Fore Play - “We want carnage” w/ U.S. Open course setup man Jeff Hall

Episode Date: June 12, 2018

Jeff Hall from the USGA joins the show to breakdown setting up Shinnecock Hills for the U.S. Open. How far back does the preparation go? How does he monitor the firmness? What will be the winning score? The guys also preview the tournament, get ready to head out east for a fully credentialed U.S. Open experience, and discuss Jimmy Walker's “backstopping” comments. Oh, and Dustin Johnson is coming off a walk-off eagle and 6-stroke victory!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. It is a big week. It is a very large week. We are going to be out at the U.S. Open because it's U.S. Open week. A little announcement. We have a bonus podcast that will be coming out Thursday morning. We're going to be talking all about our experience up at Shinnock, what the course looks like,

talking to some players, having media credentials because. We are credentialed. We are. We're official. No big deal, kind of a large deal. A big show. We have Jeff Hall from the USGA, of course, setup guy. We talked to him for a good 40 minutes.

We do an entire U.S. Open preview. We got a nice house this week up at Shinnecon. Beautiful house. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was showing it to people all weekend because I did a little search on the internet of the address. And boy, were people impressed. I've been showing it to people like it's my house. Like, it's like my family owns this house. That's my golf.

That is my vineyard. I think they have a vineyard in their backyard. It looks vineyardy for sure. There's a vineyard in the backyard. There's a pool. That's my tennis court. Oh, yeah, that's my corridor. I've been using that word a lot.

The pool, it's very rare that you see a backyard where the pool is like a fraction of the backyard. Like there's so much green and the pool is just kind of in the middle of it all. The pool is an afterthought and it's a great pool. Usually the pool dominates the lands. The pool in this thing is like, oh, I guess there is a pool in that huge yard. You just, you do a dip in the pool on your way to the tennis court and to squeeze some grapes in the vines. You also can dip into the grill with a little Omaha steaks. That was nice.

I got to be honest. Wow. That felt really good. I'm going to be dipping into the grill with my Omaha steaks. My God. Father's Day is just around the corner. Are you trying to find the perfect gift for Father's Day? Yes, I am.

I really am. I actually am because it's impossible to find a gift for my dad because he just buys whatever he wants. Yeah, my dad does the same thing, but, you know, meat is always a good gift. Meat is always a phenomenal gift. Omaha Steaks. I have a roof deck that is awesome. You probably see me post about it on my Instagram account. Yep.

Yep. And I've never been invited, though. Oh, you're invited, Frankie. I appreciate it. You should come check it out sometime. Yeah. We can grill some Omaha steaks. That's great.

It's very seasonal when they open up the grill. up there and the grills are rocking up there. So the roommates and I, we have been bringing our Omaha steak meat, which is an insane amount of meat that you get for a very little amount of meat. It's laughable. I actually got one to my house. Yeah, they send them to, like those, the styrofoam stuff to you. It's laugh out of funny how much meat is.

With the dry ice, which we've gone over the technology behind the dry ice a million times that I can't wrap my brain around it, the fact that it just arrives cold. It's insane. I legitimately don't have enough room in my, freezer to put all the Omaha meat. No. Because they come in these boxes. Yeah.

That's how much meat they give you. But you're right, Frankie. That is when this box arrives and you see the little Omaha Steaks logo, it's the greatest feeling in the world. Unbelievable. So Omaha Steaks, incredibly convenient. Like we said, they deliver hand-trimmed, flash frozen and vacuum sealed. What the hell does that mean?

I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I don't know, but it works because I get it and it's fresh and it's delicious. pork, poultry, veal, lamb, bison, seafood, vegetables, all kinds of good stuff. So here's what you guys have to do. All your listeners out there, go to Omaha Steaks.com. Type 4, F-O-R-E. That's Omaha Steaks.com.

You type 4 into the search bar. You're going to see a search bar right on the website. Type 4 into it. There's a Father's Day package. Here's what you're going to get. You're going to get two tender filet mignons, two beefy top sirloins, four chicken fried steaks, two boneless pork chops, four all beef Omaha steak burgers, four gourmet, jumbo francs, 12 ounces of all beef meatballs, one pound of steak house fries, four caramel

apple tartlets, one Omaha steak seasoning packet, plus you get four more grill-ready Omaha steak burgers free with a purchase. All you got to do, this is limited time only Father's Day, Father's Day, Father's Day, for $49.99. That is not that much. money. Do you know how much I just listed? You listed that you listed all the things and it sounded like a lot and it's only 49.99. I ran out of breath literally listing how much stuff it comes. You did with 499. Go to omaha stakes.com. Type in four to the search bar. That's f o'clock. Do not wait. Offer and soon go to omahaustakes. com type four into the search bar. Grab your dad and fire up the grill. It's US Open Week. I'm just smiling ear to ear. U.S. Open Week. I also just fucking watched two videos online that I came

across two seconds ago. One of the 18th green some guy drops a ball on like the back edge of the green. It rolls 30 yards off the front of the green. Love that. Then he's got another Instagram video he put up of him trying to hit a ball out of the rough. He's like three feet off of the fairway. Can't even advance. A great swing like rips the ball. It goes like 50 yards. Carnage. Carnage. The carnage is here. I watched Phil Mickelson's entire press conference today. I pulled a bunch of quotes from that. But it's US Open Week. We made it. Shinnacock Hills. three weeks ago. We have a ton to talk about. We have Jeff

Hall on this week's podcast. Yeah, I mean, if you were excited, if you're excited about the U.S. Open and you want to hear about the setup and the pairings and the pins and all that, we got Jeff Hall. He'll get you real route up about it. He is legitimately the setup man for the U.S. Open. Obviously,

a U.S.GA official. He's been through it all. He knows a ton about all these types of things. We gave him a little bit of grief. He gave it back to us a little bit. We asked for Carnage. We asked to get our own pin location one day. Which he did promise to us. Which he promised

to us. Um, so you're gonna have to listen. He is coming up in a little bit. He's fantastic. Um, we're gonna be out of the US Open. Oh yeah. I realize I've never been to a US open. Me either. I've been to two. Beth Page and. Beth Page. Oh, both of them. Beth Page 2x. Two times. That page black. Um, I've never been to US Open. I'm jacked up. It's electric. He never been to do U.S. Open in the fashion that we're going as well, in terms of credentials, radio, the whole deal. It's going to be a good time. Yeah, pretty much I said on radio last week that, like, the U.S.GA, we're pretty tight with U.S.GA.

They're all in a bar stool so much so that we're, like, broadcasting from Tiger Woods' fucking Haprem, basically, as he plays. The tournament, we are almost, like, suspended over the 11th Green, which is the famous, infamous short par three. It's like 150, 160. Dave hit, what, 30 T shots on that hole on a Periscope live? Yep. To put it lightly. 30 may have been a little bit too little to give him. I think he may have hit close to 58.

Yeah. Made birdie on that hole. So people should know it well. We are going to be at the top of the hill. We're doing live radio 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday. So that's going to be us, this crew right here. we've obviously got Frankie, Trent, myself, Dave, Big Cat, a whole crew going out there.

I know in some capacity, PFT's going to be out there, Hank's going to be out there. All business, Pete, who usually makes an appearance at these golf events, he'll be out there. Remember when we were at the Masters and we were set up at the Midas and he rolled his sleeves all the way up? Yep, with a collared shirt on. And it was blindingly white.

No one's ever done ever. What a psychopath. That guy is. In fact, he didn't think he was going to become like a topic, and then he clearly became a topic for a whole 15 minutes. So it's going to be a crew. It's going to be an absolute crew going back out to Shinnock. We are, so we're recording this podcast on Monday evening in a new studio.

Well, I guess a new studio. It's a rag tag studio. A pop-up studio. Pop-up studio. In the beanbag room. It's a room. Yeah. We're just in a room.

A normal room. It's more comfortable than the studios we normally recorded, though. I will say that because there's couches. We're looking at like 35 to 40 feet tall ceilings. We're sitting in, we're sitting in nice couches. 40 feet, Frank? You know how tall 40 feet is? I'd give it 25.

That's four stories. I mean, Frank is looking up at the ceiling trying to think of a response to how stupid he just made himself. Maybe 20 feet. 25 is way too high. I think it's like, maybe. You just said 47 feet I would go with. So anyways. It's a tall ceiling.

We're in this studio. Hopefully we sound great. It's U.S. Open Week. We're going out in the morning. Yes. We're going to be there Tuesday. Our good friend Tiger Woods has a press conference at 11, so we're going to try to get out there for that. We got our new guy, Higgs, who is grinding on the ones and twos right now, which I like.

He's focused. He apparently brought some gifts, so we're going to do gifts live on the air in a little bit. But we will be out of the U.S. Open from basically Tuesday morning. At least myself and Trent, Frankie's coming, I believe, with Dave, probably on Thursday. I'll be there Wednesday night, actually. I'm driving Wednesday night. Just to get, you know, comfortable. All business piece is going to be there.

We're going to set out. Look, if you're out there and you were thinking about going to the U.S. Open, you're not sure. Come to the U.S. Open. Meet us out there. We are going to be doing all kinds of fun stuff because we're credentialed. We've never been credentialed for a golf tournament before. Which probably makes everyone involved very nervous, including ourselves. But we're fully credentialed.

We're all in. with the USGA. Like I said, we're going to be basically suspended above the 11th green. At the top of the hill, you may have heard of it. Big social scene, beer garden, all that type of stuff. They, like, built us our own little stand on the side. Oh, yeah, we've gotten a little preview of what it's going to look like. It's actually insane. The engineers came into the office, and we're like, we just built your stuff for the U.S. Open,

and it's outrageous. They're like, we had two jobs going into this. And he goes, honestly, in all my years of being an engineer for Sirius XM, I can't believe we had to spend so much time on, like, a blubes. blog website company that he's like we were we were building like the 18th green play by play studio and then your guys studio like those are our two jobs it's like you have like like the likes of people like Jim Nance like sitting up there on the top and then you have Riggs and Trent sitting and that's like what their workload was so that's awesome at the U.S. Open it's going to be great

Shinnecock Hills all the history this is the fifth U.S. Open there uh we're going to be right smack dab in the middle of it so like I said we're doing radio Saturday, Sunday, we're going to be going to the event, covering what it's like to be a fan, probably consuming some alcohol. What would Tiger say? Libations. Libations. We're going to dabble in libations.

Unreal. It's going to be great. So head out, get yourself some tickets. You can take the L-I-R, the Lear, as I call it, but Long Islanders are not happy with me. If we're trying to sell the U.S. Open, which we shouldn't have to, because it's such a great event, it should sell itself. But I'll go along with it. say the LIR will get you out there very safely and well. If we're going to be real about it, it's my own worst, it's my worst enemy.

You got problems with this morning, no? Yeah, I almost quit the Long Island Road this morning, but that's another story for another time. They're doing a special stop at Shinnock direct from Penn. You can go straight to Shinnock. You can drink on the train, which is excellent. So anyways, I hope a ton of people come out and see us. it's going to be fantastic. I'm very excited.

There's a lot, a lot, a lot to talk about. We're going to be at the press conferences tomorrow. Yep. And the rest of the week, all of that. We're going to be seeing our guy, Kevin Kisner. So a lot of good stuff. We've got to talk a little bit about DJ. Real quick.

DJ's coming into this tournament. He won by six at the FedEx St. Jude Classic last week with a walk-off. Walk-off Eagles. Maybe the most, the biggest swing and dick finish. The biggest swing and dick finish? that had not like a corresponding celebration because it's Dustin Johnson so he's like not going to go nuts and chest pump his brother on the caddy but like I think that's what makes it more of a big swinging dick celebrations like I've been here before I like I wanted to do that I just did it

and now I'm walking off the golf course with a win he started walking after the golf ball like I don't know it was a third of its way on its way to the green and it went in and he starts to walk me you see these guys sometimes they take like an early step yeah they knock like a 12 footer in or something he took like three or four steps while the ball's in the air and then it went in uh outrageous i think i tweeted this but dj is just i'm pretty sure that whenever he just wants to win he could just win that's just like yeah if he's if every week he said i want to win he would win every tournament he just doesn't he's like sometimes i feel like winning sometimes i just kind of feel like chilling he just doesn't have that like every week where i want to do it but if he did he could win every turn it's like

it's like he's got to convince his heart it's like if he can actually convince his heart going into it that like no we do want to win this weekend art then he just can't not win we got him a couple pairs of of these motivational tapes that tigers been listening to since he was like a four year old i think dj could be a problem we are deep in the tiger woods game i can't stop thinking about it in terms the off course tiger game the book um so this is a little bit of a sidetrack but it's a good point that frankie makes we interviewed last week um arman kateen one of the authors one of the co-authors of the tiger woods biography big cat got us reading it now i'm I'm reading it, Frank's reading it, Trent's reading it.

My cousins on the morning show, Cousin Mike and Cousin Murray, the 271-year-old Jewish men, who I'm very good friends with, are fucking reading it. Everybody's reading it. So we did this interview, and we are so deep in the psyche behind Tiger.

We were like, hey, let's have you on, 15, 20 minutes will be good. Had the guy on for an hour and could have had him on for four hours. Yes, correct. We told him 15 minutes. It was an hour. I basically now,

I'm like trying to find a psychologist to get me blogging motivational tapes. Imagine how good of a blogger you could be if you had like all the tiger had. You'd be unreal. I think you have to implement it like when you don't know what's going on in your life. Yeah, when your brain's just like, we're already

too far gone. It's like when parents read to a pregnant woman. Like, because they want to like start that process. That's when you would have to start. It's too late on you. Or play the piano for like an infant and they grow up and boom, Mozart. Yeah. Like Dave would have you, Dave Portnard would have had to come out with like a series of blogging tapes.

Your parents got their hands on those and had you start listening to them. like Dave's typing up blogs when he's like nine months old, just cranking blogs. Yeah. Because of the tapes. We should have a meeting about that. Have Dave make those tapes?

Yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah, it's not bad. Kids are being born every day. So anyways, if DJ had that same type of motivational direction, would have been huge. He would be unstoppable. He still is unstoppable sometimes.

He's got to be a giant favorite or at least one of the top favorites going into this week. I know betting-wise he obviously is, but with this course, it's going to play firm and fast. looks like. He's got to be right up near the top. Phil Mickelson finished with a 65, final round 65. He finished T-12 coming in the history behind Phil. Most people should know it. I did a whole fucking podcast on it. So if you're listening to me right now, you should know this because you

should have listened to my podcast about it, has finished runner up six times in the U.S. Open. Once at Shinnock in 2004, and then in 1995, I believe he finished tied for fourth at Shinnock. So he's a New York golfer. The people of New York love Phil. People love him everywhere, but for some reason. It's such an interesting thing how much they love Phil in New York. Like where does that come? Because he's always just been in the mix.

I mean, like I said, in 2000. So the U.S. Open was at the Black 2009, 2002. And both times, I think he was in contention. He finished second. I think both times. Yeah. So, I mean, people are just rooting for him. And New York's like they love like that type of guy.

He was always, he's always with the crowd, the thumbs up. We've talked about Phil. The way he reacts with people. people and New York is just, New York fans, I am a New York fan. We like to act like we're the best fans on Earth with everything. So when a major championship comes to New York, we like to really, you know, push our chest out and cheer louder. And, you know, I think we link ourselves to certain people in memories. And Phil's definitely, like, even I.

You guys love Phil. I mean, I've lived my whole life, love him, Phil. I'm a lefty. I love the guy. He had wing foot, no six. Exactly. He's a New York guy. He performs in New York.

He just doesn't get it done. He hasn't gotten over the hump. Place would go nuts. So along those lines, I think Phil is one of the most compelling stories going into. This year he sat last year out at Aaron Hills because of his daughter's high school graduation. So he didn't even fucking play last year. That's such an insane move. Yeah, I didn't like that move.

Now, he's obviously back. He won the WGC Mexico earlier this year. He's been playing the best that he's played in four or five, six years at this point. What was it, the 2013 when he won the British Open? So, yeah, it's five years. that this is the best he's played. So, Phil, his press conference today, I watched the whole thing. We are going to get into, obviously, the other pressers later in the week once they occur.

Tiger Woods. Our guy Tiger. But Phil, today he talked about the setup. He was raving about the condition of the course. He said, quote, one of my favorite courses. It's the best setup, in my opinion, that we've seen. And the reason I say that is all areas of your game are being tested. tested. There are some birdie holes, some really hard pars, some fairways that are easy to hit,

tough to hit. The chipping and short game around the greens are going to be a huge factor this week. It is much different around the greens. It's not the wingfoot style, incredibly thick rough if you miss a green, and then you've got to hit kind of these crazy, splashy explosion hacks out of the rough and judge it that way. It's a lot of tightly moan runoffs and stuff like that, as we saw when we were out there. Phil loves that, so it'll be interesting to watch. He said that if the fairways play firm, he's got a two iron that he flies roughly 250 yards.

What big deal? Must be nice. He said, I'm going to use that on a lot of the T's if the fairways are firm. So, Phil, I like Phil's chances this week. He also, he had kind of this cerebral type approach today, talking about how he's not trying to win the golf tournament. on Thursday. He doesn't mind if he gets behind a little bit because it's all about being in

contention Sunday. He doesn't even, he hasn't even thought about winning the tournament. He's saying, that's a lie. I mean, that's a straight-up lie. That's just him lying at the press conference,

but that's okay. If that's what he's trying to do to convince himself to finally get this, then that's fine, but that's just a straight-up line. Yeah. How could he expect us to believe that? You know, it was,

I believed him the way he said it. He's just Phil, you know? He just convinced me. No. He tied me right in. He sucked me right in. He said he hasn't been thinking about it. He said that...

Thinking about winning the tournament would be a distraction from focusing on the process that it takes to get into a position where you could win the tournament. That's a guy who hasn't stopped thinking about winning the tournament. You are not a guy that can think on the level that Phil Mickelson can think. But I've won the same amount as he has. Not really. Well, I mean the same amount of U.S. opens technically, but he's finished six,

second six times. We are talking technically. He's won five majors. He's won 43 BGA tour events. I was like the record to show that I've won the same amount of U.S. Overs. Yeah, we're not taking anything away from Phil. A big Phil guy.

But I think that Phil is smarter than you are. Disagree? Just my opinion. I could be wrong. I'm just saying we have won the same amount of U.S. opens. It's not, I mean, it's true. He's finished second more than you have.

You actually, I mean, he does, he says it very nicely and very elegantly, but he's definitely thought about winning. But it's just, you know, he's detailing his approach. His approach is, I'm not on Wednesday or Thursday or Friday or Saturday thinking about winning the tournament. I'm thinking and focusing on what I need to do to make the best scores. And then once I get in the mix, I start thinking about winning it on Sunday.

It's basically what he said. I've actually heard that same type of strategy being used in hockey where players go out there and just play the same system regardless of what the score is in the first couple periods. And then the third period they'll look up and they'll be like, all right, like, are we going to start tightening up? Like now we start pinching and are we going to play a different game? Right. But, like, they don't scoreboard watching the first two periods. They're just like, let's fucking go out there and just keep playing our game. Like, you, like, they don't even talk about the score and the intermissions.

That's what I guess that's what Phil's doing. Sounds like Phil was saying, look, if I need to pinch late in the third period down a goal, like, I'll do it. But I'm focused on. Until then, it's game playing game playing. Is pinch a hockey term that I'm not familiar with? Pinching is when your D men step up. Pinching is a great, a great word. Are you saying pinch or pinch?

Pinching or pinch? Pinching. So when you're deep, right, like, Frank. Frankie just pinch me. Pinched. You've pinched your arm. Well, you wanted to make the point very clear. You did.

You know I've been having problems with my neck today, too. So pinching Trent is when the D-Man, usually when the puck looks like it's going to come out of the zone, the D-man will back off. It's sort of play a contain style. When you're deep pinch, the puck looks like it's kind of a 50-50 puck along the boards, and they step up aggressively trying to keep the puck on offense. Gotcha. It's risky because you can give up some odd man rushes in the other direction, but it can also pay off.

There you go. Shout to spit and chicklets. you can also listen to our hockey podcast. Chicklets. On the Barstool Network. Great show. He's not on the show right now, so we can use those type of words.

You're going to be mean to him again now, huh? Correct.