No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 866 - Royal Troon Open Championships Deep Dive

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

As Royal Troon prepares to host the 2024 Open Championship, Soly and KVV bring another deep dive pod as we examine the last three Opens hosted at Troon: Henrik Stenson's epic duel with Phil Mickelson in 2016, Todd Hamilton's unlikely triumph in 2004 and Justin Leonard's win in 1997. If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining The Nest: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at nolayingup.com/join Support our partners: Rhoback fanduel.com/nlu  Mizuho Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? Better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the no laying a podcast. Sally here got a fun deep dive for you. I always enjoy doing these with KVV.

Of course, we've did this at Pinehurst. We looked at the last three U.S. Opens that were at Pinehurst. We have also looked at the last three open championships that have been at Royal Trune in advance of next week's open championship. 2016, I hog this one. I stole this one completely out from underneath KBV. Hendrick Stenson versus Phil. We're going to cover that one first. He got Todd Hamilton in 2004. I'll let KBV draft first on the next one. We also covered the 97 open championship as a part of our 97 majors pod. I think I

explained this when we get into this but we have included that audio and video also included within this episode as well. You may have already heard that part but if you haven't or if you haven't you don't remember what it was like you can listen to that that's on the back half of this one. Want to give a shout out to our friends at Roeback. Listen there is there's a reason we talk about this stuff so much. There's truly not a day that goes by where I'm not wearing some sort of Roeback clothing. There's truly not a day that goes by where I'm not wearing some sort of rowback clothing. Not only are they a tremendous supporter of our

content, they have it all the workout shirt I'm in right now. It's called the blitz tech long sleeve tee. They are perfect for summer. I've got three that I keep in rotation. I wouldn't hate having even more if somebody from rowback is listening. It makes me want to work out it makes me want to go be active. Their shorts are the same exact way. They're super comfortable and I just end up wearing them around the house while I'm working in the summer. All summer long. It makes me want to go be active. Their shorts are the same exact way. They're super comfortable and I just end up wearing them around the house while I'm working in the summer

all summer long. It's been fantastic. Bathing suit got a lot of use on July 4. They have just they have everything. There's a brief window last night, a little bit of rain came in, I got a chance to bust out the joggers haven't worn long pants in quite some time. It's damn hot here in Florida. But it was thrilled to do that. We got some content coming out related to Royal Troon. We did a shot of video there back in March. I was very thankful that he supported that content.

I wore five layers of Roeback in that one, the polo, the crew neck, the Q-zip, the hoodie, and the vest. So check that out on our YouTube channel as well. We appreciate all their support. Oh, I had the joggers on that one too. See, I can't go anywhere without wearing a little piece of Roeback.

If you haven't already, load up on some Roeback for yourself or for others, code NLU at roeback.com for generous 20% off your first order through the end of this week, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, 20% off bottoms, Q-zips, hoodies, and more with code NLU. Summer isn't the same without Roeback. Without any further delay, here is our podcast. All right, Kev, we're back for another deep dive.

If you have not tuned into some of these before, we usually tackle a single year and look at every single major of that year. We're trying to do something different with these tuned into some of these before, we usually tackle a single year and look at every single major of that year. We're trying to do something different with these last couple majors of the year, looking back at, we just did Pinehurst, the last three Pinehurst US Opens, and now we're gonna look back at the past three

Royal Troon Open Championships. We have already covered 1997, the Justin Leonard year, in our deep dive into 1997. We are gonna put the audio for that at the very end of this one But if you've already heard it before you don't need to tune in for that one But I'm gonna be tackling 2016 KVV is gonna be tackling 2004. I I peed all over 2016 I laid claim to that was like I let please let me do this But we let me do this what did you went along with it?

Yeah, cuz I wanted to talk about Todd Hamilton and hybrids all over the place. Look, I think it's like when you went out band the us doing 97 and just reheating it's like when a band like puts out their greatest hits album and then throws a few more tracks on it. Like you just you got to buy it anyway. Sorry. Yeah. Listen, it's again, if you've you can you can skip past it if you want, but we'll play it. Then it's all at least in one spot. If you haven't heard it, then people can listen to that there. But that was just a few months ago we did that one. But what were you doing in 2016? What do you remember about life in 2016?

It was only eight years ago. It was a very, another weird one to cover. Twitter was very much around for this one. This is within our era of covering golf. It's weird to kind of do some of these deep dives that we covered the first time around. 2016 was my first kind of year on the golf beat for ESPN, I guess sort of second year, the first year 2015, I had been chasing Rory around. I did go to my first Masters in 2016,

also went to the US Open and the PGA, but skipped the Open Championship that year because I had a family reunion in Montana. My family was kind of like, oh, you know, I mean, I guess you could go, but if you don't have to, like it'd be really nice if you'd come. And I was mostly a football writer back then, but I was like, all right, I guess, mom,

I guess I'll come to the, I'll skip Trune. Trune doesn't seem like that cool of a venue. And then my guy, Mickelson, took it way deep. On the first day, I believe, I'm sure you'll touch on that, but I felt like, Oh my God, I've missed out on everything. Cool. It ended up being an excellent one. I believe I said some of the likes of 2016 was truens way of making up for Todd Hamilton

in 2004. So hopefully, hopefully, listen, I'm sure yours is going to be plenty entertaining, but 2016 was it was zany in a couple ways, but more it was about this just incredible, incredible duel. I went and looked back at pulled up my old July, 2016 photos. I was living in Amsterdam at the time. This is a bunch of us celebrating July 4th, uh, in Vondo park just to a couple of weeks before, uh, the open championship kicked off. Next week was we were, uh, jumping off some into, into some coves in Menorca, Spain. Life changed a lot for me. Uh me in the last eight years.

It was very weird. It's like looking back at old photos from college today of what my life used to be like when I lived abroad. I went to Nuremberg the week after Open Championship. I was in Greece and Ireland the weeks before those. It was a very, very different time in my life. But I was somehow finding time to watch golf late at night. This was actually not that late at night

because it was actually played in close to the same time zone I was in. But we're going to roll true in July 14 through the 17th. The course is going to play 7190 yards is a purchase eight and a half million dollars, the winner is going to get $1.55 million dollars a lot has changed in golf since that time, I believe runner up at the US Open got considerably more than that this past year. But there is a Fab Four in golf in as of the Open Championship in 2016.

Can you name the Fab Four? Fab Four, okay. I think I do know this. Think it's Rory, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Ricky Fowler. Close, it's Rory, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, and Ricky Fowler. Close. It's Dustin Johnson, because he just won the US Open at Oakmont. Yeah.

When was Rick involved? Remember when Rick won over in Dubai, and then that's when he was briefly part of the Big Four? I guess I failed here in remembering that DJ had won the US Open leading up to this. But I swear Ricky was briefly part of the big four. It was a fab five. Now we're in a fab four. I'm bringing this up because it was very silly when it was happening. I believe we probably spent podcast airspace making fun of it when it was

happening. If I'm asking these trivia questions, we've done a couple of these and I'm like, hey, who was in this, whatever name they had for the top three or four or five players in the world and almost never do you get exactly right Rory Ricky one Abu Dhabi you are right January 20, 2016. So that but he was out by this point he was out of the of consideration on this because he missed the cut the Masters missed cut the US open. So he's out of the top four. But you're out kid. DJ's in. Do you remember why this four comes into play? Rory came off your tongue really quickly. Do you

remember the little controversy that came up right before this one kicked off? Do you remember this? I do. Our friend, sweet baby James Corrigan, didn't he write that if there's a fab four, that Rory is the Ringo of the fab Rory is McElroy is a danger of becoming Ringo in this fab for scenario. So was it Corrigan? It was Corrigan. You're exactly right. So Jason day, DJ Spieth and Rory in that order are the top four players in the world. Bubba Watson's fifth, Henrik Stenson is sixth, Ricky Adam Scott, Danny Willett and Brandon Brandon Grace round off the top 10. Phil Mickelson comes in as the 19th ranked player

in the world. Before this open, the Americans had won every open at Trune going back to 1950. And there is a huge, huge shout out to the RNA for their all these official films they do on these championships. One, it makes these deep dives a lot more enjoyable, a lot more fun to go back into. But it's just really great content.

And we know we've shout out a lot of those in the past, but it's it's just gives the event this gravitas that it deserves and just these people speaking directly to camera about what the tournament means and the drama of it and just letting this tournament live beyond. So that's a criticism I think we have of our critique, if you will, of major championships is this incredible week happens and then it's on to the next. So that's a criticism I think we have of our critique, if you will, of major championships is this incredible week happens and then it's on to the next and it just kind of can float away if you don't properly document it and this is available to always go back on. So I don't remember this ever becoming a thing.

They maybe kind of forced this one in there. Obviously there was the duel in the sun at Turnberry in 77, which is this is what this event, this duel is often compared to. They call this the duel of the sons Stenson Stenson and Mickelson. Wow. I think it was fun game kind of tug and cheek. I don't think they've been at too seriously, but I just, I'd never heard that. I was like, Oh, that's actually kind of funny. That definitely sounds like something that some golf riders would sit around in the media tent, like thinking about and like being like, oh, that's way too corny. Like, you know, but go with it.

Go with it. Episode 46 of the No Laying Up podcast was recorded in advance of the event with Jamie Kennedy of the European Tour. I could not bring myself to go back and listen to it. I couldn't do it. Probably should have it in preparation, but I'm sure I'm want to claw my ears off. I don't know if that's a phrase, but if I had to go back and listen to that, that's what I would do. More on that later. I did go back and listen to an old podcast for the sake of this.

The week prior to this event, the Greenbrier was canceled due to floods. If you remember, that was a massive, massive rainstorm hit down there and they had to cancel the event. Of course, in 2016, Danny Willett won the Masters, Dustin Johnson won the US Open. DJ also won the Bridgestone just two weeks prior to this week. And the PGA Championship was only two weeks away from this event.

There was one week in between and then we went straight to the PGA. I remember that was in large part because of another thing that would play a large storyline in the lead up to this tournament. Other things in 2016, Adam Scott had won back to back events at the Honda and the Cadillac. Jason Day went back to back at the Arnold Palmer and the match play. Day also won the players. Spieth won the tournament of

championship, tournament of champions and the Dean and DeLuca. The only year the Dean and DeLuca managed to follow through with their sponsorship of the PGA tour. Of course, Big Tone won in Puerto Rico. I don't need to remind you of that. Yeah, of course. And the big thing, man, is people are bailing left and right on the Olympics.

It is like the story. Zika, baby. Zika is the main excuse for a lot of people. We'll get into some of that. Pre-term on Jason Day is plus 700, DJ plus 800, Spieth and Rory are plus a thousand. Adam Scott and Sergio are plus 2000. Brandon Grace and Hendrick Stenson are plus 2500

and Phil is plus 3000 heading into the week. Plus 3000, wow. So Rory comes in on this press conference and one, I think as I was watching this and listening to this, I think we do need to do an episode and maybe if we can get Rory to sit down with us and just sit there and react to all of this, but all of the times that Rory has changed his mind

on things, we can go back to the Ryder Cup. We could go back to, I mean, one example that he gives really, really, really strongly ahead of the open. Do you remember this press conference? Do you remember like what, what unfolded before this? I remember our friend, Brendan Porath, like writing like a very funny piece for SB Nation about it, just about how combative he was. I certainly remember we had a WhatsApp chat going at this time and just like, like I think we were all loving how Rory was just like giving no fucks, like kind of dropping nukes right and left on the Olympics in general because we were kind of down on

the Olympics at the time because in part the format was like kind of stupid, like nobody understood it. It didn't really be, it wasn't any different than what we were used to normally. And so in general, I think we were kind of like, go Rory. And there was all kinds of, you know, delays in the golf course, all kinds of drama around the golf course, just felt forced in there.

And every golf fan wanted to see a different format than what they actually ended up with in the Olympics. But then the Zika thing happened and everyone's using that as an excuse. But Rory would say he'd already made his decision not to play, he said, I don't feel like I've left the game down at all. I didn't get into golf to try and grow the game. I got into golf to win major championships. I get that I have a responsibility to the game,

but at the same time, I got into golf to win. I didn't get into golf to get other people into the game. He would also say, I'm very happy with the decision I made. I have no regrets. I'll probably watch the Olympics, but I'm not sure golf will be one of the events I'll watch. He was then asked, what events are you going to watch not sure golf will be one of the events I'll watch. It was an ask, what events are you going to watch? He said, Oh, probably, probably the events like track and field, swimming, diving, the stuff that matters. Just like, I remember at this point being like, all right, dude, like you don't have

to be this big of a dick about it. He's already dead. Don't keep beating him. You don't have to do this. And then of course he went and played the Olympics in Japan. And I said something along the lines of I've never been wrong about anything more in my entire career as to it was a playoff for a bronze medal and, and ultimately ended up losing out to CT pan. But in his defense, as if you've ever heard this podcast come

to his defense before he was put in a very difficult position as anyone who star understands vaguely about the politics of Northern Ireland. Rory grew up very much feeling English, not Irish. He did play under the flag of Ireland in like junior tournaments. But when it came to the Olympics, it was a lot of pressure for him to sort of choose a side and essentially like, should you represent this part of you, this part of you, He's a Catholic who grew up in the Protestant part of Ireland. A lot of very complicated politics that made it very hard for him to say,

I'm one way or another, because he knew he was going to piss off a lot of people. So he just basically was like, I'm removing myself from this conversation. And he would later go on to represent Ireland when he did play in the Tokyo Olympics. Under the kind of agreement that, hey, I've played for Ireland in the past as a junior

golfer because that's what junior golfers compete in Northern Ireland, but not fully embracing like, hey, I'm Irish. Even recently when Rory won the Zurich, someone tried to put an Irish flag up on the stage and he was like, nope, nope, nope. Don't throw the tricolors at Rory because that is not what he is about. It's just not about either side, right? He's not, you know, draping himself in the union Jack either. So this was a big thing back then.

We were just a few months away from doing our first ever podcast with Rory and I remember he delivered this line. So this must've been a huge, huge thing on his radar at this point. But he said, I've got four major championships and I'd love to add to that tally, just as those guys would love to add to their one or two majors they have and just keep going. Just reminding people like, Hey, I mean, he delivered a line

the first time he's like, yeah, you know, Jason day, all these guys, you know, they've got, they got one, they got three more to get to me. I've got three more to get to Arnold Palmer and a Brooks kept getting zero at this point point. Now Brooks has passed him. So that was a pretty sick burn back then. It feels less awesome now, but I used that thing in the big, very sort of recounting of the last 36 majors that he had played in, in the buildup to the U S open of like, I was like, Ooh, I, yeah, I remember that quote. He also is on, is big on the drug testing at this point. He said, I've got,

he said, I could use HGH and get away with it. I think blood testing is something that needs to happen in golf just to make sure we're a clean sport going forward. If golf's in the Olympics and golf wants to be seen as a mainstream sport as such, it has to get in line with other sports that test more rigorously.

I don't remember why that was. I guess they did change over the kind of testing procedures ahead of that. But maybe they weren't testing enough at tour events or whatever it was. But anyways, promise we're gonna get to the event eventually. This is the first tournament under a new television deal in both the United States and the UK.

Sky Sports replaced the BBC who held the rights since. Can you venture a guess as to how long BBC had the rights to the open? 1965. 1965. 1955. So this was in the US rights shifted from ESPN to NBC and Golf Channel. This is the first time Golf Channel had coverage

of a men's major. First major on NBC since 2014. ESPN and BBC both opted out of the final year of their deals to start on Sky and NBC a year early. This was the ninth Open Championship that was played at Truna. Young Bryson DeChambeau forfeited his exemption by turning professional after the Masters that year as did John Rahm but Rahm would earn a spot through the Open qualifying series. I wonder how it worked out for those guys I never

heard of them again I think. Lot of lift going through the 2016 Open Championship. Let me tell you now. You can fill this one in for me. I'm guessing you can get this one. A gentleman said if you look at the first tee and go directly 180 degrees it's the fifth house on the right. I used to run up the stairs have a look and see if the first tee was empty and run down onto the tee. He struck the opening tee shot on that Thursday morning. Who am I speaking of? One Colin Montgomery, I believe. Is that correct? He makes a claim that he's played the course 500 times and never taken a double bogey on the opening hole, but he would make a double bogey to start off his day, unfortunately. We're gonna hear a little bit more about Monte. Let's go. Phil is absolutely vibing his face off on this Thursday. He's making everything he looks

at. He's on an insane run. He birdies the 17th hole, which is a long par three. And all of a sudden he has a chance to, he has a chance to shoot a 62. He needs birdie on the final hole, shoot 62. He hits up. I mean, I remember this being a massive thing. This was, this was Pete golf Twitter. Like this is like, you know, the last one we did, he's 2014. It was kind of just getting going then, but this is people were, people were in on this.

This was a big thing. Everyone was watching this. He has a putt from, I don't know, 16 feet, I believe it says, and it's in, like it's in the whole way. He does the putter lean, it's in, it's in the whole way he does the putter lean it's in and it lips out on the right side and I still don't understand how it left out. I still I do not understand it. He's flabbergasted he's walking back to scoring like barking at somebody else a commentator something like did you see it at the end? I mean I knew it was going to go back right

but it was in the center like he had to throw in that like me I knew it was going to go back right, but it was in the center. Like he had to throw in that, like, I mean, I knew it was going right. I knew that, but it was in the center. He would not stop talking about how close it was to going in and how big of a moment this was for him. He's asked in the press conference afterward if he believes in golf gods. And Phil says, I didn't, but I do now. So he opens with this.

Maybe they were trying to punish him or for future sins? What? I know, I had to go to live guy. I mean, I had to after the golf gods started hating me. Golf gods kind of fucked me. I mean, I just, I had to get a monkey paw and turn to combat their magic.

He shoots 63s, eight under. He's got a three shot lead over Kymer and Reed. Tie for fourth with 67s, Keegan, big tone, Billy Horschel, ZJ who was of course the defending champion, Soren Keltzen, Steve Stricker, Andy Sullivan, and Justin Thomas. And of course, Henrik Stenson. So a year, we know where this is all headed

and I wanna tell a quick story about a year later, that summer, I was fortunate to play the Scottish Open Pro-Am there on the west coast of Scotland at Dunn-Donald, very close by to the scene where this place takes place. And I got paired with one Henrik Stenson a year after winning the open. It was a crazy, awesome experience.

And we're, you know, we're walking around. Podcasters, everything back then, you know, trying to grow the game, letting these little up and coming whippersnappers play with open champions in Scottish Open. That was my first ever pro app. You know, we're there's all these great golf courses along the train tracks there on this part of Scotland. And, you know,

we're talking about some of the other courses that are nearby. We're decent, not that far into the round, but I don't know Henrik that well yet. But we get to near one of the greens and then we're talking about some surrounding courses. And he just goes, is is true near here? And I bit so fucking hard. I've Yeah, dude, it's like right. It's like right over this right over and I turned and looked at him and he just had this like, shit eating the Henry Stenson grin on his face. And I was like, No, damn it. That was good. That was I should not have followed for that. But he got me really good.

I'll never forget that story. But there's rain on Friday, but Henrik Stenson shoots a 65 in his one back, eventually at the lead at minus nine. But the big story of the day, could you remember what happened with Phil Mickelson on this Friday that caught the attention of golf Twitter and would not stop for three straight days? Was it this stupid horse thing? No, it's even better. Phil mixes with the Clender clip on his hat and tries to explain it away. Like it's a very normal thing. I was like, Oh yeah. I mean, the hat's just a little too big. So I just put a bite, put a binder clip on the hat. Uh, I should have used that. He can, he keeps it on there for the rest of the entire week.

I still don't really fully understand it. He hits a, you know, the, the greens kind of get that little moisture on top of them. And there's all these shots with what Phil brings the phrase delayed juice into our lives, which he hits the shot on the postage stamp all the part of three eighth. And I mean, he spends it back to literally less than five inches. Like it looks like it's gonna go in the hole for an ace.

He makes birdie there. He shoots a 69 on this day and it's wet. Like it's Brawley's out, he gets in the house though. But those two had the good side of the draw and Friday afternoon gets really, really testy. The wind and rain arrive hard. Rory's on this side of the draw, Speets on this side, Day is on this side. Stricker, who's on the board after day one,

was on this side. Ricky, Bubba, Billy Horschel opened with 67, shot 85 to miss the cut. Bubba got so much water on the club face, like he's just having a horrible time. He's pointing all over the place on this Friday afternoon. And you know, listen, what these two guys did is historic and amazing. And

we're going to get into all that. But it is if you ever wonder how you can end up that far ahead of the entire board, it comes with you both being on the right side of this draw. And this was a more extreme one. It doesn't explain Hendrick being 14 shots clear third place, but it does explain just a little bit as to a huge part of their competition got wiped out Being on the wrong side of the Friday afternoon draw again heading into the weekend. Phil is up by one Stenson's 40 years old. He has not had a major

He says there's no guarantee that will ever be another opportunity like this for me again He starts out and he immediately birdies the first hole He almost birdies five holes in a row to start on Saturday. I mean, listen, the Sunday duel is incredible. Saturday is also awesome. Like it is incredible once we relive the two of them are paired together. They played 36 straight holes together on the weekend

and just had one of the great slugfests of all time. You know, a little bit of weather on this day as well. Phil is wearing a blue hat and a black sweater. It doesn't look good. It's not good. I don't know why he's stuck with this and kind of rode with this throughout the rest of the weekend. Well, black is more aggressive colors. It is, but why the blue hat? Just put the black hat on. The blue hat doesn't even fit. We got to wear it in a binder clip on this hat. If you want to infringe on Gary Player's whole fit, you know,, the black night he had to do his own, the blue, the bluish night, uh, Stenson bogies,

the sixth hole and they get back tied again. The wind picks up, there's rain on the camera lens. They're on the postage stamp. The wind is right back in their face. And Henrik comes up way short. He comes up barely short and into the bunker, but was able to manage a bogey, but it was interesting to see the eighth hole bite back a little bit. Phil Birdies makes a birdie on the 13th. He's now two shots up with 23 holes to play, but Stenson stuffs it on 14, makes birdie,

first birdie since the fourth hole for Stenson on that day. I mean, he absolutely stuffed it on this one. I mean, it's a near tap in. Phil has a short par saver shortly after this and he misses. He pulls it and misses in their backside. A huge two shot swing when Stenson was outside of where Phil was putting from on this one, he makes Phil misses.

And again, like I just don't wanna lose track of this fact that Phil is playing this round of golf with a binder clip on his hat. Like there's another image of it here. If you're listening in your car, please check out the YouTube version of this fact that Phil is playing this round of golf with a binder clip on his hat. Like there's another image of it here. If you're listening in your car, please check out the YouTube version of this. If we have a bunch of images that'll be up on the screen. Uh, and he, it, uh, again, like he's playing unbelievable golf with a binder clip on his hat to make it fit.

Think about for a second, where did he get the binder clip? It's not like a binder clip is like an abundance that a golf, uh, you know, in a golf club shop, right? At a clubhouse. So either he brought along the binder clip knowing that the hat didn't quite fit or he had bones run out and get a binder clip or he, you know, sent Steve Loy into town to get a binder clip. Like the, the possibilities are so stupid and yet fascinating. Or he planned it coming in. I mean, you never, I, I really,

I really think that there has to be some kind of play with Phil with this. It has to be. It bothered me. The only things I could find were him just like relative explaining it away like it wasn't a big deal. It's like, dude, you're wearing a fucking binder clip. Phil misses the green on the par 317 makes bogey.

Henrik steps up. He's got three iron. The wind is whipping. I meant to grab the audio for this and I didn't get around to it. But if you go find the 24 minute mark of the the the open the official film from the RNA and the open championship on this and just listen to this strike. It is like one of the purest strikes with a with a three iron you'll ever hear just

absolutely flush. He hits it in there tight another two shot swing. Hendrick Stenson leads by one. They both make par on 18. Hendrick shoots 68 Phil shoots 70. Henrik's taking a one shot lead at minus 12 into the final round, Phil's at 11. Bill Haas is at minus six, Beef is at minus five.

I don't remember this nearly as much. Beef is a media darling in all of this. And he does an interview in the official film as well. Nobody could possibly come off more likable than beef does in this whole thing of just like his pleasantry of just acknowledging every single person. You know, maybe Bryson watched this before he did his, you know, kind of whatever the opposite of a heel turn is of just how to treat the gallery, how to like gets, you know, celebrate and laugh it up. They all, they're all cheering him on. He's going nuts. He's just saying like, he's taking the walk up 18. I'll never ever forget this the rest

of my entire life. Uh, and, uh, it's a, it's a good feel. Good. I think they're kind of trying to, trying to find a story other than these two guys going head to head a little bit, but, uh, beef delivered a lot of that. But he's got his 15 minutes there. It was really never the same again for me. It was, I mean, he's asking the presser what he had for dinner the night before he said it was a pizza. And the guy's like, how big? He's like, I don't know, like a 10 inch or it wasn't a 20 inch or like you win a t-shirt if you, if you, if you, if you finish it kind of thing. And somebody, somebody asked him in the presser how much he weighs and he goes, I have no idea. You want to pick me up.

Good for me. God is crushing his moment in the sun. He's like, and he's given all this reaction of like, and then one fella, he asked me this and I just give it right back to him. It's, it's very pleasant. Again, this film is, is worth watching ahead of, uh, if you want to get hype for real true Rory throws a three wood on this Saturday and breaks it. Uh, that went over really well. I do remember, uh, I think Kyle Porter making a joke about like, maybe he can use Phil's binder clip to put his three wood back together. I think, I think that was me. We'll get to that. There's 20, sorry. We got some tweets. We're going to get through the year at the end. Stenson is asking the presser afterwards, you know,

he said, Phil beat you into second place in the open three years ago. And he interrupts to say, thanks for reminding me. And the journalist says, please tell me there's revenge on your mind. And Stenson replies, there's always revenge. There's always a revenge. What a Bond villain moment. Kind of ominously, honestly, there's always revenge. So here is the big fat yellow leaderboard heading into that final day. Sunday's opens up Thomas Peters snapped a club in half and threw it straight into the gorse. That's an image I don't think I'll ever forget. Stenson said, he said, before I left my house on Sunday morning, I had a brief moment where I looked myself in the mirror

and I just told myself, this is your time. You can do this. This is the way it's meant to be, make this happen. And Kevin, I'm here to report that he did, in fact, make this happen. He did it happen, yeah. I'm not remembering, I'm not misremembering this, since I just absolutely stepped on throats the following day. What unfolded is truly maybe the greatest final round in major championship golf history.

I mean, Phil Mickelson is a five time major champion at this point. He's an open champion. He's the second best player of the generation. Second, you know, only to the greatest player of all time. I don't care if he's wearing a fucking binder clip. He's Phil Mickelson, like he, and he comes out on this day and absolutely stuffs it

into the first hole. This is the distance that he had about a foot into the first and he makes birdie. Henrik makes bogey and Phil now leads by one. We get to the next hole, Phil lips out a chip shot over a bunker on the second hole and makes par but Henrik Stenson steps up, rolls one in from 15 feet. We're tied at minus 12 through two holes. Get to the third hole, Phil hits it to seven feet, Henrik hits it to about 20 feet and you can see here, like, I mean, a couple of these images here to show

of where Stenson is putting from on these greens. And a few, I don't need to narrate a lot of these to say, like, this goes directly into the center. You can see Phil's mark there on the left side of that, seven feet away. Phil misses. So a little Mongolian reversal there. Henrik's up by one.

He's made back- back to back birdies. Phil steps up and absolutely stuffs a long iron into the par five fourth and rolls in the eagle. Phil is three under through four and has only managed to tie Stenson at 14 under as Stenson also makes birdie on the par five. The next closest to them at this point already is seven under par.

So they are seven shots clear of third place with 14 holes to go. It is a truly a two man race. JB Holmes and Beef are at minus seven. They also both birdie the par five sixth hole. They're tied at 15 when they get to the postage stamp. Phil hits a great one into about 12 feet. Hendrix about 15 to 18 feet away, but he pours it in again.

Phil misses. He leads at 16 and it is Stenson's fifth birdie in seven holes. Phil is four under through eight and has gained absolutely nothing on Henrik Stenson to this point. Wow. They get to 10. It's a hard par four. It's not an easy golf hole.

Phil hits it in there to 10 feet. Stenson matches. Stenson putts first. Drano. Phil is first. Drano. Phil is next. Drano. Still just one back. They go to the 11th, which is the Gorse the Horsehole.

Shane Bacon, I don't remember why, but he just named the horse that was right at the 11th hole Gorse the Horse. It made that a huge Twitter thing. It still remained. I saw Gorse when we were up there at Trude back in March. Gorse may still be alive I believe Shane was tweeting about him just a few days ago They get to this 11th the railway hole

Stenson lips out a pars. He makes bogey Phil makes par they're tied at 16 Seven holes to play and Phil has a you know struggle on the 12th hole He has to pitch from the long stuff over a bunker like you can just see where Phil's lie is here. This is quite unpleasant. Hits it there to about 25 feet up the hill, maybe 30 feet, but drains it, saves the bar, but we are still tied at 1600. They are 10 clear of the field as they get to the 14th hole.

They're just throwing lightning bolts at each other. That's what I remember. Like two Greek gods just clashing and it's even better than I remember, dude. It's even better. Stents. This is Phil's uphill putt that he pours in the center, of course, gives the gives the fist pump there. You know, they're playing the 14th Stenson hits it to about 20 feet again, showing this length. This is not an easy putt, not

a short putt Stenson drains it, absolutely pours it in the center. He's got a one shot lead with four to play. They're off to the 15th hole. Phil is now 10 shots clear of third place. Henrik is 11 shots clear of third place. It's sick. They get to 15, the wind is in off the left. I thought this was an interesting note of, you know,

if Phil is gonna run Stenson down, Stenson has the hardest possible win you can have coming in here for a right-hander and not nearly as difficult of a win for a left-hander. He hits it to 35 feet, maybe 40 feet on 15. And you know, sure, just lag it up there, whatever. He fucking drains it. He drains it again. He hits the putt and starts walking after it. I don't know if you remember this.

I don't know if he thinks it's short or what he starts walking after it, pours it in and just lets out an enormous fist pump at the ground. Just probably the moment of the tournament, just iconic image. This ended up actually being a poster, the open championship poster, I think for the next year, he signed a bunch of those, I remember that. And it's just, it's awesome. It's an incredible moment. Now he's up by two. Phil gives it a really good run from long distance, but it misses and there's three holes to play, but they're at the par five

16th and Phil hits a majestic, a majestic fairway wood into 16. I mean, it is just an awesome swing. Bones is yelling at it in the air. Come on, come on. And he hits it to about 30 feet for Eagle. And again, no one else in the air. Come on, come on. And he hits it to about 30 feet for Eagle. And again, no one else in the field is better than six under par. All this talk of all these birdies, all these Eagles is all coming from one group. Nobody's better than six under par.

Like think of how many birdies and Eagles like we've ripped off to this point. Nobody else in the field is doing this on this day. There were 13 rounds in the 60s alone on this day on a par 71 course. Only two guys shot better than 67. That was Henrik and Phil in the final pairing of the Open Championship. Yeah, it was nice. You know, again, Phil's got 30 feet for Eagle down too and Stenson is in the left

fescue like maybe 45 yards away from the pin here on 16. No guarantee at all that he's gonna get this up and down, but he does have a good lie and he hits it out to about six feet. And Phil's got this putt and he hits an awesome putt. It is such a good putt and it, like this image that you see up here is it falling across the hole towards us at the bottom.

Like it's falling to his left. Like if it had one more revolution of speed, it would have fallen in the front. Phil cannot believe it. Bones cannot believe it. He just does this classic staring at it, can't believe it. Stenson cannot believe it.

Looks over at Phil and gives him like the little cursed lip look of like, man, we thought you made that one. Henrik of course steps up and absolutely drains the pud. And he's out. It could have been a two shot swing. It could have been all tied. And Stenson is now seven under on the day.

Phil is six under on the day. Headed to the difficult par three 17th. Henrik steps up again and just absolutely flushes it and flags a four iron. Like it is again another shot that just like rings in your ears, hits it to maybe seven feet. And Phil misses left of the green, but makes a really nice up and down. And Henrikh actually missed this seven footer. So just, I thought he made this.

Yeah, I thought he made this. Look, and I was stunned when he missed this watching the replay. But they're going to the last hole. Stenson's 19 under, Phil is 17 under par. Two shot lead, of course, you know, and Stenson has to hit the fairway and this thing is over. And he goes to his trusty three wood and he mashes it, flushes it down the right side, heads over a hill, disappears out of view from him.

It's heading towards the bunker and it stops a foot away from the fairway bunker. And I don't know if it would have been a pitch out sideways, but it is almost affects where his left foot would have to be when he steps up for his stance as to how close this ball was to going in that fairway bunker, which Phil wouldn't need to make birdie, you know, and sense and bogey just to tie. But it is so lucky he thought it was in the bunker. There's just maybe this teeny tiny little upslope on the way to that bunker, because even you watch the replay, it's book.

It looks like it's getting ready to roll into it. It just comes to a crawl. Mashes another iron. Again, it's just like the best somebody could have possibly hit an iron hit irons over the course of 36 holes over the weekend. He hits it. He turns around and gets mad at a camera clicking. And you think like maybe he hit a bad shot into the screen, but it's 25 feet. It's over. They get one of the coolest and best ovations you've, you can ever hear in a golf tournament, walking up this,

like people are just so appreciative of the show that's been on. He steps up and he fucking drained the putt. He made it again. He made it again from 25 feet to close it out to shoot 63, eight under par 63 in the final round with 10 birdies. He made two bogeys and shot 63 to go out and win the open championship. This is your final leaderboard. He is three shots clear of Phil. He is 14 shots clear of JB Holmes in second place at six under par.

Sort of like a deal with the devil type putting. I mean, I don't think you could ever putt better than that in a major championship. No, like I can't remember a single putting performance better. Which like maybe there's something to trune and that's a takeaway I had from doing the Justin Leonard one is how many putts he made in 1997, which we'll get to here in this episode. But making all these putts,

that's maybe something to look at ahead of the open here in a couple of weeks of you can putt these greens. I mean, we have a video that'll come out in the same, I made a ton of putts at True when we were out there. I don't know if it's just flat greens or whatever it is, but the conditions are light. It's one of the more gettable courses. Now this course has been lengthened a fair amount

since 2016, but again, it's just like that. That was what got me. It was like, yeah, you remember the dual, remember the dual. Like it must've been kind of easy. Like you remember Liverpool in 2006 when Tiger wanted it at whatever under par that he was. I think it was 18 under. Everybody was low on that one, but this is such a freaking outlier, man.

Nobody else but Phil was a better than minus six. I still have never seen a leaderboard like that. Data Golf had Phil's performance as the fourth best major performance of all time since 1983. The fourth best. And he didn't win., the fourth best. And he didn't win. Like the next best, I was gonna try to quiz you on this and see if you could guess the next best major performance of somebody that didn't win.

It was Bob May in the 2000 PGA. That's considered to be the best strokes gained of somebody that did not win a major. Like the chart is, it's amazing. So basically it's like, if you go by the list of the most strokes gained in a single major championship, literally everybody has won if you've gained more than 5.6 shots, and Phil gained 6.6. He had an

expected win percentage of 0.99999. He would have won every he would have won every open championship on his gross score except for like two or three of them in the history of the open championship. It's like it and I've heard this, you know, like privately like this was, this was one that like kind of broke Phil a little bit. I mean, he would rebound on when the PJ chip chip five years later, I don't know how broken, you know, he really was but

this like mess with this, this mess with them for like putting this guy had like 100 million on himself. They broke him, we just have to determine the meaning of broken. We can get to some of that here in a second. Cause that was a theme and a lot of tweets and jokes back in 2016. But what else do we have? Phil said, after he said, whenever he's played at this level,

he's won and this is difficult for him. Jack Nicklaus wrote Hendrick Stenson and told him it was the greatest round of golf he's ever seen. Watson, all Tom Watson also agreed that this battle was even better than the Turnberry duel and the sun. Again, Phil Mickelson shot a final round 65 playing in the final group of in the open championship and lost by three he lost ground. He lost ground and extends they played in three hours and 40

minutes. Oh my goodness for a trusted source, that is Dennis J. Piehowski on Twitter, who was not, I cannot verify this, he was not a part of No Lying Up at this time, so I don't know if we can verify that fact. Part of the crooked other media, I think. Bacon and I used to do a dumb bet for majors back in this day, and I lost this one, and I had to try like mac and Cheetos, something from, from Burger King. But I think I got off on this one because

they didn't have these in Europe at this time. You still might have to pay out that bet. I don't think they had, I think it was like a seasonal, I don't think those things last. You don't think Mac and Cheetos is still around? I don't think they are. I would do it. Trust me. I would do it. Some expired bags in a warehouse somewhere. If you're listening and you have some Mac and Cheetos, please send us. I don't even know what it is. Is it a Cheeto? Is it Mac and Cheetos? I don't think they are. I would do it. Trust me, I would do some expired bags in a warehouse somewhere. If you're listening, and you have some mac and Cheetos, please send us. I don't even know what it is. Is it a Cheeto? Is it mac and Cheetos? I don't know. But

that's the mystery. Dan Hicks gave it a gymnast's house sweet it is call, which I think that one plays. I think that works. I don't I really don't remember this. But a lot of people were commenting on this. At one point, Johnny Miller said that Rory's tight shirts were holding him back. Yes. God, that was a good shit back then. I don't, I don't remember where this, where this came from. Uh, you know, there's this iconic image here as well as when Henrik and Phil are walking off the green.

Phil just looks flabbergasted. I went back and looked at a whole bunch of people's tweets. I'm going to run through the highlights from the NoLayingUp account. This was when Twitter was funny. Like you could be funnier back then. I got a kick out of some of these, but I just said, calling Henrik Stenson champion golfer of the year does not do justice for what we just witnessed. And I, again,

I said this is trunes way of apologizing for Todd Hamilton. Can't wait to hear what you've got cooking here. I was big on doing a Phil quotes back in the day, fake Phil quotes. This one is as apologies. If you're watching YouTube, you could read these, but it said, Phil, all square. And I'm one up on the press Stenson. What Phil do not act like you did not hear me call it on the tea. This one, this one was very prescient. I started a Kickstarter for NBC to get pro tracer, which they had, they had no pro tracer yet. They had a bunch of other, the major, a bunch of other majors had it already.

Fox had the first US Open the year prior and they were blazing the trail on protracer. I think the PGA Tour even had a bunch of different protracers at this point in 2016. But NBC was behind on the technology. You would not even believe it. No way. We were not happy about it eight years ago either. Rory Worry, a catcher's chest protector one of the days. It got shredded a little bit for that one. And then Phil, with this little smirky Phil picture said, would you successfully has the decreasing

value of the British pound by betting on yourself legally? This is- I think that's one of my five favorite pictures of it's amazing. It's just one of the best. It's amazing. It's weird to look back on now where you can bet legally now in the US, but obviously could not at the time. And then this was this was the highlight. I think Phil's Phil plays so well in foreign territory, because he knows the FBI has no jurisdiction. There was. Yeah, that played well in 2016,

2016 Twitter, but then he made it into a way of life. I went and found it. T.C. was tweeting more about the Barbasol than he was the open. So I couldn't find a bunch of open championship tweets from him, but he said a hundred percent chance that Monte has posted up right now in the clubhouse with his posse and a giant bowl of custard. He said, well, JJ day's rib injury resurfaced this week. It was a Twitter poll that got 314 votes. 80% said yes. I forgot he was called JJ, Jason day, JJ day. I believe across over JJ. Who's still on TZ's menace. We have, We have, uh, he was, Traum was also mad about Pokemon. Uh, he said there's hundreds of junkies staring blankly at phones while he's trying to walk his dogs in the park.

Uh, that was a very 2016 tweet. This is kind of when you were sort of just like doing all the work, Sally at the NLU and the other boys were, you know, just popping in every now and then, you know, I think he had a kid at the, no, he's, uh, he was just getting ready to have a kid. Uh, his job was different than mine and my hours, it helped be it in Europe. Like I was actually able to watch golf in the evenings and actually do stuff, but Kevin van Valkenburg, uh, got in on the coverage takes that the paucity of pro tracer on NBC's broadcast is infuriating. I have to agree with you on that one.

I had like a word of the day calendar. Yeah, I don't know where you got positive from. What a smug asshole using positive on Twitter. You and I were making a bunch of tweets about Game of Thrones back at each other. They didn't, those did not age that well. Bacon tweeted, current world rankings of the last nine major champions,

four, four, three, three, 18, one, nine, two, and six. Which I thought was pretty sweet. Again, this was the beginning of Gorse the Horse for Bacon showing the actual illustration for where Gorse lives. Porter, this was the official bet that we had. Creamy mac and mac crispy Cheetos mac and Cheetos from the Burger King as well. That was, and he smoked me in that bit.

You throw some Cheetos and some mac and cheese. I could see that being decent. I think it looks really good. Not Burger King. I don't know if I'd want to eat that, but you know, a homemade situation maybe. I think 29 year old me could have done this a lot better than 37 year old me could. But this was a random one image I had of when Phil missed the putt on 18 on Thursday, Bones just on his back by the bunker there, falling over on his back in disbelief at that putt missed.

That was a random one. And Porter had some dynamite tweets. Again, the Phil Bones conversations. Phil, give me my phone. Bones, no. Phil, did the Indians win last night? Bones conversations Phil give me my phone Bones no Phil did the Indians win last night Bones Phil we have nine and a half holes left little do we know he was actually doing this in the President's Cup sitting on a tree stump getting updates on college football games or whatever it was. God when art becomes life like he truly was having these conversations. Bones, tea time. Let's go. Phil, hold on. I got this Austrian under four hours, 16 minutes and 20 seconds. Is that the Tour de France? Phil, 30 to one.

As an image of Phil's. Well, Ladbrokes, I got me Jordan Patrick to finish the top 10, 95 to 1 at William Hill. I got dot dot dot. DJ Pye had some good ones as well. I said the open week ranked, he said number 163, number 265, number 362 and a half, which is what people were calling Phil's round on Thursday. Four Beef, five Rory Presser, six Johnny Miller, seven the postage stamp, eight paces play, nine binder clip, Rory, number 10 Rory Threewood.

DJ said chance at 20 under par. That's not going to make the members happy. Again, some of this stuff just tickled me. Phil hits it to 18 feet on 12. I'll finish. I guess I didn't screenshot the binder clip to put the three wood back together, but that was in there as well. But that's what I got for 2016. Uh, one of the best, uh, major championships. And again, I mean, we just, after reacting to pioneers, we're all calling it the best major, uh,

we'd ever seen or whatnot. Like it was good to remember, like 2016 open was, was pretty darn epic as well. Yeah. Well done. Sorry. I felt like I was reliving it, you know, on my family reunion at two in the morning on the television with the drink in my hand.

Gosh, we were so much younger then. What became of us now? No laying up is sponsored by Fandel, whether you're playing golf or betting on it, there's nothing worse than first tee jitters. But with Fandel, you can crush your first bet off the tee. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets guaranteed with any $5 bet that's 150 bucks win or lose. We like to make a ton of picks, especially ahead of the major championships. We're going to have a

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You always play this game with me. So I'm going to try to say you can get I was wondering when you were going to do this because it's so easy to be on the other side. It's so hard on this side. All right number one's pretty easy Goto No tiger. All right. So what do we got two three four five? What's two's got to be VJ at this point Close Phil not quite Phil is still you do. No. Oh Number two in the world in 04, Ernie.

Ernie is number two. VJ will take over number one by the end of the year. Got it. But he is, so VJ is number three. Then Phil is four, but who do we go from there? Fiorek five? Not quite, Fiorek is nine. Okay.

04, who won the majors that year? Who won the U.S, who won the US? So is Ratif up there? Ratif is six. Okay. Phil won the Masters that year. Is David Tombs up there? David Tombs is not up there.

He's in fact 16th in the world at this point. Gosh, this is way harder on this side. Is Adam Scott up there yet? He won the players that year. Adam Scott is 11th. OK, that was close. Just missing out. Scott Verplank?

Scott Verplank is not up there. Scott Verplank is 19th in the world at this point. Tom Layman? No, Tom Layman is not even in the top 20, I believe. I'm trying to think of who else was on this Ryder Cup team in 2004. I think Fred Funk was on that team, but I doubt he was in the top 10. Fred Funk will come into play in this discussion, but he is not ranked in the top 20. This is not a very good effort for me.

All right, let me think. Now, Colin Montgomery's got to be up there. He is not. Colin Montgomery has in in fact, fallen to like 72nd in the world at this point. OK, did not know that. All right, make me look bad. That was not my best. I got to get back in the lab. It's hard when you're in the chair.

We've never covered this time period in any of our stuff. That's true. Davis Love, the third, is fifth in the world. We said Ritif Grew is in his sixth. Mike Weir is seventh third, is fifth in the world. We said Viteef Guruz in his sixth. Mike Weir is seventh. Masters in his third. Still playing some pretty good golf there.

Padraig Harrington is eighth. We said Furek is ninth. And Sergio Garcia is the 10th ranked golfer in the world. Definitely should get the 13th. Also appearing up there in order, Adam Scott, Kenny Perry, Chad Campbell, Stuart Appleby, Darren Clark, David Thomson, Steven Ames, the 17th ranked golfer in the world, Fred Couples still ranked 18th in the world, Denver Plank, and then Jay Haas. Sully, this is going to be Tom Weisskopf's last competitive tournament. Weisskopf of course won the Open Championship at Trune in 1973. That's sort of a

send-off, passing of the torch in some ways. He plays a practice round with one Tiger Eldrick Woods. He says, I've never seen him hit a golf ball in person until this morning. It is awesome. He defines the complete player. I don't think he enjoyed it as much as I did, or a 10th as much as I did.

Tiger is the talk of the golf world as always during this period, but he has gone eight consecutive majors without a major and people are wondering what is going on. There is a ton of questions about his game. He has parted ways with Butch Harmon earlier in the year and he is receiving lots of criticism as well as he's only won once this season, defeating Davis love in the match play. Uh, Nick Price has asked about tiger in this era about what's going on, what's wrong. And price always a pretty good quote says, pure and simple. He can't drive the ball in the fairway from all I've seen the last five months is off the tee game is so erratic.

There's no pattern to it because he's losing it left and right until he starts to hit the ball on the fairway he is going to struggle. Appreciate that sort of candid speaking about Tiger because not too many people would risk that back in the day. Tiger's going to get married later in the year to Elin Nordegren, the former nanny of the of Jesper Parnovic. Tiger was we always like to cover some of the best sports writing back in the day. There's a lot of talk that maybe Tiger will stop being so bad at golf if he finally gets married because he's being distracted by his wedding planning. Here from

the San Francisco Chronicle. Here's a thought Tiger who, who hasn't won a major since 2002, comes back better than ever next year. He's no longer hassled by phone conversations with florists, no longer arguing with wedding band Hootie and the Blowfish over the set list, and he's no longer wondering if it's okay to sit Oprah at his dad's table for fear that Earl will make an off-color remark. Tiger will be freed from pre-wedding shackles and get back to posting lower scores than any other player on the planet. Tiger actually did have Hootie the Blowfish as his wedding band, so that is not an actual

joke, which is sick. He got married in Barbados later that year. But before that happens, Tiger comes in and people think- Well, let's see, just real real quick, like eight majors in a row for Tiger did not want. I'm going off memory on this, but I think I can do it. He won 99 PGA, 2000 US Open, 2000 Open, 2000 PGA, 2001 Masters, 2002 Masters, 2002 US Open. All and then went eight straight without winning, right? So he won four out of five, uh, everyone four in a row, five out of six. Uh, and then he won seven out of whatever over a three year span. So kind of somewhat fair at the time to be like, Hey, what happened here, dude?

Yeah. All right. So if you think that 2004 is long enough time for the Brits to be over what happened at the Rider Cup at Brookline, oh, you are definitely wrong there because the statute of limitations is not up on this for another 20 years, I think. Justin Leonard being back to sort of talk about what it's like to be the open champion, returning to Trune, is really just another excuse to talk about the Ryder Cup again. Leonard's Ryder rage can pass into history at Trune. It's the gist of this is basically like if Justin Leonard continues to be a classy champion, perhaps we will in time forget about what happened in 1999. So I'm quoting here from the Evening Standard.

in 1999. So I'm quoting here from the Evening Standard. It says, nearly five years have gone by since the scene of one of the greatest outrages in sporting history. The mere mention of Leonard's name is still enough to send shivers down the spines of certain members of the European golf hierarchy. They declared that one of the reasons he was so offensive, what we've done now, keep in mind Justin Leonard didn't do this. He didn't run across anyone's line in the pot, just the Americans. One of the reasons that he is so offensive is because he was seen as the most swanky yank, one of the most America's most eligible bachelors, and someone whose trousers had creases so sharp, they could cut through the

steel tempered shaft of a club. Justin Leonard the Bachelor. I don't know if I recall this. Yes. It goes on to say that the subsequent rage from the Ryder Cup overshadowed his major win. But galleries here should really start warming towards the American who's handled himself with class. Uh, Justin Leonard reveals within this piece that he, uh, has, he still has really fond memories towards Trune loves it a lot.

Hopes that the people here will still love him and appreciate him. Uh, he says that he has a white lab that he has named trunes magical Sunday, which strikes me as weird. So I like, wouldn't you just name your dog? Trish? Just triple work. Damn it. Truens, Magus, circle Sunday. Come back here, honey. Truens magical Sunday needs some more kibble. Poor. This is prior. Like as soon as Stenson does what he does, I think it's like, Oh shit, we got to rename this dog.

Like I don't know if this is the magical Sunday anymore. Magical Sunday was still to come. I don't imagine that dog's alive now. So maybe that could be true. It's magical Sunday part two or junior. All right. Because the nines at true. Sorry. I was almost a spit take there on truth. Magical Sunday, Jr. We'll give a shout out to our friends at Mizzou home. Mizzou America's is part of the Mizuho Financial Group,

the 15th largest bank in the world. Mizuho Americas is a corporate and investment bank serving corporate and institutional clients. They advise and fund businesses looking to go public, raise money, expand operations, or connect with large investors. I know a lot of listeners out there work in this line of work.

So when I say that you may not know the name Mizuho, a lot of you reached out and say, yeah, no, we're very familiar with the Mizzouho. They help finance large infrastructure projects that promote civic improvement. It is a name worth knowing that the title sponsor of the Mizzouho Americas Open two years running at Liberty National. They're doing great things in golf, great things with the women's game, great things with our content as well supporting us as well. So we greatly appreciate it. Big shout out to Mizzouho. For more information, visit MizzouhoAmericas.com. Again, that's M MizuhoAmericas.com. Again, that's MizuhoAmericas.com.

Back to the podcast. Trey Lockerbie Because the nines are so different at Truin, which you will see in our video coming out eventually, you know, easy going out, hard coming back because of the wind, because of the way the holes play, most likely. A lot of the players are talking about how you have to really get after it on the front. The back nine will get a little tougher as you sort of talked about nears the wind for right handers can be tough. Tiger Woods who plays a practice round gets done with the front nine and walks off the ninth green and says, oh, that was the JV. This is the varsity. Which I hope we can continue to use because it's the best Tiger kind of thing.

That was a varsity. That was a varsity. JV. It's not like qualifying is a little different this year in 2004. For the first time, there was a US-based qualifying tournament for the British Open. Previously, non-exempt players didn't have to, had to come to Britain to play a 36 hole qualifier. So this year, there's a field of 120 spots available at congressional for however many spots is going to go. I think it's five, only 68 PGA Tour players show up and the

Brits are pissed. Oh, they feel that their championship is being disrespected. What do I think? said Jonathan Cheatham, a 37-year-old English pro who qualified for his first British Open. I should keep that to myself. He tells Bob Herrig of the St. Pete Times, they might not let me back into your country if I said what I really think. Weisskopf, never one to shy away from a good quote, says the Open should deny entry to anyone in the future who skipped out without a legitimate excuse. That was terrible. They're spoiled. They have no spirit of adventure says Weiss golf.

Tough to disagree. It's if you qualify for this event, you go fucking play it in 2004. Like come on. Billy Mayfair, Scott Hoke, Corey Pavin are among those who skip qualifying. Fred Funk is qualified to play in this, but he decides to skip out. Do you know why? To prepare for the playoffs? No, the playoffs aren't there yet. Probably. Is there an opposite? Don't tell me there's an opposite field event that he goes and plays. There's an opposite. He goes and plays because he wants to accumulate rider cup points. He

really wants to be on the rider cup team. So he goes and plays the BC Open. Do you know where he finishes in the BC Open, Scott? Fourth. He does not make the cut. Which apparently delights various members of the Brits who sort of dunk all over. This is certainly a departure from how things used to be. That's part of the reason why the Brits are upset is because the long history of the British Open you always had to qualify. In fact, when Arnold Palmer won the 1961 Open at Birkdale, he still had to qualify the next year to true and the defending champion did not get a spot in the Open Championship the following year. This got me to laugh just because we're always talking about that thing with Gary

player saying, Oh, what about all those foreigners, Gary? And he's like, I'm a foreigner. Anyway, one of the Brits, James Morrison, an amateur from England talking about the qualifying says, everyone seems really angry about it. If they're going to allow so many foreigners, that means the Americans, at least they can do is show up. It's a shame really. Australian Mark Hensby, who wins the John Deere the week before turns down a spot in the Open Championship. He says, that was a no brainer.

I've never played a course like that. Dog, you've never, you grew up in Australia and you've never played any kind of like Lynx course? Like what are we doing here? But he's just like, I don't want to go over and make a fool of myself. It's true. And so you know what that means as you covered a little bit in yours, Monte, Monte, Monte, Monte, of course, his father was the secretary at trune for many years. He lived in a house just off of trune. He spent a large portion of his childhood playing trune. But because he has fallen so far down in the rankings because of some personal strife that we shall get to in a second, he has to go through qualifying, but he does qualify for the Open Championship. And so the dream of

Monte bringing home the Claret Chug at age 41 is still within reach. If people think that all that the press is like unfair or mean to Rory that we should sort of leave his personal life alone or whatever, I would like to read you a few things that people would write about Monty back in the day. Am I gonna get canceled for laughing about this? Man, nah, man, maybe, we'll see. All right, this is from The Guardian. I believe this is actually later in the year, but it seemed relevant to what we're sort of

talking about here. Colin Montgomery has what he described as an interesting year, starting in the divorce courts, then the Ryder Cup, the gossip columns, and more likely Weight Watchers Weekly. The Scot, a Leeds United supporter with leanings towards Chelsea, that's its own dig at him, once looked as though he had eaten all the pies, has lost nearly three stones since the Open

Championship of July and admitted that his self esteem has gone up as his weight has gone down. So now his eligibility rating now that he is divorced from his wife, Emer, as he slipped down the world golf rankings as he's currently 70th, Montgomery has skyrocketed up the babe magnet bachelor rankings, a singular experience for the formerly flabby 41 year old father of three. Jesus, you got any images of him during this time? I do have a couple, let me sort of spin through here. I mean, just a pure sex symbol.

Monte actually after this open championship, really quickly after this open championship ends up dating a smoke and Spanish model. Man, I guess that one image did not upload of him. But Monte truly like the pinnacle of like the Austin Powers sex symbol. It's been a tough year for Monte after a miserable score of 80 at Augusta. He's eliminated from the tournament and stomped off the course ignoring reporters

ignoring autograph seekers and even ignoring his wife in the process. She was reported to have sought out his caddy four hours later in a restaurant in Augusta to ask if anyone had seen her husband. It was far from the first time that the golfer's demons had gotten the better of them at the expense of their marriage. A couple of the Montgomery's had already gone through a trial separation back in 2000, which led to Monty openly weeping during the British Open after a bad shot on the 12th hole. He later admitted in his autobiography that he felt his obsession with golf had sort of ruined his marriage and it had been very difficult. He said, I found it difficult to blame myself for any of our problems at that stage.

I just saw myself as a good husband. I was neither a womanizer nor a drinker. I had always hurried home at the end of every tournament. It was all golf, golf, golf, golf, golf. And my wife was like, okay, I'm pregnant. And I'm like, all right, well, I've got a tournament coming up. But I look back now on my behavior and wince. The gossip columns are raging because during this time, his, Monty's wife has been spotted

with Hugh Grant, actor, and is rumored to be having an affair. A two full page story exploring whether or not they're having an affair appears in the Glasgow Times. Which like, I'm not well-schooled on these tabloids and all this stuff, like, is there a percentage of like, what's your like journalistic process here for taking this information as like, as fact? Basically from what I, Grekasp, is when it comes to these romantic linkings,

things, if you weren't basically seen with anyone. So I guess it started out as like at a polo match, like they were friendly and they were talking to each other. And for years, people just ran with the fact that they might be having an affair, like never based in any sort of like fact or no never came out later that they had actually been together. Just that Hugh Grant was sort of a cad and he was you know the the man about the uping England you know was sort of prowling around a bit of a swordsman as we say uh with various ladies but yes uh Monty's wife was rumored to be in a relationship with Hugh Grant the very difficult the couple

ends up getting divorced like right around the open championship time. Monty's just like kind of all up and down. He doesn't really know. It did find sort of interesting in the relationship. They actually met when she was a 17-year-old aspiring law student when Monty was sort of hanging around back. After he graduated from college, he kept taking trips back to England because his mother was dying and just a few houses down was this young young lady who he was 25 I believe at the time and wooed her they got married at the trune old parish church and the reception which was a huge social event was held alongside the 18th fairway of the course a lot of hope that monti will do well here A lot of people kind of wishing

that he would finally bring home the Claret jug, but knowing that his personal life is basically in shambles at this stage, unlikely to make a one final run. So the first round kicks off and the first round leader is Paul Casey and Thomas LeVay. Thomas LeVay had to qualify to get in. Paul Casey and Thomas Leveille. Thomas Leveille had to qualify to get in. Paul Casey says basically, I've learned to calm myself down in majors. I know I can handle this pressure now. Basically, it's a look forward to big things coming forward for me. Oh, they're coming, buddy.

You know I always love to play this game of giving you the first name of someone and seeing if you can guess who they are. There's a person who is at three under in the first round named Gary. Do you know who Gary is? The Ryder cupper for England at one point? Gary? I don't I have no idea. Gary Evans who apparently missed a

made a double bogey late in the round in his Ryder Cup match in 1993, I believe, and is openly ridiculed every time he is mentioned as the person who lost the Ryder Cup for Europe by the English press. Just basically like Gary Evans, comma, who lost the Ryder Cup for Europe. Whoa. Yeah. I've never heard that name.

I didn't even... That's not come across in any of these deep dives we've done. We also have a Kenneth. Could you... Is another Englishman? Does it ring a bell to anyone? It's not come across in any of these deep dives we've done. We also have a Kenneth. Could you, is another Englishman? Does it bring a bell to anyone? It's not Kenneth, it wouldn't be Ken Brown. No, nope. Kenneth Ferry is also at three under as is Alastair Forsythe, Matthew Goggin, Martin Olander and Carl Pedersen. Vijay Singh is also lurking there. But the one of the big stories of the first day is that Ernie Els makes a hole in one on the postage stamp and man is it quite the lovely uh this hits

it like a little chippy nine iron. Here's Ernie right after he's made his hole in one he's absolutely just glowing everybody is like man this guy's this this might be Ernie's open he's gonna do it. Ernie turns around a few holes later and makes a double bogey when he blasts it right into the face of the bunker. So he's kind of like a little sour at the end of his round. He can't quite truly embrace making a hole in one. Ernie's one of the few people to make a hole in one

in multiple open championships, having made one previously. Gene Sarazin actually made a hole in one on the postage stamp previously in 1965. Gary Evans makes an albatross too on the fourth hole. I will not call it a double bogey, even though they're double eagle. No, that's called over there. Why can't this come across in any research?

Why can't I think of who the defending champ is? I know L's 1 and O2 at Muir Field. I cannot think of who won 2003. That is because it is Ben Curtis. That's right. An awesome name that you would remember. Well, Ben Curtis had finished. I should.

He's from Columbus, Ohio. That was a huge deal back then. Very disrespectful to your fellow Ohioan. I knew it was a no-namer, but yeah. Yes. Ben Curtis misses the cut here, unfortunately, when asked if he could possibly defend his open championship. This narrator, he does not. This is a weird time period, right? Because we have Mike Weir,

Furek, Ben Curtis, and Sean McKeel are the 03 major champions. I mean, Phil obviously is a big one. 04 was Ratif. I guess 04 was starting to bounce back a little bit, but just a weird freaking time in the world of golf. This is a period where Tiger should have been dominating even more than he was, honestly. Yes, maybe Tiger should have just, you know, stuck with his swing coach for a little longer. Like he could have, you know, worked it out in like 2006 or whatever. But, all right, so I put this in there as a little bit of travel monitoring for TC. Christa DiMarco reveals after his first round that he could not arrive into Trune until Wednesday afternoon. The reason that his Monday flight out of Philadelphia was

canceled because someone stuffed a blanket in one of the airplane toilets and it sat on the tarmac for like five hours with them trying to figure out how to do it. They made everyone get off at like four in the morning when they finally couldn't figure it out. He got on his next flight the next day, which was then delayed for like five hours because the electricity wouldn't work. They didn't leave until 1 a.m. When he finally arrived in Glasgow, the airline didn't have his suitcase. They did have his clubs. So he went to go buy a shirt and put some rain pants out of his golf bag and rolled out and shot 71 in the first round. How about that?

Pretty heroic effort from Mark was a baller in this time period like from 02 to 06. He was a boss truly was I mean a straight killer like I wish I wish DeMarco had come out of this time period with one major because it felt like it was so good in so many of these majors that for him to just get blanks completely and be sort of a little bit of a forgotten man is the if I have it right, he's the only I remember before I interviewed him, this came across this. He's the only person to have ever finished solo second to Tiger Woods in majors twice.

Wow. Yeah, that's awesome. Like as in he beat everybody in the world, except for the best player ever. All right. I'll give you a hundred dollars. You can tell me who the second round leader at the Open Championship would have been. Gregory Hevray. Good guess. Skip Kendall.

Skip Kendall has not won on the PGA Tour in 310 career starts, but he shoots an impressive 66 to lead at seven under. Thomas LeVay is in second place, six place six under KJ Choi Barry Lane at five Michael Campbell Ernie Ells and Todd Hamilton the 58th ranked player in the world appear on the leaderboard as well as Colin Montgomery after a second straight 69 so we're in the mix here for Monty Vijay Singh having truly one of the great years in golf history hanging around here although we won't ultimately factor in the result. Phil Mickelson after shooting a first round 73, shoot to 66 in the second round. A lot of people,

little eyebrow razor Phil has never finished in top 10 in an open championship to this point in his career. Uh, when Kendall, Skip Kendall comes into the interview room, there's a beautiful veneer table with a lot of signatures are on it. And so he picks up a pen and he starts to sign the table. And so it was no, no, no, no, that's just for open champions. It's like signed by Jack Nicklaus, and Gary player, and all the like the Passover championships. And he says, you know, oh, well, hopefully, I'll be signing my name there in a

couple of days. Kendall reveals that he used to wait tables at the Olive Garden. And to make ends meet while he was a Charlie and tour pro on his lunch break, he would go outside the all in his Olive Garden uniform, which was black slacks, a black bow tie and a white button down and hit balls in the grassy field near the restaurant. Not even out of range in a field No, just in the field like field near the restaurant. Not even at a range, just in a field.

No, just in the field, like, well, it was just on his lunch break. He couldn't go to the range, so he was just going to go pound some balls in a field, probably march across the field in his loafers and get those balls and pick them back up. Monty shoots a 69. He's still kind of a little bit of, like, he doesn't appreciate that the press is sort of, like, needling him a little bit, because that's the first question that comes up is, oh, you know, you missed a two foot putt on 18 that would have, you know, given you 68. Are you disappointed? He's fuck at that. It's never been a perfect round of played on links golf and there never will be.

I would have taken a 69 at the start of the day. Mikkelsen, of course, shoots 66, tying his best round ever at the British Open. He says, I'm not thinking about winning just yet. Woods, Tiger Woods is kind of, you know, he's still fighting his game. As we heard a little bit about Nick Price earlier, the

drivers all map, he's starting to kind of figure it out. This is the first major that he is playing with a graphite shaft in his driver was the steel shaft kind of up until this point. At least it was a new graphite shaft, I think he gets super annoyed at a bunch of photographers who keep kind of you know shadowing his every move and he has to

kind of back away from the ball like two or three times in the second round and finally like he's you know standing off to the side and photographers are taking much pictures of him while his playing partner Lee Westward is hitting and he says come on guys. And he just kind of snaps, snarls at these photographers. He's swinging, have some respect. Find these, you know,

the marshals are getting really on edge. They can see that Tiger's pissed. And when they're playing on the 10th hole, the train goes by and the marshals are so on edge that the marshals spin around and say, quiet please to the train. It just gives Tiger a good laugh. That's like the guy of the 16th hole at Chambers Bay that was like motioning for the train to be

quiet as it was going by. I remember that. Yep. So this wouldn't be a deep dive if we didn't have a Jack Nichols anecdote. Nicholas just shows up at Trune on Friday to watch some golf. He said he had no desire to tee it up this year, but he admitted that he probably would be back next year when he turned 65 because the Open's at St. Andrews and they actually moved the date a year up a year so that Nicholas could have his old course send off. He says, the RNA accommodated me just by adjusting the year, so it'll be a slap in the face if I didn't play. If I'm able, I'll be back. They moved the Open up a year to move it to 05. More on that later.

More on that later. Whoa, I never knew that. The round three, Todd Hamilton enters the conversation with a second straight 67. Hamilton surges into the lead. He's one stroke ahead of Ernie Ells who shoots 68. Ratif Goosen is lurking, Thomas LeVay and Phil Mickelson follows it up with another 68. So he's only two shots back. Retief Goosen is lurking, Thomas Leveille and Phil Mickelson follows it up with another 68, so he's only two shots back. Barry Lane, Scott Verplank and Tiger hanging around there for

Monty. Pretty disappointing 72. We'll hear about that in a second. He's kind of played himself out of it. He's now five shots back, but they bring Hamilton into the media room and he says, you know, it's a little strange to be up here talking about my golf game. I've played so bad for so long. Usually when I'm talking about my golf, it's to my wife and kids and it's in an angry tone. Uh, Hamilton has played on the Asian tour and the Japanese tour for decade before making it on the PJ tour and his eighth attempt. So he's kind of actually technically a PJ tour rookie, but he says he doesn't feel like one cause he's been kind of all around the

world playing all kinds of golf forever. He says, to be honest, I never even considered contending in majors or even playing in that many of them. My whole goal was just to get to the PGA Tour. He keeps using his sonar tech hybrid, which has the loft of a three wood. It's been bent down to 17 from 17 to 14 to get up and down from around the greens. He'll take it from pretty much anywhere. He's just kind of like playing the little big Randy bump and run on the week. Solly, he will end up being 14 of 15 using it to get up

and down for pars. Seriously. Yes. He had never done this technique prior to this week. He'd never tried it. He just decided, you know, this would be a good way to kind of like chip and bump things around. Hybrids weren't really a thing back then there was only

4% of tour pros were using them. In fact, Hamilton wasn't even supposed to be using this sonar tech hybrid because he was under contact with under contract with Taylor made to play their three wood and hybrid. So he just happened to like have a buddy who made this club for him. They're probably like, guys, what are the chances this comes back to bite us? Like what are the chances Todd Hamilton's going to, you know, be on television a lot of this week? Maybe we'll just let him have it this one week.

Oops. The press kind of asked him like, what's it like playing on the Asian tour? And he says it required a ton of patience. He told a story where in Korea he had a one shot lead going into the final hole of the tournament, but he hit a shot into the bunker his playing partner A Korean golfer that he would not name hit his shot into the deep rough But by the time that guy got to his ball, he had a clean lie and was able to hit it onto the green TC Chen who was observing the final pairing was so pissed off about what happened He got up in the golfer's face and threatened to blackball him from future Asian tour events unless he returned to his ball to the original position. So shout out Cheesy

Chen for being an honorable member of the... That's the TC way. That is the TC way. Hamilton said, you hear a lot of stories about guys playing like that over there. They'd make their wife or their girlfriend act as a forecaddy and they'd tell them to stand down where about drivers would land and make sure nothing happens. So I actually looked it up and Hamilton was in a playoff twice in 1992 in tournaments where he played in South Korea and his name he was playing against a guy named Che Ha Sung Lin who does not have a Wikipedia page. I don't know what happened like to him whether he had a successful career or not. I've got black. But yeah, barely married apparently back when it had to be

this dude because he beat him in a playoff once he lost him in a playoff once, but this was apparently like the dude who was, you know, vying for Todd Hamilton's crown in these Asian tour events. Despite having a lot of crowd support throughout the week, Monte is still in a very pissy mood after his third round. He bogies the last hole to shoot 72, essentially ending his chances for a Claret jug. Asked about the strain of being a professional golfer in, in the press conference afterwards. Uh, I doubt it was a press conference.

Probably just a scrum with reporters. Monty said, anyone who says this is fun is joking and they're having a laugh. This is not fun and it is not enjoyment. It is a job and a horrible one. Horrible job. The San Francisco gate, not a paper, I think maybe it's a funk paper now, says, Monty was besieged by personal problems and his slide in the world rankings and this misdoubtfire look alike showed he still had some game and gave the locals a thrill before he

faded down the leaderboard throughout the weekend. Just like openly calling the dude like a missed out. Like, she's uh, so I skipped, skipped Kendall is probably not going to end up signing that table after a third round 75. It's unlucky. Peter Dawson has to issue a statement the following day, calling it a fortunate coincidence that the old course was moved up a year in rotation and they did not do it to accommodate Jack Nicklaus.

When, when did they like decide this? It couldn't have been right at this point. No, I think it was like, you know, in the lead up to this, like Nicklaus is not playing he maybe just, you know, 65 is when it's your last year of eligibility. I think the, uh, open championship was probably set for 2006. They bump it up a year. Jack either is told that this is for him or decides that it is for him. Uh, and, uh, Peter Dawson has to clarify and say, no, it is just a fortunate coincidence. Barbara, which I always thought they wanted to do every five years. Like that was the but it's just a fortunate coincidence. Barbara, it's a fortunate coincidence.

They wanted to do every five years, like that was the whole thing about it, but that's why I'm surprised there was that in 2000. That's interesting, I never knew that. Tiger is paired with Adam Scott during his third round 68. He beats Adam by six shots, much to the delight of seemingly everyone who wants Tiger to be able to stick it to Butch Harmon.

Butch Harmon, you you see still coaches Adam Scott and Tiger Butch split or in a year asked if he had any extra incentive to beat up on Scott Tiger shook his head and said no. As I said, Fred funk misses the cut of the BC open. We're trickles here and is mocked openly. Going into the final round, we have Todd Hamilton at eight under, Ernie Els at seven, Mikkelsen, Ratif, and Thomas LeVay at six, Tiger at minus four. A wild sequence begins, kicks off the final round early. Mike Weir sort of starts the

day in 10th place, chips in at the fifth. Tiger also chips in from the same bunker at the fifth. Then LeVay chips in for Eagle on the fourth, and then Mikkelsen chips in for Eagle on the fifth. Tiger also chips in from the same bunker at the fifth. Then LeVay chips in for Eagle on the fourth and then Mickelson chips in for Eagle on the fourth. Uh, this is all in the span of about 20 minutes. So you can imagine like if a Twitter existed, like all the sort of bang, bang, bang things that would happen across it. Mickelson, when he chips in, uh, on the fourth, he's at eight under, which means he's tied for the lead, especially after Hamilton bogeys the second hole.

Now Mickelson and LeVay lead at eight under par. At the third hole, Ernie Els hits it way wipey right off a TV compound fence. The ball ricochets hard right and gives him a clear shot. Excuse me, he hits it left. Hard ricochet is hard right, kind of where he has a clean shot in the green and he makes a birdie to get to eight under.

Ernie's gonna get some interesting breaks today to sort of throughout things Hamilton birdies the third get back to eight. This is a really kind of fun bang bang final round that I did not remember it Going quite like this. I know I watched this as a as a younger lad, but I did not remember that quite the excitement now Hamilton birdies the fifth leads alone at nine under par Now Hamilton birdies the fifth, leads alone at nine under par. Mickelson wearing pants that looks like he might float away and do an MC Hammer video after this is over, birdies the seventh hole and now he is again tied for the lead at nine under. On the tenth, Ernie Ells drives it way right and he has a stance that looks like the ball is like a good, I want to say three or four feet above where he is. It's, it is, he's got a stance that's pretty miserable. Like he's, he's got to hit it. Like you're basically swinging a bat on a tee and he manages to kind of dink it a little bit up. It doesn't make a, you

know, um, doesn't make a good swing muscles in it in the deep rough makes a double bogey, like feels like, okay, this is crushing like Ell is done. Basically, he's not gonna Hamilton then bogies the 10th as Ernie's making double and Mickelson is now the sole low leader. Man, I did not remember this was truly like how to not just a chance but like very much could have won this open championship. I remember this being a weird Wikipedia finish for Phil in terms of like even as of what like 2008, 2009, 2010 it was like the only the super rare good open championship he

had but I just remember like what the hell happened I didn't realize it was 04 but they had one good open in the course of like 15 years. So this is El's stance when he made a double here so you could see like how not going his way, you know, the ball barely moves into that long grass and ends up not doing so. Guess what happens on the 11th? Else again drives a just a really shit drive. And it ends up somehow fucking worse than the previous one that he had sort of standing, you know, on the, on a tee, it ends up in a gorse bush and it's sitting up like a, like a fricking tee.

Like there's absolutely no way that he should play this ball. Like he could easily whiff right underneath this. I mean, this is basically like having to swing a cricket bat and all at a ball. I mean, this is absurd, but he somehow like bunts it into like the long grass. You can see whatever there ropes a seven iron onto the green and makes the putt. He makes a par there somehow to basically stay alive, uh, which is, you know, Hamilton says later, like, uh, there's no way he's like, Hamilton makes birdie on this hole. And he later says, uh, on a podcast,

his part was so much better than my birdie. Like you have no idea how impossible it would be to hit it out of that gorse bush and to then get up and down and make par. So Hamilton birdie's 11, he's now tied at nine under with a Phil. At this point, Ernie is two shots back at seven. Seems like, man, like might not be Ernie's time.

Maybe Phil's gonna be the guy to sort of slay. The announcers are talking like, Phil seems like, you know, he's, he's the favorite at this point, but else is not dead yet. He birdies 13 to get to eight under, but then right back in Hamilton chips in on 14, uh, to take the lead back from Phil at 10 under. With a hybrid. Uh, he does not chip in with a hybrid at this point. He chips in with a nine iron makes a really good chip.

Uh, Ernie's kind of like shaking his head, like, man, what can I do? Like this guy is just like, I'm playing unbelievable today. Mickelson, bogeys 13, kind of a tough thing, falls out of, you know, he was, Hamilton took the lead at 10 under, but Phil was at nine, falls back to eight. Phil will eventually birdie 16 to get to nine,

end up being the clubhouse leader, but it's just really not going to be enough at this point. We're sort of running out of holes. You know, Phil doesn't, doesn't have a really great chance at birdie on, uh, on 17 or 18. It's going to finish shot back, but what a, what an exceptional tournament for, for Phil. So now Ells and Hamilton have to match with birdies at 16. Ells hits an unbelievable like three wood onto the green.

Of course, Todd hits, like, a two iron, five iron, nine iron, rolls into 25 footer. Ernie has, like, a three footer. So he's still, Hamilton's at 11, and Ernie's at nine with two holes to play. Ernie hits, like, an awesome, it's the 17th is playing, like, 225. Wind off the left. like an awesome it's the 17th is playing like 225 wind off the left. It's an absolutely like just unbelievably good four iron to about 15 feet rolls in the pot. It is like so exceptionally like cool to see how smoothly Ernie putted in this era. Like you you see how like scar tissue builds up over time but man that dude just like putted like a dream so much of the time,

although not quite on the on 18 years about to come up on 18. So Ernie still shot back. Hamilton hits an iron off the tee, like a five iron ends up kind of in the long grass on the right. Really? Ernie hits like this towering to iron like splits the fairway the most majestic fucking shot you can imagine. All Hamilton can do is basically take like a wild swing to iron like splits the fairway, the most majestic fucking shot you can imagine. All Hamilton can do is basically take like a wild swing. It goes all the way across the fairway and like goes up against the one of those temporary metal fences that they have to like separate the grandstands

from the thing. So he's gets a free drop from there because of the immobile fence is able to sort of squirt it up around the green. Eventually he's going to make bogey all right so suddenly else hits a great shot into 18 he has a putt outright to win the open championship he makes this putt and we're going you know ernie's just walking off i believe this is his shot here into 18 wow but yeah 12 feet maybe yeah so this putt is like it's way harder

than it looks on television and you can tell that immediately from as soon as he puts it because it breaks so freaking hard across the hole. I mean, he is one of these putts where you have to match up line and speed perfectly and he does not hit a good putt at all. I mean, it ends up way short, taps in, okay You know, bummer had a chance to win the open championship, but going to the playoff Ernie still obviously got to be, you know, the favorite, right? Like he's, he's the dude. He's the man and one is meant to win these championships. Hits a great shot

into the, they go back and they play three hole, four hole, four hole, two, four hole, egg, or one into 17 and 18 are the four holes. So Ernie hits a great shot into one just barely misses a makeable birdie putt. Hamilton makes par. They both par the third on the third playoff hole. Hamilton hits a kind of a skanky five iron onto the front of the green. Easy to putt but Ernie wipes it way left like into the sort of long grass chips out can't make his putt bogey all of a sudden we're going into 18 and Todd Hamilton has a one stroke lead again it's like holy fuck again same thing plays out like sad squirty five iron for

Hamilton majestic two iron and Hamilton later says I think he was probably in his like like a foot away from his divot in regulation else. It's another great drive on his approach like but before that happens. Hamilton has to kind of make a decision right there's bunkers short of the green there's out of bounds over the green so if he tries to carry these bunkers and hits hits firm it could go all the way through and basically could lose the open championship of this one swing. So he takes a five hour and he decides, all right, I'm going to try to carry the bunker, but I want it to land like short of the grain. So if it's short of the grain, like, you know, I'm totally fine. I just can't be in those bunkers. Hits a five feels pretty good about it, but here's like this, oh, crowd just completely groans. And he's like, Oh my God, I'm in that bunker.

Now I have to like get up and down from like, you know, 40 yards off the green to win the open championship. I'm totally screwed. Walks up there. He's not in the bunker. The ball hit like right on the upslope next to the bunker and kind of popped right up and then just sort of rolled a little bit over the edge of the thing. So now he's got like a long, you know, basically like a, you know, I want to say, I think it's like 90 feet with this fricking club,

he's going to pull out, all right? And he's going to go, he's going to try to, going to try to get this up and down from right here. So this is, I mean, when you look at it like this, you're like, how is this possible that this guy would be, I mean, obviously he did it all week, so he's going to rely on this, but this is, if he doesn't get up and down here, very good chance he's not going to win the open championship. Hits it to like two feet. I mean, it is like such a pure role is he's talking on I think it's for the good of the game podcast many years later. And even as he's talking about it,

he he gets so choked up that he can barely even talk this is about this is where he had it to he is there's like 15 seconds of silence because he's so completely overwhelmed by the emotion of what he did. Uh, and he basically says, Ernie has the putt, you know, then to sort of, he again misses it. Uh, it's, it's, it's watching Ernie like Ernie had a great chance and he just misses it by like, you know, this is the final putt. This is, it's just misses low, it's darting.

So it never really has a chance to go in because its speed is not lined up right. But that's the difference right there between Ernie maybe having three open championships and just having two or having five majors. And it's crushing. And Hamilton even says, as he's sort of talking afterwards, that he felt really bad for Ernie because he was like, you know what? Ernie was meant to win these things. I wasn't meant to win these things. He's so good at golf and I'm just me. And so he was like, but you know what? Like that's golf. Like sometimes like you have a guy who just completely,

you know, plays a great thing. It's his, Hamilton's wife after he got, after he won, got a BOC license plates printed up British Open Championship. But he never he didn't really feel comfortable with them. He didn't really feel like he was like that good. And he just was like, you know, he says in his speech, Ernie, I know you're going to win one another one of these things. And he said it made him so happy when Ernie did win one. Two years later, when Adam Adam Scott collapsed because he felt like almost like the universe had restored balance because Ernie was supposed to. He said two years later on the podcast

which confused me. But yeah, so it just felt like man, like what an honestly what a very classy thing for him to say like Ernie should have won that man. Like I'm, I'm just Todd Hamilton. Like I'm not Ernie else. So I'm surprisingly very fun watch. Uh, well you do a great job with these cause you make, every time we do these, I kind of, I want to go back and watch it like, well, shit, man, I need to go watch that drama. Like that's kind of what you live for for golf is the, the back nine major championship back and forth like that. I remember watching it. I remember being so confused that Todd Hamilton won. I just remember like, no, exactly that. Like, no, Ernie's supposed to win this. Like everyone was probably rooting for Ernie at the time of like, we don't want this no name guy to win. And here he goes. Uh, one note from Sports Illustrated that I thought you might appreciate.

Uh, Nick Faldo showed great promise during his TV debut by offering a nice mix of insight, history, humor, and just plain wackiness. Good 19 years before Nick is no longer in the booth. Yeah, so that's 2004. Tanner Iskra So, man, I mean, honestly, I would have thought that would have been a dull one, but we had more laugh out loud moments at yours than we did definitely in 2016. Barbara, they moved the opportunity for me. I have to go. I mean, flop in the face if I didn't go.

That sounds like the excuse I used to get a golf trip. Like, honey, they moved the dates because of me. I can't skip, right? It's what I gotta do. They're celebrating the band's 25th anniversary on this date just because I can be there. I gotta do it. So, all right. Well, that's it for these two. We again have the 1997 up next. If you already listened to the 1997 major recaps, you have heard it. Otherwise, Kevin, enjoy the Open Championship coming up here very shortly. Thank you very much. And thank you, everyone, for tuning in and cheers. I'm going to spoil this part for you. 1997 Open Championship coming up here very shortly. Thank you very much and thank you everyone for tuning in and cheers. I'm gonna spoil this part for you.

1997 Open Championship, not as exciting as the 97 Masters. All right, so I have less content on this one. Maybe the most exciting thing was Tiger, of course, getting off the plane rocking this look with the white sport coat and those circular glasses that he wore back in the day. We are going to Royal Trune Golf Club in Western Scotland. We're again on the Monty theme. His dad, his father is the club secretary

at Trune. So the prize fund, 2.6 million bucks, 418,000 to the winner, 7,079 yards, essentially the same length that it was at the 1962 Open Championship. Tiger opens up the week by dumping on the US fans by saying, Scottish fans don't just cheer for shots to get airborne. And he says when he tells them he doesn't have time for autographs, they respect it. So you can already see in just a few months, Tiger getting pretty worn out by a lot of the attention that he has come with this. So Earl Woods would make some comments on Colin Montgomery going into this saying,

he allows himself to be psyched out by letting problems get inside his head. There are two steps I would suggest. First, he must admit he has a problem. Then he needs a sports psychologist who could teach him techniques to block out the crowd. I was gonna say that's pretty spot on. I mean, I don't,

I don't, it's, it's funny to think about somebody's dad saying that about another competitor, but yeah, that, that is, is pretty spot on. But the story heading into round one is of course Tiger Woods. He ends, he steps up and ends up driving the first green. So this whole week, the front nine plays downwind. That's a kind of a common theme. A lot of guys step up on this on this opening hole and give it a give it a lash. So he opens up on that Thursday driving the first

green. Tries to drive the first green, excuse me, ends up in two different bunkers, but actually ends up saving par to start it. Cats got a pretty solid fit going here. You know, white top with the you know the long sleeves underneath, but blue pants, little baggy white shoes, and the blue hat. Is that calc I spy be in the tan wall in the background? I do not think that is calc.

No, that must be, it looks like. That's Elkington. It looks like it must be Elkington. Steve Elkington and Bernard Longer is who he is playing with. So there's a lot of shots of the cat, you know, in precarious spots and bunkers, you know, I was a takeaway I had was how far of a cry that this shot is from what we would see at the old course just a few

years later. That you know, he famously missed every bunker. But yeah, there's a bunch of the bunch of just the links golf stuff. So you're gonna again, like coming off this, having read the 97 book about how much you learned about Augusta, it looks like there's still a lot of links golf stuff that that tiger still has to learn, but he has great appreciation for it. One of the things I would say is that he needed to get much tighter fitting clothing because

he looks like a hot air balloon and a lot of these shots where the wind is just absolutely whipping. The man carried away. absolutely whipping. Uh, the man carried away. It looks like one of those, like one of those superhero costumes that people wear for Halloween, where it's like the fake muscles, like the Mr. Incredible costume or the Hanson France things from Sarah at life. It's not a great fit. But again, like most of the focus on

this round one is on Tiger. He makes a triple on the railway hole, which is the 11th hole, but finished with a one over round of 72. The hometown boy, our guy, Monte did not have a great day. The first clip we see of him is hitting a wayward iron off the tee of a par four, and you're not going to believe this. But he was upset about something that happened in the crowd directly behind him almost immediately after the shot. You hooligans calm down back there.

It's absolutely disgusting. Tony, I've known you since grade school. You know my father will get you kicked off the course in one minute. He's the club secretary. How dare you? Mark Calcovecchia, who won here in 1989, shoots a 74 and there's no way I could do justice to what happens here, but this is a vicious overhand club throw putter throw that he makes at his bag. It's pretty impressive. Tommy tolls on this day drives the first green with the first

group still on the green. The image that you're seeing here is somebody lining up a putt as the ball goes racing. This is where it finished in relation to the hole about six feet past the hole that almost ace the hole. And then, you know, there's not even a pin in on the green, Darren Clark looking quite young and dapper, if I may say, and he becomes a, a, a, a part of the storyline coming in Jim Frick, as he has referred to it

during the entire Open Championship film, is getting involved in the proceedings. And both he and Darren Clark would shoot four under par in their opening rounds on this Thursday. Fred Couples, Justin Leonard, and Greg Norman are at minus two. And then we have Cabrera, Barclay Howard, who's an amateur, Davis Love, Andrew McGee, and Jesper Parnevik all at minus one. And then we have Cabrera, Barkley Howard, who's an amateur, Davis Love,

Andrew McGee, and Jesper Parnevik all at minus one on this Thursday. Do you know without looking who wins this 97 Open? Only because he's a factor in the following. So I would not have remembered without like giving it serious thought. I remember when he won, but mostly what I probably remember was like, oh, an American who wasn't Tiger. Like, yeah. Well, I'm not going to spoil it just yet in case people that are driving don't know.

But Rick Riley would say about this Thursday, he said, as it was when they had finally counted heads to make sure nobody was pinned to a pork pie cart somewhere, two wind players were leading with 67s, Northern Ireland's Darren Clark, whose game was molded in one of the windiest places on earth. Royal Port Rush outside Belfast and Jim Furek, whose swing is so awful the wind improves it. Got a lot of jokes about fear of swing in this era to like just people not quite ready to accept that the gym was going to stick around and be, you know, who he was for 15 years. If you remember from our, I believe, 91 deep dive into the open champion,

Ian Baker Finch, this would be the now famous scene of him shooting a 92 in this round and withdrawing. And this is from Rick Riley's separate article that kind of dives into his whole kind of collapse. This is about Ian Baker Finch. He said he played a few practice rounds at Truman with his buddies and he was right around par, but now he was unsure about entering because his back had flared up in Ireland. Another Australian player, Peter Sr. Bark, don't be so bloody stupid Finchie.

I know how hard you've been working. Just go out and do it. Suck it up. Try your hardest. Golf is like sex. This is, that's end quote. Golf is like sex. Trying your hardest is the worst thing you can do. Yet

Baker Finch thought he's right. I can't just give up. He played. He said worst decision I ever made in my life. Hit the first fairway and made par but he doubled the second with a bad chip, doubled the sixth with a hook drive, doubled the postage stamp eighth out of the left bunker, bogeyed the first three holes in the back, doubled the 13th with the hook drive. Hole by hole, whatever milliliters of confidence he'd built up over six months leaked out of his spikes.

Walking with him, his friend Gary Edwin, a golf coach, prayed that Baker Finch would pull out of the tournament with a suddenly bulging disc or an instantly sprained thumb. Said, I thought about it, but it didn't seem right. A Baker Finch to the end. He tripled the 16th hole by hitting his drive out of bounds right, then his second one off the map left. He tripled the 16th hole by hitting his drive out of bounds right.

Then his second one off the map left. He doubled the par three 17th. He needed to eagle the 452 yard par four 18th to keep his score under 90. Sure. That was the, he said, that was the absolute worst feeling I've ever known. Walking up the 18th at the British Open

about to shoot 92 that made the shot at St. Andrew's feel like chicken feed. But you remember two years prior at the old course, he hooked one out of bounds at the widest hole in golf on the first team and had to retee. By then his nerves were afraid not fans and reporters lying the fairway to see for themselves. If it was true that a British Open champion was coming in

with a 20 handicapper score lying to and face with a simple 60 yard chip to the hole, he finally surrendered to the fear. He took out an eight iron and dribbled the ball onto the putting green, not trusting himself to put another ball in the air lest he skull shank, snap or slice it into yet another parking lot, membership lounge or woman's handbag.

It was the equivalent of taking off your skis and walking down the jump ramp. The blood drained from his face, the light from his eyes. He signed his scorecard, limply shook a few hands and took his wife and Edwin into the one room where nobody else would be, the champions room, reserved for men who have won the British Open. In the 137 years of the event,

no champion had ever entered it like that. He ignored the plus chairs and couches and collapsed on the floor with Jenny and a ball crying next to him and Edwin staring blankly ahead numb. They stayed like that for 45 minutes hiding from the press and fans who were looking in through the windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of the touring pro from the country club of hell. Wow. What a paragraph. Not done. Then Baker French got up and did what nobody what nobody but he would do. He went to the press room, swallowed hard,

and answered questions. He said, I can't get any lower than this. It was so humiliating that some writers couldn't bring themselves to scribble the words in their notepads. That night, bellhop after bellhop filled Baker Finch's room with flowers, champagne, and beer from players. But it was useless.

The next day, the scoreboard read WD next to Baker Finch's name. You can't, however, withdraw from a 92 in front of the world. Baker Finch flew back to Australia knowing there was only one thing he could do, work harder. So. Yowza. Yeah.

It's incredible writing, incredible kind of, you know, I know we relive that part, but again, reading it again was just shocking to get to that moment. One of my all time favorite golf stories, like as a seminal moment in like Kevin Van Vogelberg's journey of like being a writer was like, and the understanding of like reading about failure is often more compelling than reading about victory. That was one of the lessons that that story taught me very early on. And Riley was a big influence in that. Don't need, I mean, we say it on every one of these, Rick Riley, complete menace in this time period,

just a total tour de force. And it really is, I couldn't wait to read each one of his columns. Tiger hits the eject button on the 10th hole on Friday, makes an absolute mess. He's playing super quick. I've never seen Tiger do this, playing super quickly out of like Gorse and stuff like that. Just hacking it around the green, makes a quad, almost looks like he's giving up. Then he would walk in a birdie on the 18th hole to make the cut and does the signature putter raise. I don't know why I like this image of this weird collared shirt that he's got with the Nike on the emblem and the, you know, the corners kind of fanning

up a little bit. Just a look that didn't last forever on Tiger. Those striped shirts that he wore in this era were very strange. Like the weird colors, like the greens, you know, he really never like, even the fluorescent colors that he chose later in life seemed to fit him better than the weird like pea soup greens. Darren Clark shoots 66, leads at minus nine, Justin Leonard at minus seven, Jesper is at minus six. And among the special guests at the open this year, his Royal Highness, the Duke of York,

Prince Andrew is in attendance and featured in the highlight video, which is- Oh dear. Probably not gonna make a current version of that if that was to be redone. But Tiger, I was going to say Tron did reference Epstein's plane the other day on the trap draw. So I mean, it's very possible that, you know, all things lead back to Prince Andrew and Epstein. And it's always all things lead back to the trap draw. Saturday, Tiger has himself a day he goes out and 32 when he gets to 16.

He's 290 yards away and the announcers are like, well, yeah, he's waiting for the green to clear, but he can't get there today. Hits this just massive banana cut hits it pin high 20 feet left of the hole. He makes the putt chips in for birdie then on 17 needs a par at the last to tie the course record of 64 and he makes the 10 footer to do it. So Saturday 64. Yeah. Fred couples coming up the the 11th hole that the railway hole a hole that was playing really really difficult

holes out from the from the fairway. He's got our guy, Joe Lakava, of course, by his side. And what do you know? What's, what do you think the next thing that, uh, is that couples does as he's walking up this 11th hole? Uh, does he take his hat off and wave? He takes his hat off and waves it to the ground. And, uh, in our guys deserve to celebrate too. He's sticking with his guy, Patrick Kailay hats off on that shot. In the meantime, yes,

for part of it has just continued to absolutely ball out. Speaking of hats, he's obviously famous at this time for his famous flipped up cap. But we can we just take a second to acknowledge the fact that he's got the underside of his bill sponsored like that is just that is next level stuff. The activations used to be smarter than you know, who no one's thinking about activating the bottom of your bill these days. Come on. So unused real estate. I don't know about you. Yes, for part of it was weirdly

influential on my junior golf career, like watching him mash and like I was always jealous of the size of the divots he took, obviously as a big turf guy, but watching how close he would stay into the ball and how pure he was with his irons, like made me, one of, I mean, that was one of the swing fields I would try maybe on Monday. It would be a different swing field I would try on Tuesday,

but I always loved watching Yesterpartner if they hit the ball. My buddies golf team, we originally, when we like 20 years ago, we formed like two golf teams for a Ryder Cup team. One of us was team Tiger and one of his team Phil and my team was team Tiger. And when the scandal sort of broke, we decided to rename our team, team Jesper. And there's some regret now that we didn't just stick with Tiger, but we've

been team Jesper for like 15 years now, whatever. So he's played a, I have like several ball markers in my possession that say team Jesper on it. So he's lived on in my personal golfing life forever. Darren Clark gets it all the way to minus 12, but he made a bunch of bogeys coming in. He falls back to minus nine and Jesper Parnevik is the 54 hole leader at 11 under again, Clark at minus nine, two shots back. Fred couples and Justin Leonard are at minus six, five shots back. There's a great shot at the end of this of, of tiger. He is the last one left on the range. It does a little messing around,

puts on a little show for the fans and is doing his, uh, his little club bounce thing on there. And, uh, gotta say, look at his pants. You cannot, those pants are so high and they're so straight. That's fabric for two pairs of pants. Oh my God. They are massive. You could hide an NFL lineman's thighs in those pants.

That's just insane. Anyway, yes. This is obviously before the commercial he shoots, where he does the bouncing on the club and the full swing because he takes a full cut at it and whiffs the ball, unfortunately, to the, and then he ends up full cut at it and whiffs the ball. Unfortunately, to the, and then he ends up hitting what he does it again and hits one that, but not nearly as pure as he does in the commercial from Riley. Um, as we get into this final round, he wrote part of it

is famous in so many ways, but mostly as the guy who forgot to look at scoreboards in the 1994 British open at Turnberry and lost to Nick Price by a shot. Monty would say on that Saturday night, I think Jesper is going to win. It seems like you must lose one of these before you win one. We did not cover 94. I don't remember this, but I watched the highlight back of this.

He chases the pin at Turnberry in 1994, thinking he needs Birdie to tie. He only needed part of tie. And if he hit it 15 feet right, he'd have a putt to win and two putts to tie. Short sides himself and does not get up and down and misses out on a playoff at 1994 to Nick Price. But some coverage takes that are published

on the Sunday morning. The BBC defended their decision to show only brief extracts of Tiger's course record equaling round. Their coverage did not start until 12.30 PM and they had to show racing from Newberry due to a contract. You don't know how contracts work. Yes, exactly. It's very pleased to see that charity. Sunday Tiger makes a couple early birdies but he triples the postage stamp after dumping it into the right bunker. Riley would say, you know, the US Open is where Tiger learned you can't make a big number.

Earl Woods told Tiger's agent news to Hughes Norton last week the US Open is where Tiger learned you can't make a big number. Earl Woods told Tigers agent news to Hughes Norton last week. And trune is where Tiger learned you can't make three big numbers. He had three terrible holes that cost him 10 total shots. If he made three pars on those, he would have finished second place. Just as in the US Open and Juni made more birdies and fewer bogeys than the winner. Maybe the hero is the hero because he goes for hero pars, but a few bogeys out of this kid instead of eights and we might've had

something. Tiger would say afterwards that people said things they shouldn't have out there. So he has lost the respect for the Scottish fans. And he just, you just don't do that over here. Just don't do that. He refused to reveal exactly what spectators had shouted, but he was clearly upset about it. So in this final round, it's Clark and Parnivik in the final group and Leonard and couples in the penultimate group. There's a montage that plays that relives Parnivik's fatal mistake in the 18th hole at Turnberry in 1994 when he went pen hunting. The hollow there would be known as Jesper's grave. I did not know that. The hollow short left of 94. We need to get back to naming

locations around. I agree. Yeah. Darren Clark goes out and birdies the first hole, then steps up and cold shanks one with an iron onto the beach and out of bounds on the second hole and makes double then goes and clangs one off the hole with his approach into the third hole. Then part of it steps up and hits the stick. So this is this image you're looking at here. Is there two shots into the into the third hole? Clark yips the putt unfortunately, but Parnivik steps up and makes his birdie. Leonard makes five birdies and a bogey in his first seven holes to get it to 10 under par.

Again, they're going downwind out to start here. Then it starts getting a little nerdy for Jesper Parnivik here. He plays the par five sixth hole which is called guess what Turnberry. Oh how unfair to him. He tries to putt it from like 40 yards ends up making bogey and his lead is down to one over Leonard Clark pours and a birdie to get back within two after a really difficult start to his round but he is back in the hunt. Skipping ahead a little bit, Parnevik birdies the 11th hole to stretch out to a two shot lead, but things really start to go poorly. He makes a bogey on the 13th hole and the lead is won. Now, going back to Justin Leonard, who's in the group ahead, not like Priyam, not, I would love to see the strokes

gain data from this round because doesn't hit it great, seems to be having problems from everywhere and makes just 15 footer after 15 footer after 15 footer. Like he is making so many freaking par putts and then he gets to the 16th hole. Again, this is after making so many putts in a row, not eight footers, like bomb putts in a row. Has this putt on the 16th hole from 20 feet

for birdie for the tie. Absolutely drains it. But Parnovic is on the and still has the par 5 16th to play. As you skip ahead, Leonard is up on the 17th hole putting from 35 feet for Birdie and drains it. But Parnovic has a five footer for Birdie on 16 and yips it it he misses the short five footer and Leonard is leading alone at minus 12 after 17 again Parnovic's putt to tie the lead not a long one it's just not a lengthy putt and it misses on the low on the right side it's not a very pretty stroke. Leonard gets up weird center shafted putter I'm looking at here. Yeah, it's got a weird like kind of kind of bar behind it too. I

wish I would have got a better shot of that one. But Leonard steps up on 18 hits a fairway wood down the left side part of it gets to 17 and chunks it I mean it was awful like a goes way short and left into the into the crowd. Leonard hits a long iron into 18 hits it right in the middle of the green he makes kind of the walk it's starting to look pretty much, it's a long iron into 18 hits it right in the middle of the green. He makes kind of the walk. It's starting to look pretty much like it's a, it's Leonard. Leonard's to lose at this point. He two puts par and part of it. Bogey 17 lead is two. It's over Leonard shots final round 65. You know, they, they, they cut to part of X wife and two kids

and a nanny on the 18th grade. Oh, a nanny. Wait, I double, I triple quadruple take here. I don't think this is even. I don't think it's either. Okay, I think they didn't meet until like 2000 or a couple of years later when she gets hired on. Cause she's younger than Tiger anyway. And so that's no way that she would have been 16

or something at this point. All this to say, Jesper's family has a type when it comes to when it comes to nannies because that is an attractive younger 20s blonde I can only assume is Swedish that looks a hell of a heck of a lot like like Elan but you know what though I will say that didn't Elan's sister nanny for the parnaviks and that was how they met I know El know even sister was also a model who did some nanny. So outside chance that's even sister. I don't know. That's she would be more age appropriate. I would think we have Josephine Nordegren that is almost certainly her now that I've done

this. This look at us and you investigates. Red Bull. What a poem. Yeah, that has to be her. That really has to be her. That, well anyways, great finding there. Who would have thought when they were making this film together in 1997 that it would be, this shot would be studied like the Zapruder film. But again, kind of talking about the failure and what that kind of registered here.

I feel like if I have a memory of watching this, it's kind of sears in this grief era of golf. Like dude, somebody blew almost every one of these and they just zoom in on Jasper Parnevik's face on repeat. And there's this incredible shot that shows Darren Clark and Justin Leonard kind of hamming it up before they're getting ready to go accept the trophies and the runner-ups have to accept their silver medals. And I mean, Clark is in a great mood

and Parnivik just looks like he's on a different planet. It's really tough, but Leonard ends up winning it by three despite being five shots down going into the final round. Rick Riley would say, you say this is the Tiger Woods era and you're probably right, but Woods may have a stubborn Texas chihuahua clamped onto his tail and Leonard

who has won two PGA Tour events and a major in the last 11 months. If you add 27 year old Ernie L's to 21 year old woods and Leonard, you might have a big three starter kit. For the first time in history, three men less than 30 years old have won the first three majors of the year. I found that interesting. I didn't realize that was the first youth movement. A lot of big threes. Everybody always wanted a big three. But as Gary, as Gary would say, there's only of big threes. Everybody always wanted another big three. But as Gary would say, there's only one big three. I don't remember what happens after this, but I don't

think Justin Leonard is in a big three for very long. I'd have to check the tape on that one, but he had a very nice career. Listen, I'm not making fun, but pretty outrageous claim by Riley there. But more from Riley, for Leonard, there was to do, but admire his name and scribed on the trophy. Not five minutes into his reign as British open champion. He says, wow, pretty fast work. Does he have a dry cleaners in Dallas? And then a tiger striped females, then the tiger striped female streaker on the 18th green. He said, I got to see this. He said, as he bolted from a ring of writers and he says relax he's single. Couldn't find the images of the tiger striped female streaker on the 18th green belt. Oh bummer. How dare they

erase the tiger striped feasible stripper or streaker to history for us. This is an important part of history's documentation. We should be able to have that at our fingertips. Other writing, Art Spandor noted that Justin Leonard now has as many major titles as tiger and one more than Phil, which that would change in the coming years. But I don't have a whole lot of other funny little stuff other than this was David Begg's final year operating the press tent at the open. A bunch of players, you know, in the video say a whole bunch of nice things about him. Nick Price says it's great to have known him for 15 to 16 years says, you know, we'll miss him. Jack, in his tribute to him makes it all about himself and says,

I mean, yeah, David, he's been through the whole gamut with me. He's seen me go from a young man to an old man. It's like, what a great tribute to David there. Get this, you're not going to believe this next part though, but Nicholas is not sure if he'll return to play in the British Open next year at Royal Birkdale. He said he'll see how he's playing next year before deciding he had played in 36 straight British Opens. So he would of course return that year in the next three years and also come back. Maybe he's got one more in him. Who knows?

He also said, Yeah, I did not think I would be coming this year, but in the last couple of months I've been hitting the ball. Well, I think if I can be competitive, I shall be back at Royal Berkeley next year. And the only thing is I got this like guru who like just does all these kinds of weird things is calling cost me 20 bucks. He then, he then tipped the locker room attendant one pound and left back on his plate. Uh, that brief from 97 open championship, but not the most exciting one. Right. Club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most!

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