if you get a certain luck of the draw, you could get horrible weather in the morning, a good weather of the afternoon, blah, blah, blah. That's golf was invented there.

That's how it's supposed to be. It's not played in a fucking dome. It will never be played in a dome. It's played where Mother Nature is an important, important factor every time. In the U.S. Open, they try to make it as difficult as possible while still making it fair. It was fair. Patrick Reed himself

said that. He defended the shit out of the golf course. They were asking, they said a bunch of people were saying that they lost the course. Is that true? He said, no, no, the course is not lost. They are not going to lose the golf course. I would say the closest green that says 18. He went on and said, I feel like the whole entire golf course is fair, even with how the wind

is blowing, even with 13 and 15, which were the problem greens. On Saturday, everybody bitched about where those pins are. There's going to be a lot of guys that are going to complain about those two holes. If you hit two quality golf shots on both of them and you leave yourself in the right spot, if you hit it past the flag on 15, up over the green,

you have a good chance. You are chipping right back up in the wind, and some guys are putting it from back there, putting it from back there. you can make a three that way, which is a birdie. There's ways to play those two holes, but we're going to have to wait and see. His whole point was he's defending the fact that the course is not unfair. It's just not easy to make a birdie, and it's very easy to make a big score. You have to know those are the problem spots, avoid it, which the best players did and kept themselves in the tournament.

Yeah, and Brooks Kepka, the eventual winner said, I feel like the heart of the golf course, the better, which is that's what I want out of the winner of the tournament, unlike my guy, my fellow Iowa and Zach Johnson, who said, you know, the USGA has lost control. the course, which you and I, Frankie, we had a real good laugh over that. We had a real strong belly laugh over that. Like, I, that comment to me, I know people are ripping Zach apart for it, and it's kind of deservedly so, but I just looked at it as, that's very funny, because that's what I want to see when the U.S. Open has played. I want to see players being like, they have just lost completely control of this course. They don't know what's going on,

but you have to deal with it. Brooks Kepka and guys like Patrick Reeder, like, I want it to be hard. That means you got to play just as well, and when we win, it feels that much better. Like Zach Johnson said that they lost control of the course. I hadn't seen like what he had, where he had said it, when he had said it. I just pictured him saying, like he rolls up to the clubhouse. He takes his hat off. He puts his hands through his hair. And she goes like, they've just lost control of this golf course.

As if this golf course we were saying, Trent, it was like a living thing. Like the bunkers are like starting to rise up and sandmen are starting to emerge from the bunkers and they're swatting like patrons away and people are flying into the sky. Like this course is the leash on the course just like broke and it's just like running around town. That's what I pictured. Somebody get a collar on that course. We're talking about a golf course here. Like Briggs just put it perfectly in his entire, you know, that was a great little speech there.

I really, really enjoyed that. And you said it perfectly. The guys who are playing the best right now in the world all played, you know, as expected in a golf course for the U.S. Open. And people being like, well, are you kidding me? It produced a lot of these guys. that missed the cut and all that. Rory Macroy missed the cut last year at the U.S. Open at Aaron Hills and that course played easy as fuck. So it's not like just because a couple guys missed the cut. Yeah, top guys miss the cut all the time. You don't play well. You're going to miss the cut.

That's how golf works. That's especially how a U.S. Open works. There are plenty of guys. I mean, Matt fucking Parsiali, who's a firefighter, for Christ's sake, finished low amateur, made the cut. Was even in the mix. I mean, at some point, if he would have, you know, if he would have on Saturday fired a low round, he would have been in the mix for the the freaking tournament. Yeah, the big name thing, that's just very short-sighted of the people making that argument. It's like, like you said, big names miss the cut all the time. You can't just be like, oh, Tiger, Bubba, Rory, Ricky, these guys all missed it. So that's why this golf course sucks. No, that happens all the time. On the flip side of that, and we've talked a little bit about

already, Brooks Kebke, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Tommy Fleawood, all these guys are in the mix. It's just, the course was not unfair. It's just he got to play really, really good golf. Exactly. And we got to get into Ian Poulter. He was bitching about the course. Of course he was. He always, I mean, he bitches about legitimately everything. I would be mad. And I actually kind of feel this way. I know we're going to get into Phil here in a little bit. I would be, with the detractors on what he did, but I would be disappointed in Ian if he didn't complain at this point. Like, that's not my E.M. Polter, if he's going to be like, yep, the course was hard, so I couldn't do it. I would be upset with our friend the USGA if he didn't complain. That would be like a terrible

sign. Right. If he was like, yeah, you remember when Keith Oberman came after Barstool in Twitter? And we were all like, oh, hell yeah. Keith Oberman doesn't like us. Like, finally. That's a great side. Yes. Like, if Ian Poulter was like, this is a fantastic setup, everything about this event is great. I would be making calls to our friend, the SGA, be like, hey, we got a fucking tough in this place. Right. And he not only did Ian Polter bitch and moan, he went on tweet threads and he maybe subtly called out Sam Bozoombozo. Yeah, he called me Bozo, Chirp me, Bozo, and Dave's Challenge with a Mulligan comment.

All in one tweet. In the same tweet. All in one tweet. So we're clearly in that guy's head. And New York fans are so in that guy's head that he tweeted out verbally abused on every hole does get a little old. That's not really golf either. Rider Cup in 2024 could all caps.

become a little silly just like today was, and then he hashtagged, I'm sorry, then he added US Open Golf and our friend USGA and said, still, we never hear the word all caps, sorry. When I fuck up, but he put an F, an at sign, an ampersand, and a money sign. So he's a coward. What a loser. And said, I have to apologize, not the, and then added our friend the USGA again and then put a bunch of laughing emojis. He's such a

He had a good round Thursday, right? Because on Friday he was No, no, he had a great round Friday, too. It was on his 17th hole, the 8th hole where he made that triple. He was in the mix. And he wasn't saying anything. No, somebody tweeted that me today, two screenshots. One, after he played this Friday round, and he was like,

the course is great. It's playing great out there. I don't know why people are complaining. And then Saturday, he tweeted again and was like, this place is unplayable, blah, blah, blah. So he's trying to have play both sides. Now, that all goes into my next point is that everyone that's complaining played poorly.

everyone that played great or played well is saying it was fair. Now there's just obvious things that are pointing out at that. You just played bad and you complain. Obvious. Like you said Brooks Kepka's quote before Trent. Yeah.

I was going to say it's like, that's just an obvious thing he's going to say he won the fucking tournament. Yeah. He won it. He's obviously going to say it was fair. Not actually before, but yeah.

Like, I mean it makes sense that he went on and won then. Right. Yeah. It's the same point. The guy that thought it was fair like played it the best. So I don't know why.

I guess it's just. the thing that we do as like as just the world of media I guess that's just the thing that people do is they they're trying to let yeah that's true yeah that's true yeah do that anything like that no we are media official um but it's just we're always look everyone's looking for something to like just complain about it's like it the course was hard and the court but the course was fair it was a hard it's supposed to be you said rigs really early in the in the tournament that this is going to be a plus a score that's going to be above par is you want to win this goddamn i predicted two over would win it and one over won it and that's fun

That's awesome. That's what the U.S. Open's supposed to be. And when you play bad, you get Ian Polters. When you play good, you get Brooks Kepka's. Saturday was maybe the most fun watching golf I've ever had. Put the carnage going on everywhere. People are freaking out. We got Phil Mickelson's all episode, which we haven't even gotten to yet.

But, like, DJT's off. He's got a four-struck leader. Everybody's thinking the golf tournament's over. You look at the front nine, he's like, five, seven over Paul. You're like, holy shit, we got a tournament. What's going on? I must tune into this. They're like, the wind is up.

A couple of greens are unplayable. Pin locations are like up on a fucking mountain. you're like, this is great. I don't know if the numbers are yet, but I guarantee the numbers for the USGA or for Fox on Saturday were huge. I bet they were huge because people, even people who don't follow golf all that closely, you're like, I got to see this carnage that everybody's talking about. It was, it was awesome. All of that was going on.

The crowds on Saturday were massive. I mean, there were people everywhere. You could barely walk around unless you had inside the ropes passes like us. But I mean, the crowds are massive. The drama is crazy. the carnage is nuts. You're seeing headlines about like, Zach Johnson thinks there's sandmen coming out of the bunkers.

Yep. Because the course is out of control. It was the control of the golf course. Like when the, uh, the, somebody in that control room. Yes. That's what Frank. Somebody in that control room is out of control.

You might have to play that clip. Someone in that control room is out of control. That clip. That is a Hall of Fame clip. Oh, Hall of Fame. It's only issue was, and I think they brought it up when it was,

when it first came, it was so long that the clips in between were so good. But it's, it's one of the best videos in the law time. Somebody is hammering. It may be over there, up there, down there,

or somewhere in that area there. Stop the hammering. Someone's just like, someone's just putting up like a picture in his office. It was honestly, Zach Johnson, Zach Johnson was that guy. He was like,

this golf course is out of control. But that's the thing. Like, people are ripping Zach Johnson apart, like I said, but it's like, that's just part of it. That's just part of it.

That's just part of the enjoyment for me. Watching guys squirm is amazing. Can I play devil's advocate here? Sure. I'll voice the opinion of a lot of people that did watch this tournament and see what your guys take is. Yeah. What do you say to the people that did want to sit down on this weekend and watch,

you know, Tiger Woods, Rory McElroy, and like have the ability to watch a bunch of names in a big major tournament as opposed to like saying, all right, this course is so difficult, even though it is fair, that a lot of people are going to get cut. So the average viewer, like people that just may want to tune in to see big names, there was a better chance of them not seeing it the way the golf course was going because more people are going to play poorly. Well, no, because the same amount of people are going to get cut no matter what. Like if the cut was 500 par and everybody's playing well, I still think the guys that played shitty wouldn't have made the cut. Like you can't, like, what's our friend the USDA going to do? Like, change all the course setups so that they can ensure that Tiger Woods makes the cut.

Like, no. You set up the course to try to protect par, which is what they're going to do every single year at the U.S. Open. and that's what they're supposed to. That's what they did last year at Aaron Hills. The wind just didn't blow. And they got rain. It was soft. It was calm.

And the course played significantly easier. What I would say to those people is be mad at the players. Tell them to play better. Correct. Tweet at the players. Tweet at them. Tell Tiger to not play like shit. I want to watch you golf.

Play better so I can watch you golf on the weekend. Because someone did make the cut. Like a player didn't make the cut. Many people made their cut. Matt Parsie Ali made the put. Parziali made the part. Our buddy. So right.

That's what I would say to them. And it is a bummer. Like when Tiger Woods, You could feel the whole media center was like deflated that Tiger didn't make the cut. We had that call on Barcelona Radio Thursday or Friday that made a very good point where it's like when we should be excited about how, you know, the course is playing. But since Tiger is playing like shit, not going to make the cut, it kind of brings the air out of the room a little bit. And you know what? Revitalize the entire tournament.

Two things. One, Ian Poulter's triple on Friday afternoon, Friday evening. You did that. That was your jinx. That was my. I mush them. Felt good. That was huge.

I tweeted like, we are going to have a classic Rider Cup. Oh, no, I tweeted that this tournament has turned into the Rider Cup at Zach Johnson, America. against Ian Poulter, all of Europe, a loser, a Euro trash. And then eight seconds later, he just sculled his bunger shot over the green, flubbed a chip, made triple, boom, out of the tournament. And the second thing was the golf course on Saturday. That revitalized the tournament. Drama everywhere.

Phil couldn't even take it. He hit his golf ball so it wouldn't go off a slope. People were bitching. I mean, I got more quotes to read. We got Brennan Steele, who said the course was fair of the first two days. Saturday I thought it was getting sketchy. Henrik Stenton said they lost the golf course today, certainly on the back nine. another lost reference.

Like the golf course is a dead person that we're all sad about. Pat Perez, our buddy, who we had on the show, who we love, said, when you got a lob wedge in your hand, you hit it to the spot you want to, and you almost make the putt, and it blows off the green 20 yards. It starts to be a point where you say, did these guys screw up? Did they not see this coming? They being our friend, the USDA. The pin did not have to be where it was.

It was where it was. So other people figured it out, figure it out. All those quotes do, again, is just add to the narrative that I love. This is the U.S. Open. That's just what this is. It's going to be like this. This is just what it is. And you don't have to show up.

But you know why? Why are they comparing it to anything? There is nothing to compare it to. It is what it is. It's just reality. The U.S. Open is a golf course that is going to give you this. You knew it going into it. The reason that it is a major championship, one of four events out of the dozens that go on

that every tournament in the world wants to be as big and awesome and as respected and prestigious as it can possibly be, the reason that the U.S. Open is probably number two in all of golf tournaments in the world, just close behind the Masters. And I would argue when the U.S. Open gets it right and you get the right leaderboard all of it. It can be better than the Masters is because they have done it like this forever. This is the 118th U.S. Open. And the identity of the tournament is toughness, difficulty, maybe sometimes over the edge,

maybe a little bit unfair sometimes. You want to get nuts? And controversy. And it's awesome. USA. Like, Pined place, don't I put it on a goddamn. mountain. That's why you come play in this tournament because it is the U.S.

open and they can do whatever the fuck they want with the golf course. And we will look back on this and be like, who won in 2018? Oh, is Brooks Kebka? Oh, is it Shinnecock Hills? Remember how hard that was? What a win for that guy. How he must have played so well when all the other guys couldn't figure it out. Right. Like, apparently it was like a video game pen on 13 and 15, but that

guy won, that guy's awesome. That is legendary. That's not like Locke. And other people, like, part of the Zach Johnson quote too was like, it really stinks when luck becomes the deciding factor. Buddy, when you hit it in the like, when you give yourself like a downslope lie on a bunker and you're forced to basically make double because you hit it into the worst spot on the golf course,

that ain't luck. Don't fucking hit it there. Stop missing the fair way. You play all these practice rounds. You know where you're not supposed to hit the golf ball. When you hit it there, you know you're fucked. You were fucked. You made a couple doubles.

You took yourself out of the tournament because of the shots that you hit, not because of the way the golf course is set up. Other guys figured it out. And hey, guess what? Those same guys are the guys that have figured out so many other tournaments that they're the top guys in the world.

I love it. I love that the people can't grasp the fact that it's just play better. It's like skate better. Play better. It's like skate better from the Disney movie, Brink. Just skate better. And you'll win.