No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1186: Kicking off The Open at Royal Birkdale

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

Join us as we get you set up for the 2026 Open Championship: Course conditions, player reactions, news & notes, team draft, final picks, and a bunch more! Presented by Titleist. Support our sponsors: Titleist - the #1 ball in Golf! Rhoback - code NLU for 20% off at https://www.rhoback.com Arccos - NLU15 for 15% off at https://www.arccosgolf.com/ Looking to travel this year, check out East Sands Golf Co.: https://www.eastsandsgolf.co/nlu Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: https://nolayingup.com/esf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club Today That's better than most How about him? That is better than most Better than most Ladies and gentlemen Welcome back

Excuse me gosh I'm already all jumbled I'm very excited for this week To the no laying up live show Presented as always by our friends At Titleist Sali here joined by Mr. T.C Hello TC It's coming home, Saul I knew you were going to say that exact phrase to start.

I knew it was not even going to be a hello, just that it's coming home. Randy is here. Hello, Randy. Hello, Solly. Neil is here for the first time this week. Hello, Neil. How are you? Gentlemen, I'm fantastic.

I am, I'm ready to bear witness on this open championship. Randy, I've stayed out of a lot of the, you know, you can get all hot and bother early in a major week. But I feel like I paced myself really well this week. I'm ready to go. Proud of you. Thanks, man. On today's show, we're going to check in on what we've learned about Royal Burkdale so far this week.

We're going to hear for some players on that topic. So we've got some quotes here and some links to Mark Darbin spoke, CEO of the RNA. Nick Fowdo sounded off a little bit. We're going to check in on that. We're, of course, going to be drafting our teams for this week, clear out our notebook heading into the open, which begins tomorrow. We'll, of course, be live after every round of play Thursday through Sunday. One piece of equipment you might see this week more.

than others, that's utility irons. Lots of players are going to be opting for a utility over the high lofted fairway or hybrid this week at Burkdale. It's going to typically produce a lower, flatter trajectory. They can flight down, control into the wind a bit more. This is where fitting comes into play. This is where it's one of the hardest spots in the bag to figure out for yourself, whether or not, you know, what do you want between your woods and the last iron in your bag? What's the descent angle going to be kind of on your four iron? That's, the importance of going to somewhere like titles.com and finding a fitter near you. They won't even let us just let us just guess on that.

They want us fit into stuff to fill up that part of our bag to make sure we are understanding things that we wouldn't think to look in on our own. And that's, you know, that kind of goes throughout the bag and wherever your transition is from the iron into the woods or to a different set of, you know, different sets between irons and things like that. So, Tyler, they might be no better feeling than a well-struck U-boat running on Link's golf. It is a joy to watch that ball scamper. I have a question.

Sorry, are we finished with the title? No, 60% of the utilities played on the PGA tour of the season have been a titleist. They got a couple great options you can get fit for. There's the T250U that comes in a two, three or four iron build. It features a really clean profile compact. Then you got the U505, which has a slightly larger profile than the 250U. It gives you higher launch with more forgiveness. comes in a one, two, three, or four iron build.

No matter what, just go get fit. If you don't end up in a utility, it's helpful to get that top end of your bag dialed. Titleist.com to find a fitting near you. Randy, please, take it away. Oh, that's wonderful. Go get fit. It's life-changing.

You know, we're going to draft new teams this week. I was just curious, Neil, is there any update from what happened at the U.S. Open? If you could fill the people in. So it's been a busy stretch for your boy on the home front. But I'm going to have, I'm getting ready. I have time to get ready. I don't really get ready for anything.

You know, I just kind of pop out of head. You don't have to get ready. I play golf this morning, correct? Yeah, but I don't really get ready for that. I'm going to take you through my ideal routine. Maybe project what I would like my routine to be, Randy. And that will be coming this week. I'm aiming for Friday morning, if not Saturday.

So, so more to come in this space. I pay my debts, Randy, just not always on your time frame. No, I know that. I'm just, I'm a vessel of the people. I wanted to get an update out there. Sure. I'm not as concerned about the routines. I want you to, it's got to get influencer up.

Like, it's got to be, I want it to be awkward. Have I ever let you down? Sometimes. I mean, I'm good at this stuff, man. You know I'm going to bring the thunder. Like, I'm getting my haircut at Palin's barbershop. You know, I'm going to bring the noise for you. Don't worry.

Okay. Just make it sure. Just make it sure. Guys, rural Burkdale, this is going to be a big story. line coming up this week we've seen it if you've turned on your television at all at golf channel every aerial image they've given you every social clip you've seen it is baked out it is firm we've gotten some great details on how this is uh on how this is affecting a lot of things uh i'm tc i i what was the last time you were this excited as far as conditions going into an open

championship conditions feel like nobody's crazy hot right now it's it seems like it's wide open in the best way i think this is the most excited i've been for a major it's been at least five years man it's it's it's it's this is this is it this is this is why we do what we do randy so that anybody in the field can tee it up and win it randy skeptical well no no i'm not skeptical i just i feel like we were very excited a couple weeks ago and i shoulda cock i feel like we were saying We're excited. We were excited. But this is, this is, this is so much better than that.

This, like, this is my favorite major championship, the Open. And it's forged by nature. So you know they're not going to, get to mess with it too much. It's, it's in Mother Nature's hands. And Mother Nature's forecast looks wonderful. So. Okay. And I'd say with the Open, you never really talk about people holding the Greens back.

I mean, they're just, the Greens are the Greens. You know, Randy, there's less, uh, I feel like there's, There's less set up stuff we talk about normally. So to see the color of the fairways is exciting. It's a hot for summer. Yeah, yeah. Look, we have a couple clips here of guys describing this, and I want to play these and react to them.

Let's get to Scotty Sheffler first. This is Scotty talking about the firmness and about how that's going to affect decisions off the T. If you have the firmness clip here, Cody, this is the number one player in the world. The highways this week are really tight, and so you get a lot of crosswinds, and they can be difficult to hold just because they're so fast and they're so firm. And so there's a lot of thinking off the tee on whether or not you want to just hit driver up there somewhere and kind of play from the rough, most likely, or do you want to start hitting some irons, getting in some fairways, and, you know, hitting some longer shots into the greens? And so on each hole, there's a good bit of strategy. There's a decent amount of thinking.

and if it wasn't as firm as it is now, that wouldn't be, there wouldn't be as much decision making, but I think with the firmness, it's just, it creates a whole lot more challenges, I think, for us as players,

just to trying to control your ball and figuring out where it's going to end up. And, yeah, you'll get a couple weird bounces here and there as well. That's the part that got me super excited, talking about all this strategy, balls, you know, the dog legs, how balls aren't going to stop,

and there's not a lot of drivers and things like that. Rory had some comments on this as well that were just a little parallel to this that I want to get to here. And I want to address these in tandem, really, of how strategy is going to be affected off the T because what Scottie just described, I think could be one of the most interesting and most fun open championship setups. But if it goes kind of the way Rory teases that it might go in this clip, I'm, you know, slightly worried, not 10% worried about how this is going to play out. So here's Rory. I think it's a double-edged sword.

I think all this dry weather and sun and a little bit of wind is obviously great for the golf course in one way. But when I was here a couple weeks ago, the rough was a lot more penal than it's going to be this week. It's definitely burnt out a lot. So, you know, there may be certain instances where, you know, like the big thing, especially off the tea here is the fairway bunkers and avoiding those. you might see some guys being more aggressive off the tea, taking driver, trying to take the fairway bunkers out of play. Okay, it might be in the rough, but it's not that penal, so you get a wedge in your hand and you can figure it out from there.

So that's the bad way this tournament can go. You should be watering the rough. Thank you, T.C. Why don't we soak in the rough? Guys. Solly, if you want to try to bang driver for four days in a row and we get some wind, I'm like live on the edge, baby. I feel like at some point that's going to catch somebody in such spots of bother.

So I'm, I'll take that, uh, that question mark. It's like, would you rather accumulate little nicks and scrapes or would you rather just get into a head-on collision at some point during the week? Like that's kind of the choice, right? Well, that's what I'm hoping. I hope it plays that way. but I'm hoping it doesn't do is say like, hey, actually the risk of driver wasn't that big

because the spots of bother aren't that severe. And if you can get a wedge on it from decent places out of the rough, and especially on holes that aren't playing, you know, necessarily downwind, that's the, that's the, if the T shots lose their interest and intrigue and mystery, that's where this can get a little less than stellar.

But again, I think things are lining up really great. I just, you know, maybe wish we heard a little bit more reports. I didn't like hearing that, you know, that we had, there was more rough when he was here just a few months ago. Because I think when we played it, it was like, oh, I don't know if you can get away with this in a few months.

And, you know, there were definitely times when we got away with them. So that's what the wedges comes into on the greens. Like if you're coming in from a shitty angle downwind, not being. That's what I was going to say, T.C., like having to land wedge like 20 yards short of the green. Like, that's, you know. That's awesome. Better than, then, you know, when we talk about like a wing foot US Open and you can, hack it out to like pin high, right?

I still think you're going to have to judge from that rough. And that's still, as a viewer, interesting to me. Randy, I would like to implement a poof test. Are we going to get poofs of dust? That's, I mean, that's really like maybe the proper open championship, the binary, like, are we getting poofs or not? And I'm going to be on poof watch this week. Seems like we're headed for poofs, Neil.

I know. I know. When that ball's landing and dust is flying up, God. Poof Town. Poof Town, baby. Like, I'm looking for poof town out there. On that note, Michael Kim had a, you know, as always, has a lot of excellent Twitter

threads on there. Just talked about how, you know, a lot of the decisions being made off the T's in a lot of those spots, you know, about guys hitting, you know, sometimes it's, it might be five or six iron hitting off some of these. If you're trying to prevent runouts at 280, 290 on some of these holes. 11 is a hole that we've seen guys hit really, really, really short. irons and practice rounds they've been showing the second hole they had a bunch of those on live from yesterday just watching guys uh on that one which is like not not a driveable four but it being so firm that guys were hitting it right up to the very front of that green uh yesterday with the wind blowing and what the early wind direction tomorrow looks like it's coming out of the east which would

make that hold downwind um and so just it's going to be the the wind's going to move around a little bit tcd have uh any other forecast notes you want to you want to impart on us or what should we what should we care about as it as it relates to the forecast heading into the end of the week. It seemed like it was going to be windier today than maybe the next few days. It looks like pretty steady, like consistent throughout the week, the rest of the week into the weekend is, this is per Jeff Shackleford's newsletter from the on-site meteorologist. I kind of throw my models out the window when we're going over to the UK. You got to rely on the Met Office and BBC, things of that nature.

So it looks like it's going to be relatively calm. in the mornings and then we've got, you know, then more of a sea breeze picking up from the east, southeast in the afternoons. Looks like it could be, you know, 15 to 20, nothing crazy, but enough to keep guys honest, I think. So maybe a little moisture on Saturday, which maybe a little bit of a runaway truck ramp for the RNA.

So, you know, just, I think this is shaping up to be exactly what we beg for with opens with enough wind to keep guys honest, but firm and fast. It's pretty wild to see for both Thursday and Friday, like the early east-southeast, 5 to 10 miles an hour for both days, Thursday and Friday. Then north-northwest on Thursday afternoon to northwest on Friday afternoon, right? So as it stands now, which again, if you don't like the weather, blah, blah, blah, as it stands now, there projects to be an extremely even wave shift

as the wind is currently set up to be, which I know that's the most important thing to UTC. It's got to be fair and balance. It has to be or else you might as well not even have the tournament. What's the report on the firmness of the Greens? I don't need them, you know, putting to 15. I do need them firm, though. I need balls bouncing.

Greens are going to be green. Yeah, the greens are going to be green. That's an interesting. I don't know how to get the, you know, that's the one part that they're going to manipulate some and water and make sure that, you know, grass is growing on the greens and they can be putted. So that, that's, that, I guess if I had one concern going into it, it's that balls are going to go so far that there's going to be so many wedges into things.

And if there's any, you know, with the hint of green that we see on there, the guys are going to be able to stop it on the green relatively easy. And most shots from the fairway, I think guys will be able to fly up onto the surfaces and hold them there. I think that's, that's, that's the downside of it being super firm as a, is it's like do the driving distances this week are just going to be insane so bottom line worried i'm worried i'm going the other way i don't like how this is sounding at all sounds like a wedge passball spinning i don't there's some things that that i struggle with a little bit of burkdale

where i almost have to set my own biases aside with there's some bigger slopes on some of the especially 14, 15, 16, 5 that I think don't really match with the rest of the course, but also I'm not opposed to them in the context of trying to test the best players in the world. I feel similarly there, T.C., which can take us back to, take us to the next topic here being just some of the golf course changes, right? And Scott, you had some, you know, somewhat alarming quotes. I think said out loud what a lot of us were feeling when we saw Real Burkdale recently about some of the changes. Rory had some comments too, and we get to some Mark Darbin comments here as well.

But this is Scotty talking about some of the changes of the golf course. I think it's pretty obvious. The one thing I found interesting was it was like so obvious as to which holes had been redone. Like they look like they're not even like on the same golf course. Like you look at like 14, 15, 16, those green complexes and the amount of slow. that they have off of them are pretty severe and quite challenging and you know the fifth hole is kind of like that seventh hole as well and it was pretty obvious like oh wow these are the holes that got redone because they look like

they're on a different golf course that was one of the things that stood out to me the most but overall I think it's really solid like I said the the fairways are tight there's some thinking that you have to do off the tea and you know you got to be hitting the ball I think really sharply around this place if you're going to try and make some birdies there's some very very challenging holes especially some of the part threes. Saying the quiet part out loud. Like I guess.

So sincere though. It's like, yeah, good, good quote. But I don't think he saw the course before. Like, I don't think he's played here before.

I get why they made the changes. I like some of the changes. Like, I think five's going to give some of these guys fits, which I like. But at the end of the day, like, I do think McKenzie and Ebert could do better work.

Like, if that, like, I just, like, they can be member, driven changes all they want or if that's the truth or the reality or if that's just them trying to dress them up but i think at the end of the day similar to the par three at hoylake or some of

the sand scrapes that they did at hoylake like mackenzie and ebert aren't very good at blending it into the existing golf course yeah it that's that's the very fair feedback we saw that with you know the new set the the par three 17th that were a liverpool the 17th for the open rhoda as well kind of just being kind of an alarming change of pace from the rest of the old you get to five out here it is alarming and then yeah those finishes are just it just feels very different right it feels um but it also rory's got some comments on this as well like i kind of tend to agree with what you said there as well though tc like yeah the tie-ins might not be great like the blending might not be great but the golf balls going farther than ever golf golfers are getting better than ever like dude they kind of need to challenge

these guys in some weird ways and i don't hate some of the challenges these pushed up greens uh in lot of these places present and and rory had some comments on this as well that we can play here and yeah i i think most of the changes are are very good i really like the fifth hole um i like the change to the seventh i like the change yeah some of the greens are maybe a little unnatural you know with the runoffs and sort of what they've tried to do with the minding um but it creates uh it creates a good challenge and it creates options for if you do miss the green. So, you know, whether it's a putter, a bump and run, some guys might choose lob wedge. And I think what we all know is, even going back to Shinnecock a few weeks

ago, like when you give professional golfers options and you can create a little bit of doubt in their minds in terms of like, should I play this shot or that shot, that's when that's when things start to get fun. So especially for the viewer, not so much for us. But it's, that to me is is the sign of a good championship test. Yeah, love that. That's what I thought when I saw that 15th green. Exactly. I was like, oh, this is really like hard.

Yeah, it doesn't really fit. But then you look at the history of these courses, and they all started as like 12 holes. Yeah. And then they got, they've all been changed so much over 120, especially Burkdale. Yeah. So it's like, they didn't mess with some grand masterpiece.

They've all been kind of bolted together. So I'm, I, you know, could they look a little bit more uniform? Sure. But I, I like that we're missing on the challenging side is fine with me for an open test. It was, we played 15. I was like, man, look at this. This slopes so far from like front to back. Like that's different than the rest of the court.

And you miss right. You're just dead over here. And I'm like struggling for bogey. I don't know. I think about this whole, man, actually, this could be really interesting to watch these guys navigate. If somebody's got to lead like, oh, you got to get through 15. And if that hole plays back into the wind, we saw some Fairway Woods getting hit on that hole. And it is kind of like, yeah, it's hard to argue with like the challenge that it presents.

And it just a meaty, meady, you know, I don't know if they are overreacting to speed going absolutely haywire at the end of 2017. And Brandon Gray's shooting 62 in that open. But the ending will not be a cruise fest, you know. And they did a ton of other nips and talks throughout the rest of the course as well. None are nearly as significant as those changes that we highlighted. But lastly, to close the loop on this, Mark Darbin was asked a little bit about, he's asked about Mirfield in particular, but just architecture changes and how that relates to accommodation, how that flows into the open as well. And here's what he had to say about that.

There's a growing perception that the open road of venues need to architecturally change to accommodate the fan experience. And that's not always well received. Do you understand that perception and what do you say to those who are critical of changing sometimes time-tested courses like Muirfield? Well, I think what I would say is, first and foremost, is that these are all members' clubs, and so a lot of the decision-making is driven by the members themselves. I think that where we are this week is a brilliant example of that. Changes to the golf course have been driven by the members. Given the strength of partnership that we have with our host venues,

of course we're part of some of those discussions and where there are things that we can do together that also help us operationally they often make sense to do to help with the staging of the championship but i think it would be wrong to say that all of the changes are driven by a need to accommodate spectators they're ultimately decisions for the clubs and their members they're really pushing they are pushing this member's thing very very hard i think uh it's suspiciously hard i think it's just right it's Probably about, yeah, kind of about the open. That's okay. I think it's okay.

Like these are, you know, again, that gap between professional golf or the rest of the golf you've played around the world is growing. And there's challenges you need to make to bring these guys and make them feasible to host open championships. I think that's okay. And I totally hear it on like Berkdale. The par threes go different directions now and there's more variety in the lengths and all that. I get that. I just don't think 15s are very good whole.

We'll see. Well, I think we'll see. It could be good from 200 yards versus, like, I don't, I'm not sure about that 240 or 250T way back. I kind of agree. Yeah. Downwind, maybe, you know, that could be super interesting. If you got to land like a seven iron super close and play the slopes, like it could be. It's a big spot for them to figure out how to set that one up.

But I want to give a shout to our friends at Roeback. I'm springing this one on you guys a little bit. I'll go first here. But I want you guys to shout out, shout out something you're vibing with lately. I got this one on. This is the ready hoodie. We got these in our shop as well. This is just a great, great sweatshirt.

I sometimes forget to throw this one on because I've got so many rowback hoodies and I'm a hezies. But I love the, love the ready hoodie. And this is a super, super comfortable wear around the house. Neil, what are you, what are you vibed with? Highlands hoodie. A little bit more of a performance blend does well in the, in the heat. Good for the AC. If you got to, if you're changing temps, if you got to run outside for just a second,

but you're keeping it cool in the house, Highlands hoodie. Randy. I'll give a shout to the, I believe it's the tailwind, the performance t-shirt. I wear that quite often out here. Great for the very warm dry days of Denver. Do you see? The grit short. I'm a dog.

I'm a rat. I'm gritty. I wear the grits shirt short pretty much every day. You can go to rowback.com. R-H-O-B-C-K.com. Code NLU gets you 20% off to the end of this week. The reason we shout out that, you know, so many different things every week.

They just say it's a great, the breadth and depth of their offerings at Roebuck is super impressive. And they continue to innovate and make new stuff. Roeback.com, great website to just scroll around, look at all the pretty things or shop for yourself with Code NLU, get you 20% off to the end of this week. Guys, Bryson's up to some stuff. Tell me more.

He's always doing stuff. He's doing stuff. Well, there was a nuclear golf thing. And again, I don't know what the actual source of it was. And I don't mean to... T's trackers. I don't mean to despair as the dogged reporters at nuclear golf. But they had a tweet earlier and I did, yeah,

a tweet earlier that he is switching to an unknown set of 3D printed irons with new shafts at Roll Berkdale, which again, I would love the actual reporting on that because you got to get that cleared. Are these the Hebrew hammers? I don't know. No one knows. But, uh, well, based on a. his quote from what I think it was PGA when they were like

what's the process for it was Masters yeah Masters printing is like you just print them absolutely not you know so must have this must be in the works for weeks because to get them you know compliant and approved by the USGA RNA he's been in the lab man he's been in the lab it was funny there was a clip of him in a fairway with his

with his quad out there he sets it down you know hits the shot and like as the balls in the air just immediately looks down to see what what was on the quad. I was like, ah, cross them off. Like, that's the how you play golf at Open Championships. In fact, a three-time Open Champion had some comments about Bryson this week.

I believe this comes courtesy of Sky. This is Nick Faldo, speaking on on Bryson and his strategy or maybe lack thereof at Open Championship golf courses. Most of Nick is playing alongside Scotty Sheffler.

Three miscuts in the three majors are going for an unwanted calendar slam of of miscuts. What's going to run for a rough slam, isn't it? We've got to name it. What's happened to him, the majors? Because he's still doing it live. Yeah, he's classic. It's, well, that's a whole,

whole part of the story, how they're superstars that live then come over and can't do it. So that's all another story. And then to go back to be superstars. He has, I'd say it to his face. He has zero clue of strategy. You don't, he said it last year, and I think on TV,

I'm gonna go out and attack the links. I've never attacked a link, you thread it, don't you? You feed it down the fairway, it's really important. You look at humps and bumps and bumps and what everything. If I send it over it and feed it, it nudges back into play. You don't think, well, I just bomb it down there. Can't see where I'm going, it's 20 yards wide. Oh yeah, good luck.

I mean, on all this, even if you're fantastic, it lends on a corner of a divvy and you still miss the failure. So you've got to think, how do I get it on the short grass? It is so important. And here stand out and just keep bombing away, and they think, Oh, they got, you know, get it further down. But you can be completely blocked out on a link. God, Fowdo.

First off, he won't let Jamie finish the question. And then he's like incapable of finishing his own sentences. Sir Mumbles his back, baby. It's just, it fits and starts with Fowdo. That's good stuff. Unleashed Fowlto, like unshackled Fowlough is great. It's great Fowlto. Yeah, give me all of that content.

He was so wound down. up. Like, he just couldn't even, he was so excited to get to the next comment. You get to the, I'd say it to his face. T.C., it's just been ringing in my ears since, pretty much as you said it after the round at Burkdale, but the,

the, Link's golf is just, it's about, in the U.S., it's about your carry distances. And when we're watching this kind of golf, it's just about the, like,

your run-out distances. And it's just such a really elegant way to say it. And I think that rings true. Even now, life guys do you want a bomb driver it's going to be stressful you know they still um you know they just you don't know where that ball's going to end up so and it's about how your ball's finishing which direction your ball is finishing in as well so you so it's not it's like you're trying to get it running on the ground and starting it in a certain direction once it starts running yeah i i i mean

i just what a simple yet profound uh take there from from sir nick you don't attack a lynx course you're you're out there trying to thread it like you said with with your finish distances your rollouts and and the angle that the ball's finishing on that's perfectly put i love that it's about it's not about power it's about the bottle and the mind randy that's the combination of those two things that's right again again this we're all cautioned like i hope it plays that way like we've done this at majors and been like yeah you can't you can't just bomb it anywhere out there you're going to get crushed out there at Wingfoot and Pinehurst and then, you know, then it becomes flip wedges and it becomes pretty easy.

So again, I hope the rough and the bunkers bite back enough, which again, I don't think, we have, we've not heard guys walking off the course being like, I'm just going to bomb driver everywhere and figure it out. But it'll be interesting to see how that evolves throughout the course of the week. Brandl had this one saved, man. He reached back for this one. He had a quote. He said about Bryson said, it's almost like he was.

went from chasing scotty sheffler and roy mackerel to chasing grant horvatt uh it's like he wants to outdo every YouTuber in the game of golf instead of outplay everybody in the game of golf uh just i i i golf clap for that one for braddle like he he was he was ready for that when he had that one saved up big spot open open season on bd right now i mean 0 for three on cuts is you know got yeah got to show up this week just not really a serious person just doesn't doesn't seem like a serious person. No, most definitely not. Do you guys want to draft some teams?

Are we ready to do that? Yes. Dying too. All right. Are we, hold on, am I going double or nothing here? Like, are we, is there a, oh, you're going to try to wiggle out of it. No. I would like some steak.

I'm not wiggling out of anything, but are we, there's got to be another getting ready with me type. Some stakes here. I'm not going to let you guys wiggle out of it. I saw how bad that worked out. for you and I wanted no part of that. So I was gonna say we were doing. Yeah, I don't think we're gonna do any more stakes. I think that was a lot of one.

I'm good personally. No. And then I refuse to. I get a lot out of pride. Then I'm gonna ruin your show, Sally. Well, come up. What? You got 30 seconds.

I'll set the duck race. I'll, I'll share my screen here. And you got 30 seconds to come up with some stakes that we can agree on. I mean, it would just be a, I'd, I would love to watch one of you do at getting ready with me video. I think the audience would too.

played out. It's kind of old news. It's old news, Neil. Depends on what the team is here. Depends on what draft pick I get here. I'll do it. I will do it. I think we should, yeah, we should all do it.

I'll do it. If you finish fifth, you've got to do it. The interesting part is DJ. I don't even know what these are. DJ is not here today. Cody will be drafting in his stead. He's given him power of attorney incomplete. Oh, here comes Neil five seconds to go coming all the way up the outside.

Neil will be done. drafting first overall. It's like Randy. Randy will be second, DJ third, I'm fourth, and TC is on the snake. So, I mean,

somebody could have to recreate the old Bryson video from COVID when he was cooking bacon shirtless. Oh, just kind of. After you get the first draft pick, you're not as concerned about the losing steak. Well, I think getting ready with me unless someone in the

comments has something. better. You know, we got, we got to play for something, guys. Come on. I like that.

I like that. All right. Your first up, Neil, cool. I am going to take Rory. Tons of prep work. Feels like a great spot for him.

I know he's taking some heat for, you know, not participating in some of the PGA tour festivities of late. I think he's well rested. And I'm, I'm taking Rory. I picked him to win this week. And I'm going to ride with him in my,

with my first pick. Okay. I mean, gosh, nobody ever goes broke betting on the market. So I'm going to take Scotty Sheffler, the world number one. Gosh. That's great, man. Yeah. DJ Pie, aka Cody McBride, who is your draft pick?

God, get weird. Make DJ do this. Like, if you want to, you're, you can totally mess with them here. This is, uh, completely sprung on me. No, it was not. This was updated to you 30 minutes ago, 45 minutes ago, hour ago, I, believe it. I must have missed that one.

looking out from my guy TC wait who picks after me I do and just to clarify this is money earned money earned yes I thought DJ shared with you a whole power rankings that and gave you power of attorney

he was talking about this earlier today DJ does love the amateur game I have seen nothing in fact the last thing that I sent DJ was hey are you going to dial in for this draft or not because that was the last I heard on it I'm going to go with somebody who, Sully, I know you wrote hard for him earlier this week,

but that is Matt Fitzpatrick. Okay. Puts me in a very interesting spot. 1242 local time for you, Cody. I did alert you that he was not going to be able to make the draft and you would be given power of attorney here. Yeah, he'll last minute conflict come up. What do we do here?

Hmm. Hmm. Mm. Is he a dude? I'll take Tommy. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Yeah. I can't. If he wins, I can't get it. I know. What about Rombo? I know. I wanted on the record.

I was thinking of Tommy. I cleaned it. I cleared this for T. No, no, no. I want this to happen for T. T.C. This is perfect because T.C. cannot take Rom in either of these next two picks.

And then I get him on the way back. Like he absolutely cannot take him. If he does, he just throws his entire platform out the window. So that's, you got to play chess in these things, Cody, okay? Shunrum. He can't. Yeah, I mean, Rom and Xander are the next two guys on the board. Big Bob.

Your boy. Can't pick him. God. Sally. Randy's right there. Yeah, I mean, four or five guys are all over the place for you. P. Spring him up.

Just be a forward looking in next. Give me P. Wow. Jesus. Give me P and then give me Russell Henley. Wow. I didn't model my short list, T.C. Of course he did, Neil.

There's not a pacer that goes by. He let me down at the U.S. Open. We're going for iron players and just gritty MFers. All right? We need to make a list of Neal's All-Stars. Russell Henley is one. Jerry Pate is definitely one. T.A.

3. is what sure no well some just burn me he's off the team do you see how this got played cody i'll take rom on the way back seventh overall you kidding me you kidding me i'll take it tc come on uh all right cody yeah i'll take uh i'll take zander okay all right all right that begs it back to randy okay um goodness i feel like that opens things up a little bit I want to take guys that I want to feel something. I want to root for. I want to be invested.

The person who you pick to win this event is still available. I know. And I'm there on a limb. For the second year in a row. That's interesting. I don't necessarily. Buy hi, Randy. What's little calling?

There was no stakes on that pick. do whatever you want now that i might have to make a get ready that's right that's right um we will take let's take oh goodness i don't like any of these guys honestly neal if you want to tice me here go ahead i'm not sure jesus you're trying to like any of them yeah okay i guess i got a pick um give me i'm gonna go a little out of the box. Give me Joaquin Neiman.

Wow. Okay. Draft play. I love it. It's getting weird, guys. This is like the Jacksonville Jaguars draft board. I'm going back to back here. I got a theme.

It's coming home. I'm going Team Rose and I'm going Hatton. Give me the English. Everyone's going to be vibed. I'm not sure if you saw Hatton's interview earlier today. He said he would be on the couch this weekend watching from the sofa. It's like, best of luck, we'll see out here Sunday. He's like, yeah, I'll probably be on the sofa.

So, but that's already, you're ready to talk it's too late, Neil. Well, but that's how he, I mean, you know, then he just plays good. So. Randy, we, just because we cannot afford to have a minute of dead air like we just had, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you a minute, all right, to make this next pick. All right, you got some time for your round three pick here. Watching the open this week at Royal Burkdale, one thing you hear over and over how much the wind changes. The same shot can play two clubs different, depending,

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So, how many rounds are we doing? Five reps. Oh, five. That's what we've done for all of them, isn't it? I thought we did it is. Four one time. Okay. I will take Chris Godder up.

Oh, man. I thought I could get that. Interesting team you're building here, Andy. All right. Neil, who did you go with your, you had Hatton and who else? Roos. Team Rose. So I was going to go for my guy, DJ, unfortunately.

Cam Young is still on the board. I know. But it's DJ's team. You know if it was my, it was my team. Dub. Dubs been wearing me with it. You know, I've seen like four different clothes hangers out there that he was. I don't know.

He is a dub respect. You know what? Yeah, okay. I'll go wind him. I like that. I like that for Deach. I was going to, I was going to consider him in that spot.

God, what do you do with Ludwig? What do you do with Cam Young? You got to pick Cam Young. Come on. I know, I got to accumulate the dudes here to back up, some claims I've made. A lot of respect in the odds for Big Shot Bob, huh?

And Vic. Yeah, Vic. Tons of respect for Vic. I'm not sure I'm buying that. Randy, I see why you were, why you were stressing so hard here. I am going to take, God, it will make it sweet

if Ludwig and Tommy have great weeks. I'm going to take Ludwig. I'm adopting DC's platform. I've been influenced. This is unbelievable. I don't even know if I'm plagued myself I've just tried to cock block TC. Then TC takes young Tom Kim.

Yeah, you better. Give me... Give me Bob. Okay. Give me Alex Fitzpatrick. Oh, my God. Damn it, TC. I was hoping he'd stick around for me. For an all-English team.

I mean, this thing is so wide open, guys. I know. It's great. give me more Kawa I have a good feeling about I like more Kala this week yeah yeah yeah not a lot of Hodlin is the guy jumping off the page here

is not getting getting a lot of respect here I can't I just can't trust him this is my thing I just I never I can never place faith in Vic his floor's too low I know you got to do it Cody Sam Young or you know Min Woo doesn't have the best record but is playing good right now it's feeling someone DJ was taking Min Woo I forget what the this or that was on Monday but

he was on Min Woo Island it's true and we'll go with Min Woo sorry DJ hopefully this works out but you know past past drafts prove that DJ had to have the best run of it so Okay, so it was Alex Fitz And then who? What was the next? Colin. Colin.

And then Minwu. I'm going to take my guy, Vic. This is a good spot for Vic Hovlin. I would have scooped him this late. Okay. I will take Cam Young and give me Siwu Kim. Okay.

Okay. I mean, he's been a no-show of the majors, but he just had a great season. and driving is kind of down, you know, below average and driving distance shouldn't be a huge factor. Yeah, like that. Goodness. Back to me already. Now we're getting pretty far down the board.

Brooks is still available? Experience. I'm going to take the links master. Give me Georgia. What a teach. I think Randy even finishes first or fifth. Yeah. By prediction.

We'll go with Brooks. Okay. I'm going to take Tom Kim still available I'll take him the global superstar God what a blend my team is huh

a lot of ways we could go here we could go with Foxy just because he just does he just get one low shot like three years ago and you guys were that committed to it he's a links master Ryan Girard go with Eugene Chakara

go with little Maddie Jordan hmm I got T.C if you don't take Bean Gene the Fidora 5 means nothing that's very true is a forward looking index let's see Padreck Harrington

little Brian Harmon come on TC you got two picks here make a play. He's got one. This is it. This is fun around. This is it. This is the last pick.

Yeah. Give me Cam Smith. Okay. What's see what? T.C.'s morning routine looks like. No. You know what? I went totally non-consensus.

I've got my own board, my proprietary models. This is a forward-looking index. This is a subjective links master. Completely different than the Vodora 5. Yeah. I will say that R&A did post a video. I don't know if they did Jordan any favors of him, like play a hole or two with me.

It was all over the place. He's just all over the place? All over the place. It did not go very well. Speed Legion, which I think might be my new favorite Twitter account, is just already freaking out. It said if practice was a sign of what's to come,

we'd be in big trouble, tons of iPad, tons of instructor. There's a pre- meltdown to start the week. speak at uh is spief legion nuclear have they gone nuclear is this the non-nuclear that is non-nuclear it looks like yeah it's a great question it's a really you never you know i'm i'm filing this under you never want to have a great bullpen session you never want to have a great one up yeah you know we're getting it out of the way now yeah they it bums me out that the detective didn't get picked

that little Maddie Jordan didn't get picked. Who's the detective? Jackson's Subaru. And why is that? I think he's a lynx master. You had five opportunities. I did.

I did. You're asking why is he called the detective? Because he's always asking questions. He's just very inquisitive. Yeah. Okay. Like as a human? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. That's good to know. T.C. was also in denial that everyone didn't know him by this name. Randy, that was a classic. If you have the question of someone else in the class has it too. I still have a lot of questions. I'll ask it for everybody. Everybody listening.

That's all right. Should we have to draft an amateur as well? How many amateurs are in the field? We should not have to draft an amateur as well because the teams are already drafted and we've moved on from the draft. You had the courage to draft one. And it's money-based. Yeah. Yeah, Randy managed to draft the amateur not finish last at the U.S.

Open. I can't believe how good I felt on Friday night of the U.S. Open. And I can't believe I can't believe we lost to Randy. It's unbelievable. Bottled that one. R&A has mentioned they may move T-Times up if England makes the World Cup final. I think it looks like they'd only move up about 15 minutes or so. But that could be a tough scene at the end of the end.

this championship if a lot of the local fans have a world cup final justified they have a world cup final to get to and and watch on time just put it up on the that's what i was going to say tc they should just put it up on the on the 18th and let people hang uh i mean i know that could get a little bit rowdy but that would be really what a scene that would be if tommy wins could be just an epic epic sporting day for for the people on site could be some tickets clearing up for tc though if if he has to make his way over there at the last minute.

Anything else you guys are burning on? There's some more, you know, Darbin had some comments on future open venues. I want to say that for once we had gotten through everything from this week. Neil, we didn't hear from you on Monday. Anything else you want to get off your chest in terms of excitement or what you're looking for to most this week?

No, I'll be on, as I said earlier, I'll be on Poof Watch, but love the way that things look out there. as far as firmness, which we've talked about, I'm thrilled that we got to play it and give me a sense of what these guys will be in for. Like I thought Michael Kim's stuff on like number one, just like, yeah,

man, I could hit driver over these bunkers or I could try to, you know, if it was Tiger and I was really confident in my iron game, I'd just be hitting two irons everywhere. But I could see guys getting really impatient, you know, almost like,

well, God, if I'm going to hit in these bunkers anyway, I might as well just try to blow it over them. So, um, Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing Scotty say it too, like thinking off the tea, like watching these guys go through it with their caddies and really try to pick their spots is exciting. So nothing that you guys probably haven't said already.

That's been great just to watch, you know, a lot of action from the course. Like I've mentioned, this, golf channels just had a lot of cameras out there on the course, Smiley out there showing off a bunch of different features from around the greens talking with people. I just always, it feels like I feel a really good presence. through the TV of having our sense of place. I guess they're just sitting and watching on TV as well of being there and how it's going to play. And I can't wait to get up and watch it and turn it on and see some, you know, unknown DP World Tour player at four under par probably by the time I get up.

And they'll be following that round really closely on the world feed. And we're watching a lot, a lot, a lot of golf this week. Randy, what's your viewing strategy this week? I might, I might stay up tonight. Watch the opening. you know, 11.30 p.m. local time out here for me. I'm going to put in maybe a little time and then take my slumber. And then I'll get up at my usual time, you know, 7.7.30 out here.

We'll see what's going on. I went to have been the first inning of the All Star game last night. I've reached a new old man low of bedtimes here. Mark Darbin was asked about a lot of things in his press conference. as well. One of them was just about, obviously, a topic of conversation has been around Port Marnik and the possibility that they could host an open championship in the near future. Here was his answer to that question and speaking about a few other future venues. Yeah, I think we're getting pretty close. So it's a complicated venue because of the scale of the open championship.

And so there's been a lot of great feasibility work with the golf club themselves, with the local authority, with government. We've undertaken a big feasibility study. That work is pretty much done. We've confirmed that we believe we can take an open championship there. What we're looking to do is to build a model that opens up opportunities for the AIG Women's Open and the Open for many, many years to come. And so that's the dialogue we're in right now with the Irish government. we're optimistic that those discussions are heading in the right direction. I'm going to pull that just because audio levels on these clips are extremely low

and for an audio medium, it's a tough listen. But, Salli, if you wanted to recap for people who missed it, it seems like they're working through the process and things are going well, or at least according to plan for the RNA. Last line was just in spirit of transparency. It's taken a bit longer than I think, and I thought it may, but it's complicated doing all that feasibility work, but we're hoping to have a pretty clear view by the end of the year for sure.

So just interesting. I think we would have, yeah, as mentioned, we would have expected some kind of announcement by now, based on all the studies and everything that they've done. And it's impossible to get a look into what the feasibility work actually looks like. Is this where they have to build like another road or there's problems with egress an ingress to the course?

Yeah, it's at a very difficult location to get in and out of and like just kind of set up on this like Peninsula estuary kind of thing that just looks like you can just look at it on a map and see the challenges that it would present there. But just monitoring the situation of the Open Championship potentially leaving UK for the first time here in the near future and looks like to be a hub, you know, potentially for AIG Women's Opens and other events into the future as well. I'll look forward to apologies from all of the angry,

both Irish people and, you know, Brits that reached out and said, no, it'll never happen, T.C. When we talked about this, what, three or four years ago, right? Cs got receipts. As always, though, with T.C., it's like, yeah, a bunch of people reached out and it was like one person. So, you know, it might have just been one person. DMed him like four years ago.

And DC might have been like, yeah, they could have one in Montreal too and maybe down in Australia. And spread. Got a lot of shit. No, there's not a proper venue. I hit Red 7. I hit pay me. No, that was pretty well sourced stuff as well as I think, I think they could have one at sandwich. They've already had one at sandwich.

That's princes. And I think that that could be back on the table. And Macrahanish, put it on the list, guys. Okay? I love that. Although they should have They should have a women's urban I know, but I'm putting it out in the world now too,

Sully. Put your name on something. Maybe your worst take. Yeah. It's not a bad take. Store that away for a pod you're going to hear at the end of September that we just recorded. But yes.

We are going to try to have this wrap by 3 p.m. specifically for all of our English friends that will tell you that it's coming home here is they're beginning to kick off their World Cup game here. to Argentina was the reason why we moved up our episode here today. But as mentioned, we'll be up early, watching the golf. You can find us here live on the Nolangup podcast YouTube channel or on X the Everything

app live as soon as or shortly after play wraps on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We'll be rotating in and out and got a lot of fun, fun content coming this week. So make sure you're subscribe wherever you can get your podcast and we're looking forward to bring you another great major championship week. Anything else before you wrap, guys? let's get to it up is sandwich I don't know

princes is the one that I was saying is sandwich sandwich is rural St. George's right? I think so I think they're both in sandwich though yeah but I think the same

yeah who could say well then one's called deal I don't know it's deal is deals real sync ports

sick ports yeah yeah just one one name guys love your golf culture just one name for the course kind of all we need. I appreciate it. So thank you guys very much for tune in. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Cheers. Hey y'all. It's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder

what if? Like what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca.cair, every style, every home.