No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 923: 1998 Majors Deep Dive

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Soly and KVV are back as we take a deep dive into the majors from 1998 - highlighted by Mark O'Meara's Masters-Open Championship double, plus Lee Janzen's US Open win at Olympic Club and Vijay Singh claiming the PGA Championship at Sahalee. 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 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. Ladies and gentlemen, KVV here. It's all in our back this week for another Deep Dive episode. Hey, we've really been appreciative of all your feedback on these, especially your willingness to put up with some truly terrible impressions and accents by yours truly. I promise our Scottish

and Irish listeners, I love you most of all, even if every accent I do sounds like a combination of sideshow Bob and groundskeeper Willie. Look, a lot of good memories and laughs in this one, which we recorded a month ago before Sully went and doubled the size of his family. If you like these podcasts, I'd really encourage you to check them out in our No-Laying-Up podcast channel on YouTube. We often throw lots of little visual surprises and screen grabs in to help tell a story. Plus you can also see me and Sully try to crack each other up, which is kind of its own sporting event.

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comfortable active layer in the game. This holiday season. All right, let's get back to the deep dive. Ladies and gentlemen, we are back. We are almost through the nineties. KVV is here and we are going to be diving in to the major championship season of 1998 KVV. What were you up to in 1998? Oh my goodness. I was a junior in college. I was the sports editor at the Montana Kaman at the university of Montana. I had my like first long-term real girlfriend. Yeah. It was, it was a wonderful time of my life. I was drinking a lot of terrible beer,

really just living it up in Missoula, Montana, wearing khakis and adidas, probably really bad styling on my part, but man, it felt cool at the time. Picking on a backwards hat. I don't wear, we're pulling up some old images from me in 2015. I was also wearing khakis and adidas,

which I was 17 years late on that. That's a tough one to keep reliving. I think I was getting ready khakis and adidas, which I was 17 years late on that. That's a tough one to keep reliving. I think I was getting ready to go into seventh grade, if I have the math right. Yeah, I graduated middle school in 2000. But do you remember what else was going on in sports summer of 1998? Home run race. That's exactly right. Sammy Sosa was on the cover of after the US Open because usually the majors got front cover of the Sports Illustrated run. That was a big deal back then. What was it? Whatever was on the cover and Sosa hit like 20 home runs or something in June. He was on a hot tear that month and he was

on the cover, but that had captivated pretty much everything in this. But how did you find your majors in 98 compared to some of the other ones we did? What, uh, where does this one rank in terms of interest and, uh, an intrigue of what happened this year? 98 is a lot of fun. 98, excuse me. 98 masters is a lot of fun. I, I got some good nuggets, some funny details. I hope we'll make you smile a little bit. Some shit that I definitely did not remember. It's, it's very kind of a bang bang going down the stretch. It definitely would feel like a Masters where we would be riveted. PGA, very sleepy. Not exactly a riveting contest. Although a little bit of interesting, it's interesting

to see who it would appeal to because a lot of guys hitting just long irons off the tee, a lot of trees and thick rough around the grains to navigate. Might be the true like brand new Chamblis major championship pinnacle. Same goes for Olympic club 98. So we, for this year, just again, spoiler, if you don't want to know who won the majors in this year and you truly don't know,

maybe just hit the 32nd button here, but I'm going to tell you why we split it up the way we did. Marco Miro won the masters and the British open. We usually alternate back and forth, but we wanted to split up who, you know, so somebody wasn't just, you know, spending multiple days covering Marco Mira as much as we love him. I just don't know if I would have, you know, wanted to do two different majors that he won. So you are going to do the masters. I'm going to take the middle two, which is the U S open and the British

open. And then you are going to bring us home with the 1998 PGA at Sahale. Are you ready to dive in? You want to go take us to the Masters? I think I'm ready. I'm excited. Tali, do you remember who was the defending champion at the Masters in 1998? Eldrick Taunt Woods was the defending champion. He ate it out the year before.

A lot of talk in the world of Tiger of like, is Tiger basically about to like completely blow golf over? Like, is he see that Michael Jordan of golf? Tiger's actually sort of embracing that thing, but you know, some controversy comes with lots of attention. Weirdly, like this is a time when golf writers had a lot of power. And so they're a little bit persnickety about whether tiger was, uh, kissing the ring bound down to them.

He had skipped media at the U S open after day one last year at congressional. And then sort of pissed off a lot of people. I think John Feinstein sort of, you know, dressed him down, basically said that no one was above the game. Uh, so tiger at the master's dinner, some of these people may have held 25 year grudges for like some very early tiger woods. Things that happened. If I could, if I could remember, right, I would like to say like whatever grudges I may have held over stupid petty shit. I really nothing compared to like the writers of, of your previous eras, because I'm happy to talk to like any live guys that I've

like criticized in the past, whatever. But some of these writers, it is, they are just years and decades of, of anger over whether tiger paid them proper respect. Which something of note is like when I've dealt with some older players in any way, doing interviews or something like several of them kind of blow me away with their professionalism in terms of how they of blow me away with their professionalism in terms of how they've treated me as a media member, just that they don't know.

I remember you told the story from this past year at the Masters. I think it was on that Sunday prior to the tournament when you bumped into Ben Crenshaw in kind of a little scrum. He introduced himself to you. And so that was the way to, you only have these, how many guys that are going to be writing about you. Like if you smiled at them, looked at them in the face, had got lunch with them every now and then get treated them with a little bit of respect, their words are going to be

maybe a little bit nicer about you through the course of your career. And Tiger just did not give a shit about that. I will say though, so at the Golf Writers Association dinner, sorry, I'm a newly minted member of the Golf Writers Association. Just, you know, just took me going to no laying up to have to join that organization. But anyway, they have a dinner every year on Wednesday night and Tiger appeared at the dinner to accept his player of the year award. And he apologized to the media for having skipped. So sorry, guys. I'm a young guy. I'm going to make mistakes. He apologized to the media for having skipped US Open media earlier that year. Said that he's learning and hopes to be better in the future. A lot of people in this era cannot resist that it is Tiger versus the field at the

Masters. This is kind of the first appearance of that trope that will kind of ring out through a pen basically like a decade at least if not more. Ernie L is kind of miffed about this. He says if you want to write, if you want to write that, go ahead and write it. But I don't think that's the case. I almost did the South African accent there but I'm back there and I got scared. I love when you pull the ripcord. When you pull the ripcord on an accent.

E Jack, E Jack, this is bad. No, no, no, no, no, no, pull up, pull up. Monty says, I hope we're all just seeing it just once the way he played last year. If he plays like he did last year, we've got a battle on our hands. Obviously, this will be the first Masters without Ben Hogan. Oh, listen, come on. We know the impressions are bad. The impressions are terrible.

Like they're terrible on purpose in many ways. This is the first year at the Masters Champion Center without Ben Hogan. Hogan died last year and we almost lost Sam Snead. Sam Snead is taken to the hospital on Tuesday night at the Masters with what is reported to be a mild stroke. He actually hits the opening tee shot later.

So like apparently not that big of a thing. As you may remember a little bit of controversy at last year's masters over the champions dinner, one fuzzy Zeller said to the media in the midst of tiger winning the masters, of course, just tell him not to serve fried chicken and collard greens or whatever the hell it is they serve. An interesting change that you can tell from the media now is that the media is kind of, I would say, hectoring Tiger a little bit about how he needs to do a better

job of accepting Fuzzy's apology. There's a lot of, there's a lot of like, hey, can't we all just move on over this? Like, why is Tiger still sort of being cold to fuzzy? Tiger has like accepted fuzzies apology is basically just like, yeah, like we're not going to be friends, but we'll go ahead and move on. But there's still a lot of like, isn't it about time for Tiger to realize that, you know, fuzzy was just kidding around. Tiger, don't you understand this joke would have slayed down here for like 60 years. Okay.

All right? Oh, so Fuzzy has basically refused to speak to the press. Although he still kind of speaks to them, but he won't like do any kind of like sit down, won't talk about it for like a year. But he breaks his silence and he compliments Tiger's champions dinner. Do you remember what Tiger served, Sully? Was it sushi? No. It was cheeseburgers, grilled chicken breast sandwiches,

French fries, and vanilla or strawberry milkshakes. I guess I'll eat crow, said former Masters Champion Bob Golby. I said I'd eat crow if cheeseburgers were actually served. I thought it was a joke, but they were delicious. They still have not touched the course yet. This is pre-tiger proofing.

It's still going to play at 6,925 yards. The 13th hole is 485 yards. This is, as I said, sort of a time where controversy abounds around surrounding Tiger. He and his father and their agent, Hughes Norton, were featured on the cover of Golf World magazine in the lead up to the Masters and the headline was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I don't know why like Hughes Norton could be referred to as the third part of the Holy Trinity. But the golf world gets so many angry letters and faxes, by the way, that they have to issue an apology to their readers. Unfortunately, our attempt at cleverness fell flat with many readers.

The cover generated more mail, all of it negative than any in recent memory. We regret any offense that it may have caused. So this week is also on Showtime, the debut of the Tiger Woods story, a movie biopic directed by LeVar Burton. This is a big deal. It is going like all around. Every newspaper is writing about, you know, how, how that will treat

Tiger's life. I w I'm not going to tell you that I watched all of it, but I actually really would like to watch a lot of it and maybe go back and like, I maybe have like a live viewing of this movie because the comedy potential is very, very high. This is Earl Woods. Earl is looking pretty sweet as this famous actor. I think his name is David Keith. He's been in a bunch of stuff. He's pretty awesome throughout the sort of thing. He's maybe the one thing. So this is pretty low budget movie. It is not exactly like holding up to the standards that we would think of a showtime quality TV. This is the ninth hole at Augusta.

If you were listening on the podcast, there are people like the YouTube surrounding go find the YouTube first of all, but there are people sort of basically almost standing on the ninth green. There is a strange like pedestrian bridge just right of the ninth grade. You could tell they said all the extras. Doug, we need you behind in the background of this one shot right here across this canyon. Every aspect of Tiger's life in this movie is depicted. And we've actually arranged a clip here of what I think is the funniest part of the film here. This is depicting Earl's, one of

Earl's two tours in Vietnam where he was a Green Beret, Colonel Orwoods. Right prior to this clip, Earl and his platoon basically take cover in kind of a jungle area. The communications specialist, whose name is Phong, real life person, close friends with Orwoods, not a real life person, obviously, but depicted as like his real life friend, close friends with Earl Woods, not a real life person obviously, but depicted as like his real life friend, says he needs time to recharge the battery and Colonel Woods says, all right, everybody gets some sleep and it starts to rain here and then this unfolds. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. We thought that we still. And you used to say I was a bad shot. You'll never get any more lip from me. In fact, Tiger, I'm going to name my next kid after you. Whether it's a girl or a boy. Bung Wood has a nice song. Not bong. Tiger. Tiger Wood. Yeah. Much better. So if you didn't see that, if you're not watching on the YouTube, a snake comes out of the jungle and is almost ready to

attack a sleeping Earl Woods and thong says Earl, be still and whips out his pistol and shoots the snake. Uh, and then Earl, uh, says as a sort of thank you, he's going to name his first child, Tiger Woods. Just knowing that it's low budget, all the details of it are so funny. Like the clear flash, like you're supposed to be lightning. Like the flashes are just like a camera flash of, uh, the fake stake in there too. That's I'm a hundred percent go back and watch this movie. Uh, one more thing I wanted to say that it does depict the, uh, infamous, uh, incident where tiger had, was part of a GQ photo shoot and story where, um, Charlie Pierce, who's very famous author, uh, sort of one of my friends and heroes growing up magazine writer,

he tiger tells some off color jokes, uh, about the little rascals and taking off a condom with his shoes, sort of like very dumbass, like 21-year-old humor. And it depicts Charlie Pierce basically saying like, oh, that's not off the record, whatever. This is what Charlie looks like in the movie. This is the reporter who's like, hey man, you're Tiger Woods, that's never off the record. This is what my friend Charlie looks like in real life. So Hollywood did wonder Charlie. Yeah, it's probably the one one person who came out looking great in this. Absolutely love my man, Charlie. Great writer. Famous writer for Esquire for many years. But yeah, I've never heard of this movie. didn't know it existed, didn't know any of this.

Like prior to you sending this over earlier today, I was flabbergasted by this. I really do think it would be fun for us to sit and watch this because it's kind of like, it's really low budget hilarious. And it gets like reviewed in every single paper, like talking about, and Tiger of course comments on it. He's not happy about it. It pretty much sucks because I had no control over the movie. Someone writes an unauthorized book, someone does a movie out of it, that's wrong.

I will never see it. So Tiger, obviously, big talk of pretty much every sort of thing in the lead up to the Masters. Augusta resists any talk that they are interested in tiger-proofing the layout. They're always going to be ongoing discussions regarding possible changes to our golf course said Augusta Chairman Jack Stevens. However, we would never make changes because of one player or one tournament.

We'll see if you stick to that guys. It turns out you'd pretty much rearrange the entire golf course to make sure he didn't Win like ten jackets understand the strategy of Again, especially with the racial Stuff going on with the club in this time period of like yeah I don't know if we need to like make it to the black. I can't win the tournament or I don't know Anyway, so butch Harmon is of course Tiger's coach at this

point. He's predicting that Tiger will shoot in the 50s one day at Augusta, which I had never heard before. I think that was kind of interesting. Didn't ever come close, but just an interesting thing. Jack Nicklaus says that they've already changed the golf course for one golfer, Jack Nicklaus. They changed the golf course in the mid 60s because of me, Nicklaus says in an Associated Press story. I won the tournament three out of four years and they put in bunkers to try to restrict where I could hit the ball. Now those bunkers are all obsolete. You know that saying

so if you you ain't bragging if you can back it up, that's kind of Nicholas here. He said I always feel like if I played well, I had to have some really bad breaks to lose at Augusta. With my link, the link, the hazards weren't there. I had to have some really bad breaks to lose at Augusta with my link, the link, the hazards weren't there. I hit it over everything. It's the same as he does. Nicholas opposes growing the rough at Augusta, which he believes will take away from the recovery shot. He advocates rolling back the golf ball 10 to 20%, which he thinks will make the course 1998. That's aggressive in 98. Yeah, it's well, we'll

get to some of that around the US Open, by the way. Also around the US Open, Jack Nicklaus talking about himself and making making somebody else's performance about himself. That rings true for every year in the history of golf. It's really is remarkable. So Woodson actually admits in the discussion, they talk about, you know, what it would be like to see the champions locker room. And he's like, Oh, I've actually seen the champions locker room. He and Tripkini actually snuck down into the champions locker room when they were amateurs.

He says Tripper and I were just hanging out and we were bored and we decided to take a walk and check out the champions locker room. Tiger said he was surprised to find that there was a computer in there, quote, you know, because of the average age of all those guys being kind of old I would love to know what kind of computer was was in there of course you know this is only two years removed from Greg Norman almost winning the Masters and it is still sort of haunting him he's kind of battling a shoulder injury at this point everybody is sort of saying you know maybe Greg's time has. One of his close confidants says to the media, I think it was Ron Cyrick, if there's one

tournament Greg wishes he could win, it's the Masters. It kills him that he can't go in the Champions locker room. It kills him that he can't go to the Champions dinner. It kills him that Nick Faldo can play the Masters for the rest of his life and he can't. Kills him so much he's going to burn down professional. Whether any downstream, thankfully there's no downstream effects of all of that weighing on Mr. Norman.

Yeah, we could just, yeah, we could go back in time, maybe just, you know, maybe have that one chip not go in for, you know, maybe just let Greg have a master's and the things would be quite different. Buzzi does start to talk a little bit as the week goes on. So I'm sure you'll be stunned to hear that he will not let go of his bitterness over the 1997 version of being canceled. He continues to blame the media. This is a person who gave this interview

on camera, by the way. It's not like he said this to a friend and someone overheard it. And then the Tiger Woods situation off the record versus on the record, he gave this interview to a local media reporter on camera underneath the big fucking oak tree. He says, I didn't write it boys. You're the ones who buried me and I appreciate it. As the dinner duck got closer, he continued to be bitchy about it. He says, it'll never die. They're beating on me right now for Augusta and they're beating on me since California. And I won't mention anything. I won't say a word. I'll just keep telling him who won.

Hey, Tiger one, congratulate him. Go talk to him. You might also not be surprised to learn that John Daly is mad that fuzzy has been canceled. You might just feel like maybe those two should just play some practice rounds together or something because it's just gotten crazy how out of hand this has gotten asked ifed if he wanted to talk about the incident after the champions dinner Fuzzy snapped at reporters again. I'm not saying a word. No, no, no. It'll be a cold day in hell before I talk. Jack Stevens chairman says for what it's worth he enjoyed Tiger's champions dinner. I had a nice cheeseburger. It pairs good with wine. On Tuesday before the tournament kicks off, the Masters dedicates a plaque to Jack

Nitlis commemorating- I thought they were going to commemorate it for fuzzy Zeller for where he had the quote. I'm sorry. Commemorating Jack's sixth Masters wins during the ceremony. Jack tears up Jack Stevens, make sure to note that they left a little room on the plaque just in case Nicholas wins the seventh screen jacket. Everybody kind of laughs, you know, there's no way this is serious. Jack's 58 years old. I did not know this, Ali, but in my research I learned that this year, you know, Tom Watson has had quite a strange effect on like a lot of different things in Augusta. It was apparently Tom Watson who convinced Augusta to let them use their own caddies because, you know, remember up 1983, they had to use the local caddies.

Apparently, in 1982, or in 83, excuse me, Hord Harden, the chairman of Augusta, Watson went up to him. Hord was like a very famous trial lawyer in the South. Watson basically said that preparing to play Augusta without your own caddy was like preparing for a trial without your legal secretary. And Horde agreed with this logic and then decided to change basically like 50 years of tradition and let players use their own caddies.

So just one other kind of anecdote in there, Ernie Ells saw himself on a magazine cover prior to the Masters like earlier that year and said he felt he looked fat and so he decided to lose 15 pounds. I've been there Ernie like I've been fighting that my whole life. Round one kicks off Sam Snead is back to hit the ceremonial tee shot even though he had a stroke. He does like a waist-high like kick you know like Gary Player used to do to sort of show everyone that he

was fine. Used to do do Gary still does that. That's true. Gary's still rocking the boys. I can't forget about that. Our solo leader on day one is Fred Couples. He leads at three under. He's the only player to break 70. He made seven birdies on the day for bogeys. And on the 12th, he hit a tee shot that like when the year he won,

landed on the bank and, he hit a tee shot that like when the year he won, landed on the bank and trickled back and stopped. Which man, how did Jordan Speed not get this break? A couple's got it like multiple times in his life. Couples takes off his shoe and sticks his foot into Rays Creek and hits the shot, hits it up there, does not quite make the par putt like he did in 92, but saves a stroke and ends up shooting 69. Quite the crazy circumstance.

Someone calls in a death threat to Tiger in the first round, which per his wishes, he wanted to be told about this kind of stuff whenever it happened. So the officials pull him aside on the 13th tee to tell him that there's been a death threat against his life out there. Tiger goes ahead and just birdies the hole. It's just kind of like fucking normal shit in the day.

Well, yeah, I mean, that's what Earl he trained me for that back in the day he would, they would make death threats to me in my backswing. Well, you know, a lot of snakes out there in the jungle and sometimes how to be on on your game. One of the stories of the day is 66 year old gay brewer fires a 72 Brewer the 67 masters champ hadn't made the cut since 1983. For example, in their sort of wacky, you

know, loving puns said that his name sounded like the title of a niche magazine. His average drive. Apologies to all the gay brewers out there. His average drive was 213 yards. Oh my god. It's the lowest round ever shot by someone 65 or older. So take that Gary Player. 19 year old amateur Matt Kucher is sort of the talk of the first round. He is just grinning his face off. One of the things I remember most about this Masters is just how much Cooch was just like constantly smiling. Everyone was like, oh, what a great young man. He's just wonderful.

He's going to be around this game for many years to come. He's 19 at this point. He actually writes, excuse me, he writes a diary for the Atlanta Journal Constitution about what it's like to play in the masters at age 19. As you can see on the screen here, says that the crow's nest is cooler than sleeping in the Georgia Tech dorms. I would hope so.

He says that he had to beg his Georgia Tech professors to let him slide on some homework for this week. Cuchas, he comes up in the US Open. His golf swing looks completely different than it does for the most of his career. I did not even recognize it. I don't know how really to describe it. It's way more fluid.

It's just, it looks absolutely nothing like what he's invented himself into. Alligator arms deal. I mean, it do me a lot of money. So yeah, right choice for him, but just aesthetically a different deal. Ben Crenshaw shot 83 in the opening round and said afterwards to the media, I need an ambulance. I was terrible today. I had no confidence from the start.

I was totally inept. Ben, we thank you for giving such good quotes. You always give good quote. Spain's Ignacio Garrido made an 11 on the 15th hole, hit three balls in the water. Weather delays kind of delayed the opening round by 90 minutes, so 10 players didn't finish. As you can probably remember, they repaired after round one. And so it turns out who gets paired together in round two?

Tiger Woods and Fuzzy Zeller. Also Colin Montgomery. No way! Yes. I don't remember this yeah you could not script this also paired with them is Colin Montgomery who is you remember has talked some shit about tiger throughout his career including during the 97 Masters where he's basically like oh you know he's too wild of a driver to kind of

keep this up and then had to eat crow so they keep you know this is the subject is like the thing did that come thing that came up during this part. Yes. The press of course is like super interested as anyone would be, but tiger neither does the tiger or fuzzy want to talk about it. Fuzzy's basically not talking about it, talking about it at all. Tiger is even kind of weary of it. Press keeps wanting to talk about it and write about it. No offense, but it's in your control. It's in your ballpark. Fuzzy and I buried it long ago. Fuzzy finally says after the round, it's not a big deal. He's a person just like everybody else, boys and girls. And then he goes, Oh,

excuse me. I forgot. It's not politically correct to say boys. I meant gentlemen. Fuzzy has fall around all day by a fan in a hat with a hat that says Fuzzy you demand and has the Kmart logo with a circle and a crossed out because Kmart had dropped fuzzy that year. You can see the echoes of like the oh I don't want to be canceled for what I'm saying in this era. Just so much remorse really. Because it's flowing from from fuzzy there too.

Gary player makes the cut the oldest man to ever make the cut. As you can see here Gary is wearing his belt all the way up around his nipples just about. He is, God, he must be wearing a 26 inch belt. I mean, he is, this is a such a fit man. I think that that belt might not fit around my neck, Sully. That is just incredible. So in awe. I literally, I never ever ceases to amaze what more shit I can find about Gary Blair. He

says I will always enjoy the challenge of a great wind. It was like I was playing again in my 20s. What a thrill. He signed a young, he signed a ball for a young kid just off the 18th green and said, you can tell everyone that was signed by the oldest man to ever make the cut of the masses. BJ Singh obviously has not won a major yet at this point, but playing his consistent golf of anyone his streak of 53 consecutive cuts comes to an end after rounds of 70 and 876 and

80. He sort of storms past reporters on his way out and says, don't talk to me. Stuart Appleby was forced to putt with his four iron after he bent his putter in anger on the fourth hole. He made three birdies with his four iron over the final 14 holes. Always love stories like that where guys have to putt with something else. Doug Ford, as we remember from the commercials about Doug Ford, this is an uninterrupted broadcast of the Masters Doug Ford.

Soterios Johnson That's Joe Ford. Jaren Verna You're right. That is Joe Ford. God, I'm sorry. I'm messing up my Fords. Yeah, Doug Ford actually former Master Champion. He shoots at 86 on a Thursday and then he fires a front nine 46 on Friday and walks off the course without even telling Ignacio Guerrero, his partner. Tiger is just lurking four shots back. I love the position by him after two rounds. Round three, Paul Aizinger, he climbs into contention two shots back of Fred Couples who's still our leader.

It's the first time that Aizinger has really been in the contention at a major since he had treatments for lymphoma on his shoulder blade. I asked him, you know, if it's been too long, you know, if it's been a while, what does it feel like to contend at a major? Paul says, contend at a major? How about contend period? I couldn't be in contention for my club championship the way I've been playing. Jack fucking Nicholas is lurking after a third round 70. He says he thinks he has a shot, which draws some laughs from the press corps. Obviously I'm very proud of the score I got,

but I think the competitor in me says, Jack, I don't care what age you are, I think you can play well and win. Whether that's realistic or unrealistic, laugh at me all you want, but I think I have to think that way. It's just the way I am. They asked Tiger if he could imagine competing in his 40th

Masters, which is Jack's 40th straight Masters. Tiger says, Oh, I just hope I'm alive at 58. I can't even fathom being that old. You'll get there Tiger. It's coming. Everyone is looking at couples thinking he's gonna win his second green jacket. He's leading by two strokes and he is cruising. Right behind two strokes is Paul Aizinger, Phil Mickelson, and Mark O'Meara. Round four begins, as you know, coverage back then did not start until 3 p.m. and Jim Nance opens with one of his most famous lines. Welcome to the final round of the Masters and you are not going to believe what you are about to see.

Jack Nicklaus with his second shot into the par 5. Nicklaus ropes a long iron down on number 2 to the back of the green. Nicklaus almost puts this putt in for what would have been an eagle. I mean it is just like it's about to drip in on the thing. And then on the next hole, he comes up short with his chip, or the second shot, he's sitting right here, and Nicholas chips in for birdie. Solly, I cannot seriously describe

how freaking loud it is. Oh my God, I've watched it, it's insane, man. It's crazy, I mean, people say, I remember reading stuff about like, you know, Rick Riley saying it was like as loud as a football game. It's crazy. I mean, people say, I remember reading stuff about like, you know, Rick Riley saying it was like as loud as a football game. It truly is. I mean, on the broadcast, it feels like the cameras are fucking shaking.

I'm how about people are like thrilled. Nichols actually bogeys the fourth, pars the fifth, but then he hits it like stiff on six to like six feet and he just rolls in the putt and then he birdies seven he walks it in he's only two off the lead at this point i mean it's freaking jack nichols he's 58 years old and he's in contention at the masters unreal just misses birdie chances on the ninth the 10th and the 11th i mean we're talking about putts that just like drip past the edge, you know, lip outs, but like really, really close. He bogeys 12. Not kind of started putting the emperor on. He always did. He never actually played 12 great, like even in some of his best rounds,

he bogey 12. And as we know from the shanks podcast, hit a shank on the 12th and a year that he finished second to Arnie. Almost made it three there, you know, that's almost killed Clifford Robertson. Arnie. Almost made it three there, you know, that's almost killed Clever Robertson. So he birdies 13 and 15. He tells his son Steve, who's, you know, it had been Jack Nicholas Jr. who was on the bag in 86, but his son Steve is caddying from this time. If he eagled 15 and he birdied two more holes, he'd be right in it. Sadly, no, he can only birdie 15, didn't make any more birdies. So on 18, he hits it in the fairway bunker and he birdied two more holes, he'd be right in it. Sadly, no, he can only birdie 15, didn't make any more birdies. So on 18, he hits it in the fairway bunker

and he hits like the Sandy Lyle shot, just a beautiful like thing that drips down the ridge, has a putt at it, just barely misses it. But I mean, this is like, this is truly the last sort of gasp of Jack as like a great player. Like we get to see him sort of, you know, wave into the fans as a, as just, you know,

applause or cascading off the pines there. Rick Riley, I remember running an unbelievably fun column kind of talking about like, you know, they left just enough space in his little plaque on the drinking fountain there just in case like he ever wins one again. And like, who would have thought Ernie Els actually says after the round, you know, the way he played this year, he might even win it next year.

And the writers are like, oh, you're joking, right? And Ernie's like, not really, like who knows. On Sunday, we see only four shots of Tiger all day. He's wearing this by the way. This is his Sunday fit. I had this shirt. I had this one, the red with the gold, or the tan sleeves on it. I definitely had this shirt. I had this one, the red with the gold or the tan sleeves on it.

I definitely had this one. It's too bad that red hats were ruined in general, because I think I like the red hat here looking here with us. Red hat can signify something different these days, but man, it looks pretty sweet in this fit. As we know, that story here. Tiger's hat might have been one of those hats that you're referring to for all we know.

Yeah, for all we know. I don't know what I'm talking about otherwise. So the round is really, the story now is like couples Deval and O'Meara. Like these are the dudes. Couples is kind of cruising along, feels like he's the guy. Venturi keeps, you know,

and Nance obviously had a really close relationship with couples, they were friends, they were roommates in college. So you could sort of feel in the the broadcast as you're watching it, like this sense of like, oh, this is this is Fred couples crowning achievement. He'd lost both of his parents since he last won in 92. So that comes up with dance a couple times about how much this would mean for him to

win another jacket on the 13th hole, snappy of the snappiest hooks into the woods. He has to pitch out sideways essentially with a sand wedge. It's lucky to even find it up there. He has to take a drop from a cart path up there. Who knew that there was a cart path up on like left of 13 Creek there. He's got 162 yards to the green. You're thinking like, ah whatever like that's a you know easy seven iron for him. He's kind of like a little bit perplexed by what thinks the wind is going to do. He decides to, decides to hit a soft six iron and launch it way up in the air,

drifts right, right into raise Creek makes double. A couple said afterwards, I may have panicked a little bit. It was a seven iron shot, but we talked about hitting six iron and getting out of here. I think it's just trying to make parks one. Maybe hit it to the back of the green. I tried to hit it higher and easier and it just went into the creek. David Deval is the leader at this point. In fact,

when he taps in on 15, just barely missing an Eagle, he has a three shot lead standing on 16 pieces. It devolves shoot 67 on this day. Hard to sort of find any fault with anything that Deval does, but. Except four. Except four, he hits a shit shot into 16. It stays way, way, way up on the ridge,

and he's forced to essentially have a brutal, brutal putt coming down the hill. His first putt comes to come all the way down the hill. There's no way to stop it. And it rolls almost all the way out to the fringe. He cannot make that putt that bogey kind of brings everyone back into it. I know I've referenced this story 85 times throughout the history of this podcast, but that shot, like is the one that like bones, one of the several that bones stored away. Like remember in 98 when Duvall is coming off the hot streak,

he had just birdie 15, has a lead and gassed up that shot that eventually leads to Mickelson pulling eight iron in 04 instead of seven iron, leaving it underneath the hole, making the birdie that makes, is the difference of them going on to it by one like that. I just, I'm obsessed with that story of just watching guys go long on 16 when they're gassed up and how they put that into play. I mean Xander the year that had a key one you know two gases it long you know it's uh no Xander got wet on 16. Okay yeah that's right. He claimed the win got it but it did not look like

a very good shot. So Couples makes eagle on 15. He hits unbelievably good long iron shot. I mean it's awesome to watch Fred Couples hit long irons in this era. I mean just the tempo is so good. I mean obviously everybody knows Fred Couples swing but he hits on Saturday he'd hit an unbelievable shot and made eagle into 13 and he had said you know oh baby be right when he hit it and this time it's almost even better. I mean, he hits it to about maybe four feet on 15. And all of a sudden he's tied for the lead. O'Meara makes birdie on 15.

So he's one shot back. It just doesn't really feel like O'Meara is the dude at this point. It's like, it's going to be Deval. It's going to be couples. At worst, we're going to get a playoff. But O'Meara is just kind of lurking. He just started hanging around, hanging around.

Jim Furek is actually really sort of scraping around too. All of a sudden he enters the picture by birding 16 and 17. Deval hits a great shot into 17, but cannot make the putt. He's just like almost falls to his knees and sort of anguish. And one funny thing is couples kind of fans his shot right of 16. No, no, excuse me left right on the fringe there, right when you're watching on TV, but left from his perspective. And Jack is in Butler cabin and he's talking to

Bill McAtee at this point. And Jack says, Bill says, Jack, what does Fred face here? And Jack says, I don't know, Bill, I've never been over there. here and Jack says, I don't know, Bill, I've never been over there. Jack flexing right and left. O'Meara at this point, stripes it right down 17 fairway. Let's, let's pause on that. How many masters rounds has Jack played at this point? He's played like close to probably 150, 160 rounds because he's never not one of those. Never left on 60. Never long left. Never ever once. It's like his famous thing about I've, I used to go the entire West coast swing without three putting once like really like on all those POA greens, like you never ever had a single three

putt measure that would hold up the fact checking. But you know, if you, you believed it, that's what you have to tell yourself to believe it. So O'Meara stripes it right down 17 fairway so does Couples. Couples hits a really good shot in there closer than O'Meara but O'Meara makes his putt and Couples just misses. Couples basically walks I mean but Couples is like early walk on the putt like no chance. So we got three tied at eight. Duval

hits it in the middle of fairway on 18, hits a good shot in 18, cannot make his putt. So we got two guys coming to 18. There's still talking like, oh, this could be Freddie's chance to win the Venturi is really like into the idea of couples winning. There's still like not a lot of talk about O'Meara basically, you know, birding last. So they do bring up that Sandy Lyle did it, Arnold Palmer did it. Like not many people have birdied the last hole to flat out win the Masters. And so Couples hits his drive in the fairway bunker.

Right before that, O'Meara stripped his right down the middle and did a little club twirl. Oh, he twirled everything. He- O'Meara's tempo is so kind of like, not like the prettiest like, oh, enviable swing, but of this era, just like really like so compact, so perfect. So just like never felt rushed or anything. Really good here. I think we have a little bit of, you know, it's, it's pretty memorable what happens next, but we have a little audio

of Marco Mira sort of explaining what had sort of went on that week, Solly. He was on the NYU podcast a couple years ago, and I love just listening to him. I think he's really insightful, really sort of, you know, all these older guys who they really love kind of telling these stories about, they love sharing details of it, and this is some of the details that I'd never really heard before, before he was on our pod. Yeah, this is from March of 2018. Curtis Strange is the other voice you're gonna hear, and this is some of the details that I'd never really heard before before he was on our pod. This is from March of 2018. Curtis Strange is the other voice you're going to hear. This is one of the coolest, most fun interviews I've ever done, by the way. When we came back in 98, I'm 41, I've never won a major championship.

I'm on that next best list to have never won a major, which is actually a pretty nice list that anybody would think you're that good because I don't know if I ever really was. And leading up to the tournament, we played practice rounds as we always did. I wasn't hitting it good, Chris. I wasn't putting good. I wasn't feeling very confident. I went out the first day and the wind was blowing. This is before they lengthened the golf course.

I shot 74. I remember on the 10th hole I had about an 8 footer for par, it was an outside left a cup and I yipped it and I'm thinking, I'm yipping them on Thursday on the 10th green, this doesn't bode very well. And I came off the green and I was all ticked off on 18 and shot two over. So I remember I was, Hank Haney was there and Hank's like, I said, yeah, I'm yipping them, I'm either hitting it good and putting bad or I'm putting good and I can't hit it good. You know, you to win at Augusta, you have to putt well.

When any tournament you have to putt well, but especially around Augusta National. You got to iron it well and putt well. Big time. Big time. I mean, there's just not a lot of room for error as you pointed out earlier, Chris. And so I went to the putting green and Hank's like, it looks to me like, you know, your eyes are aiming too far right, your putter's aiming too far left,

you gotta get your eyes aiming more left, your putter more open. And I'm looking at him like, are you crazy? Do you understand that these greens are running 14 out here and you want me to do all this stuff tomorrow? And he goes, well, what's the, and I said, okay, whatever, Hank. So I went out and I shot 70.

I mean, you're just trying to make the cut to play on the weekend, to move up the leaderboard. I shot 70, made the cut, even par. Next day I go out and I shot 70. I mean you're just trying to make the cut to play on the weekend to move up the leaderboard I shot 70 made the cut even par Next day I go out. I'm thinking okay Just play well enough to try to make the top 24 because I'll get you back in that was the way it was back Then and I went out and it was a windy day again And I and I believe I shot four under par next thing You know, I'm in the press room and I'm gonna to be in the last group on Sunday with Fred Couples in 1998.

And of course they reminded me in the press room about this list and I said, look, I don't look at myself as a failure because I haven't won a major championship. When I first got on the tour I just hoped to make a living, right? And a lot of things transpire. So we get out there on Sunday, last group, as Curtis said, you're laid off the first tee, you're nervous and this and that but everything just kind of fell into place to be honest with Chris I made up I Hit it a pull hook off the second tee up the tree line wrecked around the trees

Dropped down didn't go down into the creek. So that was fortunate Somehow I got it down there hit it on the green with a 9-iron made a birdie and just everything was happening To where I made a bomb on number four from way left of the hole. I was just trying to two-putt. That top right pin placement on number four, I must have made a, I was just trying to two-putt. I made a 60-footer. And when things like that start happening, you never think, I just, I remember being not only a player, but also a fan, right?

Watching these events. And I say to people so many times, I wonder how could anybody make a putt on the 18th green at Augusta National to win the Masters? I just don't know how you could do it, to be honest with you. And to be honest, I don't know how the hell my ball went in either.

But lo and behold, you know, we play around, we get to the 16th, let's see, we're on the, we're on the back nine. David Duvall was playing good. All these guys were playing good. And Fred and I were playing okay, but we were a couple shots back and we got to number 15 and Fred had, Fred had hit a good tee shot. Well, it actually was way right. There was no trees over there. There's just the mounds and he flipped it up there on the green with a six iron made Eagle. I made birdie and now all of a sudden he's eight under David Duvall sitting in Butler Cabin with Jack Stevens at eight under and I'm now seven under and 16 I had a good tee

shot hit it on the green, hit a really good putt. I remember it didn't go in and I remember handing my ball to my caddy and I said to I said to Jerry Higginbotham, I said, you know Jerry, that's as good a six iron as I could hit and that's as good a putt as I can hit under this pressure like this. I said, give me a new ball, I'm going to birdie the last two holes. Now, I didn't believe that.

I don't know why that even came out of my mouth. It was ridiculous that I said that, because I don't even know why I said it. But, you know, Chris, I did it. I birdied the last two holes, and I made a really cool putt in the last hole that put me up there in the champions locker room with a green jacket. I don't think anybody expected me to win that week, including myself. Sometimes these things happen.

Mad Fientist Just a truly awesome finish. I mean, if you want to go out and just take it, that's exactly what O'Meara did. He had to make kind of a curling putt on 17 just to give himself a chance and then hit it right in the middle on 18 fairway. He hit a great putt. He had a great second shot. That's just probably about 25 feet, 23 feet somewhere in there. As you can see from this, he had to start the ball a good, maybe two and a half, three cups right of it and it just sort of drips right into the cup at the last minute.

Just for our humor purposes, sorry. Fred Couples had hit his ball in the fairway bunker and then had, in trying to go for the green and do this Andy Lyle had nipped the lip of the bunker and went, you know, Saddam and hit it into the greenside bunker. He then hit a really good shot to four feet that right before O'Meara's putt.

And then so when O'Meara rolls his in, I remember this, Sherry says, hold on, hold on, wait a minute, caddy, get your hat. We have another man who has a very important pot to finish tie for seconds. Like Nance is trying to be like O'Meara for the win. What a historic thing. And the infantry is like, hold on, hold on. Because couples was the story, right? I mean, they were a little unprepared for this. I remember I went back and watched this, I think prior to what we interviewed, O'briara and yeah, I got a huge kick out of that. Hold on, hold on. There's a button for seconds. Just want the fucking master's man. Let him run around a little bit.

I mean, he did that when Ian Woosnum made his winning putt and there was, I can't remember who was, you know, love or something was trying to, Oh, hold on. Hold on. We got a putt for second place. I mean, inventory's there though. Adventure was an amp for a lot of the time. Like, you know, you'd have to make that second place money. You know, that second place check might be the difference between riding in your caddy, you know, to down to Hilton head or flying. So during the green jacket ceremony, he told the tiger, this is great

detail. They have a very awkward like kind of green jacket sort of exchange where tiger keeps kind of like lifting the jacket and Omer cannot get his arm up high enough. And he said to Woods, he doesn't shit on camera, but sports illustrated, God, I said, man, I'm 41 years old, I can't get my arm way up there. Lower the check. There's such an odd pair. I mean, it you know, it's been written about like the theory with tiger like he was going to my mirror was the only,

O'Meara was the only one he let in because he was, didn't see him as threatening. And you know, it's, I refuse to believe it's a coincidence that a year after, you know, O'Meara had been hanging out with Tiger and Tiger winning the Masters. That wasn't extremely motivating to him to get out and win two majors in 1998. Like, well, what do you think the odds would have been going into 98 that one of two guys between O'Meara and Tiger from Isleworth, one of you two is going to win two majors this year? What would have been like 50 or a hundred to one for O'Meara

maybe to be the guy to do that? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of couple of great stories of, you know, and this remember this is not in like big bombing driver era. This is, you know, where then they're not, they're playing with metal woods, but, uh, you know, it's hard to hit the fucking ball, like 350 yards in this era. And they would play, play practice rounds and tiger would regularly out drive. I remember there was one story that out drove O'Meara by 68 yards on one hole and O'Meara threatened to walk off and then did walk off when he made,

tiger made a hole in one, uh, at our worth or whatever. And I was like, you know what? F you like you're just tiger, tiger made a hole in one on the second hole. He shot 59, 13 under. Buried the first, hole in one on the second. He was 16 under par through 20 holes. And O'Meara said, peace, I'm out. Here's your 100.

I'm not doing this again. Yeah, that was nice stuff. So that day when O'Meara got dressed, I didn't ever heard this before, he put on black pants originally and then decided to change them to the olive pants that he wore because he thought it would go better with the green jacket. Okay, so win. It's kind of a nice flex. A couple just sort of other notes here in the final round. David Toms in playing in his first Masters, he'd lived TC's dream. He made

six consecutive birdies. He birdied the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th. So TC, that's something for you to get out there and be inspired by us. You know, David Tom's made make six birdies in a row more often. That's your new goal. Five, five was his thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, and Steve Russian wrote in the lead to this in sports illustrated was your new master's champion is a-millionaire who loves cheap motels, endorses Rogaine, and suffers so badly from male pattern blandness that one man approached him at dinner in Augusta this week

said, shouting, Mark McCumber, Mark McCumber, you're Mark McCumber. Sorry, O'Meara said, I'm Mark O'Meara. And again, one of the great trivia questions of all time, the year after Tiger Woods won the Masters by 12 shots, what did Jack Nicklaus finish in 1998? E6, Tiger finished T8. Truly like some goat shit. Maybe the most remarkable Jack Nicklaus statistic of them all, and there are many. That's one of my favorites. That's that's that's one. People know it now. But that used to be I think I probably tweeted that one out six different times back in like

2017. But just just bringing that one. Oh, yeah, for sure. The original engagement. It's like when you post that picture of john daily kissing his third wife and the naked guys wrong. Yeah, you just try to open up as engagements, you know, that's the only way to use Twitter these days that the way Shane Ryan does it have just pure irony, just to piss people

off is the only, only two ways to do it. I said, folks, the NBA is back and FanDuel America's number one sports book wants you to catch all the action. Cause right now FanDuel is given everyone three months of NBA league pass. All you have to do to catch every tip off and buzzer beater is place any $5 bet on the NBA. Personally, lifelong Laker fan here. I like to check out kind of what reddick's got going on. I want to see if like Bronnie's really like a nepo baby. Like I even deserve anything here. Also I just I cannot stand the Celtics.

I swear to God, like I do not want them to repeat, respect them, but it just, there's, I just can't get behind it. How about the Cavs though? Starting the season undefeated, really, really impressive. A lot of fun, feisty teams in the NBA this year. Hope you get to check them all out. So next time you get a hunch on who's gonna win

or how many points a player will score, you can watch your picks come to life live. Just visit fanduel.com slash nlu to get three months of NBA league pass courtesy of FanDuel. Make every moment more with FanDuel, the official sports book partner of the NBA. Back to the show. For 1998 United States Open, I'm sure you know this. Do you know where we're going? We are going to Olympic Club, is that right? We are going to the Lake Course at Olympic Club, 6,797 yards. It is astonishing. 97 yards longer than it played for the 1955 US Open that Jack Fleck won. Players are more athletic now.

97 yards up though. I mean that over a 30, 33 year period, three, three yards a year, it's just things are spouting out of control. It is a $3 million prize fund 535k going to the winner in 2024. That is 5.7 million and just over $1 million going to the winner. The actual 2024 US open purse was 21 and a half million with 4.3 going to the winner. Top three places and almost the fourth pay more than the inflation adjusted amount from 1998.

Thank you, Mr. Tiger Woods, who of course is the favorite coming into this week at plus 700. Before I get into the odds, my little trivia question, usually I end up with the masters on this to ask this part of it. June 20th around then, 1998, how many of the top 10 in the world can you name?

We'll do this stomp the Schwab style. You're out when you name somebody that's not in the top 10. It's helpful that you've just covered the Masters and the PGA as well. Tiger Woods. That's correct. Bernie Els. He is number two.

I'm gonna guess that O'Meara is in the top ten at this point. He is tenth. You are still alive but barely. Nick Faldo. No. Faldo's toast by then. Tiger ended him in 97. That was it. That's your one lifeline. No, you can keep going. You can do better than that. David Duvall. David Duvall is six. That is correct. Davis Love. Davis Love is third. That is correct.

There's three easy ones here, one kind of hard one. And there's four easy ones here. I got to think Mickelson is ranked in the top 10. You are correct. He is seventh. All right. Who else almost just won the Masters? Fred Couples. That is correct. He is seventh. Alright, yeah. Who else almost just won the Masters? Fred couples that is correct.

Is OK, so how many I have? You need 45 and an eight. You've got seven of them yet. Alright, I'm gonna gotta think Norman is no longer ranked in the top 10 at this point, particularly not playing well all year. Sure about that. You sure about that? Norman is fourth. Norman is fourth. Yes. Crooked rankings.

I'll just, I'll drop you some hints in this one. Famous for rabbit ears, you know, but, uh, you know, didn't know, no major championships to this guy's name, but, uh, Monty, Monty, of course. And then a 97 major winner at Trune just the year prior. He's still in the top 10. Justin Leonard. As Justin Leonard, that is the top 10. Payne Stewart is ranked 40th in the world

and Lee Janssen is 42nd. Tigers the favorite plus 700, Duvall and Ells at 800, Lovin' Couples plus 1200, Leonard and Nicholson 1800, Monte, Furek and O'Meara are plus 2000, Janssen, Kalk, Scott Hoke, Lee Westwood and Jesper Parnevik plus 2500 and Payne Stewart is plus 3000. So it's been a pretty vibey year on the PGA Tour up to this point. Couples has won twice this year and is leading the moneyless. Of course, almost won the Masters. Tiger had a little bit of a dry spell,

but he won the Bell South in May. The winners, post-Masters, pre-US Open. So since your tournament you just covered, Davis loved the third, David Duvall, Tiger Woods, John Cook, Tom Watson won his 39th and final career win at Colonial. Couples wins the Memorial. Lee Westwood has won twice in June on the European Tour.

The golf world is just vibing heading into Olympic. Of course, summer of 98, as we mentioned, is the home run chase. Fantastic graphic package for the Olympic club. And our guy Dan Hicks, of course, is bringing us in. With the USGA film that they always do on these, which is, of course, a source for a lot of the information on this one.

God, I love how suits fit back then. Boxy shoulders, some like, you know, long, you can't see the cuffs of anybody's shirt because the sleeves are all the way down to the, we get that guy on Twitter, Derek guy, I would love to have him critique some golf fits back in the day. Hicks has been doing it. All these are a reminder of how long Hicks has been doing this by the way. But this is of course a 90s US Open.

So what can you tell us about 90s US Opens? What is the prevailing thing that is around for all of these US Opens? It's set up wise, Kev. It's gotta be like super thick, rough and narrow fairways. We are gonna have rough and we are gonna have narrow fairways, five to six inch rough off the fairways here at Olympic. Of course, hopefully if you're watching on YouTube,

you can see some of these images up here on Thursday. A of course, a Marine layer greets the players on this cool day, Tiger in a crispy fit in the white vest, kind of gray pants, white hat. I loved kind of this thing that Tiger had going on with the white shoes on this one, but he is putting here for bogey. He missed that and made double, he shot 74.

If you're watching this again, he's got a three foot putt for bogey and it goes about eight feet by. Yeah, there are some questionable little pins, which we're gonna get to on some of those. He missed this actually putt for double and shoots the 74. Payne Stewart in his traditional getup, of course, just every time it did come on, it made me laugh.

Just he's got black pants, black socks, black shoes, black hat and a red and black plaid long sleeve shirt. I'm like a half ninja, half Scotsman here. Like he's gonna, I don't know, like Rob, like with Tom Cruise, he's going to like Rob a bank or something in the middle of the night. So he's got a half his outfit on, but then decided these, you know, went shopping in Ayrshire for the rest of it. He gets out to a one shot lead over the late Mark Carnival by shooting a four under par 66.

He makes a 45 foot putt, a bomb birdie putt on the 17th hole and he pretty much does the Harlem Shake. I mean if this, if today somebody would have done a dance like this on the grade, there would have been columns written about it but the 640 mark of the highlight film, if anyone wants to go back and watch that, I couldn't really get the images for that to do it justice. But T3 are Joe Durant, Tom Lehman and Jose Maria Olafabel, Bob Tway at two under, John Daly, Jeff Maggard and Jesper Parnevik are at minus one and T7. Tom Kite, Matt Kuchar, the amateur, Colin Montgomery, Andrew McGee, David O'Gren and Mark O'Meara are in the top

10 rounding that out. This is the image of pain doing the Harlem Shake or whatever this was after rolling in the bomb birdie putt. Here is the young amateur, Matt Kucher, who has featured pretty heavily through the course of the next several days. One anecdote I want to share with you is when Cooch finished like in the top 20 at the Masters, they said, you know, do you ever wish you could have turned pro, you know, that you would have made like $40,000?

And he was like, oh, that's a lot of money. Even then, Cooch was like, oh, he's counting his nickels, making sure that he's going to get paid someday. But no, he's happy to be an amateur for a little longer. Do you remember what else 98 was was famous for? I'm gonna give a shout out to my guy, a friend of the program, Rick, who's a big listener of our deep dives, I ran into him at a media day yesterday, and he was like, when is the next deep dive? I'm like,

hey, we're we're doing 98 tomorrow. And he was like, Oh, Olympic Club, that's gonna be Payne Stewart, the divot and all that. And that's and he's filled this in with another thing that 98 was famous for. Do you remember this? I do not. I feel like you mean broad question I'm asking you but you might get like isn't page pain like completely bitch out and official at some point because of a pin placement is that coming? We'll get to that but Casey Martin is the first player to use a golf cart in a national championship. I'm actually not going to go deep into that whole saga but that was a big buzz around you know using

the I believe is the American disabilities act is in the legal case that was going on for him to be able to use. Supreme court. Yeah, it was a, it was a big deal. But yeah. So Casey Martin is the first to the beat. He's shown here on the screen of driving a golf cart down the down a fairway at the us open.

That is the first that that happens. So it's funny that they couldn't like your bag couldn't ride on the golf cart, right? The caddy had to actually carry the bag, but you could ride in the cart. That was, whatever. This is the late Mark Carnival. Just passed away recently here, actually in Ponte Vedra, but he was a former PGA Tour rookie of the year.

And he was prevalent in the early part of this week's tournament. Again, here is the day one leaderboard. He and with carnival just one shot behind Payne Stewart. Friday, we get there and Jack Nicholas is putting from 40 feet on the 18th hole. He has this putt to make the cut, but he's gonna lag it up there and just probably move into the booth for the weekend. No, he fucking makes it on 18 and is going to be playing the weekend at Olympic club.

Again, at the age of 58, that dude just continued to absolutely stunt on people. Here is what pain's got rocking on this Friday. Now we are in plaid pants with the red hat and the white socks, white shoes, white polo to go with it. And he comes out hot birdies. The first three holes, it is six in a row dating back to round one. He's seven under, he leads by four. He ends up- You're taking the graphics here that NBC-

Oh, the graphics package is awesome. It's so good. This is weirdly nostalgic through all this, but- Yeah. He gives back several shots throughout the course of the day. He is putting from 10 feet for Birdie here on the 18th hole on this Friday.

Tons of people up on this hill. It is a scene for a Friday concert. Exactly. He is just really good look here for birdie. What happens next? He misses the putt. It falls low. He blames a spike mark, whatever it is.

The ball is still moving and it ends up rolling and rolling and rolling. And it takes forever. And Stuart thinks it's gonna fall, stop maybe 12 feet away. It keeps going. He gets to the bottom of the hill and just sits there with his arms crossed. Chewing his gum, right?

It's like, isn't he chewing gum at the same time? I feel like that's what I'm hearing. Just watching it posing. It's still rolling. It's still going. It's still going. It just stands there just in disbelief as it keeps going and it rolls all the way back and he misses the putt and he finishes the day leading by two or I'm sorry leading by one after making bogey.

Outrageous. David Fay. Yeah, go ahead. I don't want to interrupt because I feel like you chewed out somebody but maybe. Yeah, they said they were not happy at the USJ with what happened. John Daley would say, if they want to have a major, we can go to Disney world and play putt putt. So apparently the 18th green was super firm on Thursday. So everyone was playing short on Friday, only to find out that they watered the green Friday morning. That was different than the rest of them on top of that. Stewart still leads with the one over par 71, Maggard and Tway are one back, Lee Jansen shoots 66 to move within two. So this is from John Gerrity about this pin position in Sports Illustrated.

The upper portion of the green where the hole was placed on Friday's pitch at an angle close to that assumed by the Titanic just before it went down. Frank Nobelo. I got a good kick out. Frank Nobolo. I got a good kick out. Frank Nobolo. Some of those old sportswriter lines are bangers. Tell you pirates. Bridging the boat to Frank Nobolo.

Made me really cackle. I will say, I don't know if we've talked about this, but at some point with our Frank Navolo line about Italian pirates, whatever his daughter quote tweeted it and was like, oh, that's because he's so handsome, whatever. Oh, that's great. Frank's a regular like NLU reader, really enjoy his work. So glad that the Navolo family took that in the good humor that it was intended.

I was really hoping that it was going to go, you know, get the line is assumed by the Titanic just before it went down. Frank Navolo, I was hoping it was going to come up with walk the plank again. Nobolo rolled a log, Birdie try up the hill and watch his ball roll back 25 feet. Tom Layman for putted Kirk Triplett like a second grader at putt putt, stopped his retreating ball with his putter and drew a two stroke penalty. Daley said it's not golf and it's not fair. It's just stupid. Maybe that's where Phil got the idea for just take it.

Very well may have been. Just hoop it, you know, take the two strokes and then come out one stroke ahead. It was Phil's logic at. Which again, he could have taken an unplayable and avoided all of that and gone back to that spot. Anyways, Gary also writes that the construction of Payne's mansion in Florida a few years ago distracted him from the game and led to the suspicion that he would rather live like a

Pharaoh than go to work on the fairways. Hell yeah. God. Carnival shoot 73 to fall back into even and the cut is at plus seven and only 60 players advanced to the weekend. This is a 10 stroke rule time period. Usually we're talking at this time period of, you know, there's like some US Open's in the center

where a hundred people made the cut, but there was only 60 guys that made the cut onto the weekend. Tiger takes 65 putts through two rounds. Here on this Friday, when he misses this putt, he absolutely slams the green with his putter, you know, in anger after having missed this one, Tom Kim style. And so here is our leaderboard,

Stewart by one over Maggard and Tway Kutcher, the amateur at the halfway point, just two shots back. Lee Porter, statistically the worst putter on the PGA tour. They made sure to point that out in the video as well. He's at one under along with Jansen in carnival at even. So onto Saturday, Stewart opens the round by making Eagle at the par five. First, he leads by four at minus three after shooting even on this day. I just, I got a kick out of, out of this one.

Jeff Maggert's wearing his credential up on the collar of his shirt. I don't know why I found that so comical, but not a ton else happens on that Saturday other than to say big lead for Stuart by four over layman and Tway and by five over Nick Price and Lee Jansen heading into the Sunday and four shots in the U S open. Yeah, we're good. We got this. We totally got this. Definitely not going to coach. Coucher gets serenaded. It is his 20th, 20th birthday. They sing to him on the opening tee. Tom Layman and Payne Stewart are paired together. I just want to shout out one Tom Layman swing.

They show the two of them on the range. Never the most aesthetic looking swing from behind. They show him from this side angle. My guy was fluid. I mean, it is a very, very, very nice golf swing. Yeah. And that's all to say this is fourth straight final pairing on a US Open Sunday. For a guy who's again, part of the reason why we do these deep dives is just not always the guys that win, but who else was the dude in this time period? Who else was around? Who else threatened in a lot of these that history doesn't remember? Like, I think I've gotten a lot of the US

Opens in this time period. Layman is around for all of these and is in the final pairing yet again. Mad Fientist I mean, you can make a case. People kind of come at me sometimes when I say this, but Phil Mickelson is one of the great US Open players of all time. The fact that he didn't win one does not discount the fact that finishing second six times makes him one of the best US Open players of all time. I don't think you can quite get there with Lehman, but you could definitely say he was one of the best US Open players of all time. And I don't think you can quite get there with Lehman, but you could definitely say he was one of the best

US Open players of his era. Sure, 100%. On the way to the first tee, I don't really remember this and I don't, couldn't find a whole lot written about it or a perspective on it. Payne looks not right on his way to the first tee. He's kind of, he's really muted.

He's not like acknowledging the fans, whatnot. And while walking under a grandstand, he's kind of like looking around for something and he's walking under the grandstand, he's kind of like looking around for something and he's walking under the grandstand and he reaches up and like grabs a rail on it and like dangles from it feet off the ground for a decently period of time. I don't know if he's stretching out or if you had a little pain or something like that. This looks familiar to me

for somebody that is battling some sort of back pain that pops up out of nowhere at a very frustrating time period. And they don't reference it really or he doesn't like grimace at all going forward. But he was I just I never never noted that or knew that kind of going into this day. Come on sports writers of the day. You really should have been like I was me I would have been walking to the first tea

with the leaders and been like, Oh, excuse me, you don't want to run into the guy who's hanging from the scaffolding. I may not have dug hard enough for it as well. So that might be on me as well. Stuart actually ups his lead to five early on. Uh, as you can see here through three holes, he is, he's five clear of price and layman, uh, he's still six clear of Janssen Janssen, uh, on five. Here he, uh, is here.

He is teeing off with his forward. He blows it on this fifth hole into the trees right and the marshals can't find it. But someone had binoculars and can see it up in the tree, but it's stuck up in the tree, so he starts heading back towards the tee to replay his shot. His ball is considered lost up in the tree. I don't know exactly how that gets ruled, but before he could get back to the T, the ball falls out of the tree. Wait, wait a minute.

One of the great all time us open breaks. He ends up getting up there and chipping in for par on this hole. After his ball got lost, you're getting six shots back, hits it in a tree, falls out, ends up playing a large role in the way the 1998 US Open was decided. Wow. We might have to put the NLU investigative team on this because I'm suddenly skeptical that all that could have happened in five minutes, walking all the way down

to the thing, walking back and then all the way down. Well, this was a storyline. So it wasn't, I don't think it was a five minute thing because they could identify the ball. Okay, I don't know exactly if they couldn't determine a place where he could have dropped it. I don't know all have like come to rest though at that point like isn't it like you don't you have to if an outside agency moves the ball you have to like the wind or whatever you wouldn't you have to place it back. I'm not a rules person so I know I don't know I always ask you about these things so I don't I don't know the rules as much as I pretend to

know them either. So I don't really know how this would have gone on. Laman makes a long par putt. I love you, Dan Hicks. But he declares that Laman is the people's choice to win the US Open. I don't remember that about the 90s. Maybe what? Maybe Laman was way more popular than I remember. But he had those dockers, you know, he's kind of a dude. Yeah, I could I was a layman fan. I definitely remember like my dad and I rooting for him. Jansen doesn't have like the most like appealing looking vibe going on. I can't I can't do the gloveless look. That's

just that just as somebody with glandular issues that causes a lot of a lot of problems for me the big tailor made hat I don't know just wasn't I wasn't, you know, baggy fits he just kind of like the quiet personality doesn't like necessarily play that well and in the golf circles. I don't think there were a lot of people like desperately pulling for Lee Jansen on this day but seventh hole is playing 288 yards he lays up a lot of guys are laying up on this hole. He does lay up

par four, it's 288 par four. But guys are laying up and he ends up laying up and makes birdie. We have Payne ran his birdie putt on seven, about six feet by, and then this is his par putt, his look up the hill to save par on seven. And he doesn't even get it to the hole from like six feet, like a really, really, really bad putt. So now our leaderboard's starting to get

a little bit more interesting, a lot more interesting. Payne Stewart is only up by three over Lee Jansen. And look, I don't want to say Jansen was all luck on this day. But the ball, ball falling out of the tree might not have been the most lucky break he got on this day. He pulls one left into the rough with his approach on 11. Like up onto this hill that I'm showing here in this left. And it banks that way.

But like, again, this rough is extremely thick. You don't, you're not planning on bouncing balls in the rough. And I mean, it's, it goes to eight feet for birdie instead of like having a death up and down and probably making bogey. He now makes birdie, uh, and you know, instead of being short sighted, he walks off with birdie. I remember this. I, I, this was kind of in the area when I was watching all the majors and I remember

thinking like, what an unbelievably ridiculous break. Like I was not rooting for Lee Jansen. I probably was pulling for Tom Lehman or at very worst like Payne Stewart. But I was like, man, that I don't know a ton about golf, but I was like, that is not a normal friggin thing. I don't remember the tree thing, but I definitely remember that kick. Well, and then with what happens with Stuart later on, it's just like, man, that was, that was just a little, the ball could have bounced very differently in a lot of different ways on this day, but that's why we're reliving it. Jansen steps up, stuffs it on 13, makes a birdie.

It's his fourth birdie in his last 10 holes. He has gone from plus four all the way back to even. Payne Stewart's gone the opposite way. His lead is down to one kind of all over the place. He's driving in the rough. He's missing greens. It's just not going great, but he steps up on it gets to 12 steps up and he stripes it. All right, let's go. It's been a tough day so far. Like, uh, but we're right down the middle. Vince grandma, but that, that, that one felt good, you know, right down the middle of fairway. It rolls and rolls and rolls on the side hill and falls into a sand filled

divot around this time. Jameson steps up. It's a great one into 15. He's missed one green since the fifth, which is a good way to play us open Sunday golf. Stuart comes up way short out of the, out of the divot into the bunker, makes a bogey. Now everybody is tied and we are at even par. Stewart still has six holes to play, Jensen just has three holes to play. Also, I forgot about this, Stewart's group is

out of position and Stewart took over 40 seconds to play that shot on the 12th, so they're warned that another violation is going to be a one-shot penalty because they're out of position and they're being timed on shots. Now, I can't understand why the guys wouldn't love the USGA like back in Sarah. Why did that relationship go sour for the players in the USGA? Stuart's bleeding out. He can't hold the 13th green. He makes bogey. It's the fourth straight green he's missed. He bounces back with a birdie on 14 and then Jansen makes a really

nice par on 17. It's a 468 yard monster. One of the hardest holes in championship golf. And that was considered a monster par four in this era. 468 yards as a par five converted into a par four. You know, they, they showed Lee's dad, Larry is waiting there on the 18th tee as he gets there. Always of course playing up the, uh, the father's element father's day element of this one always gets me, uh, for us open. Well like the shirt Larry's got going on. Payne makes a mess of the par five 16th. He's hitting his fourth from the front bunker. He can't get up and down.

Bogey on a par five. Uh, now he's down one with only two holes remaining at Janssen. It's a great approach into 18 just past the front penny has two putts. He gets it in at even par. Uh, I mean, again, one thing that the, that Olympic club 18th, uh, the club gives you is like a scene. Again, another like Sunday scene of all the people there up on that Hill. Stewart's in the middle of fairway. He needs birdie, but birdies have been extremely scarce on 18. He gets a good shot in there. Uh, and he's got this look for birdie to get into an 18 hole playoff of Lee Janssen. Great

picture and picture. Uh, look here from NBC, NBC, and, uh, he, the putt misses low, it veers left Lee Janssen wins his second United States open. He won previously at Baltis real, where he also pipped pain Stewart at at the post just five years prior. He finished and Stewart finishes one back same margin as victory as the Baltas roll. There's been some like, I don't know, like maybe historic misses is the right word on 18 and Olympic. Like it just feels like, let me remember Lexi's putt there. Remember when Webb made his putt in

one and then GMAC felt like had a miss there that would have put in a playoff. It's an eerie, cool scene for sure. I'm excited when they go back there. It's just interesting because the storyline going into all this is how many times the leaders have faltered at Olympic. We have the Ben Hogan, Jack Fleck thing. We have Arnold Palmer collapse. Like it's just a, and now adding this one to the lore of, you know, four shots on, you know, four shot lead on Sunday and it does not end up winning. Stuart would point to his erratic ball striking afterwards saying he hit six fairways, Janssen hit 12, I hit nine greens, he had 14 bingo. That's

why I didn't, didn't win the golf tournament. So he's doing everything he can to not blame the divot on 12. Janssen made up seven strokes in 15 holes to win. He shot 68. No other contender shot better than 73 on this day. Not a great week for our guy Monte. There are multiple days worth of reporting of heckling he's received. In the final round, Monte snapped at a heckler.

He'd been getting abuse the prior year on the final round, Monty snapped at a heckler. He'd been getting abuse the prior day, or prior year on the East Coast, but he thought he'd be safer on the West Coast. Somebody yelled, go home, Monty. Americans are dicks on both coasts. That's just, it's a myth that East coasters are more harsh. And Brookline hasn't even happened yet, imagine. That's right.

Somebody else, go home, Monty, and he goes, who said that? And a guy claimed it, and he goes, who said that? And a guy claimed it. He goes, why? Because of the Ryder Cup. And Monte said, there's nothing wrong with the Ryder Cup except that you lost. I don't know if that was quite the dig that he thought it was going to be. But he also got a guy kicked out for yelling get in the bunker on the sixth hole. Earlier in the week, somebody on the ninth hole, somebody yelled Monte, you're a prima donna. Onth hole. Somebody out, quit crying and make a putt. When he pulled iron

on the seventh, the drive before somebody yelled, hit it with your purse. After he decided he was going to lay up there on the seventh, Jack makes the Kutcher, you know, great week from Kutcher about himself and the hell he's better than I was when I was 19. I was missing the cut, the masters and the U S open. Not true. Didn't Jack almost win a U S open when he was an amateur. I don't know, but I think when it was 20 maybe, but not 19. But if you remember Paul Simpson made a legendary mid am from the, if you remember made a brief appearance in a Gasparilla video we did three years

ago, told me this incredible story. I think we have it on video somewhere. I should have dug it up for this one of early on Thursday. He's out, you know, kind of incredible amateur player, but it's out early in the earlier wave. It makes a couple birdies and it's like leading the US open and pulls a tee shot left into a tree. And some spectators there claim that it fell out of the tree and was picked up by somebody like multiple spectators. So yeah, it fell out and somebody went and

grabbed it. But the ruling some another spectator there claims like no, it never fell out of the tree. It like got stuck up in the tree. And he had to go back to the T replay it makes a triple bogey ends up missing the cut by one shot. And like the USGA would not like listen to the appeal of like no, no, multiple people said somebody picked up the ball in the left rough and he ended up having to miss the cup by one shot. So you got to make like a unanimous decision amongst the spectators there.

I had complete consent from everyone. That's that's that's insane. I put this in my notes. I don't know where I was really going with this. I thought maybe at the time everyone. That sounds insane. I put this in my notes. I don't know where I was really going with this. I thought maybe at the time thought it was more interesting. Earlier in the week, Arnold Palmer was unable to get a table at the Tadic Grill, the famed Tadic Grill. He waited at a nearby bar for two and a half hours.

It never got it. Are you shitting me? It never got it in the restaurant. Sorry, that's a great anecdote. I wanna hear, like how could you not seat Arnold fucking Palmer at the table? I don't know if it was San Francisco out there. They they I guess they speculated that they were, you know, some kind of treatment about celebrities in San Francisco. They think they don't have the pull that they do here in LA. I don't know. It's a weird nugget. Shout out to Arnie sitting there for two hours. I would be if I was army, I'd storm across the street or whatever and be like I'm Arnold Palmer. Like I want to give me a table.

Something else going on with the USGA in 1998. USG officials said last month they were concerned that technology was hurting the integrity of the game. They gave a speech on Wednesday and established that they were they were starting to a standard to gauge the spring like effect in golf clubs. The Omaha World Herald tease that this is going to be kryptonite for the 2025 US Open, which is next year has sounded very, very far off. At the time, that's like me referencing the 2051 US Open right now. Yeah, or maybe I guess 2050 it would be. All kinds of articles going around there about it. The USGA said it is proposing a test to more accurately measure the spring like or trampoline

effect of a golf ball. They said, we do not believe that the spring like effect in golf clubs that are presently in use have lessened the skill required to play the game of championships such as US Open or at the recreational level, said David Fay. that are presently in use have lessened the skill required to play the game of championships such as US Open or at the recreational level, said David Fay. He said that a standard for a spring-like effect will be established in the next few months through improved testing and submitted to manufacturers

in advance of a meeting this fall. Although the official rules of golf have contained a reference to spring-like effects since 84, the USGA feels it needs to be clarified. The concern is what's around the corner. USGA president Buzz Taylor said, it's quite clear that we're concerned with the future of the game. John Daly is going to weigh in on this.

Do you have any guesses as to where John Daly might net out on this one? Oh yeah. He's going to be for the rollback, right? He's very much like a person who's in control. Love to see the, you know, let's see us go backwards to persimmons, I'm sure. I don't believe in slowing down technology. That's what America is all about is the quote from from John Daly. All kinds of

other quotes in there. Another article I cut off the source on this one. I don't remember where this was. But an opinion article here it says no fun. Let's's face it golf is doing pretty well for itself these days in fact it's never been better more popular more addicting to millions one of the big reasons is that the manufacturing industry has kept in step teasing and taunting the hackers with new and improved ways to hack for a golfer there's nothing better than coming back from the store with the club guaranteed to make you drive farther and straighter or the putter to cure your yips.

If you couldn't try titanium or blow your vacation money on a golf school or hit the golf shows for the latest secret, what fun would golf be? The whole idea of this game anyway, is chasing the uncatchable. The last time we looked, nobody had ever answered the riddle. A year ago, everyone thought Tiger Woods would win anytime he laced up his Nikes, but the US Open ate his lunch. In fact, there have been different winners in the past 14 major championships. If the USGA wants to do something about it, it can figure out what to do about aluminum bats. Thought the aluminum bat analogy there was kind of like,

yeah, that's the perfect analogy for the use of technology and all this stuff. But even as in 1998, they were concerned about the future of the game and where distance was heading. Of course, they effectively slowed down the distance gains very soon right after that. And it did not spiral out of control very soon after that. But governance being done over the next 20 years. I laughed so hard when I saw the game's never been in better shape. It's like, man, I think I could find the quote from 2023 on that. I can't possibly stop now when the game is just finally experiencing a boom.

Sorry. How dare we roll back anything at this point? All right. I usually we split these up, but as we mentioned, I'm going to flow right into Royal, Burke, Dale, British open 7,100 36 whole day for you. Here. I'm exhausted.

Tired of all this talking, turn right around and get your 36 in. Well while I still get to just, you know, that Sunday tee time, you know, I'm settling in, I'm watching shit on TV, you're grinding. You got the bad side of the draw, sorry. It happens at the British Open. 7,018 yards, which is actually shorter than it played in 1965, when it played as a par 73. But this is playing as a par 70 for the second time, which is a little bit of a storyline

that just a bit later on. With the 13th hole, which of course Jordan Spieth made even more famous in 2017, was converted from a par five to a par four. Fun fact, I found out the 1976 open at Berkdale, four of the last six holes were par fives, including three of the last four. 13, 15, 17, and 18 were the only par fives on the course. And they were all in the last six holes. Johnny Miller played them in four under par on that

Sunday to win by six over Seve and Jack in 1976. Now there's just two par fives on the course, the 15th and the 17th. The 15th of course is the site of Go Get That. The money, it is a 1.7 million pound prize fund which is $2.75 million with $493,000 going to the winner, adjusted for inflation, 5.29 purse, along with 938K going to the winner adjusted for inflation 5.29 purse along with 938 K going to the winner again compared to this year the 2024 open purse was 17 million with 3.1 going to the mill the winner top three all paying better inflation adjusted than the 1998 purse.

Tigers the favorite plus 800 then Duval, Monty Monte Ernie and Justin Leonard are plus 1200 furik plus 1500 couples Westwood and layman plus 1800 Davis love and Phil Mickelson plus 2200 part of I can oh Mira plus 2200 price plus 2500 daily calc Faldo sink and VJ plus 3000 Matt Kuchar is making his first trip overseas, had to get a passport for it, said he'd never seen weather like this before ever. They kind of do somewhat of a drive by on him on the range of basically just like, yeah, this dude has no chance. He hits a shot, his hat flies off and in the wind it was kind of

like, yeah, this guy has no idea how to play league's golf. There is another amateur, young amateur. Really, Birkdale will never break his heart. He'll never, he'll never be back here to like suffer at this place again. Another young amateur has qualified over at hillside, just on the other side of the fence from Burt Dale. Do you know who this young amateur is? Gosh, I don't. You're going to really hate yourself. You definitely know who this person is. He is 17 years old.

17, who would have been in the Kutcher generation that is- He's from England. He's from just 40 miles south of here. Oh, Tommy Fleetwood. Tommy Fleetwood? No. Who goes ham? It's Justin Rose.

Oh, that's right. Oh, I am going I hate myself. Jesus. The Justin Rose story is going to emerge and it is not going anywhere anytime soon. What a shirt that is. If you're going to see this on the pod, please go find it. Cause the Reebok tiger striped, uh, it's like a barcode red and white, uh, striped shirt. Jack Nicholas is missing his first open championship since 1962. I think it was a hip injury, had some kind of injury going on at this time period. Get her laced, I think in 89. I think when our 99 deep dive by the US opens, he's back with a

artificial hip. Got it. The conditions this week are really tough. The rough is up. The wind is whipping. Lee Janssen's caddy says he lost more balls the last three days of practice than the previous four years he's caddied for him. Tom Layman loses six balls and eight holes in a Monday practice round. Tiger says, I love this golf course because it's extremely difficult, but it's fair. All the trouble is right in front of you. Tiger and O'Meara take a trip to Ireland prior to the open. A group of eight of them go actually, including Payne Stewart, Dermot Desmond, JP McManus,

Fluff, tennis player Todd Woodridge, and a friend of theirs, Mike Gutierrez. They make their way up the West Coast. Buddy's trip. That's great. They make their way up the West Coast via helicopter. They go to Waterville. They go to Blybunyan. They're playing in two four-man groups. They're playing Scramble up the West Coast via helicopter. They go to Waterville, they go to Bay of Bunyan. They're playing in two four-man groups.

They're playing scramble up the West Coast, playing links golf. Yeah. Scramble. And this like becomes the thing that Tiger does playing in Ireland prior to open championships. And there's a lot of writing about that. I saw it.

Do you want to take my shot or Todd Woodridge's shot? Yeah. Right. Let me go, you don't even need a hit guys. I got this. I got this. John Huston and anyone, if you have any guesses to two guys open up to a lead on the opening round, they both shoot 65 on this Thursday.

John Houston is one of them. Famous golfer in this time period, very good player, has a good, very good major championship record. Also shoots a 65 to open in a tie for lead on this Thursday. Any chance this is Jose Maria or the Thabo? It's not. It's Tiger Fucking Woods. Wow. He opens with 65 in his tie for the lead at the open.

John Huston in the tie for the lead, they say he uses magnets in his mattress to aid his back problems. Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. How do you get magnets in your mattress? Do they come with magnets? Does he travel with them? Is this a Louis Oostaysen situation? Like had not heard this one. Tiger is using Marco Mira's backup putter this week.

Yeah, I have read that. That detail comes up in mine as well. That's wild to think that like, this is the pre like Elder Wand era of, Wand era of settling on the one putter that he'd use for essentially other than the brief Nike stint like the rest of his career. Nick Price, Fred Couples, Lauren Roberts shoots 66, Robert Allenby, Brad Faxon, Peter Jacobson, Davis Love, and Vijay shoots 67. This would be the day to get it because conditions are going to ramp up from here on out. There's a great scene in this open film.

So another great job by the RNA, just kind of a documentary film on the week. And this scene in there, like there's a bunch of caddies sitting around a bar. I don't know if this is a bar at the club or if it's down the street or whatever it is. And it's just a bunch of dudes like sitting around telling Seve stories.

This to me like defines 90s golf of like the round ends and like all the caddies pour into a bar and they sit around, nobody's got phones obviously. Everybody's just talking and telling stories. And it's just a traveling circus. And there's a great scene in this film and people should go back and watch it. And it's like, if I could drop myself into a room in golf,

it'd be like a room like this, where I could just sit and chat with these guys, hear stories. It's really cool vibe. I just a weird little note there. Uh, this, cause this era is about to change. I mean, golf gets a lot more serious in the, in the two thousands. And I just don't think this is coming back. It's just peak tour vibes in this scene. So we get to Friday. Here is your weather forecast for Friday temperature, 13 degrees degrees Celsius winds gusting to 45 miles an hour. That is a lot of wind. You know, it's kind of the story of the day there, you know, Payne Stewart is getting ready to tee off here on the first and

he grabs the microphone. The microphone's not on, but he grabs it and the cameras catch him. He says he does like an English accent. It's actually good he goes ladies and gentlemen please return to your cars and go home today's round has been cancelled due to inclement weather. John Daley is there with a big beanie on and like it's it's it's tough everybody's jumped bundled up from the jump of 43 000 are on the grounds on this day. Lee Jansen almost gets DQ'd for being late to the tee as they couldn't make their way through the crowd to get there, he has to like duck under a rope and they barely make it in time.

This was just an interesting little thing. People get on us a little bit for, you know, when we refer to it as a British Open, but people, you know, from the UK need to know that this is how it was presented to the world for a long, long time. But I don't know when exactly the Open rebranded, but here is an on-site Japanese telecast kind of booth from it that just says British Open Golf on it right there.

Just an example there of like, and this is in the official Open Championship film here, and they didn't care about the branding of this championship to the same extent that they do now. So there's a reason why we do get that. A great shot here coming up shortly. I'm going to show you of Mike Turrico in the booth with a new announcer, 98 Open Championship. This is an Open Champion, a familiar announcer that we still hear today. Can you tell me who Mike's new co-announcer or color commentator would be in the 98 Open? Is this a golfer?

He has won an open in this decade that we have covered. Wow. And still a broadcaster. It's still a broadcaster. Is this Ian Baker Finch? It is Ian Baker Finch with a young Torico in the booth. I just enjoyed that shot because I interviewed Toreko at the 2017 Open Championship in one of these booths,

like 20 years after this when we were there last. That was a fun memory I have back then. A young American, or middle-aged American, I guess you could say, by the name of Brian Watts, shoots a 69 on this Friday and takes the solo lead at three under par. He's wearing a PRGR hat. Allegedly this is a golf equipment company

in the time period. I do not remember this. He is one of only seven players to break par on this difficult day. Play actually gets suspended for 38 minutes when winds touch 50 miles an hour. Tiger shoots 73 and he honestly looks like he's about to blow away in this jacket.

It's been working out solid. The parachute jacket was not great for 50 mile an hour wins. He's big into the double fist pump at this time if you remember this like one with the caddy like one on top of the other like where you each kind of do that back and forth. That was a big thing that kept happening in this one. Justin Rose going off, he is draining bombs everywhere. He makes an eagle on 17. He birdies the last hole and shoots 66 on this windy ass Friday. And this is your leaderboard after two rounds. Brian Watson, the lead at three under, Justin Rose, the AM, Tiger Woods and Nick Price at two under, Thomas Bjorn sitting there at one under par. I did not remember Justin Rose the AM, Tiger Woods and Nick Price at two under, Thomas Bjorn sitting there at one under par. I did not remember Justin Rose like legitimately contending.

I thought like he shot a great round on the final day, but like literally in second place through two rounds. That's incredible. We're gonna get into some of that. Kutcher unironically wore the Payne Stewart cap with a Nike sweater, I guess. I don't remember this era. John Daly made a 10 on the 18th hole. He needed five shots to get out of a fairway bunker

and got booed and hissed at by the British fans as he made a half-hearted attempt at a final putt. I've almost honestly stopped including those things because in every single major from this era, there'll be like a note in the notebook and be like, John Daly made a 10 on such a thing. Like every single major, he would basically thus completely inject from something.

Like in the Masters in my year, 98, I didn't even put this in there. I think he made a nine on 15. He makes a fucking 10 in the PGA Championship coming up. Like he just, just in the truly, like if he put him in a bad spot, he was just gonna take like 10 aggressive swings and just basically say, fuck it. So about our leader Brian Watts he is born in Montreal his father is

English his mother is German but he is American he turned pro in 1988 says 80 to 90 percent of his tournaments are on the Japanese tour he had 10 wins on that tour at the time he's commuting back and forth from his Oklahoma home to Japan six or seven times a year to on that tour at the time. He's commuting back and forth from his Oklahoma home to Japan six or seven times a year to play that tour. He said his best year on the Japan tour was winning about 1.4 million US dollars in 1994 when he won five times. That's some serious money. Catch the overnight red eye from my local home to Japan.

He actually got to 35th in the world rankings. He was a master manipulator, I think, that's what they would call him in this time period. He was allegedly actually really famous in Japan. He was on billboards and buses and stuff on the Japan tour. He once got fined for hitting two balls towards the ocean in the Fuchisake classic in a deliberate attempt to miss the cut.

He got banned from the Japan open for that as well. John Gerrity wrote in sports illustrated. Watts has been portrayed in the media unfairly, according to his friends, his family as an ugly American who accumulates bags of yen while shunning Japanese food and culture. Uh, Watts says he eats whatever his hosts serve him except the raw fish. It's just a mental block. He says that he even loads up the rice cooker. Whenever he's in Oklahoma city, come on. except the raw fish. It's just a mental block. He says he even loads up the rice cooker whenever

he's in Oklahoma City. Come on. He's not an ugly American. That's an American who's slowly embracing culture. It's another windy day. Guts are up to 35 miles an hour on this Saturday. Justin Leonard, who's the defending champ, he shoots 82. Nick Price shot a 45 on the back nine. Ernie L's got more weight added to his putterhead to deal with the the increase in the win. The Duke of York was there on this day. It's an old film, but only uploaded to the RNA channel a year ago. I'm surprised that one didn't get clipped out of the film. But it is Justin Rose fever. I mean, the headlines, the media attention, the galleries, like

it's it's a thing. It's a massive thing. He was a 500 to one long shot when the week began. The headlines going into Saturday include Woods pranked into action by early flowering Rose, there's boy wonder Hardy Rose takes open by storm. That's my boy. And roses date with destiny. Tiger, of course, has a weird shirt on on this Saturday, kind of tan on top with a weird black stripe at the bottom of it,

absolutely whipping in the wind, just tough, tough overall image for the baggy era. Matt Kutcher's out on the course watching Justin Rose after he, of course, missed the cut. By the time Rose reaches the 12th hole, he is leading the open championship on this Saturday. Wow.

Here is our leaderboard after round three. Watson the lead, Harnovic at plus two, Furek at plus two, O'Meara at plus two, and Rose at plus three. Tiger is at plus five. He shot 77 on this Saturday. He's like, people have no idea how hard it is to keep in there. Just because a couple of bad shots, you're in the hay out there. The stuff you can't play out of.

Phil shot in the 80s on this day, Nick Price said, I would have thought the RNA would have made the course a little easier today. 81 of the best players in the world and they can't break par, something is amiss. John Carradine would also later write that Mark O'Meara was headed back to replay a shot. And after an apparent loss ball when a spectator stumbled upon it and rescue the caddy is yelling after O'Meara but it's so windy he can't hear him. And like but they get O'Meara's attention call rules official and he gets a free chop. No, don't hit it. No! Like the scene from Interstellar.

No, no God. So finally onto Sunday, a calmer Sunday, there's some better scoring, but Omira makes bogeys on the sixth and seventh holes and he's in the left rough on eight in trouble again. And again, this is how thick this rough is in this time point, not a good angle ball below his feet up on a hillock there and he's struggling a little bit and he hits this shot just right of eight. That if you can barely see this in this image, it's just inside this Marshall that's standing right

of this green again, this rough is thick, but it bounces out of the thick rough gets down onto this French slope and gets all the way down onto the green, and he would go on to make that putt. I mean, he's looking at bogey, and that one actually ends up going in. And that just, again, highlighting the thin line between Bertie.

If he doesn't get that bounce, he doesn't win the Open Championship, because it gets very, very close coming down the stretch. When he saw his tee shot on this hole, he said he would have loved to have made four. He makes three. He is now plus two for the tournament. Again, he is a club twirler man.

And this every single one of these shots, he does it such a cool angle. I don't know how he makes it look very, very cool. All this, it might've been where I got it from, honestly, as a kid of trying to impersonate a young Marco Miran. People think it's Tiger, but it's O'Meara who was a true godfather of club twirls. Perhaps he hits a good iron into 11. He drains the birdie. He's within one. So here's our back nine leader boarders. Things are getting interesting. Brian

Watts still leads by one. Furek is just behind O'Meara. Tiger Woods is four back of the lead at this point. Probably not going to be a factor in this thing. Look at the open championship just says par, like not even. He said par. Level par. Level par. So O'Meara steps up then on the 12th hole and makes a 30 foot bomb.

Furek makes a birdie playing alongside O'Meara. He's now one back. Watts bogeys 12, but O'Meara bogeys 13. Tiger birdies 15. So now here is your leaderboard. Mark O'Meara, Jim Furyk, Brian Watts, all tied at plus one. Tiger two shots back of that as well. O'Meara steps up and stuffs a three iron on the par three 14th. I mean, absolutely stuffs it. It is in there mega tight, maybe three feet with three iron. He rolls in the birdie and he's got the outright lead. Tigers running out of holes.

He Icarito's one on 17 with a wedge, like with his third shot, like it's, you know, he needed to be going at that hole in two and he's flying the green. So he's of course out of it, you know, chipping with a wedge from long of 17, just kidding. He fucking chips it in. Oh, chips it in from long of the green. Uh, now he is just a couple of shots back.

Still probably out of this thing, but, uh, whatever. I mean, 18 is, is, is tough. Here is our leaderboard. Uh, oh, Mira isn't even Watts plus one. Tiger is now at plus two. But America go backwards. There's still, you know, there's still some bogeys out there. Tiger may be in this thing, but 18 is really hard. So Tiger needs this four iron into the 18th. He knocks it like 40 feet. It's a good shot. I mean, its conditions are tough, you know, probably two putt par, whatever, still just, you know, end up with a, with a solid

finish here at the open championship. Lag it up there just kidding he fucking makes it wow from i did not remember this i don't remember that either i did not remember this either until i'm like even like up to be watching this part of the film and i'd researched it all i'd done some reading did not remember this tiger comeback the back-to-back birdies to finish he gets in the house at plus one final round 66 low round of the day. Again, he shot 77 the day prior and now back behind O'Meara is in some trouble on 16 and he makes bogey Tiger Watts and O'Meara are tied for the lead.

She, um, sort of a forgotten like tiger cont lead. Jeez. This is sort of a forgotten, like, Tiger contention. Yes. Watts playing in the final group. He stuffs it in there on 16. Rose gets a massive ovation coming up 18. He's getting ready to play his shot, his third shot, in there. O'Meara drove it poorly on 17.

He had to lay back. He had quite a ways in on the par five with his third shot here. And he hits it. And he of course, twirls it and he yells be the right distance. And at the same time period Watts misses his good look on 16. It was a tough par four and he had a really good birdie look and he missed it. And Omira steps up and drains it from 15 feet to get back to even par. So if he makes par on 18

Tigers now out of it. Meanwhile, Justin, again, this is happening fast and furious here at the end. This was, this was an exciting one to watch live. Rose is lining up a pitch shot here on the 18th from maybe about 60 yards away, you know, badly out of position, deep rough in between a couple of bunkers launches it up in the air, lands it on the green and it fucking goes in. He holds it for birdie, massive, massive ovation. The iconic images of him lifting off his hat and screaming up in the air as he makes, he finishes tied for fourth plus two, one shot back of Tiger Woods, two shots back of the

eventual 72 whole leaders. Your boy, me, I asked him about that sweater this year because he was wearing one similarly in the final round at a Trune. And so I was like, was there a little inspiration from the sweater of old? And he was like, yeah, it crossed my mind. O'Meara steps up, splits the 18th fairway.

Watts gets close to 17 and two. O'Meara hits it on the 18th green. Watts gets up and down for birdie. He drained a 15 footer after hitting a really bad chip. And O'Meara comes up way short with his birdie putt on 18. I mean, this is, I don't know how well you can see this here, but I mean, this is a good four or five feet after a makeable birdie putt. It was a very bad opening putt, testing putt, but he makes it. He shoots 68 Watts drives it into the left rough then into a green side bunker on 18. He's got a foot out of the bunker.

Omira is sitting green side. It's like a tough looking up and down. And I mean Watts hits a miraculous bunker shot to within a foot. I mean, incredible long range bunker shot to within a foot makes a bar. Yeah, I need to go back and watch that. That's it's a great. This is a good rewatch down the end and there is a there is a final round available as well. Not

just the highlight film. There's a final round available on this on YouTube. Four hole playoff holes 15 through 18. All awesome holes at Berkdale. Here is our final leaderboard with Omer and Watts Tiger finishing just one shot behind Raymond Russell and Justin Rose are there finishing in a tie for fourth with Jim Fierke and Jesper Parnovic as well. O'Meara's caddie Jerry Higginbotham said just pretend you've got Tiger out for an emergency nine as they go out to the playoff.

O'Meara makes birdie on the par five 15th Watts misses maybe like a five foot birdie. Like Watts had the closer birdie look and they kind of did a little two shot swing there. Both guys par 16 and 17 Watts hits it in the bunker on 18. All Amira has got to do is hit the green with the second shot. He strikes it. He twirls it goes to 25 feet on the fringe night night. Marco Mira wins the open championship at age 41, two major championships in the same year. When you're 41 years old and you win a major, your kids are kind of grown up. It's older. Yeah.

Yeah. When they run on the green. So you know, is two of his kids, I don't know how many kids he has. There's two kids that his daughter and his son run out onto the green, give him a hug and here he is lifting the cleric jug. There's two kids that his daughter and his son run out onto the green, give him a hug. And here he is lifting the Claret jug. When I win my G flight in the NIT, that's my dream. My kids will be able to run out and be like, Dad, Dad, you met your quota. You're on to the finals, but you'll probably finish seventh.

You're our hero. I don't know why I'm a Marco Barofed. Maybe just because he's been really nice to us. Done a couple of great interviews. But this was, this is a fun one to relive. I thought it was, it was a kind of the reason you do some of these things. Cause like you said, you don't even remember tiger really coming close to winning the 98 Brian Watts. Major record is kind of wild. It's not great. It was only top 20, I think in a major. So we'll, we'll get some of that. This is the fourth straight American to win

the open. Watts did end up getting his PGA Tour card through this. He had enough earnings in this to get his Tour card. He made 20 of 24 cuts the following year in 99, enjoyed a solid three-year run before beginning to fade in 0-2. He only made 29 starts from 0-3 to 0-5, then never made another start on the big Tour after 2005. He played very little after that because of a bunch of injuries.

He played 17 majors. This was his only top 20 finish. When he left the Japan tour, he was second all time in foreign earnings as far as foreigners earning money on the Japan tour. Brian, what do you think about all these foreigners on the Japan tour? Tiger would say that he was heckled out there by the by the the British fans and there were there were some things that shouldn't be saying especially on the golf course. Right. I'd say anywhere. Overall, the week has been great. But he did I guess endure some heckles.

Answer for yourself. Southport, Berkeley people, Nick Price complained again about the conditions being too tough or he complained about the kids being too tough on Saturday and afterwards said this course is like threading a needle but a par 70 for a course over 7,000 yards is a bit severe. Rick Rimsnider's column includes the quip after that that says funny how Price never uttered a negative word about Royal Berkdale after he opened the tournament with a 66. Lee Westwood was co-favorite with Woods and Rick took him to task saying he couldn't handle the pressure. Westwood said, I'm not disappointed. It's just another golf tournament. He would also

go on to say, you do not treat majors differently. It's just another four rounds as a guy. Again, we don't know this as of 1998, but he would of course never win a major championship. And those quotes ring a little ominous now. If you're going to claim you've got major championship golf figured out, you don't treat it differently, you probably need to win one of those to be able to say that. Well, so I'm sure he'd be happy to go through the qualifier for the open championship now and like get one more shot at it. I mean, he's definitely not scared to do that at this point. Dudley Hart played the final round in two hours and 20 minutes and caught an 1150 AM

flight to New York and he shot 80. Can you imagine playing in the open and be in like landing in New York at like 1 p.m. probably? There was when I was coming up in sports writing, you know, I'm still this way. I like kind of angsty writing like, you know, late into the night or whatever. There was these couple writers who, you know, this is true on the golf beat. I'm sure too, who like they would have their whole story written. And when the last pot dropped, they would like click like the final period and they'd be walking out of the media center when I'd be sitting down

writing the dateline on my fucking story it was like I was in awe of how these dudes just like yep I'm good like I'm off to off to play somewhere I'm catching the red eye home you know Tom Watson afterward he calmed the media down if they were critique after they were critiquing tiger saying he was going to win the open championship and how amazed he was and how good he was at all the little shots. So that was a prescient quote there from Tom Watson as Tiger would go on to win three of the next eight or nine of these things. Kutcher was asked about becoming rich if he turns pro. He said they are saying millions. I don't really know what a million is going to do for me. I really don't know what a couple of million will do for you. I don't know what that means, but again, as a weird quote, looking back at some

of Kutcher's more frugal moments. And then the last thing I had, this felt like a shot at me from Brian Watts. He said, hopefully I've moved up a notch and gained some respect for the Japanese tour today. A lot of people have been writing bad things about jumbo Ozaki. I could, I could tell you he's a much better player than I am. If people say those guys over there aren't good, those people don't come over and watch the play. Um, it just felt like a shot at future me, even though he tasted sixth grade. Solly got it. Got me good there. So that's the 98 open again, a good rewatch for an exciting finish in Birkdale. Birkdale was on display in this one.

It's funny to think about Kutcher being like a character in there because, you know, years later when we're at the 2017 thing, like honestly, one of the most crushing things I think I've ever witnessed as a journalist is Cougars kids like standing around 18 green, you know, thinking that they're coming there to sort of like, you know, at the beginning of the day to like celebrate dad winning his first major and then like Spieth just like steals his soul. And they have him being like such a good dad in that moment, like, you know, hugging his kids or they're crying and being like, it's okay. Like it's, you know, it's all right. It's just golf and I was just like And I was just like, man, what a heartbreaking thing. I know we get on Coutch a little bit,

but I've always loved him as a dad in that moment. Just to think about that, that will always be Brookdale for me. In some ways, as much Spieth's collapses, or as much Spieth's collapse and then resurrection is Coututcher's kind of range of emotions that day. So I can't wait to relive that one. We'll get there. I'm sure. All right.

Bring us home for 98. All right. As always, the PGA is going to be the shortest one. And you know what? Let's just say what we always say in this is that PGA in part is the shortest one is because they won't put any fucking highlights or they won't put it like the full round up here and also frankly the media doesn't cover the PGA the way that they cover the Masters like and we do this draw it's always like you know it's a win to get the Masters right because it's the most covered one and then you know you kind of diminish it down the line. There are highlights on YouTube of VJ Sings and Steve Stricker's final rounds, but they are not edited together. You cannot watch them like in the same video.

They are two separate videos. It's just all of VJ Singh's shots in one video and then all of Steve Stricker's shots in the next video. So like in order to like experience the final round, you would basically have to open them up in two different windows and then click back and forth. And it's, it's gotta be a off-market upload. It's not like from the PGA of America. No, it is from the PGA of America. Oh, that's worse. Okay. Yeah. So someone had the option of literally, and it's from the broadcast, of just putting it all online. But no, it's just like,

hey, here's the clips of all of the final round. So we're going to Sahale Country Club, which where they just played one of the women's majors. At this point, Seattle has not hosted a men's major championship in 52 years. Seattle is feeling a little defensive, a little protective of their course, of their sort of place within the game. I don't really have a ton of this, but there's a lot of like hinting in the local media, I spent a lot of time reading like the scale of times and the Tacoma news Tribune about just how like this, you know, people really gotta give this a chance. It's not fair if players

don't really, you know, embrace golf here in the Pacific Northwest because we really love our golf up here and it's just it's like, okay, yeah, we get it. Like it's okay. You could honestly sense. I think some of that when chambers came back around and people shit on it too. It's like there's a little bit of like understandable defensiveness because people did not quite love and lean into golf up here. Marco Mira is trying to become the first man since Ben Hogan to win three majors in one year which is... I knew like I didn't cross my mind that he could win three. I know he doesn't win it but I wouldn't even have crossed my mind that that was a storyline going into the final major.

As you know, Sahale Country Cup is very tree-lined. Lee Janssen says, I think the best way to prepare for this course would have been to go to a big city like New York and maybe play down Fifth Avenue. That's how sort of tight some of the corridors are. Avenue. That's how sort of tight some of the corridors are. So we start out and guess, so who would you say is the who could you guess is the first round leader guy with has had some success in major championships, played pretty well in recent years. So much more fun to quiz other people when you know the answers because now I'm going to bear spellback. How does he not know this? Guessing at is he a major champion in the 90s? He is a major champion in the nineties?

He is a major champion in the nineties. Corey Pavin. It's tiger fucking woods. I decided to flip this back on you. Tiger shoots a first round 66. It's the Holly doesn't use driver hardly at all. He had decided basically he was just gonna hit three woods and three irons or two irons off the tee.

Like kind of a surprise. I guess I skipped ahead a little bit because I wanted to sort of talk about some of the pre-suff, in part because Tiger is still like, it was remarkable to hear from your wrap up about how he didn't win the, you know, he almost can't won the British Open because after the British Open, Tim Roosephar, like famous golf writer, writes in Golf Week, this Tiger Woods kid is a fad. He hasn't transcended the game. He isn't the Messiah. Second coming? How about second rate? And in the Times of London wrote, watching the boy genius fail was a particular pleasure. It was a proper reward for his demeanor. It corrected the ignorant who

know nothing of golf, assuming that Woods was better than everyone, that he would inevitably beat anybody." Kind of crazy. Like Tiger, even though he's like playing really freaking good golf just because he hasn't won anything since one of majors and semesters is like kind of being shit on. Earl Woods sort of says, lead up to this thing, we in this country have a death wish. We create heroes only to take them down. And if we can't find anything wrong, we invent things. It's become, it's almost becomes the truth. But the players are sort of very complimentary. Lee Jansen said, I think he's challenged us to maybe start thinking a little higher and setting higher

goals. Prior to the week, Fred couples basically had to play new irons because links who he's featured all throughout in the masters, it went bankrupt. He needed had to play new irons because links who he's featured all throughout the Masters, it went bankrupt. He needed a new set of irons and links could not provide one because they had gone bankrupt as a company. So you had to play Max fly irons. Yeah. Whoa. Did not, did not see that coming. Al and Brent Guyberger made history for being the first father son tandem to play in the PGA championship.

Uh, and a bit of a sad somber down here. Stuart Appleby was playing the first time since his wife was killed after she was hit by a taxi outside at London train station right after the open championship. They were going to go on like a second honeymoon. She rushed back to retrieve a bag from her car and the driver of the taxi not realizing he was in reverse backed up and crushed her between two cars. Appleby was really sort of kind of open and really vulnerable in those sort of stuff. He said, I feel like she was the first prize in a raffle of picking life partners and I was lucky enough to get her. There's not an hour that goes by that I don't think of her,

not an hour and that's okay. You just wish things were different. Obviously it's a very sad time, but I'm sort of moving forward. I'm not even worried about how well I'll do here. I'm just going to take it as it comes. Days are more important than scores. Tiger not someone we think is particularly, particularly sentimental. So that when he saw Applebee for the first time on Monday, he almost teared up on the spot. He said, I almost get choking up.

Even talking about it now with you, with the media, uh, a couple of other notes, this is the first tournament that Callaway introduced. There's steelhead driver. I don't know if you ever had a steelhead, Sully, but John Daly says he's 15 yards longer with the steelhead than his big bertha. He's just going to go ahead and hit driver every hole. Gave my biggest big bertha to some eight-year-old kid. Goodbye titanium and hello steel. If I hit my driver well, it's going to be a huge plus.

It's the only way I know how to play aggressively. It's like going to the blackjack table. John Bailey did not work out for him. He shot 80 on day one and was underneath all kinds of trees. But as Chris said, Tiger is your first round leader. There is an eight way tie for second place. Here we're going to renew my game, where I'm going to give you the first name of the player

and you get to try to guess who it is. All right, first name Glenn Day. They're very good. Second, Bob. Bob May? No, Bob Estes. Frank? No, Frank Licklider. Oh, the blade. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and sort of just cross yes off on Paul Aizinger and Shigeki Maruyama. Shigeki, I might have gotten, yeah. Paul, I might have messed up. Billy? Mayfair. Billy Andre. And then one last one, Scott. Simpson. Scott Gump. Okay. I wasn't going to get that one. I had no idea who Scott Gump was.

Some of these guys, I mean, apologies to Scott Gump if you're somehow listening. So the next day, Vijay Singh surges into the lead with a 4 under 66, but Scott Gump is still in second place. He follows up his 68 with a 69. I had no reaction of Scott Gump's career, but he finished second at the players' championship in 1999 when David Duvall won the players. Gump finished solo second. It was his best ever finish on tour. It's so weird to hear you like recount this tournament because I don't have

like one single image, not one single image of this tournament in my head. I had no memory of it, no never heard anybody talk about it. Like it's just like a lot, it's kind of like the ball to Saral 2016 major. I don't even know if it happened. May or may not have happened. It's it's interesting because like the weather is kind of shitty in some of the videos and so it's like kind of grayish. It doesn't really, you know, it's so many trees, it's so lush, like the tight fairways and the really a lot of rough that it just doesn't look particularly great. Like all the sand is like kind of that dirty brown, wet sort of thing.

So it doesn't really pop in contrast to the bunkers or anything. In round two, so Monty admits that he didn't even bring a driver to the course on Friday. He just left it in his locker to avoid the temptation. And he shot 67. Can you imagine a major championship where guys were basically just not hitting driver at all

and every single shot was three iron or three wood off the tee. Well, I've watched a fair amount of European tour golf in this time period. Like when I was a kid that was always on in like the middle of the day and summers and stuff. And I do, I remember like marveling at Monte's act, how low he hit the ball off the tee and the accuracy. It was just like, he split so many European tour fairways with less than driver. That's just a weird lot of shitty golf courses they were playing in that time period that I remember as well. But it just Monty could absolutely stripe it man. And around to Steve Stricker gets into the conversation of shooting 68 and Steve Elkington perhaps buoyed by the good play of his buddy Shigeki Maruyama shoots 69 to climb into contention.

Tiger struggles a bit with a 72 in round two, that includes three lip outs, just couldn't make any pucks. It's starting to look like a two man race in the third round. We're kind of speeding through this in part because it's just not that much interesting it happens. Vijay shoots another great round posting a 67 and Stricker shoots a 66 to tie him at seven under. another great round posting a 67 and stricker shoots a 66 to tie him at 7 under they are four clear of Elkington Davis love and Billy Mayfair Tiger is

kind of lingering at this point not really loitering anymore shoots a 70 that has in five shots off the lead going into Sunday Greg Kraft shoots a 65 the lowest round of the tournament VJ at this point you know he's won some but he's not he's never won a major he's never won a major. He's not sort of a star. He's just sort of seen as like super hardworking person. He's kind of aloof, doesn't really have a ton of friends but everybody sort of respects him. He's 34 at this point, by the way. VJ is such a tinker at this point that he's basically like putting with a different putting grip like almost every single round, every single day, whatever. He's just not

a very confident putter in any way. He's picked up a new putter like weeks before. On Sunday morning of the major that he is tied for the lead with, he goes up to Nick Price on the putting green before the final round and asks if he can have a putting lesson, if Nick can give him some tips. Nick Price, by the way, finishes fourth in this championship. So why exactly like Nick, Nick Rice does shoot 65 in order to do it. But I also maybe he was far back enough that VJ and father would be, you know, fine to ask. But Price basically says, like, I'm not going to tell you anything, you know, exactly what you need to do just go play your own game. He

says he's such a talented player, he's talking to media later, that no one be should be surprised if he wins. Uh, I've never seen anyone work as hard as he does. I mean, he has torn up so many practice teas. I wonder how much earth he's moved over the years. He can just hit drivers for hours on end. I don't know if Mr. Hogan practices hard as VJ does, but I'd certainly be surprised if he did.

When I was, uh, in 2010 or 2011, I forget when it was, I was living in Chicago, did not work in the golf industry. I had a trip to TPC Sawgrass with my dad and a friend and like had heard the legendary stories of like Vijay, but you know, it's kind of the stuff of legend, whatever it is. And you know, you're at TPC Sawgrass, what are the chances you're going to, he was there hitting balls all fucking day, like, all day. I remember seeing him there. And then like, he blew up

on some, his food wasn't ready at 1020 or something like when he needed to have it in his routine or something and got so we got a picture with him on that day. Actually, I might be need to go hunt that down somewhere. But I bet I could find that. But yeah, it was like a thrill of me, like a big golf. I was like, I get to meet VJ Singh when I met my magical trip to TPC Sawgrass. But he was there just banging, banging, banging,

banging balls that day. When I covered the Gator Bowl in 2004, I was the Maryland football beat writer for the Baltimore Sun. And we got basically told, I think it was by one of the other beat writers, like, hey, the TPC Stargrass is like having what happened to have media people out be totally comped go to, you know, just go over there, show up. I've arranged the whole tea time, whatever.

So it rolled out there. And I remember they handed me the receipt and I looked at it. It was like four rounds. It was like, you know, $1,400 or $1,900 or whatever. And on my heart, like fucking skipped. And then I looked lower in the receipt and it was like comped, like voided and it's like zero, zero, zero. And I was like, I did not have $1,900 at that point to spend on four, you know, a foursome of golf. Well, we were kind of joking, like, as we were on the first tee, like, oh, wouldn't it be funny if

we saw Vijay out here? And like, we played through like nine or whatever. I don't know the course well enough to remember this, but we, at some point we were going past the practice range and there he was just like pounding balls, like just absolutely raking shots after shots. This is a quote someone asked him later about his practice routine and he said, "'When my wife and my boy are not traveling with me, "'what would you do?

"'After you finish your round, "'you've got the whole day to do nothing. "'I would rather go hit balls than go to the hotel room and lie there and watch TV. I found it by the way. This is me without a beard, uh, with, with a Navy SEALs, uh, signed flag for some reason. And, uh, this was stuff I can find for a birdies for the brave fundraiser back in the day. But, uh, here's my photo with VJ. That's I, I'm still, uh,

probably mentally adjusting to you without the beard. I'm trying to remember who you look like. I don't know. I'm going to think about that a little bit. All right. So I watched what was available of the final round here, which I said is sort of split into two different highlight packages. Vijay does not hit it great, the final round. I mean, he is missing greens all over but he just

keeps getting up and down from all kinds of funky lies. I mean on the very first hole he comes up like 20 yards short of a bunker. Like he can't doesn't even get to not even get to the green but he's short of the bunker and he has to hit like a nippy 60 degree wedge like high up in the air flop shot over to like three feet makes it. So this is a round where he is going to sort of battle. Uh, Stricker actually takes the lead on the fourth hole with the second straight birdie, but then VJ birdies five and has it for good back when he Stricker bogeys the six and the ninth on the par five 11th,

VJ gets a incredibly good break. This is sort of similar to some of the breaks that we've been talking about throughout this. He just blocks one dead into the trees and somehow kicks directly left and onto the green. He has a makeable eagle putt. He almost makes a, but he rolls in a birdie. He's two shots ahead of a striker still. Uh, he gets this only bogey of the day on the 12th, uh, sort of hits a shitty shot in the bunker. Can't get up and down for the first time, kind all day. Stricker's back within a shot, and then Stricker stuffs it on 14,

hits it to probably like three feet. Vijay does the same, they both make birdie, the lead is still one, stays that way until Stricker hits it in the bunker on 17, Singh hits it onto the green. Shitty, shitty bunker shot from Steve Stricker. You think about, you know, one of the great short players of all time, really kind of let down by his own short game.

Can't make the par putt. VJ makes a routine par on 18. And of course, Nance gives us the VJ means victory call. You know, cause it does mean a victory. I'm gonna read from Sports Illustrated, John Gerrity here. VJ of course was, you know, if you haven't been familiar with some of Vijay's past, he's kind of a controversial figure for reasons you will understand why in a second.

Twenty years ago, he was a lonely youngster hitting shag balls in the shade of a giant mango tree in the South Pacific Island. Fifteen years ago, he was an ignorant golfer leaving trails of bad loans and unpaid phone bills from Australia to Malaysia. Thirteen years ago, he was an exiled pro in the rainforest of Borneo banned from the Asian tour for altering his scorecard at the Indonesian open. Now, Vijay Singh is a PGA champion.

Let the record show how good Vijay Singh was on this day. I'm skipping ahead in the story and let us recall briefly how naughty he was. Naughty is the word because none of Singh's youthful indiscretions did permanent damage. In Australia, when he was barely out of his teens, Singh financed his travels with loans from friends and tour officials and rarely paid anyone back. He cleared up most of his debts a few years ago, the ones he could remember anyway. He was also notorious for making long-d distance phone calls from clubhouses and leaving without paying the bill. It's kind of sick. I gotta say but the episode that has truly haunted him occurred in Jakarta in

1985 when an Asian when the Asian tour suspended Singh for improving his score by a stroke before turning his card into a tournament officials saying has long maintained it was all a misunderstanding Asian golf officials and other witnesses insist he was caught red-handed and deserved punishment. Whatever the facts, the Singh who emerged on the PGA European Tour in the 1990s bore little resemblance to the man after the Jakarta episode went into exile for two years to teach golf to lumberjacks and oil riggers in Keniyagu Borneo, a jungle outpost two and a half hours from

civilization by dirt road. Jesus. As Singh says, I became a little more polished and a little more mature. An experience like that forces you to grow up. After the PGA championship, they were talking about some of it and Vijay said, I was out there hitting balls in the hundred degree heat thinking about what I was going to do next. I had to earn some money to go on tour again. I think that was my lowest point. I never thought about coming to America, let alone winning a golf tournament over here. I did not know this. Vijay actually worked as a bouncer in Edinburgh, like kind of while he was

playing on the European and Asian tour trying to make some money. He said, he told Golf Channel's Todd Lewis in an interview recently, I could fight a little bit, made for a good bouncer. I did a lot of martial arts growing up. Asked how it would sort of he would be received in Fiji. He said, I hope I'm a hero now in Fiji. I haven't been back in a long time. But I hope everyone saw this. They didn't write sports associated because there was no television coverage of the event in his country of 800,000. His wife and eight year old son

cast however, were there in person to follow him around for victory. VJ 22 of his 34 wins came after he turned 30. Uh, it was 34 at this point. So some scant thing. I have a, I had a great picture somewhere of stricker and possibly the worst golf fit that I could imagine, uh, didn't upload properly. So I just have to imagine in a sort of a beige sweater over a red and blue polo. Really, really not a great look. VJ not awesome look back then either, but you know, the glasses and the visor, I've started coming around to it over the years. You know, the guy,

he lived his truth. He wore his style as it was. So I think a VJ deep dive is in our future at some point. I think it's an interesting cat. Interesting, I don't know, you too kind of a word, I guess, for VJ, but still a lot we probably don't know about him. I will say Mark O'Meara, we were talking about, he could have won, he finished T4. Really? Yeah, five shots back.

Tiger finished 10th, 108 shots back. But like Marco Mirra, honestly, like an incredible major season. Right up there with kind of, you know, Spieth's major season of 15 where he was in contention three of them, or four of them really. So you know, Mark, I don't think he contended in that US Open really, but he was definitely kind of hanging around in this one for a while. Mark O'Meara, we'll dedicate the 1998 episode to Mark O'Meara officially as the two-time major winner for this year. So that is going to wrap us for 98. I guess 99 is up next. We're starting to get into something we've kind of covered in other things. We did a Tiger Slam one,

all this, but we kind of have a little bit better blueprint of doing them. So we're going to slowly keep working our way through them. And as always, Kev, appreciate the insight or the time that goes into preparing these. We appreciate everyone that gives great feedback on these as well and for tuning in. We'll see you back here next time for another deep dive. Crack on. Cheers.

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