No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 955: 1999 Majors Deep Dive

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

KVV and Soly take us back to 1999 for another majors deep dive as we relive Jose Maria Olazabal winning his second green jacket, Payne Stewart's epic triumph at Pinehurst (52:30), Paul Lawrie's unlikely victory at Carnousite after Jean van de Velde's 72nd hole meltdown (1:41:00) and Tiger's duel with Sergio at Medinah (2:18:15). Support our sponsors: Rhoback GolfPride fanduel.com/nlu Subscribe to the No Laying Up Podcast channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@NoLayingUpPodcast 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. Johnny, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? better than most expect anything different ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the no laying up podcast soli here got another banger of a deep dive for you we are closing out the 90s 1999 major championships

with my guy kvv here shortly we got jose maria we got pioneers we got john vandervelle we got tiger at medina a lot of fun good stuff. This is one of our longer ones. But we did our best to kind of put a book into the 90s as we look and turn the page over into the 2000s. I think it's gonna be some fun stuff to cover in that one as well. The show is of course brought to you by our friends at Roeback. You all know Roeback best fit best feel it's a new year. We still love Roeback and the Roeback hoodie is still the single best piece of

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ready to close out a decade, a decade we're not actually technically complete with went back and looked at it. We didn't do 1990. We didn't do 1994, but otherwise we are going to be covering the 1999 majors today. And we've covered every other major season of this decade. And Kevin van Volkerberg is here to help me with that. Hello, Kevin. Sal, welcome to 2025. I'm so excited to continue doing this into the other quarter, third of this century. We're rolling right along. Look, if someone wants us to do 90 and 91 or whatever, maybe there's a little Patreon you could put together, Solly, and see if we can raise some money to complete the decade. We did 91.

We did 91 through 93 in one episode. This is where we started with this. And then we kind of started breaking it down. We skipped 94, not because we hate Nick Price, but just, we just, I don't know, we were kind of picking and choosing around that one. And we didn't do it. Maybe we'll have to go back and do 94, like as a part of another, like just a Nick Price, I think that's a good call. But I feel like I'm a completist, you know, or maybe it's like one of those bands that goes back and like redoes an album, you know, it's like, Hey, we're winning in a

shot at this because we were just so young back. That's very true. I mean, we've actually technically done, we did a tiger, all of tiger's majors pod at one point, which as we get into the two thousands, those are going to start peeling off here very, very quickly. But I think we're gonna have to continue these episodes into the two thousands going year by year. I mean, yeah, the next one coming up is gonna be especially fun. Actually, I say that surprisingly, some of the years that I had little expectation on

ended up being the most fun where we found the funniest random stuff. But I don't know how you feel about 99, but I'm starting to feel the newspaper cycle kind of slowing a little bit around this time. It's not, I'm finding the same articles in a lot of different newspapers and not as much flair as maybe the middle

even of this decade of some all time quotes and allegory or similes. I don't know the proper journalistic terms there, but it's not quite there in 99. Yeah, this is definitely the, I think we've just passed the peak of newspapers. This is just like when I got hired've just passed the peak of like newspapers. This is just like when I got hired to, to work at the Baltimore sun and they were flying me out first class,

putting me up, you know, in these fancy hotels and by God, three to four years later, it'd be like, yeah, we're, you know, we're hearing about this thing called Craig's list. And you know, we're not really sure about the internet. We should put our articles on the internet until like a week later. And so yeah, like this is definitely the beginning of the end of an era. So we're covering 1999 today. We have already covered the 99 US Open

ahead of the Pinehurst US Open in 2024. Kevin did that one. We're gonna insert the audio from that one after I cover the Masters. If you've already listened to that one, listen to it again. I'm sure I've listen back to that. I don't even remember that one. And if you already have, if you want to skip ahead,

we'll pick back up at the 99 Open Championship and then Kev is going to bring us home with the 99 PGA. I got a couple of trivia questions for you at the end of this as well. So kids, store some stuff away if you can, as much as you can. I know you don't know what they'll be, but see if we can answer some questions

on the back end of closing out the 90s here. But if you're ready, the 1999 Masters held at Augusta National Golf Club. Do you remember anything leading up into the Masters of this year of what might be maybe a little different at Augusta National? I got to think this is probably tiger-proofing era, Sully. We got 98 the year after, but then when everyone came back and got the first look at Augusta, some shit had changed. It had changed quite a bit. The the club called the most significant changes that they've ever made.

They're described as dramatic. Jack Nicholas not playing this year because of hip surgery, but he is there to check out the new changes. He's riding around here. If you're watching this on YouTube, if you're not, please check out the no laying up podcast YouTube channel, where we have some visual elements to these

episodes that add a little bit riding around with Houdy Johnson in a golf cart, which kind of seems sacrilegious. At Augusta National, they got a cart right in the middle of the fairway. But I think the chairman and the six time champion probably can get away with riding that around. But golf course architecture junkie, Jack Nicklaus is going to weigh in on the changes. Kind of looking like a South Florida mob boss in this picture here. He's really like, you know, surveying the situation. He is kind of looking a little swag year that I ever

remember Jack. Jack really didn't have a lot of swag outside the seventies and seventies. Like he was kind of like, you know, uncooled cool, but an eighties, like nineties, not so much Jack. It was heart and full of it for fashion. Well, he's coming off what a T six appearance in the prior year in the 1998 masters and not able to play this year. The first year he had missed and gosh, I don't know. I can look that up here shortly, but it had been quite a long time. Anyways, he's riding around looking at the changes with Hootie. They're talking about them. They get to the second hole This hole has been lengthened back 20 yards. He's watching his Bob Estes is teeing off there

The also the 11th green has been raised two feet on the 15th hole There are fairway mounds that have been reduced There's trees added to the right kind of in between 15 and 17 those were not there prior There's a new tee on the 17th hole reduced and there's trees added to the right kind of in between 15 and 17. Those were not there prior. There's a new T on the 17th hole, uh, with trees planted everywhere on that one. There's a second cut introduced here. Sacrilegious second cut. It is every, it is a one and three eighths of an inch, uh, specifically is, is how it is cut.

But now there's officially rough at Augusta National for the first time ever. And then Jack's right around, he just can't resist himself. He gets up to the 12th hole, Carlos Franco. This is of course in a practice round still is there. He grabs a five iron out of Carlos Franco's bag and steps up and hits a ball in the practice round onto the green, much to the delight of the crowd. On 12, he's hitting five iron. Love that little chippy five fake hip. I think the hip surgery was, uh, was, was limiting a little bit, but he said he considered, uh, the, the golf ball and the equipment that we have today. We think you've made the proper

changes. Um, he gave, he said that to hoodie Johnson after their, after their little ride around and he said he then left for Bahamas to Bahamas to go fishing for the rest of the week. I don't think he said he was not going to be watching the remainder of the Masters, but went to the Bahamas to go fishing. So I'm going to give you a chance to guess on this one. Gary Player had some input on the golf course and it has to do with Bobby Jones and what he would have thought. I think honestly, you can guess what Gary Player would say about the 17th hole as it relates to Bobby Jones.

I've been saying sacrilegious. It's just absolutely an abomination. I think Bobby Jones would be so pissed about this situation. What would a dead person do if they're upset about a situation? I'm sure Bobby Jones is rolling over in his grave at the moment, Sully. That is it. Bobby Jones would turn over in his grave is the exact quote from Mr. Player. He also said the change at 17 is the worst I've seen at Augusta. All the masters champions say it's terrible. Love Gary running down the line and getting comment from Hogan and Saracen and everybody.

What do you think about 17? I was in an abomination like I feel sure Gary. I've guessed it. That was at the champions dinner that he got like one person to agree with him and said, Oh, the masters champions agree on this one. As if that's the only opinion that matters. Raymond Floyd, a master's champion said 17 is fantastic. It was a nothing type hole. I think 17 is going to be one of the great finishing holes instead of being the very nebulous, very birdieable type hole with the players length today. Tom layman described the changes as a chamber of horrors, which is not quite the endorsement. Fred Couples said, everything was manicured here like a fairway before and the ball keeps rolling.

Now, if you hit that little rough, you're not going to be anywhere near where it would be. So a shorter hitter that hits every fairway is going to get the roll. A longer hitter that normally hits an eight iron is now using a four or five iron. You can't get hooked on that, but it will happen. Couples also said the chances of winning will be narrowed to four, five or six guys. I don't know if that ended up ringing true here because the winner, I don't think the winner of eventual winner of the 99 Masters would be in that group of six guys. I'm assuming he's referring to length because O'Meara also says that it's longer now and

it favors longer hitters. Tiger Woods smiled when asked about the changes. He said number 17 in particular is a huge advantage for the long hitter. The eyes and eye retreat doesn't bother me. I just hit the ball over it without even thinking about it. Shorter hitters have to work the ball around the tree and probably hit five irons into the green, which is funny. 17 has been lengthened again since then and guys still hit wedges into that. And we're talking about it being length to then and five irons into that green. So I wonder when the last time a five iron was hit into the, maybe the Taiwanese kid, Tai, Tai Long Guang kid headed Long Guang. I'm so sorry. I apologize to our Taiwanese listeners. Yeah. I mean, I think he, that's where he got

penalized. He couldn't decide on five or six. Right. Hootie Johnson said the changes were made to try to keep up with the world of golf. It's the most significant changes ever made at Augusta. And we're just trying to stay in tune with the times. Mark Kalkovekia, I don't like them. They didn't need to do it. So this is a big topic.

All the articles in the pre lead up are either about David Duvall or they're about the changes made to Augusta because this was controversial at the time. It still is. It's interesting to think about like their idea of tiger proofing so that he wouldn't win 10 jackets. Like could they have made it, what would have been like if they had just decided to go the opposite direction and like bring other players into the tournament? Would he have continued to just fuck people up or would he have, you know, would have been similar kind of deal where other guys, you know,

were able to kind of win a few masters here and there. I don't know. Cause I mean, think in theory, yeah, it favors the long hitter, but you're going to get not a long hitter winning this year. You're going to get Mike Weirvin and eventually you're going to get, you know, some of these, uh, there's shorter guys got, we're sort of in play. I feel like now I don't know if you can win the masters as a, as a shorter hitter, but I guess the Tiger-proofing thing, I think, was a media thing that came out. I think it was a lot prior to our understanding of how changes to golf courses affected players in general.

In theory, making it longer was, I think, at the time, people thought was going to hurt Tiger. I don't know how, I guess, but that part definitely wouldn't have hurt. You know, narrowing up the fairways a little bit. Yeah, he's not the most accurate driver, but I mean, we've tons of data since then to say like, yeah, just get it down there. Even if you're in the rough, you're fine, especially with rough, this thin and narrow, you know, and not like thick hack out stuff. Uh,

it doesn't seem to have a major effect on things. Tiger also won the 2001 and 2002 Masters shortly after this. I mean, yeah, he blew everyone away in 97, but he didn't in 98. Like that was just the outlier year. I feel like it's common to refer to the changes made as like why Tiger couldn't play well at that place. But he also won in 05 as well. He won like, what's the quick math on that? Three of the next seven masters after these changes? That's kind of a lot. I feel like in the larger sense, if they were doing it to protect Tiger Proof-It,

they were sort of proofing him against history, right? As opposed to his own competitors, right? They didn't want him to rack up 10 jackets compared to Jack 6 as opposed to that they could have maybe brought more people into the field by just keeping it out was who knows. I, the one thing I think is a little bit diminished in this era is you get fewer of the like wild recovery shots at Augusta where because they couldn't quite shape the ball around trees the way that they could without any rough, like it, when it was all just fairway, essentially

one cut, they could kind of do anything from anywhere. And so you'd get like a lot of cool risk shots that maybe aren't quite as common in these days. Which is the essence of Alistair McKenzie and Poppy Jones's vision for this golf course. This is why these changes were so controversial, was like, we don't need to do the full technology debate here, but modern technology was rendering

some of what you're talking about already useless. And that when you're hitting wedges into a lot of these greens, like was that scared. That's what scared them the most was like, yeah, there's no risk element of 15. If you're hitting Iron, you know, wedge into this like Fowdo wrestling over what is it four wood or two iron from the 13th fairway the 96 Masters on that Sunday and 13th fairway, the 96 Masters on that Sunday and taking two and a half minutes to decide maybe should have been a penalty. But that was the essence of the golf course was like this is a risk reward shot. And the more those risks started to go away, it was just all reward. And you know, it's more of an indictment of technology. They had to do something because the golf the

golf was starting to get a little bit silly. But at the same time, it's, it's kind of like, I mean, look at Hootie's comments, too, is like, we're trying to keep up with the world of golf. It's the most significant changes we've made at Augusta. They would have preferred to not have not have made them. Sorry. I wish Bobby Jones took better care of himself so he could climb in here out of his wheelchair and just start slapping people right and left. It would be disgusted.

As much as I want to make fun of Mr. Player's quotes, it's hard to fight back on any of those. Because Jones, yeah, Augusta National was his ode to St. Andrews. And yeah, planting trees, not it. That was not what the vision was for Augusta. Gary would be in a real pickle if it was choosing between planting trees and then

Mr. Jones's wickets. That's very true. I don't think he had decided he was a tree hugger at that point. But prize fund for this year is $4 million. Winner is going to get $720,000. That is the 2024 equivalent. I did this research back in October right before I went on leave for the master. So I've been trying to redo some of my research. 2024 equivalent, a $7.5 million purse and $1.35 million to the winner, which is like about a third of what it actually is actually in 2024 and 2025. But the purse is up $800,000 or 25% from the year prior, up almost 50% from the $2.7 million purse in 1997. So this is,

from the $2.7 million purse in 1997. So this is the Tiger funding is coming into golf. It's still not all the way there. It kind of shakes itself out of the next kind of two to four years, but it is well on its way to be up almost 50% in two years. That was the Tiger effect. And then we have the MBS effect that happens in the 2020s for purses.

We might have to do a study, which was greater in the MBS effect that happens in the 2020s for purses. We might have to do a study which was greater, the MBS effect. That's a good one. Who's the favorite? 99 Masters. You know what? I think it's Duvall. I remember David Duvall's kind of ascension and how he was, like everyone thought, oh my god, like Duvall has, I think he was ranked number one or he had just kind of uh he was certainly in contention for their one ranking he's number one i'm gonna do this i'm gonna make you i'm gonna see how many of the top 10 you can name all right you get a point for everyone you need don't have to be in order but you got the first one i think you can easily

get the second one all right so Duval Tiger i'm gonna say Mikkelsen's in the top 10 at this point. Oh, God. He is not. Oh my God! Jesus. I would say, fuck, let's see. Norman's probably not in the top 10 because 96 was sort of his last hurrah. So Nick Price has gotta still be in the top 10. Nick Price is number eight, that's correct.

I wanna say, do we have Jose Muriela with Fable in the top 10? No. 19th 19th okay how about Marco Mera is probably still in the top ten here from his majors that's correct previous year good call God Fado's he's done at this point so he can't be in the top ten anymore how about Colin Montgomery gotta Got to be. He's number nine. Well done. OK. Fuck yeah. Let's see. Man, what could be his Furek in the top 10 at this point? He's not. Who won the 98 PGA?

The most previous major, most recent major. Oh my god. Sahali. We just covered it. Oh, we do sing. Yep. AJ is number six. That's right.

Who won the 97 PGA? Davis Love III is in this. He's probably fourth. He referred to himself as the quietest number three there's ever been in the world. And you're working your way through the list. I would agree with that. Yeah, that was probably not gonna come to mind.

How many have we missed in here? We got a- Just the final two. One is English, one is American. Okay, so is Payne Stewart in the top 10 at this point? He is not. Okay, is Lee Westwood in the top? He is. Yes! He is number seven and the 10th ranked player,

an American Masters champion in the 90s. You know what, Fred Couples did not make the Ryder Cup team that year, but I feel like that's a good guess. It is a good guess because he is number 10. You got it. You got 10 eventually a little bit of help. But so far this PGA Tour season, David Duvall wins the Mercedes championship by nine to start the year. He then wins the Bob Hope by shooting 59 in the final round. Payne Stewart wins Pebble. Tiger of course wins

Buick. He won every Buick ever. There was like eight Buicks at the time. Buick's all in the yard rusting out after years of non-use. Give them away. Ernie won the Nissan at RIV. Elk won Dural, VJ won the Honda, Duvall wins the Players and the Bell South back to back in the two weeks leading up to the Masters. Duvall, in the last 18 months, how many wins do you think David Duvall has?

18 months, year-end. I remember this from the VJ pod. He had like eight wins or something in like an 18 or seven, eight wins in an 18 month span. 11 wins. Data Golf has this as the fourth best stretch of golf since 1995, including today, like up to today, fourth best stretch of golf behind Tiger 2000, Scotty this year and VJ 2004. That's the fourth best stretch. Now I think how they do it, one player can only be on the list once. Tiger would be on it multiple times, but this is the fourth best peak of golf since 1995. Duvall has won 11 of the last 34 times he has teed it up

on a golf course. It's just freaking remarkable. He would then from this point on only ever win two more tournaments. One would be the, of course, the 2001 open championship. So other 99 news later that summer, Andy Pazder, uh, from the PJ tour announces caddies will be allowed to wear shorts only when the heat index gets above a hundred. I saw this in my research too. I didn't think too deep into it, but good Lord. Like what a, what is ridiculous, like backwards thinking there was back then. Like I think it was because somebody, one of the caddies like passed out at one of the events earlier in the year and they're like, Oh, maybe we shouldn't like walk these guys to death in front of huge

crowds. Getting to the tournament here. Arnold Palmer teased it up for the 45th time in the Masters. As I said, Nicholas misses for the first time since 1959. That was the last time that Jack Nicholas had missed the Masters. There's some AMs in the field of note. You might recognize Matt Kuchar, 97 US amateur champion. He is back a year after smiling his way around Augusta. We also have a future Masters champion, Trevor Emelman, the 98 US amateur Publinks champion

and another future masters champion who you thought I was probably going to next, a young Sergio Garcia, the 98 British amateur champion swing just looking so laggy and loopy back then. Love seeing that 975D, a tireless driver too. Like, let's bring those back. Come on. That was 99 is kind of around, I know they're starting to bitch a little bit about technology at this point, but that might've been it. That might've been like the, the moment to bounce, maybe mid nineties. I had to, I look into what my official answers for that. But I'll think about that next time I hammer my GT like, you know, to 235 and I'm like, Oh, God, I just got too far. Yeah. Players are going off in threesomes for the first time at

the Masters and pairings will be the same for the first two days. So we've often, you know, noted up to this point about how they change after every day, but officials cited the larger field size as the reason. I just learned this in the research. There was, I guess, an annual international players dinner at the Masters. That's now ending. This is the last year that I couldn't tell actually if they did one in 99 or not, but that is now done. The international players did

it. Just reserved another banquet room away from the champions dinner where the internationals were welcome. I'm guessing and I'm also guessing Gary has something to do with either this starting or ending and I don't know which one but now that I'm done in this dinner, I'm going to have another dinner over here.

So Tiger has some quotes on David Duvall about it being number two in the world to David Duvall says cool says, cool, number two, actually, it's fine. It's one of those things that's cyclical. Everyone's going to have their runs. David is having his run right now. It's all part of the game. It's good motivation. The fact that David's playing extremely well, I can tell you one thing, it's a lot easier

to come to tournaments and not have to do mandatory press conference every day. Now David's doing that and he can have that. Don't write in paper that I'm mad that I've lost the world number one ranking to David Duvall. If you're, if you remember this, I think this is kind of a time period I've tried to black out. I'm sure there's some images in the major that you're covering within this episode, but what is this tiger logo? What was this like yin yang Nike thing? This is such a tough, tough look for him. It had to be some sort of like Asian mom influence, right? Like a yin-yan thing.

It was, I don't know, looks like a frisbee almost, or some kind of weapon of some kind that you'd throw at that ninja. Ninja star of some kind. I don't know, I'm sure there was a story behind that. I should have looked that up, but it didn't last long, thankfully. But listen, did I have this logo in 1999

on hats and shirts that I purchased? Absolutely. But yeah, this wasn't really working for the cat. Duvall struggled in the opening round, hit in the creek on 13, he made three bogeys in a row at one point. Tiger makes an eight on the eighth hole on this day. Davis Love, Scott McCarron, Nick Price,

and do you remember who else open with 69 to share the lead at minus three? Oh, I don't. Would it be Phillip Alfred Mickelson? It's not, it's Golf Channel's own Randall Chamblee. Look at this. You know what? Cag people who talk shit about my guy here

because he's only won one tournament. How many times have you led the Masters after one round? Exactly right. He's still coasting on this one. I had to text him this picture as soon as I saw it. Yeah, it's solid. He was like the, that is the prototype PGA tour look for the nineties

right here. Olive pants, tan shirt, visor, the big brown foot joys. Like this is what golf looked like when I was growing up. He's flirting with some tannable action. Yeah. Maybe Brandle is the origin story of the tannable. I mean, he didn't go full tannable here, but maybe, like, just an inspiration for it.

He looks better than Tiger did, that's for damn sure. Lee Jansen, Justin Leonard, Andrew McGee, Colin Montgomery, Jose Maria Olafaba, Mark O'Meara, Jeff Stuhlman, all won back. So we're really bunched on this leaderboard. Candidates are pretty rapid out there. I couldn't, firm-ish, but Davis Love Note, he saw officials, I had watering the 14th and 15th greens to keep them from becoming as hard as concrete. So kind of in line with kind of them freaking out about some of the scoring in the prior years,

sound like they let it get maybe a little too firm. One newspaper said the Greens were on the edge of going from unrelenting to unfair. Fairness, a big word in 1999 as we worked through some of this. I don't know if that reared its head at Medina, but definitely did at Carnoustie, we'll get there. Nick Faldo, whose whose game it's gone at

this point. He has shot 80, hasn't broken par at Augusta since his final round 67 in 1996. There's a rainstorm on this day, 90 minute delay. I'm wondering if that kind of helped soften things up a little bit from from there on out. But the crowd sound just a little different in this time period. We'll get there on Sunday, but man, there were some, maybe it's just the way the audio was recorded on some of the videos and everything, but man, there were some fricking roars in this time period.

It just, I don't think crowds, you know, as ticket prices have soared for events, an event like this, I just don't know if crowds still react the same way. Even at a place where you don't have your cell phones out. It's just different. They didn't have their phones, so everybody could clap. So it's really important for how things have evolved.

Now they have to just whistle. So on Friday, it's a windy day. Tiger claims he gets gusted on 12. He backs off twice, says the wind died and then picked up again while the ball was in the air. I just want to show you where this ball landed. If you see the splash in this image, it is 35% of the way into Rays Creek. I mean, it had to have been a chunk, but Tiger plays it up.

I mean, you see the splash mark of that one. That is not halfway into Rays Creek. Spieth's third shot in 2016 might've gotten farther into the Creek. Then this one got brutal. He looks confused at the T he played up this part. He tore sauce the hell out of this one. So you know, it's gesturing about the wind as he walks up, maybe the 99 ball really did get gusted that bad, but, uh, this, that just made me laugh. Watch it. That was like, dude, that one wasn't even close. Duval hits it in the water on 15.

He makes an eight. He shot 74. He was one over through 36. I keep highlighting this because I still think Duval should have won this one. Like he was clearly the best player and he just made a ton of catastrophic mistakes. I don't have the count, the birdie count in front of me, but it just seemed like he just kind of, uh, kept, you know, hitting himself in the head with his own fist more than it was like the golf course really punched him. But he makes a little run come Sunday, but obviously does not go on to win this one.

A second round 66 gives Jose Maria the lead over Scott McCarron by one lead Jansen and one Greg Norman three shots back headed to the weekend. Uh, you're saying, wow, as if you don't remember the 1999 masters being a great Greg Norman opportunity and I honestly, not even the last great collapse cause he fucking ties the lead to the British open at some point in his 50. Uh, but this is still,'s what? 45 here. 44. I think he's 43. I think is my guess. Cause I think he was 41 when he melted down in 96. So I guess he'd be 40, 40, 69. Now this is 25 years ago. 44. Let's call it. Yeah. Yeah. I going

into this one again, didn't remember this as being a great Greg Norman opportunity. Kev, this was a great, great Greg Norman opportunity. And hot takes all is Greg Norman. One ofv, this was a great, great Greg Norman opportunity. And is Greg Norman one of the great masters players of all time? I can put himself in contention a lot of times. Just didn't close it. I'd have to think on that just a little bit. I'm going to pull up his Wikipedia yellow here. Masters in the nineties. His results are cut, cut T six T 31 T 18 T three second3 second cut cut and then I won't spoil

where he ends up finishing this year he does not win it I will spoil that part but it's getting nervous over a second perhaps I just remembered I it's like a little bit like my insane Phil Mickelson is one of the best US Open players of all time take which I think has more evidence to that than Greg's Masters. But it is a little bit of a surprise because he had missed the cut in the prior two Masters after 96. Wash not canceled yet at this point. Davis, Love and Nick Price are five back heading in the weekend. Brando Elkington, Bill Glasson, Justin Leonard, Bernard Longer, Colin Montgomery are at minus two and six back.

One of my favorite things to do in these old, old time episodes is just look at the old, the end of day leaderboards and see all the names that we don't, you know, maybe not don't end up there, but we don't remember being among the top 10. But so Jose Maria leads and they, they, you know, they're kind of commenting a lot of the articles and a lot of the kind of highlight videos and everything, commenting about how four years ago, he wasn't sure if he'd ever play again. He had just a misdiagnosed back injury. It kept him out of golf for a year and a half.

Jack McCollum wrote an essay three years ago, Olifaba was in such pain from aching feet, a condition misdiagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis, but later discovered to have been the result of a lower back hernia that he was reduced to crawling around his house on all fours. He was out of action for 18 months before starting to play competitively again in March 1997. Wow. This should give you hope with your dad back after since you're crawling around by the end of each day, you know, just begging for bedtime to arrive. You know, that's just my crutch for bad golf. I don't actually have a bad back. It's just what I fall back on is my excuse.

Okay. So we're on to Saturday, more wind, more difficult conditions. And there's a fun thing in the highlight video, Monte talks about something after the round is like you hope at Augusta that your partner birdies 11. So you don't have to go first on 12. And you know, especially in this time, pre-pro V1, this golf ball is just spinning a lot. And it's, it's, everybody's talking about the wind on this shot. Davis Love, along this note, Davis Love takes a one shot lead to the 12th. Again, he entered the round five back on the, on the Saturday. Takes a one shot lead into the 12th again. He entered the round five back on the on the Saturday takes a one shot lead into the 12th hits first and air mails the green and makes bogey. Norman is

playing first and hits group. His group hits it over the green and they never find his ball. Wow, never find it. Yes, five minutes to look Lee Jansons up in the in the in the in the Hill looking for it all. They cannot find it. He has to walk back hits to 30 feet and drains the bogey putt. Wow saves for after losing the ball. CBS commentator Bobby Clampett would later find Norman's ball after play had concluded it was found about 10 feet from where Norman had his pocket. No,

sorry. This is where his grudge with the whole golf world began. Scott McCarran goes first on the 12th hole with Jose Mareel This is where his grudge with the whole golf world began. Scott McCarron goes first on the 12th hole with Jose Maria Olifable, but goes long and also loses his ball. He makes triple and Jose Maria steps up and stuffs one. He missed the putt, but stuff won. Everyone stunk on this day.

Love made double on 15, Norman bogeyed 13. We would have had a field day on the live show with how much everybody snunk on the new masters golf course. Get them off the course. They stink. Jose Maria shoots 73 leads by one going on Sunday, but couldn't make a putt. Like they have a montage of all of his missed putts and it's kind of insane and Jose Maria known for his putting. He could not make anything on this Saturday, but yeah, he shoots that 73. He leads by one over one who's in second place going into the final round. Could it be Davis love or David Duvall?

It's Greg Norman. Great fucking Norman. Jesus. Wow. Again, I tip my hat in respect. I tried. I mean, I tried to hit this, but he, it's the dude of the nineties, man. Like that is one of my big takeaways from doing all of these is, is how much of a guy this was in the nineties and only winning one major in this decade. It really is a crime, but what's that? What's Norman's hat situation?

Is he, is he, I'm so glad you asked this. I'm so glad you asked this because he wore the brim hat as far as I could tell for each of the first few days comes out final pairing on Sunday, wearing a regular hat, as far as I could tell for each of the first few days. Comes out final pairing on Sunday, wearing a regular hat. No, no aura, absolutely no aura. The shirt looks worse with the normal size, you know, with the normal hat. It's the exact opposite effect of Bryson.

You know, Bryson looks so much better in like the normal fitted hat instead of the Ben Hogan hat. Norman was known for the big brim hat. And I don't know why on Sunday he came out without it on. Wow. So. I feel like it's like a Dumbo's feather situation.

Like you just, you know, he had the talent all along, but he took away his like security blanket. It was to block out the haters too. The haters could get to you way too easily without the brim hat. Love and Pate are just two shots back. Again, they had love. They double on 15 after dunking his third into the water. I mean, there's probably a decent reason why all these guys had all these car wrecks everywhere.

Again, the firmness was a factor, but yeah, there were a lot of car wrecks everywhere. Also the drivers were not, they were like nickels. That's all you had to hit it the size of a dime to make a good shot. You couldn't just whale on it. Steve Pates had a master's record by making seven straight birdies and he shot 65 on this day. Els Estes, Carlos Franco and Lee Jansen are three shots back going into the final round. Elk, McCarran, Monte and Price, all three under and four back.

Tiger shoots 70 to move to minus two, one shot out of the top 10. David Duvall shoots 70 and moves to minus one. So we get to Sunday. The wind is up big and it's Norman and Olathabel in the final pairing. And the Norman stuff is massive like he has been hamming it up in the press center all week. Big smiles totally at peace. Like am I a sentimental favorite just because I'm older because because 96, which one is it? Just that's my worst Australian accent ever.

But. That was like your scoops bit, Sully. That's. God. Australians are pissing up at us for. Coming out here, sound like a carnival marker. I bailed on it a quarter of the way to the first word. I can't do Australian X. I can't do the Norman accent.

Pull up, pull up, pull up. I say this to say like the crowd, it couldn't have been less than 95, five partisan wise for Greg Norman over Jose Maria,, again, I mean, we could do a whole probably pod on just like what makes a star, what makes somebody appealing to massive amounts of people. You would think, you know, all the close call, it's just an interesting case study of like, it's the close calls for Norman for sure. Jose Maria literally won this event five years ago.

He is a master's champion. He's somebody the Masters patrons are familiar with, yet he's won it already. So he just does not have the pull amongst the crowd anywhere near norm where Norman does. Ollie makes an up and down on one from long I'm showing you the image. I mean, just a completely grotesque up and down because these greens are rolling about looks like about a 14 on the stamp with the wind blowing and to stop a ball from he bumped into the hill and crept it on the green just an insane up and down but he bogeyed three

four and five he says to his caddy I think we're giving this tournament away but he turned around the original buddy I think we're yeah I feel like we're collapsing a little bit here bud but he makes birdie on the par three six to the back right pin. There's a four way tie at the top as Davis love pours in a birdie on the 90s. Also got some swamp ass going here in the dockers as he gets it. I didn't mean to take a screenshot of it, bedding over with his swap ass, but that's what I got. And I was like, Oh, okay. I guess we're going with that one.

So we're heading to the back nine tournament doesn't start until the back nine on Sunday. We're in for a fun afternoon. All the Fables steps up and birdies the 10th hole to take the lead. But Norman makes birdie on 11 and I, I can't play master's audio, but I will encourage everyone to go find this minute mark from the YouTube video. The night, the final round of the 1999 Masters on YouTube. He hits the putt at 132.53. And I would invite everyone to go watch that because it's like Jack and 86 level of ape shit that this crowd goes into. It's the most people on a whole between 11 and 12 T there. I mean, it's just stacks and stacks of people. He makes this putt. And again, it might be how they mix the audio back then,

but it's like, you know how when audio gets like too loud and scratches like the top level and like the gain is up too high. It's that level of sound of like, it would bust a speaker of people going absolutely apeshit. And they cut to the crowd and there's people literally in the middle of it like jumping up and down.

I mean, arms waving, you know, I can't- Throwing their babies in the air of it, like jumping up and down. I mean, arms waving, you know, and their babies in the air. Pretty much, I can't really like capture any of that in any of the screenshots or anything, but it's mayhem. And he, it's, I would say at least 10 times the roar that Oli got from making Birdie on 10. Wow.

And he gets huge ovation as he walks up to the 12T, he's got to go first on 12th tee and he hits this shot. I mean, he pulls it left and he must have chosen, I mean, remember he pulls it into the shit and loses the ball on Saturday. He must have taken way less club but he gets an all time break because this is, he hits short left in front of the front left part of the green and it,

Fred couples and stays on the bank. Like it had no business staying dry. And if it would have been anywhere near them, even the middle of the green, it would have been in the middle of Rays Creek. Like it was a very bad shot. He pitches up and Ollie again, kind of, kind of reading off that, whoa, is there too much wind up there? He goes long into the back bunker, but Ollie gets up and down and Norman does not. All right. So Norman is back to minus five, Olfaba minus six. They get, they go over to 13. Olfaba is on in three, but Norman is on in two. Hits an excellent second shot on in two and has a long eagle putt from above the hole. And he steps up and he drains it and sends the crowd into another complete frenzy.

I still think the roar on 11 was louder, but I mean, it is like Norman. Greg Norman is leading the Masters now on the back nine with five holes to play. Oh man. And all the fables putting for, you know, he's 20 feet away for birdie. Like it's not like a huge threat. All the fable steps up and drains his 20 foot birdie putt to tie. So like it just awesome back and forth on 13. They acknowledge each other with a little kind of point and

incredible sportsmanship and mutual respect and all that stuff. So again, five holes to play Norman time for the lead of the 99 masters. Didn't realize, don't remember this. Didn't know this. You didn't know this before we started diving into this, but like, if you don't like Greg Norman, it's a great like evidence that karma exists because no dude was more snake bit in these freaking majors. Like it just, he played well enough to win six, seven of them.

And like somebody just kind of like snatched one from, you know, the jaws of defeat. And then all of a sudden they were like, he was like, holy shit. Well, at least I have 10 more years to win like a bunch of these. Well, at least I got five more years. Well, at least I got this last shot. It's just like, fuck. How many times has he been on 15 green with like a chance to win the tournament? You know, four or five probably. Well, to this one though, I would say he snatches it from himself because he steps up on 14, blows into the right trees and makes bogey. Steps up on 15 blows into the new right trees there, lays up into the fairway claims there's mud on the ball,

but misses with a wedge right into the bunker on 15 with this third shot, doesn't get that one up and down. So after the awesome eagle on 13, he turns around and throws the two shots back on 14 and 15. Ola Fable heads to the 16th hole with a two shot lead or at this point, it's only a one shot lead over Jerry Pate. So as you can tell, it's not going to happen for Norman. There's some you know, some quotes afterwards. He said, it's not a heartbreak.

Like look at the leaderboard. There are a lot of other guys out there who could sit here and say their heart is broken to don't make a mountain out of a molehill on this one. Kind of fending off the press like this isn't a joke. I didn't choke. He said it felt like 80% success and 20% disappointment in this one. Whereas 96 was 9598 maybe 99% disappointment. Well, as I know, it's like to choke and this doesn't even fucking compare. I've been kicked in the nuts before and

this is not it. When you've got like 26 heartbreaks, like, yeah, this doesn't even rank in the top 10. Are you kidding me? It's not even close. So playing ahead of Ollie, I don't remember this at all, but Davis Love still in contention. When he gets to, he's five under, he's two shots back of Ollie, but he pulls it way left on 16 on Sunday at Augusta in the, in the left rough pin high. We know this shot. It is extremely difficult golf shot because we've seen it turn into a commercial, uh, you know, an un unheard of shot that Tiger Woods hit in 2005.

Davis love has a similar shot hits it way past the hole, uh, you know, on 16 and lets it just creep, creep, creep back towards the hole into the fucking hole in your life. Have you ever seen like, yeah, yeah, actually a couple of years. I did not know this six years prior. The only reason I know about this is because I've written about the Tiger chip in 2005. And every now and then you'll get people in the comments below. Love did it first. Love was first.

Like, you know, this isn't even that cool. Like, yeah, it's kind of cool. Like, it's kind of an iconic moment, maybe the most in his entire career. So like, I just, you know, if Davis love had won the masters, then this would be an iconic moment for him. But, you know, it was an iconic moment for tiger. It does for, for me a little bit take away from like, that was an impossible shot. He's like, ah,

you just hit to the top of the hill and it was going to funnel down there. Like it really, I mean, it was a miracle that it went in, but it really wasn't nearly as hard of a shot as, as, it was maybe portrayed as in the past, but Ollie hits an awesome six iron from 170 into 17 banks it up the slope goes long of the hole and it comes all the way back. But it's a funnel pin, say what

you want. But part of funnel pins is like you are left with extremely challenging parts from wherever that ball ends up. And he is above the hole. I'm showing you the image here of like, he is playing this a foot and a half outside the cup left on a three and a half footer. I mean, one of the Jamie Kennedy refers these putts as smelly. Like this is one of the smelliest putts you can imagine, but he pours it directly. Trying to match up line and speed on those putts. So fucking hard. You have to, I mean, that's truly the difference between like good putters and like average putters is that good putters know exactly how to like make like right breaking putts go in for right

hander. Well, and Norman has a putt from maybe eight feet on a similar line to this. And when I say he didn't even sniff the hole, I mean, it didn't even get within maybe a foot of the hole for how difficult this putt was. So Ollie would say afterward, like it was just, you could not even believe how difficult that putt was. So, Oli would say afterward, like it was just, you could not even believe how difficult that putt was, but he pulled it off. Not much reaction from the crowd though. I mean, it was kind of like, I rewound it. I'm like, did they mess up the audio on that or like truly nobody is rooting for this guy, which seems, you know, some guys don't inspire

a lot of passion, but there's absolutely nothing to make you think that Olathebba would, you know, not inspire, you know, would inspire hate of any kind or people. He's not getting Patrick Reed. He shouldn't be getting Patrick Reed treatment is kind of where I'm getting at. And it kind of feels that way. And that might just be the Norman effect though. So, but he pulls a drive left on the 17 and some trouble, but he hits an incredible, I mean, new trees on 17. They look horrible by the way, like freshly planted, such a natural trees. He hits an incredible punch five iron into the like under a tree landing at 40 yards

short of the green and it gets up on this green and these greens are just lightning quick. It ends up rolling 35 feet past, but it was an awesome shot. I mean, really, really, really good shot. The crowd again, barely reacts on that one. Come on, crowd. I know xenophobes in there. Come on. Cheer for the cheer for the Spaniard too. You know, like masters champion. Come on. It makes a great two putt. That's pretty much going to do it. Love misses the putt on 18 up ahead that everybody misses on 18. Ollie

goes on to make par when his second green jacket and the whole scene is just very casual. I mean, Ollie's just, you just, a couple of fist pumps, but it is not quite elation really or really that captivating at the very end. So only seven players broke par on the day Duval made an eagle, six birdies and four bogeys and a double to shoot 70 and tie for six. So with all that stuff that Duval had going on, I mean, just on that day alone, he had four bogeys and a double and he finished five shots back of Jose Maria. So, this is one that Duvall, I'm sure, liked back. I just, in regards to Duvall, like I remember Sports Illustrated had like the big

David Duvall definitive feature. Gary Smith, one of my sort of idols growing up, had the big David Duvall feature where he's on the cover blowing his irons are like on smoking or whatever. It's the illustration. And it's, you know, it's one of the most memorable like golf stories that SI ever did where Duvall, you know, talked about his younger brother having leukemia and how he had to get, you know, like donate bone marrow or get, you know, these like spinal taps to sort of see if he had this thing, this cancer gene in him too. And man, it's like a heartbreaking story.

He gave like really good insight into why Duval was kind of a grump, you know, because he'd basically been, lived through this like tragedy as a kid, you know, he lost his older brother I think, you know, at a pretty young age and sort of felt like this burden and this weight of everything that had kind of come after and, you know, and just had sort of been an introvert ever since. And I remember like watching this Masters and being like, God, I'm really rooting for that guy now. Like not only like is he fucking awesome at golf, but I feel like really moved by this

big takeout that SI did. It's kind of probably one of the reasons why I was like, yep, this is what I'm doing for a living. Like I'm going to write stories like this that make people, you know, feel things about athletes. Wow. That's a cool story. I don't think I ever heard that in motivation. Some big numbers on Sunday.

Ernie L shot 80, Daily shot 81. Tiger finished at one over par, nine shots back. He shot 75 on Sunday. Sergio with a low amateur making a Spanish duo in Butler cabin. One of the other amateurs was Tom McKnight. McKnight was who knocked Sergio out of the US am he was like, I think 44 years old petroleum distributor from Virginia broke my heart to later find out that he was a former pro that has

got status back. So you So even this was all happening even back in the nineties. Don't don't go. Don't do distributed and petroleum. It's always house Tom. You know, just you don't respect the game enough. Some of the aftermath. Mr. Garcia wouldn't say what his pro plans were, but he's going back to Spain to talk it over with his family, but he would turn pro very shortly after this experience. So you don't get a second green jacket when you win. You get the,

you get the same jacket, uh, from Augusta, Jose Maria's name is misspelled on the inside of his jacket. It's, uh, it's, it's spelled with a B E L at the end when his name is actually spelled B a L. I don't know if that's ever been fixed, but that was the case that there was a, that it was misspelled. I'm sorry, Mr. Ola's apples Spanish man ain't going to fix it. It just, he should have got it right in the first place. You damn foreigners coming up here, gobbing up our trophies. He, uh, again, reflected

afterwards all the Bible did about how unsure he was. He would ever play golf again and how he never even dreamed that about this when he was at that low point. Like never even imagined that he could come back and win major championships but Jack McCollum writing an essay said with each improbable shot he created during that tension filled finale. The response from the large crowd following his two some grew increasingly muted as if the marshals were holding up their hands to quiet fans after Olafabel hit. After all lungs like

mummies and memories must be preserved and this galleries were needed to cheer on Greg Norman, Olafabel's playing partner and the heaviest fan favorite since Louis took on Schmeling in Yankee Stadium. I don't know what that means. In fact, when Olafabel stepped to the tee on the 405 yard par-4 18th hole needing only a bogey to win his second green jacket. There was probably only one thought in the collective mind of the indoor adoring Normanites. Hey, if Greg can make a one, he could force a playoff. Greg also says something afterwards about like, Hey, I was thinking maybe I can make a two on 18 and he makes a fight. It's like, like so many people have done to me in majors.

I was like, I don't, I don't think, I I mean Larry Meis chips in on you that was a really tough one but you did a lot of these to yourself. This is true. We really have to put together like a Greg Norman spreadsheet. Did he blow it or did somebody because I was when we were halfway through this I was like god Greg Norman like he got robbed again. no, he did this one to himself. Yeah, and Norman had got it to seven under par, after the 13th hole with a par five remaining and eight under was the low 72 hole total and he was three shots behind that. So anyways, that is the 1999 Masters.

Love that, good recap, Sally. Thank you very much. We've got a new partner in 2025 and that is Golf Pride, the official grip of no laying up. Golf Pride has been the leader in golf grip innovation and technology for over 75 years. They revolutionized the industry with the invention of the rubber slip-on grip and have continued to push the bounds of grip performance and technology ever since.

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the end of the year. Thank you for supporting the nest as well. Golf Pride performances in your hands with Golf Pride, the number one grip in worldwide golf. Back to the pod. We are now gonna go to the 1999 US Open. As we mentioned, we're gonna insert that. This was on our preview episode from the Pinehurst US Open this past year, but KBB is gonna take us to Pinehurst.

Pinehurst in 1999 had not hosted a major championship since 1936. They had made the decision to come there. This was special in some ways because it was one of the first US Opens that played away from the sort of typical super thick rough style. They originally set the rough at four inches and cut the rough down to three inches right before they wanted guys to have to choose what kind of shot they were going to hit out of the rough. They wanted to make them, tempt them into going for greens at times and not just pitch directly out into the fairway. Reese Jones Jr. TC's guy said he was the charge of the sort of restoration to make Piners get it ready for this. He said

before the tournament, all these guys are mechanical players like or mechanical players. And Corey Pavin won this tournament in 1995 because he was a magician. It's really going to take a magician around here to rather than a mechanic because you have to manufacture shots. Reading this quote, maybe fear that I had perhaps plagiarized Reese Jones in my artists versus the mechanic debate. That is not good. Do not feel happy about that. It's also Reese Jones. Just just Reese Jones. I don't think it's Reese Jones Jr. I think you're conflating. Okay, excuse me. Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Reese Jones. They hate

each other. Also just I'm going to nitpick the word restoration. Like I don't know if he was in charge of restore. I think the restoration is what come next. The renovation and recification of this golf course. What do mo lines look like? That was one of my takeaways from 2005 was the holes looked pretty comical in terms of how much rough there was

and how narrow the fairways were. What's it look like at Pioneers at this time? Even if it's short or rough, is it narrow as shit? It is narrow. It is very dark. It is very kind of like, it's shorter rough. Is it, is it narrow as shit? It is narrow. It is very dark. It is very kind of, um, like it's very green. There is still some of the, what you will see, you know, eventually as they go like good waste areas that make us feel,

but like it's immediately off the rough off of the fairways. It's, you know, a good dark, uh, there's a, there's a definite like second and third cut. It's not aesthetically pleasing. You can, I will say though, that it really shocked the players and you'll see in a lot of bitching about just this idea that your ball would not stop. If you missed the green by a few feet,

that it would run far away from you. Oh man, did it piss off a lot of people. Did you guys know that Pinehurst number two hosted the 1991 Tour Championship? I did not know that at all, which sort of stunned me. I guess, you know, more widely known is that it hosted the senior PGA at one point. But just imagine like going up to, you know, in late August, we talk about this, the butt sweats of Atlanta. I think back then they had it in October. It used to be like, it was like a late, like fall,

silly season event, like end of October, I think, which would have been prime time there. I mean, gosh, Pinehurst and October is like as good as it gets. But imagine just imagining Pinehurst, if the ball stopped like a foot off the green is kind of hilarious considering what we think of it now. At this time, David Duvall was the number one player in the world. Duvall had won four of the last 12 tournaments. And back then, man, if you won four of 12, you were like, it was thought of like you

were some kind of magician. He had recently surpassed Tiger as the number one player in the world. Tiger was of course going through a swing change. We will discuss a little bit. But guess what? This week, prior to the US Open, Deval had burned his right thumb and index finger on a teapot and he couldn't play any practice rounds prior to Tuesday afternoon at Pinehurst. He had bandaged on, he has a heavily bandaged on both of his fingers. He said, they seemed fine.

I played this morning and I didn't really have any problems. It's probably valid to ask me again tomorrow, although I might not want to answer it since that seems like it's all I've been talking about. So, you know, I love the old timey sports writing back in the day, but this is a great like sort of things about with four victories in the last tournament, all Devald needs is a little confidence. Well, that and a pot holder from the LA times. Devald was was leading the tour basically in driving average. So can you guess what his driving average was back then? He had a 2.94 driving average. Oh, I'm sorry, it was 2.87, which said that the LA Times

said because of that, Pinehurst should be right up his alley. Tiger was also getting hot. He had famously called Butch during this sort of thing and said that the Butchy I got it right prior to this year. He had then won in Germany and won the memorial. Ernie Ells in a sort of like a horror movie kind of haunting thing that you could sort of echo throughout the time what is to come said it's a little unsettling to see Tiger playing so well, which would sort of echo throughout the next year or so. Tiger said prior to the tournament, I keep telling everybody that I'm making some changes

to my game and it's going to take some time. I didn't like the way I played in 1997, even though I won some tournaments. I didn't really like it because I wasn't consistent. Asked what the difference between Tiger since he came on tour and now Lee Janssen, who won the previous year's US Open, said, I think he hits it about 20 to 30 yards shorter than he used to. He's trying to learn how to tone it down to be a ball control player. Probably last yeah would last for too long. There's 999 open

is pretty great because lot has been written about this uh you know because it's sort of like seen as one of the great US Opens of the last you know 50 it's sort of like seen as one of the great us opens of the last you know 50 years maybe even 100 years sports illustrated said it might be the the all-time greatest us open so alan shipnuck did a lengthy oral history about this and paul isinger said in 2014 was talking to shipnuck everybody in the world could see tiger and phil's talent but there were still some pretty pretty big questions about both of them if If you look at Phil, it was still unrealized potential. There was a real question about

whether he had what it took. A lot of players were beginning to think that Tiger was overrated that the Masters win was part of a hot streak that had ended. He had hardly won in the two years since so they came both came in with something to prove Masters winner. Hosea Maria Oafabel said he didn't think that there would ever be another Grand Slam winner. I would like to be wrong, especially this year. Jose Maria was a hot pick coming into the US Open because

of his short game. Everybody felt like you had to have a great short game to play well this week, which it yeah, I guess we can. We can talk about some of that. You know, as we preview the US Open next week. I don't know how positive that's the case, right? I think it's so hard around the greens that it really just puts more emphasis on who hits more greens and who has better accuracy with their irons, I think, right?

I mean, we'll get into some of that when I get to 05 as well. There was a very unscientific model of percentages of what matters, just put in USA Today, here's what matters at Piners percentages. And I was like, I don't, I don't know if that's accurate. This is all pre-strokes game era, right? Of like trying to figure out still working in total putts and all that stuff.

I test baby. Yeah. Well, I'm not sure how well that was paying off. Guys, we have Jack Nicklaus is playing in a major again for the first time in a year because he's had his hip replaced. And you know, Jack has said this quote I think a thousand times since, but I'm kind of wondering if this might be the origin of it. Listening to guys in the

pre-build-up to Pinehurst, I used to love listening to them gripe. Somebody would say the rough is too high, check them off. The greens are too fast, you can check them off. The course is too long, check them off. You can check guys off because they complain about some... they complain themselves right out of the championship. We have to be nearing a threat of this might be, you know, next year might be my last US Open. I'm sure there's one of those quotes in there, right? So next year, he says he's not going to play all four majors for the first time, essentially in his career, but he is not ready to retire. He says, I don't get a lot of enjoyment out of going out

and grabbing three friends and beating around the golf course for $5. I don't get a kick of that. The fun of the competition is being in the middle of it. A lot of writing about Jack in this era echoes what we are saying about Tiger these days. It's like, Oh, will he retire? What's he still getting out of that? Oh, he still thinks he can win. Still thinks he can put some things together. Just needs to start getting some more reps and stuff. Keep in mind that Jack at this point has a ceramic hip and is 59 years old. So also just point out you said he said he wasn't going to play all four majors in the next year. He did play all four majors.

Jack also famously had a hard time kind of letting go. I believe he played all the way up to what 2005 was his last open championship. So I think well he did the way up to what 2005 was his last open championship. Sally, I think. Well, he did the retirement tour, uh, at St. Andrews in 2000, did the wave. And then also came back in 2005 and played it one more time. So he played the masters up until 2005 as well. Uh, in one of my favorite things on earth in this Earl Woods caused this little controversy leading up to the tournament, giving an interview to icon, a bi-monthly men's magazine. When asked about Scotland, he said, that's for white people.

It has the sorryest weather. People better be happy that Scots live there instead of Soul Brothers. The game never would have been invented. We wouldn't have been stupid enough to go out in that weather and play a silly game and freeze to death. We would have been inside listening to jazz, laughing, drinking, drinking rum. Now Africa, I went to Africa and I played golf there and I knew I was home. Are we allowed to laugh at that? I don't know if we can laugh about it because it's Earl

and I think I there, if there's one wish to tiger's career that I could make, it is that Earl would have been like healthy enough to have lived in their 20 years because Earl was like basically say anything Earl was freaking hilarious just in the way he I think he said this stuff just to provoke people like half the time like he constantly wanted to kind of like dig on people and sort of throw it in their faces and stuff and a lot of times the sportswriters of that era would be like we're touching this Earl like tape recorders on but we're not gonna write about this stuff because you hear stories about this every now and then it'd be like oh we kind of had to protect her from himself he was always kind of you know he had a couple drinks here and there he never

knew what like was on the record or off the record was in the rv yeah exactly uh earl claimed that these quotes were totally farcical and fabricated uh But then the author revealed that she had taped the interview. Just say after that, nobody would have believed her on that one. That it was. Yeah, I did not say that. What was, what was this quote to about the tiger was going to have a bigger world impact than Gandhi or yes, uh, bigger than Gandhi, bigger than Buddha, bigger than anyone because of his bigger than Nelson Mandela as well. Was that one? So believe so, yeah. It's in the famous Gary Smith story that was when Tiger was named sportsman of the year. It was actually before he won the Masters,

if you can believe that, that they sort of, that that, you know, penned all that. It's worth going back and reading if you can get into SI's somewhat shoddy archives. Yes, it was. It was him like, when it was the painted thing, it was like a bluish cover. I feel like, was it the one, I know the one you're exactly talking about. I'm trying to remember if it was. It was him like, what it was the painted thing. It was like a bluish cover. I feel like, was it the one,

I know the one you're talking about. I'm trying to remember if it was like one of those ones where it's like a thousand images of Tiger that's like then made into a larger image and stuff. But I know it was not like a typical photograph, but yeah, just the idea that people should better be happy that Scots live there instead of Soul Brothers. That's incredible. So Phil Mickelson, also a pre-tournament favorite,

doesn't arrive until Tuesday because he's been at home with his wife, Amy, who's had a difficult pregnancy with their daughter, Amanda. He says he's going to wear a beeper during the rounds and if it goes off and Amy's gone into labor, he is going to leave immediately no matter what position he is in. Doesn't matter if he's leading by four on Sunday on the back nine. He is still going to walk off the course. Absolutely, Phil says when asked if that's really true that beeper goes off. I'm exactly five hours away. He and Amy have developed a special code that she can punch into the beeper if she goes into labor in case someone's trying

to prank them like sort of stated a lot of writers are making jokes that like maybe Earl Woods might try to put a call into the beeper and get Phil to be bouncing. He said, I'll be very disappointed if she were to go into labor and not call me. How will people get the beeper number? This is a great question, TC. I don't know that people, you know, Earl Woods, special ops guy, green beret, you never know. Stuff like that could happen. What, what would the cutoff be like? All right. If you are in the middle of 18th, the 72nd fairway, like in the beeper goes, like you're finishing at that.

What would the, what would the cutoff be of like, all right, I can spare like a 30 minutes here to do this. Like, you know, we can agree if it's a, yeah. In more County airports right there, you would have child, you know, I don't know. Is he gonna listen to this? I mean, what would you how truthful do you think you can be? I'm the 14th hole. I'd walk.

I'm out of there, right? 17. First child. I don't know. Well, as you'll see, Phil really lasts a long time. It can last a long time. This is true. Yeah.

As you'll see, uh, though, Amy kind of lies to fill throughout all of this. Uh, she's basically in labor the entire time, uh, which didn't really know until Alan wrote this story. Uh, Amy says, when Phil left, it was the most emotional goodbye that we've ever had. He was so determined. He said, I am going to win the U S open. I'm going to come home. We're going to have a baby. And it's going to be the best week of our lives. Phil said, I had no doubt in my mind. I was going to win the US Open. I'm going to come home. We're going to have a baby, and it's going to be the best week of our lives.

Phil said, I had no doubt in my mind I was going to win the tournament. Alan got bones and bones. I'm going to hit his parlay too. Bones actually had to carry the beeper. I don't even remember that. And Bones said, oh God, the beeper. I was stressed about it the whole time.

If I would have lost that thing, I've been filing for unemployment. I heard plenty of people say after the fact, oh, he wouldn't have left and this and that. But when Phil showed up in Pinehurst, he got on my grill and said, I don't care where I am. I wanna know 10 seconds after that thing goes off. He was dead serious.

Amy said, on Wednesday, my mom took me to see Dr. Webb, who's there OB-GYN. He checks me out and he goes, wow, things have changed. If you would look like this yesterday, I wouldn't have told your husband to go. And my heart just sank. It'd been a difficult pregnancy for Amy. Like this is a kind of an amazing thing. In late March, VJ Singh's wife Ardina threw a baby shower for Amy Mickelson always thought that they were going to like the Mickelson's

and Singh's were mortal enemies. The following day, Amy had to be taken to hospital because she started experiencing contractions. She was confined to bedrest from there. And ever since then, like chirping cell phones and pagers started to make Phil nervous because he always wanted to have the beeper on him around him. I didn't know if I was going to come home, he said. On Friday, Amy started to have contractions. Phil and I were talking all the time on the phone,

but I was not saying what was going on, which was really stressful because we share everything. Maybe not everything. So we have these contractions and as soon as he hung up, I burst into tears. Lot of comments in the lead up. If I may, this was like, maybe this is just me, 25 years later remembering like,

this was like the story of the sports world. Like not just golf, it was like, maybe this is just me 25 years later, remembering like this was like the story of the world. Yeah, like not just golf. It was like everybody. I feel like I even remember people at church talking about like, is the people going to go off like it? So even as of Sunday, like that was that captivated the sports audience was like, was Phil going to go? It feels like going to go into. Yeah. And Phil's still like this dashing young player and he's wearing the visor and he's Yannick's visor TC. Yeah. Mr. Mr. Family, man. I mean, this was peak Phil hamming up, you know, very, very true. Uh, and, and as we saw with the Sheffler stuff, like the remakes are never as good as the originals because like that, the whole Scotty

will Scotty leave the tournament thing was not quite as dramatic. She ended up having the baby what three weeks later or something. So this was like actual like touch and go. She was trying very hard to not have the child not have Amanda while Phil was about to win the tournament. A lot of comments in the lead up about how hard the course was. This place makes Augusta look tame Tom Lehman said. I've been asked many times what the hardest course I've ever played is Lee Jansen said now I have the answer pinehurst number two. John Cook said this isn't like any golf we've ever played. If anybody hits 10 greens today, this is I think you said this on Saturday, it will be five

more than anyone else. I played this as a par 88 today, which means I had 12 birdies. A birdie is out of the question today unless you're off the green and you can chip it in from the bunker and make, or make a 30 foot putt, you're not going to get it close to anywhere in the, uh, in the fairway. So a bunch of pampered Fox man. Yes, very much. The hope, the whole point of the challenge is that, yeah, you might have to hit a wedge to 30 feet. Like that's, that's what the challenge is out here. It's not as if like guys are shooting 78, 79, you know, and it's like,

you know, one guy ends up under par and you know, Phil shoots even par Tiger shoots one over VG just one. It's like, yo, it wasn't that friggin hard, but they were, it was so kind of indicative of how different, how raging they would be like against, uh, you know, the actual change of things. So, but before one of the rounds, John Cook said he overheard tiger in pain on the putting green. When tiger said, when I start designing golf courses, I'm going to make them 9,000 yards. And then you old guys won't stand a chance and pain starts zinging back at him. Yeah. Well, if it's the U S open, you'll still have to drive it in the fairway. Tiger laughed, but he didn't have an answer for that one.

I'm not as well also not consistent with our, our now found understanding of what it takes to win us opens a hundred percent. The way the golf like intelligence would change about this stuff is, uh, is quite funny, but this is a time when they're sort of driving it to two 60 or whatever. So, you know, it's a, as we'll see play out, I'm not going to waste too much time on the early read up, lean up because the final round is so exciting. But David Deval is, and even with the burnt fingers is, uh, you know, goes out and shoots 67. The first round tied with Paul, go to Billy Mayfair and Phil Mickelson shot back is Tiger Woods, Payne Stewart, John Daly, uh, someone called David Burgernio Jr. Yeah. That's TC's guy.

Yeah. TC I'm's guy. Yeah. TC, I'm glad you're here to identify some of these guys that I've never heard of. This is good. You know, I didn't get too deep into David Barghanio, but that name. KVB Barghanio is getting all sorts of, he was on a major medical for like 18 years. It was so sick. Like how do you extend your major medical that long? He was gonna come, he would make one start and then be like, no, I'm still on I gotta go back on medical.

Like that's like, it just ended. They had to rewrite like the entire major medical rules on account of this guy. It was incredible. So he's collecting like, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in compensation from the tour being on a major medical. What are the rules with the major medical? You get like the average of like the 120th or something person on tour. Like what?

I can't remember exactly what the deal is, but do you remember? You know what, KVV, I'm not in the major medical game anymore. I used to be tracking that kind of stuff. Now that they've cleaned it up, we kind of flew the banner. I forget all the details, but I mean, get some sort of, you know, stipend, you know, full benefits and all that stuff. And yeah, just kept making making one start a year. So it's finally over. Disgusting. Also lurking after a second round 70s, VJ Singh, having won the PGA a year before this, is starting to really emerge as one of the top players in the world. Third round, the score is here, Payne Stewart takes the lead. Payne Stewart obviously lost the US Open the previous year to Jansen when he shot 74 on the final day, a four stroke lead. Uh, was sort of devastated by that really felt had a tremendous, tremendous pride in his national championship would, uh, always wear red, white and blue.

And the final day pain was still kind of a divisive figure, but trending more towards being on this, on his softer side, even his own mother said that, uh, he was, you know, he'd improved in the sense that he was no longer rude to people, no longer cursed out autograph seekers and made them seem like they had the plague, very much leaning into embracing his religion at this point. Also Paul's, Paul Aizinger's cancer diagnosis really made Payne think about his own mortality and he visited Aizinger all the time and really,

Aizinger said that, you know, all my friends kind of disappeared, but Payne was the one guy who was sort of there day in, day out, so. So Payne- Is this in comp here? Like is that, you know, all my friends kind of disappeared, but pain was the one guy who was sort of there day in, day out. So it's a price in comp here. Like it is that you're describing this. I'm like, you know, the hat and then all that stuff. That's interesting.

And I never, I never thought that. I mean, it's remarkable how like kind of simplistic pain swing looks, uh, these days, like just no leg drive at all. Just kind of like very arms. It's not a kind of like very arms II said I mean not a kind of swing that you could survive with on the tour today, but Drized super straight putts with like a center shafted putter Just a kind of fascinating window into that era of stuff obviously

Said that you know he wore the really kind of goofy clothes day because he wanted to sort of he was kind of a showman Maybe there is a Bryson cup there So he wanted to stand out, wanted to feel like an entertainer a little bit. We're going into the final round here. I think this is where the most of the drama ensues. I really feel like we could spend a little bit longer time on this. Uh, on this Sunday, John Daly records an 11. Uh, if you remember when he waxes ball, well, it's still moving.

I distinctly remember that. Rolling back to his feet. He said after the round, he said, I just decided to do what Kurt Triplett did last year. Apparently Kurt had hit his move ball, moving ball, said, I'm not going to sit here and waste my time. Uh, in the process, he shot an 83 finishing 29 over the championship DFL. Remember John Daley was like a shot off the lead after day one. I don't even know if I'll play the U S open next year. I don't know if it's worth my time.

I'm not going to Pebble and I'm not going to watch them ruin that course too. I have had it with the USGA. I've never seen a course play so unfair as it was in the last two days. So after the third round, Pated had not played well. It still kind of ended up being in the final group, but his wife Tracy had sort of told him, he'd pulled him aside after up, uh, being in the final group, but his wife, Tracy had sort of told him he'd pulled him aside after that night when he walked off the green and she said, I want you to know, honey, that you're moving your head a little bit too much when you're putting a tip, God about this tip that she had gotten from his father, Payne's father, like when he was dying, at first he

really did not like Payne's wife, Tracy, who he had met while he was playing the Malaysian tour. They had gotten married. He had basically said, his father had said, you know, he's just going to distract Payne from his goal of being a great golfer, you know, but she had slowly kind of warmed him over the years. And when Payne's dad was dying, he wrote her this long list of, she's like, here's the things that I want you to tell Payne, like about his swing, you know, when I'm not around,

because he needs someone to sort of blow him back. And one of those things was make sure and keep your head still when you're putting. So she brought this up after his third round and he was like, by God, you're right. And so like late in the evening that night, he went and practice putting just keeping his head still doing the exact same routine every time Sunday morning pain wakes up and NBC is running a piece about his him and his dad who you know has passed away five years prior and he just starts balling like he's he goes into Tracy says I'm just really emotional. This is father's day and I I really want to win this one for my

dad Saturday night back home in Scottsdale Phil calls up Amy. You know he's a he's a shot off the lead or excuse me. I think he's tied for the lead and she says to you know, this is Alan later. My contractions had started coming really fast. So we decided to go to the hospital and Phil happened to call right about then, but I didn't say anything at the hospital. They put me on a monitor and gave me uh turbutaline to slow down the contractions. Eventually Dr. Webb comes in

and stays with me and I'm asking him every five minutes, should I call Phil? Should I call Phil? He keeps saying, not yet. Not yet. This went on for a few hours. Finally, the contractions slowed enough to where he felt comfortable sending me home. So like truly like like praying to God every moment that like the baby does not come. Uh, and, and kind of actively like withholding information from Phil. Who knows if Dr. Webb had money on the final year. Hard to say. Uh, so the next morning it's kind of rainy. It's really kind of damp. It's kind of dark. Uh,

it's there's like a mist that's hanging in the air. Payne Stewart shows up in a rain jacket and he's, it's really bugging him during the hitting balls on the range. So he tells his caddy, you know what, go find me some scissors. Cadi's like, okay. So he runs like into the Pinehurst Clubhouse and does the Belchek thing,

cuts off the sleeves of his rain jacket. Yeah. Iconic image. One of the first like sleeveless rain jackets ever made right there on the range at Pinehurst chopped off. This of course allows Payne to show off his shirt underneath which is red so he's wearing the red white and blue bones until it's a shipnock later. It's it was like the biggest crowds that I've ever seen in a tournament in the US. You would

left of 18 green you would go let like walk past the range to go to that first tee and you had to walk across 18 fairway pretty close to the green. To this day, it's one of the coolest memories of my caddying life came when Phil and Payne were walking to the tee. The whole grandstand stood and cheered. It was like two gladiators going into the Coliseum. I'm so nostalgic about this era. Like again, this is like pre cell phone and everybody just filming people. Like you were just, people were way more present in the moment. And like, I was so impressionable during this time.

Like that, like kind of gave me chills of like how, how, you know, how awesome that must've, must've felt. So we have a barn burner of a Fonda round. I mean, it is like, any one of four guys could have won this US Open, like if any little different thing goes the other way. Payne birdies the first hole. All right. So he comes out and he's like, whoo, like I am, I'm in control. I'm going to, you know, he's, he's, what was it like? That's, that's my best paying impression. Uh, but yeah, well, what will be kind of a theme for

the day? He hits a terrible chip, uh, on number two. It has to roll in a seven footer just to make a bogey. And he makes a seven footer, but it's just kind of like, man, like he doesn't really seem like he's super sharp. Phil comes out and I'm not kidding when I say this boys, this might be the best final round of a US Open that Phil ever played. Like he was rock solid.

Guess how many freaking fairways he missed on this day? Three, one, two, two freaking fairways. You know, yes, again, now he's, his drives are often topping out at 267 268. But still, like it's, this is some clutch shit. Like it's, he is absolutely and he's, he's putting great, you know, it's hard to sort of I think describe Watching this final round how much better Phil played than pain like tea to green did just just way more in control of his Golf ball like you know not making a ton of putts but like lagging them to like stone dead to where it's you know It's a footer tap in whatever he opens with six straight pars and then birdies seven their their pain leads by one with nine

holes to play this is where VJ starts to emerge as a real contender like VJ birdies makes two birdies in the first 11 holes particularly on this David Deval is like ejecting completely Tim Tim Heron is playing with the tiger at this point he's sort of a non factor but it's going to come down to VJ Tiger pain or Phil at 13 VJ has a birdie putt to take the lead outright. And oh my god, it does the most vicious like horseshoe lip out that I think I've seen in our recounting of this. I mean, like a full full like 360 just you cannot believe how the putt

doesn't go down. Payne bogeys 12 and Mickelson now leads by one. Tiger is really he's lurking. He's three shots back at this point but he's coming. You can feel it. He keeps Tiger Icarito so many greens in this tournament. I mean he is just absolutely like driving it great, putting it great, chipping it great, but like launching nine irons, like 160 yards over the green. Uh, Johnny Miller says, tiger has every part of his game except for short irons. If he can get that, I think he will lap the field in the second part of his career. But right now that is still really holding him back. This was tiger's, uh, last, last US Open pre solid core ball. That's right TC.

Did he figure the short iron thing out? Like going forward, is that a pretty nice call from Johnny? Honestly, it's so impressive to go back and watch these about how much Johnny was willing to stick his neck out and how like often he was just dead on right about the stuff. I mean, the original KVV many people are saying. That's right. There is no like

waiting for the ball to hit the ground and then being like, oh, tough shot, like the balls in the air on John is like, that's not good. That is that is Sarah. And you know, he's not like, you know, he's sitting in the tower, like on 18, like, it's not like he's there seeing it. He is incredibly good at calling like, where the ball is sort of starting and where it's going to end up. His stuff ages so well. And all of these backs, like you go like his, his, I remember just his, his voice is like the voice of drama. Like you just heard that voice. It just felt elevated. He said meaningful things and it just felt like he made everyone else around him

that much better. Like he just teed people up so well. 2014 we'll get there. Really? That's his prime? A little bit, going to go with the for that for 24. So it was like, you know, Kymer with a four footer and Sally's like, Oh, Johnny Miller shocked. He's, he's using a putter for this one. Kymer had the chipping yips. It was putting everything and Johnny kept kept doubting it. Kymer was waiting by like 18 shots and he, we'll get there. So again, it's hard to emphasize like just how different this game was back then. I know that we kind of harpoon this a lot, but like a lot of pains drives are going to 50. Like it's, it's, I know it's wet, but you know, Phil's, Phil's out driving it, but his drives

are never going beyond really like 270. Like that is the, the max sort of thing. Tiger's hitting it out, you know, maybe 280. It's a remarkable display at like how hard they seem like they're swinging at the ball, but the ball is, you know, going a reasonable amount on 14. Yeah, this is, this is real back to like the end of it. This is the end of it. This is truly the end of it. I mean, the course was 7,100. It's almost 7,200 yards. And then like golf got broken from this point forward. Like this is, this is the last time golf like made sense. So on 14, Tiger it's a really good shot in there and then makes a 30 foot, drops down to his knee and gives the like the epic fist pump.

I mean, Tiger was like super expressive in this. He was, it was less kind of like the cold robot. He's just like really animated about all kinds of stuff. He's teased within to a Phil who leads, but pain makes a birdie on 13 to tie to tie Mickelson. So it's, it's, you know, it's, it's really like boom, boom, boom. They could let it could be anybody at this point. Again, VJ is one shot out of the lead at this point. And he makes a pretty bad drive on 16.

The 16 at this point is the longest par four in history of the U.S. Open. It's 483 yards playing into the wind that day. VJ gets over the ball at the balls, kind of sitting up and he decides, you know, what, I'm going to take a rip at this with the fairway would and Gary coke says like this could be the tournament. This could win or lose the tournament right here for him. He hits this like horrendous mother hook that never gets 20 feet off of the ground, somehow misses the crossbunders and ends up in a really bad spot.

I'll have to the green cannot get up and down from there makes a bogey. That's VJ. That's the kind of the end of VJ's run Tiger misses the green on 15, but chips with a fairway would he'd been kind of doing this all throughout the week This is the kind of the Randy special probably maybe where Randy sort of got the idea in the first place Tiger really doesn't do this ever anymore, but all throughout this week at Pinehurst He was doing the the three wood bump chip, which is really fun to kind of see in he makes part of their still only a shot back,

excuse me, two shots back at this point. Payne misses the green on 14, all right. Hits another like indifferent chip. Like this is the story of like all throughout the day, just chipping was really kind of sloppy. Like, you know, Phil's chipping, even when he missed greens, way better. But again, from 12 footer makes it,

like Payne is just like making everything. He misses the green again on 15 with another poor iron shot. Phil hits a great shot in the middle of the green. Okay. We're, we're, I'm going to bounce around back and forth because the TV coverage is kind of crazy. This is right at the same time that tiger just absolutely roasts a drive on 17. Remember it's four 83 and guess what he has left into the green. So it's 17 16.

He's got two 10 left into the green? 16. 16, excuse me. He's got 2'10 left into the green after just absolutely roasting a drive. He's got a four iron. And it's so fun to watch him have to think his way through this. All right, Phil and Payne are going to come up and play this hole in a minute and have to hit two irons into this hole.

Gary Koch says on the broadcast, players have been hitting this green less than 5% of the time today. Tiger hits a laser to about 12 feet. Okay, so we cut back to 15. Phil hits an awesome putt from 25 feet with a foot to go. It looks like it's going in for some reason. Johnny yells out Amy just as the power lips out. I think I think Johnny thought he was going to make like an iconic call and like it's

never explained. He never goes back to it and was like, Oh, that was for you, Amy, but very strange. Johnny says that was one of the great putts I've ever seen. It deserved to go in. So I know you made this point once about the pinehurst cups and I don't know like if that it's just a pinehurst thing or usga thing, but so many lip outs in this like just power hard lip outs. I looked for what you once talked about where they don't set the cups like as down deep as they did. And so it's like a

little harder. It looks like the the white part of the cup is like up a little higher than normal. But I don't know enough about that kind of stuff to sort of make that judgment call. But just amazing how many pots get lipped out. This is open. I need to go I'm gonna go back and watch that. I watched it like five times to make sure that's what he says. There's nothing else that he could have could be saying there. It's clearly Amy pain. He was waiting for like, Amy, don't call that beeper. Amy, hold on. So pain finally misses a par putt about an eight footer and Phil has the lead by one.

Again, it's the only really important putt that that pain will miss all day. He's not playing great. He's just slopping it all over Tiger on 16. You know, we hit that the four iron in there. He makes like makes the pot and makes one of the best like fist pumps that I think you'll ever see. I want to put it up on here. This is the sort of preview of it as it's going in.

He's pimped stepping and just an absolute like Muhammad Ali upper cut, like just incredible theater in that moment. Tim Heron tells Shipwreck later, it was football game loud. It would give you chills up and down your spine to hear it. But on 17, Tiger steps up and he hits it left into the bunker right now.

He's a shot off the lead and he just makes it kind of a stinky swing. Miller says this is one of the easiest shots, bunker shots on the course that is holdable. All right, so we cut back now to both Phil and pain are in the fairway on 16. Phil has 226 into this green Johnny says isn't this what Donald Ross wanted? This was the ultimate test. You had to play your long irons well. No, I think the only Russ wanted a four 90 hold to be driver wedge. Like, yeah, that's probably a better test of skill. Uh,

just to be able to launch it three 40 down the fairway. You know, he, he just said better athletes, you know, better athletes will come along and just kind of, you know, who cares? Phil hits kind of an okay shot, but it ends up sort of short right and some thick rough, just short of the green. Payne hits a truly just a garbage shot that should have either ended up in the bunker well short or buried in thick rough.

It hits the lip of the like the bunker front of the fairway. And somehow instead of going back into the bunker or like kicking into the rough, kicks hard left into the fairway. No chance if it doesn't do this, that he can get up down and make par, but it ends up in the fairway 10 yards short of the green. Meanwhile, up ahead, tiger hits a great bunker shot. He misses it maybe by like two or three inches from going in. The ball goes three feet by we're cutting back now to Phil hits kind of a shitty

chip. If he said later, if he had a one shot back, it would be this chip on 17, 16, excuse me. Payne hits maybe the worst chip I think like a professional could make in that moment. It's at 25 feet past the pin so that he has a downhill double breaker that he needs to make to make par. Essentially like Azinger says later,

like in a documentary about this US Open, like, Azinger says later, like in a documentary about this US Open, like you could easily put this ball off the green. Phil tells Shipnik in 2014, when he bladed that shot, I didn't really consider him the number one threat anymore. I thought Tiger was the number one threat. Somehow, pain rolls the ball in, like, he's just it's maybe like one of the most iconic, I I think open plots that you can imagine it all gets overshadowed a little by what happens on 18 but like he holds

this center cut and then just like puts his finger up like he's a superhero walking away from an explosion just like Yep, got that. Phil says later like if that ball doesn't goes in it probably runs 15 to 20 feet by it had the potential to go off the green. Phil, of course then misses his like seven footer, like pushes it hard. Every seven footer in this time period. He missed every single one that mattered. Yeah.

It's truly like, Phil's a great, great putter. He later in his career, we kind of go through a shitty string, but at this point he's a great putter except for like when it matters, like he's just sprinkling some like four footers that'll do a horseshoe. Yeah. You know, I saw you're talking about like just remembering this being like that era. Like for the people on the ground too, it was like they knew something like special was happening. Rick Smith, who's Mikkelsen's swing coach said the conditions were

so unusual for us open. It was dark. It was misty. There was almost an eerie feeling. And you know, there's this church across the street in Pinehurst seconds after pain made his putt on 16, the bells start ringing. That was a beautiful sound. It just went out across the course. It felt like some kind of sign. So back to 17, tiger has to sort of step away after this roar. He hard power lips out of this four footer. Like Azinger says later, it's probably the last time Tiger missed an important putt for an entire decade. Nope.

True. Total made ups. Like I'm ready to squash the trigger. Tiger never missed these pots. We'll get there as well. But yeah, continue. So 17 T pain steps up. He has not really hit a great iron shot at all today. Like he is just squirted around. It's, you know, it's sloppy somehow, like grit and guts and finding put the ball way to put the ball in the hole. He steps up and just absolutely stripes one, you know, it rolls out to six feet and the crowd is going bonkers. Like it is crazy. Phil's like, Hey, good shot. Good shot.

Phil steps up and hits it like maybe a foot outside of pain, like just a ridiculously good thing. Miller's like truly two of the best iron shots that you will ever see in that with that pressure in that moment. Bones sells ship neck later. When Phil's ball hit it that close to get it in the hole. That was a smell of the roses moment for me. That place went crazy. But we get up to the green and Phil is uncertain about the break of the putt. He says, you know, bones swelling later said that Phil said, Hey, come over and take a look at this. I thought it was pretty straight, but the putt turned a little right and it missed

in hindsight. It was probably left edge in my 22 years as a caddy, if I could have one do over, it will be reading that putt by a million miles. So Johnny doesn't believe that Phil like misreads the break. He's like, I pulled it second straight hole. It's just sick. pain pours in his pot one stroke lead going into 18. So Tiger up ahead, absolutely stripes of drive in the fairway. Uh, he's still got a chance. You know, he can, he makes a birdie here. He can, you know, get into potentially a playoff.

He gets it kind of in a different iron shot to about 30 feet. And you can hear his tiger gets up there, both fill and pain drive there's in the fairway Tigers up in the green. You can hear the church bells that we're talking about, like on the broadcast and you hear Gary Koch say they're playing angels we have heard on high and Johnny fires back. Well, he's gonna need it right here because that cop is high. I almost want to just like turn my headphones off and just go

watch this. Like I almost feel like I was like, I don't spoil this. I want to go back and watch this. This is like rules. This is peak us open shit. And I, it's off the top of my head. I'm struggling to think of a more iconic us open in my like, you know, lifetime. I remember watching this. Uh, I was an intern at the Phil, excuse me, at the great falls Tribune and great falls, Montana. And I was working the sports desk and we're watching up on the screen as, and I Tigers putt being really, really good, but I didn't really remember like how fucking good it was until I watched this replay. I mean, he absolutely reads it like so, so, so good. It looks like on the broadcast, like it like grazes the edge. It

doesn't quite when they show the replay, but Johnny Miller's like that putt is so pure. It defies description. But Tiger can't make it makes a par, you know, probably going to miss out here. pain hits another shitty drive. He keeps pushing drives to the right all day. He's had to lay up and like get up and down like probably four times throughout the day. So he hits a drive. Roger Malpy is like, that's great. And John is like, nope, it's not. That's gonna miss. That's gonna be a miss by a one yard. Totally right. Roger goes over there. Yep. That's the worst lie I've seen all week. It's terrible. So Payne has to hit it to about 75, 78 yards. He has after his layup, Phil hits a really pretty good shot, but 18 feet, just kind of right of the pin. really pretty good shot, about 18 feet, just kind of right of the pin. You know, he is so pain has got to hit like a, you know, a pretty good shot here. And it looks like I would say hits a pretty like kind of meh, like, you know, from 78 yards to leave it, you know, 18 feet or so. I don't think it was particularly great. Like nobody thinks it's great, but they're like, well, he's got a pot. Everybody on the at this point is kind of expecting like,

hey, we're probably going to get a playoff here. And apparently Payne's caddy at the time was like, oh shit, like we've got this really like expensive, like charitable member guest thing that we were supposed to play in on Monday. And I don't know, like me and pain and Aizinger and you know, some other, I think Jansen, he's like, I don't know who I'm going to get. I'm gonna know who we're going to get to fill in for us. Like I got all this like investment of the people are gonna be so pissed. He's like, I don't know who I'm going to get. I'm going to know who we're going to get to fill in for us. Like I got all this like investment of the people are going to be so pissed.

He's like, I swear to God, that's what I was thinking about on 18th grade. Phil hits a really, really good putt better than I remember. It just misses high and pain of course, like dead quiet stands over this putt. It's, it's actually really straight. I thought it had more breaking it, but it is a straight in pot or is it right in the middle? Does the iconic like fist forward leg kickback, uh, that they eventually make the statue out of it goes over to, uh, to fill afterwards, uh, puts him puts his hands on his face and said, you know, good luck with the baby. Uh, you're, you know, there's nothing like being a father. So I pulled this up. You and I recreated this picture when we knew that, uh,

Hannah was pregnant. Uh, so at our first trip to Pinehurst, we did not know she was, this is before she was pregnant. We said, we took it for, in case she got pregnant. Yes. In case we got, in case we got there, you were like, we're going to, we're going to start to try to have kids. So let's read this picture. Yes. They did. I don't even need to rewatch to Dick Enberg is on the call. He makes the putt pain. Stewart is the 1999 U S open champion. Oh my, it was just awesome, dude. It was just awesome. It's just iconic, man. Faints is you're going to be a great father. There's nothing like being a father.

I swear to God, this is like very old time sports writery thing, but like all the old trick, great falls, tribune guys, when pain, like pointed like that, we're like, did he say like, take that motherfucker? Like that, that sounds like pain Stewart. Not what he said. Azinger says later, when you talk about the greatest showings of sportsmanship in golf history, you have to say that number one is Nicholas's concession to Tony Jacqueline in the Ryder Cup. But right there, Payne would be number two. He could immediately emphasize with Phil

Mickelson, Payne knows the agony of defeat. Who knew it more than him? Payne goes over to his wife and he pulls her in close and he says, I did it love. I held my head still all day, just like you said. Uh, what a shot at Steve Scott by, uh, by a zinger guy. A lot of people say that, you know, this sort of write up that, uh, I think it's a high media is does after and sports associate said that, you know, pains the first person to win a us opens with two different personalities, uh, Jaime Diaz does after and sports. So she had said that, you know, pains the first person to win a us opens with two different personalities, uh, that he was a Dick the first time when he won, uh, Hazel teen, but he's actually like a, a very generous, gregarious person.

Even his mom says he's a different man, a better son. I gave him an attitude adjustment. His mother said, you learned you can't go around and be rude to everyone. Right. So totally fucking winning the us open this year, guys, the parallels. This is why we do these things. Sorry. Cause the echoes throughout history. Mickelson flies home and gets there at midnight. Amy goes into labor immediately the next morning, right about the time that Phil would have been warming up for a playoff. And Amanda is born that evening. Phil says to ship. That is an underrated part of it is pain misses the pot. Phil's

got a WD anyways. Yep. Phil says, uh, you know, here we are. 15 years later is talking to shipnuck in 2014. Back when Neil, he had a good relationship with shipnuck. Uh, here we are 15 years later and I can tell her with all certainty that her birth is talking about Amanda is the most emotional moment of our lives. It's something I would never want to miss and I'm so glad I was able to be there because it really is one of the greatest experiences in the world. I loved her even before I knew her. Azinger says, I believe it's one of those greatest influences that pain had was and how helped he helped

change Phil as a man. Pain was a great example of a guy who had found perfect balance in his life. Phil has always done the right thing. He's always been the good guy, but golf was everything to him. What happened in Pinehurst bonded them forever and it set the priorities straight for Phil. For eternity. Of course that lasted forever. That would never wave waiver. Oh, that's iconic. Yes. Open man. That's, that's a really fun one to relive just through, just, I know I'm definitely one to relive just through just, I know I'm definitely going to go back and watch that one.

Seeing the trajectory of the balls too, of like, like it's that kind of dark moody day. Like you said, there's, there's moisture in the air, but there's flyers out of the rough. There's, there's low spinners that rise against the pine trees. It's a really aesthetically interesting broadcast to watch. Which I know there's like studies on this stuff that like when you're in a certain age period, like those are like the good old days for you always. Like you just, you know, the older you get,

but like it really just seemed like they were so good at developing drama in this time period, right? And I'm there's some stuff I found in 05. It was like, oh, so they're just like skipping golf shots. Like we would have been furious now as we as we go to watch it. But like, it just felt like Gary and Johnny and like the way they pass things off to each other was just it was just gets me probably gets the voices of my childhood. But it just seemed like it was better back then. I don't know how. No Laying Up is brought to you by Fandool. Stay locked in on every swing, every hole and every highlight with Fandool and the

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problem call 1-800-GAMBLER visit rg-help.com back to the pod. All right. 1999 open championship. We know how this one goes, but we're going to relive it. Okay, we're going to we're going back in time and we're going to relive it. Okay. We're going to, we're going back in time and we're going to, we have some sound bites. We have some, some pictures to go through it. Uh, we're at car new, Steve, of course, 7,300 yard golf course up 300 yards since the open was last there in 1975, the money, $3 million, uh, US

dollars total, um, which is up from 2.75 and 98. Winner gets 577,000 U.S. dollars, which is only equivalent to about 1.1 million in today's money. Again, things got a little crazy shortly after this. Tiger's the favorite plus 700, Duval plus 800, Lovin' Singh plus 1200, Monte-L's plus 1200, Leonard plus 1500. Both both Laurie Paul Laurie and John van de Waal are listed as part of the field for this bet. John van de Waal entered as the 152nd ranked player in the world. Just as we're recording this, the 152nd ranked player in the world right now, Tim Veeding and only John Daly has won a major ranked lower when he won the 91 PGA at 168th.

Apologize to Tim, but I have not heard of you. He is a corn fairy graduate. He had a lot of success on the corn fairy tour. So going into this tournament on this theme of not liking some of the course changes going on, people are not pleased about Carnoustie. All anybody is talking about is what is going on with this golf course. Call them Montgomery said someone is going to win, but at the same time, it will be no fun.

We all hope and pray that it doesn't become a wind. If it becomes a win, you'll see scores higher than we've ever, ever seen before in any British open. The reporter times article responds by saying considering John H Taylor won the open in 1894 with a 72 hole score of 326. That might be a stretch. Lee Jansen was careful in choosing his words. He said, I think it's in great shape and that's the best thing I can say about it. I think it's the toughest course I've ever played

par be a great score, but I think higher than that will win and that's under good conditions. I can't imagine what it would be like if we had tough conditions. Janssen said, this is the first time I think players will say the U S open was more fair than the British open pain. Stewart entertains the thought that 300, which is plus 12 could be the winning score. Love to talk about fair. Who the fuck ever said fair? It should be fair. We're going to get there. It makes some pretty decent points in all of this. John Daly, Tom Kite and Ben Crenshaw elected not to play. Do not know why. I don't know if it's straight course conditions for all three, but all three of them decided not to play. John may have had trouble leaving the country at this point. There may have been, might needed to get cleared with the US.

He was still under his exemption at this point. John Garrity called it a golf, called Carnoustie, a golfer's nightmare. Carnoustie, which was the last, the site of the open in 1975 when Tom Watson won the first of his five British titles, is a nasty antique that was brought down from the attic after 24 years. Last week, the holes were longer than they were.

When Watson won there, the rough was deeper and the Royal Ancient Club of St. Andrews, the organization that runs the British Open, made the fairways as narrow as an Eels appendix scar. The fairways were also ultra firm, allowing balls that landed safely to go looking for trouble, most often in some gravel bottom moat or wall face bunker. Phil Mixon said,

I don't think there's an individual in the RNA who could break 100 on this course. Phil shot 79, 76 and missed the cut. So I love where they're always like, Oh, none of those RNA guys could fucking well, they're not professional golfers dog. Like what? Of course they couldn't break 100. Well, there's some shenanigans in some of this, which will allow me to circle back to that if you will, but get the tournament started. Rod pampling shoots 71 even par to take the lead in round one. The wind is up. Golf course is playing ridiculously tough. Scott Dunlap and Bernard Longer are one back. Dudley Hart, Paul Laurie, Justin Leonard, Mark McNulty, Lynn

Matisse, Steve Pate and Hal Sutton shot 73, which was two over good enough to be in the top 10. The defending champion, Mark O'Meara, chips in on 18 from over the green to shoot 83. The scoring average was 78.3, more than seven strokes over par. Sergio Garcia, the young Spaniard, El Nino, shoots an 89, walks off the course in tears in the arms of his mother,

did not speak publicly for four hours. Tom Watson, Mr. British Open. He's a Scott, essentially at this point. Nobody knows Ling's golf like this guy. Tom Watson said, it's an unfair golf course. It is too narrow for the penal rough. Bobby Jones once said, it is not meant to be a fair game and we're not on a fair course. Add the wind and it's not unexpected to ski scores this high. So Sandy Lyle claims he was on the golf course two weeks prior to this and saw officials putting fertilizer and water on the rough. So like, I mean the images of the rough, it's insane.

And it's the fairways are crazy narrow and like it's, I mean, the images of the rough, it's insane. And it's the fairways are crazy narrow. And like, it's it's, it's just one of those like, with a puzzle pieces just don't fit of like, you can miss a ball off the fairway by like, hit a good drive, but it's so firm. And if it's a crosswind of any kind, like you literally can't hold the fairway and you end up an ankle deep rough a foot off the fairway and you can't even hack it back out to the fairway. Like, it sounds like they truly got out of hand.

Sir Michael Bonalak, the secretary of the RNA, he denied the claim saying the weather dictated the long rough and that they couldn't even buy enough fertilizer to cover the area of the course. I think this was on Thursday. He said, we can't even buy enough fertilizer to get this thing. We've gone all the way all over Scotland

looking for fertilizer and it can't sell it to us. As soon as he mentioned the fertilizer, I was like, okay, so they definitely put fertilizer all over Scotland looking for fertilizer and it can't sell it to us. As soon as he mentioned the fertilizer I was like okay so they definitely put fertilizer all over their scores. My fertilizer t-shirt is asking answering a lot of questions answered by my t-shirt. On I think it's Thursday I hope I have this right Tiger Woods gets a visitor while playing the final hole the 18th hole. It is a streaker and not the kind that John Daly got, but it is a woman in a G string and a black bra runs up and gives Tiger a big fat kiss right on the cheek and doesn't look like security was in a big hurry to get out there and help Tiger out. Oh, but guys, hang back. I got this. I got this. He had some quotes in there, but I was first, I was afraid for my security for a second.

quotes in there. But first, I was afraid for my security for for a second. 57 players failed to break 80 on this Thursday, and everybody is is pissed off. So we'll get to 50. That's more than years couldn't break 80. It was absurd. It was truly absurd. Okay. So Friday, Tiger Woods is arriving on site in a helicopter, wearing those little, those sunglasses that he wore in this time period. Still got the bad logo on the hat,

but we got a crispy mock neck sweater going on. But on this Friday, a Frenchman by the name of Jean Van de Velde shoots 68, jump into first place at plus one. He is swashbuckling, just super smooth swing, hitting incredible link shots, rolling in putts on El Cabrera shot a 69. He's plus two. Yes, for part of X plus three, Greg Norman, Patrick Schoenland and Tiger Woods are at plus four Bradley Hughes, Paul Laurie, Justin Leonard, Lynn Matisse and Brian Watts are all at plus five at the halfway point. The cut was plus 12 going into the weekend. Do you remember? I just mentioned

this. Do you remember who the first round leader was? The Pamp man, Rod Pampling. Rod Pampling. Rod went full Camilo and he shot 86 in round two and missed the cut. So David Duvall shot 22 over and said, you can't judge your game on this golf course. Good shots end up in the hay. Bad shots end up on the green. And again, it's admit it's pretty silly. Like usually I love to make fun of the players for bitching, but like it, it just looks very silly. Greg Norman was winning the tournament at one point on this day, missed the fairway by a yard on 17. He's trying to pitch it out into the fairway

to play it safe and completely whiffed the ball. Like could not get down to it. So, Jess, I should have got this image of this, but Jesper Parnovic is also playing with toilet paper stuffed up his nose because he had a hay fever attack that was extremely serious and he was like in contention, but like had to play the rounds with toilet paper stuck up his nose.

I would say we could do a whole pot on Jesper. That would be really fun. Let's put that on the list. So again here's some interviews from after that Friday round of guys talking about the course. Again the wind had been up and it was just playing ridiculously difficult. Here's Ernie Els. Wind had been up and it was just playing ridiculously difficult. Here's to Ernie Els. You don't want to believe our difficulties, Jeremy. I mean, you know, we got fairways that's 14 yards wide and that's wide fairways. And you got a 25 mile per hour wind blowing out there and it's gusting up to 30, maybe 35. So to keep the ball in play is immensely tough to do. To keep your mind on what you're doing is also tough to take mistakes.

And sometimes it feels like you're making silly mistakes, but you got to just take it in and go to the next hole. It's like every hole is a new challenge. Really, it is. Every shot almost is a new challenge. So, you know, some guys, I mean, I'm going to take a week off, at least a week off after this week. We've already had Nick Price come through here and tell us that he thinks that the RNA

has gone over the top and this is unfair. What's your opinion? Well, I played a practice round here last Thursday and we had beautiful weather and I played a really solid practice round and I think I shot one or two over. Yeah, I would say shot one or two over. Yeah, I would say it's a little unfair. You know, you've got holes of 580 into the wind, like the sixth hole, and you've got no room to play at. They're playing us off every back of every tee, and they're just stretching it to the right to the limits and maybe over it. You know, I haven't seen a golf course play like this in the,

in the open championship before. And I've played maybe eight of them now. So, um, you know, they've, they've set a mark, you know, and hopefully they don't, they don't come back to that kind of mark again. So that's Ernie. Um, I mean pointed, but you know, not, not overly bitchy, but just like, yeah, it's, it's probably a little bit too much. Here's Greg Norman. Oh, I don bitchy, but just like, yeah, it's, it's probably a little bit too much. Here's Greg Norman. Oh, I don't know how to call it. Jimmy. I didn't hit that bad a tee shot nine, three yards off the fairway and I'm unplayable. Uh, you know, what do you call that? I don't call

that golf to tell you the truth. I don't call that a very, uh, you know, smart setting up with a golf course. Uh, you know, let the guys advance the ball forward. Don't make it where it's on. Davis love did it yesterday, I heard, and couldn't move the ball, but my ball never moved an inch. All it did was just fall down in the divot hole. I don't know what the heck happened with it, but you know that type of stuff is just brutal out there and I know it's the same for everybody, but you know it's just not right. It really is not right for the players to take a swing at it and you know you guys supposed to do that, not us.

Oh, I have it up, but no, it's, it's, I mean, yeah, I watched the clip of him with the whiff and it was like, yeah, this is just, this is, this is pretty, it's extreme. It was like, and Randy's open like dream open. We're going to get even more to it. They're going to definitely be calling even harder for the wing foot superintendent to resign as he claimed because there's something coming. So Saturday winds are up again, flags are whipping, Tiger and Norman playing together on this day. Got a sick mock neck on, he's in his mock neck era. This is a black one.

And again, van de Waal is just conducting an orchestra smiling, winking at the galleries, drains an 80 foot birdie on 14 and rolls in a 45 foot birdie on the 18th hole to shoot 70 and open up a five shot lead going into Sunday. Oh, well, that's, I'm so happy for him. I'm sure he, I'm sure he closes out Sally. I don't know what happens, but I don't need to listen to the final part. Cause I'm sure no one could possibly blow this. Justin Leonard and Craig Perry are at plus five.

Perry will be in the final pairing. Justin Leonard in the group ahead. Andrew Coulthart, David Frost and Tiger Woods are at plus seven. Angel Cabrera, Greg Norman at plus eight. Longer, Miguel Angel Martin Lynn Matisse, Colin Montgomery and Frank Nobolo at plus nine. That is your top ten. Did I miss anyone? Possibly the the eventual winner or the least guy gets into the playoffs I don't want to spoil it because you know that sounds right because Paul Laurie is ten shots back and not in the top

and going into the top 10 going into the final round. Vandeveld, hamming it up in front of the media presser afterwards, saying, better players than me have had a commanding lead and lost. He sounded almost embarrassed by his five-shot margin. He also says, maybe I'm going to blow it tomorrow, but it's my first time ever and I'm there. So what do you expect? tomorrow, but it's my first time ever. And I'm there. So what do you expect? Let me just put this thought into the universe. See what happens.

It's like, oh, man, the writing is on the wall, actually way more than we possibly realized at that time. But so again, day after day, all the articles are about carnusty and just the pitching. And so this is this is from a Melbourne newspaper that I found. I mean, the article just laying into the setup of carnoustie but gets to the good stuff quickly here. In this article, it's so it just talks about all the pitching all the things they've gotten wrong. And then they say that David

Duvall intimated that this was the work of an out of control Greenskeeper. Oh, John Philip is the man to whom the remark referred the link superintendent at carnoustie. On Thursday, he managed to alienate the entire field with a few ill chosen words, quote, players are pampered nowadays. They have their gurus all helping them out and get their courtesy cars, taking them everywhere. There's an ego problem here. They want a good payday with as little hassle as possible. Well, sorry, Jimmy, this is the open the tournament, the big exam. That is the keepers said this the super like giving the holy shit like that's that's fucking awesome. I if I

were in like the the GM of Carnoosti or the RNA people I would be like do not be giving interviews in the middle of the tournament. Just stop talking. This article also admits that the problem was it was a wet spring that left the fairways and greens soft and Philip was fearful that car news, his reputation as the toughest links course in the world would be damaged. So that's where they got out of control with growing up the

rough and narrowing the fairways and all that stuff. So forward to Sunday, cat with a red mock neck on Sunday at car news. T absolutely loving this and we have shed the yin yang logo. We're moving on past it. You know, we got the swoosh, the double swoosh on the hat and on the on the shirt as well. So by the time Vandeveld gets to the eighth hole, the lead is gone. It's over. It's time. He has bogeyed the second, the third and the eighth holes. Craig Perry, who he's playing with, has birdied the third and the eighth holes. Craig Perry, who he's playing with has birdied the third and the eighth hole.

So he's two under on the day. Should say the wind is down on this Sunday for the first time. It's been windy the first three days and the wind is now down. But Vanneveld gets the lead back when Craig Perry makes a seven from the deep rough on the 12th hole. Again, Perry was too over par through 11 and in the lead. And Vanderveld goes bogey bogey on 11 and 12 and ends up back in the lead. That's odd because I always kind of just thought in my head, I remember watching this round,

but that he just did fine throughout the day and you know, the last with the lead. I never imagined that it was this seesaw. I guess I just didn't have a great memory of that, that it was kind of all over the place. Yeah. Perry gets let off the hook here because he triples 12, bogeys 13 and doubles 17 and ends up shot out of the playoff. Like he had his own kind of back nine collapse. He hold a bunker shot on 18, which we'll get to, but yeah, so Vandeveld is, uh, makes a birdie on the, um, so interesting little thing. When Vandeveld's playing the 11th hole, he ends up making bogey anyways, but he hits it into the rough and he wants to play back out to the fairway. But in between where he wants to play is a crane. I get a bad lie and there's a crane in the way and he's granted relief. Whoa.

Which in hindsight was not allowed because the obstacle needed to be between the ball and the flag, not between the target, but he was given the relief. He ends up making bogey anyways, but it's found that interesting. They don't officially lie. Yeah. Anyways, so Band of Alberti is the 14th hole and it's up to a three shot lead now at that point. Again, Justin Leonard is playing an extremely steady round and he birdies the 14th hole to get to four over par. Vandeveld and the group

behind him also birdies it to get to three over par and up ahead. Leonard makes bogey on 15. So now and Vandeveld makes par. So it's a two shot lead. Vandeveld makes par on 15, 16 and 17. He's on the green and 17. And Leonard is in the fairway. He's two back already. He's playing 18 and he goes for the green with a fairway wood from the light rough. I think he thinks he needs a miracle and it like five hops into the burn. Like it was, it had a better chance of staying short of the burn than it did clearing it. I really don't know what he was trying to

do there. Just like kids are going for the green the other night. From 235 dunks it in the water with three. But he does get it up and down for bogey. And of course, Jean van de Velde makes par on 17 and takes a three shot lead to the 18th tee. Of note, many hours before Paul Lurie shot a five under par 67 at Carnooste to get in the house at plus six. The leaders are on the 12th hole as he finishes his round. Okay. So he's truly back in the clubhouse for hours. So Vandeveld comes to the tee on 18. We all know the story. We know what happens. You can, you remember every single shot, but we're gonna do it anyways

Okay, we're doing the whole thing three shot lead What are you going to do on the tee? Oh you hit like seven iron seven iron seven iron, right? So you definitely know would think let's go down to Peter Alice Now what to do? What to do? Now what to do what to do He's out with a driver now now, I'm not sure this is right God, it's so good. Although he's had a four and two threes on this hole

He's going to be at least three shots ahead A six will do. Oh, you lucky little rascal. And that bounced and seemed to go and missed the water. He's almost right in front of the 17th tee. Unbelievable. Blows it off the planet right. Could have hit any combination of clubs, but hits the driver. Wrong choice, but gets lucky. Gets a huge break. You look at the overhead of this thing and it's like... Crosses the water twice, right? Yeah Before it ends up in this little inlet cut or

whatever. Uh, and you're just like, okay, he got the break. So they get up to his ball again. Alice is just raving about the golfing gods smiling down upon this man as he goes to line up one of the great calls of all time. This is Peter Alice. This five minute stretch is truly, truly like this. You have to kind of search it out a little bit because like Azinger and Trico were on the US broadcast, but the years later- It's part of Strange actually. Strange and Trico. Yeah. Yeah. And man, this is just, he does such a great job of letting the moment sort of unfold and

having these little, little kind of English quips that are just so perfect. And luckily for you, Kev, we got them all. Hell yeah. Let's go back to Peter. Anything going left and hard will go out of bounds. I think he's firing right at the clock. Maybe aiming at the bunkers. First tee.

Well, do you... I don't believe this. Well, what is going on here? Let's have a look where he is. He's still short of the burn. Is he short of the burn? He bounced back off the stand. I think really if anybody needs an advisor, he does at this at this moment.

Cookin Peter cookin. Now he's got to pitch up. So I had never seen this part of it. So we know it hits the grandstands on the right. If it goes a foot farther to the right, it just ends up up there and he gets a free drop, maybe kill somebody. If it goes a foot left of this, it just comes down and it's worth noting from what I could tell the rough on that side of the burn is not bad. So like, honestly, his strategy here wasn't horrible in that if I just get it over the burn, anywhere like left is OB into the

grandstands is fine, I'm going to get a free drop left of the grandstands, there's a bunker there. Any of that rough is all fine. The only thing it can't do is hit this little like tiny cutout. It's not so like the, you know, the railing kind of runs parallel to where he's playing. And there's a little perpendicular cutout that I'm showing on the screen here where the ball bangs off and comes backwards. So it's not even like it hit the rail. It hits like this solid, this solid path that looks like it's got to be eight inches wide, eight inches. It's exactly what I was going to say. Like it is not wide at all. Comes back. If it goes in the water, that's better than what happens. It hits the stone and goes back over and he was still had to drop on the other side of the burn

because it was yellow, but it goes into a horrible lie over there and now all of a sudden it's like well all right what's what's going on here so let's go back to Peter Peter's not one I would like it's all it's steep down the bottom here he can get at it just but he's got to go over the burn and then over the bunkers but should go left because if he goes left and it runs it could go out of bounds. This is really his golfing brain stopped about 10 minutes ago I think. That's such a great call,

his golfing brain stopped about 10 minutes ago. So do you think Sully is this the one true like mental mistake that he makes? Could he pitch backwards here instead of trying to get it over the burn? He explains this too of there was no guarantee if he pitched sideways, he could get it to stop in the fairway. It was basically equal risk. So if he pitches left and ends up in rough and maybe even a worse lie, he's got to go over with his fourth, then he's really in trouble.

So he's just got to make double though. Well, he just has to blast it over and there's OB I guess the only risk was like a flyer out there which sounds impossible based on how this week went and like goes over the green and goes out of bounds or goes left and goes out of bounds. Like his problem was like he needed to hit that hard. Let it go into the bunker. Just let it get over the burn is all you had to do. And here we go. Let's go down for the third. Now, where is he going now? He's going out left to the front of the green.

Yeah, it must be this is really, this is, this is so, so, so, so sad and so unnecessary. This could end up with a playoff between Laurie and Leonard and he not even involved in it. I couldn't find Toreco's call in there, but I hear it in my head of just, it went in the burn in this moment. So now again, not the ball went in the burn, but it's, it's only, he says originally 25% submerged. So, uh, he gets down and decides to try to make something of it here, but Peter's not really vibing off this stretch. I wish that he would have had to tip this shot. Like if you can go back and like,

then we talk about like, what would you do? Und shot in history let's just go with this one let's have him like I've hit a full flop out of the silty burn and see if you're gonna get this on the green what are you doing what on earth are you doing no John please would somebody kindly go and stop it No Jean, please. Would somebody kindly go and stop him? Give him a large brandy and mop him down. Mop him down. Mop him down. It's such a good... Just mop him down. He takes... so he doesn't end up playing it. There's a great picture of him with hands on his hips. He's smiling because the tide rolls in and his ball ends up farther submerged. He would later sell the story of like, yeah, I'm smiling there because Craig Perry said to me, he's like,

just wait there for a couple of hours for the tide to go back out and you'll be able to play it. So that's, that was his explanation. All right. Here's more from Peter. No, this, this really is beyond the joke. Now he's, he's, he's gone gaga because this is, uh, this is quite, I've never seen anything like it before. And to attempt to hit the ball out of there is pure madness. Because he could hit the wall, go back in, the ball could hit him,

he could end up not finishing in the top 20. So he goes and takes a drop and mutters to the rules official. And look, I practiced this last night. I don't speak a lick of French. Like truly don't speak a lick. It was fresh in my mind last night, and I'm going to butcher it here. But something along the lines of, putain, je l'ai perdu, which means shit, I've lost it.

And if you speak French, I know that did not sound like shit, I've lost it. But I think you did a good job, Zal. That's as credible as any of my terrible accents. OK. Drops, decels, hits it in the green side bunker. I'm sorry, I don't know who the color commentator is here, but Ways... Peter has had this monologue go on this entire time, but the color commentator chimes in here.

Peter, there are moments of great hilarity, but I have a feeling, I have a funny feeling it's going to turn to moments of great sadness. They're all making their way to get advantage green at the 15th, the first playoff hole. This could become very sad indeed. So where they're going to be in the bunker, Vandeveld is going to be standing on Craig Perry's ball. Perry's gets in there and truly is trying to get out of the way at this point. Like I think he's more horrified than John is and steps in, doesn't really even take

his time and fucking holds the bunker shot. Like knocks it in. John's like, I needed to hold this to win the open. And you just did it right in front of me. Alice doesn't say a word when this happens. It's just like, okay. And then the American broadcast, they just, they start laughing of like, what is going on here? So he's got, uh, hits it out to about six, seven just, they start laughing of like, what is going on here?

So he's got hits it out to about six, seven feet, maybe eight feet. Even he's got to make this to get into the playoffs. So here we go. This is for a seven. Please give him one good putt. Please. Would you believe it? Oh. Well done.

Well done. Go to the playoff. I don't remember anything about the playoff really. Vandevelde duck hooks it on 15 to start and makes a 6. Laurie and Leonard are both tied at plus one, I don't remember anything about the playoff really. Vandeveld duck hooks it on 15 to start and makes a six. Laurie and Leonard are both tied at plus one playing the 17th and Laurie hits an absolute stunner into the 17th and rolls in the birdie. Vandeveld also birdied 17 to stay within one but they get to 18 and Leonard finds the burn again and Laurie steps up and hits a four iron to like three feet.

I mean truly just an epic shot, like ridiculously good long iron at the end of this week. It's kind of moist out there at this point. And he makes it and wins by three van de Vel Boeghe is 18 as well. So he wins the playoff by three becomes the first Scott's been 68 years to win in his home country. And yeah, he was ranked 159th player in the world. It kind of it's not forgotten about it was truly an epic final round and epic performance in there. But obviously,

vandervoeld is the one that blew it. And it's all what it's remembered for vandervoeld said afterward, don't be sad. I made plenty of friends because a Scottish man won. So at least that's something he said, there's worse things in life. Some terrible things are happening to other people. This is only a golf tournament. Yes, I blew it on 18. All that proves I was capable of being three ahead of the best players in the world on 18. Vannevel was unbelievable sport about the whole thing even continues to this day. He

would return later in December, play the hole with only his putter. He made a nine the first time he did it an eight the second time. And on the third time he cracked the code and made a six. That's kind of amazing that he was like, all right, I'll play your little game of, Oh fuck. Okay. I'll do it again. I'll do it again. Yeah. There's many, many Vandeveld quotes afterwards that I'm sure people have heard many times, but some more quotes. Phil Mickelson afterwards said, I wish I hadn't come here. I would rather be at home with my wife and baby. I don't think there's an individual in the RNA.

We did that one earlier. Uh, several players have taken to calling the course car nasty. Interesting quote from tiger afterward. He said, this is his last open before he becomes an open champion as he wins the old course next year, but he said, I found this as a little, uh, interesting preview of my golfing education improves every time I come over here. And every time I tee up, I become a better player because I'm learning all the time.

In five years time, I'll be a much better player mentally from experiences like this. I'm not down as golf. I'm proud of the way I played this week. Even if I'm disappointed, I didn't win. He would go on to win three of the next six open championships. Yeah. I wish Tiger had won like six opens. It just seemed like. I won three.

Two at St. Andrews, though. I feel like he was so good at St. Andrews, like he just kind of overpowered it, both those in 2005. And obviously, he was awesome at Liverpool. I just, I don't know. It feels like there should have been another open somewhere in his golfing resume, because he just was so smart and so fun to watch play different kinds of shots.

Maybe the Carnews, the Burkdale one that we talked about in the last episode, it was kind of shocking that I had forgotten that one. That was like a really hell of a chance. Then the Carnews see later and when he came back, had that chance down the stretch that Mulanari kind of outlasted him. But a ton of close calls. Some other writing after with John Gerrity for SI. To get firm, point A to point B, the Frenchman had hit the wrong club off the tee, chosen even worse club from the rough for a second

shot. Bruised a grandstand, wound up barefoot in a burn and pitched into a greed side bunker, performing with such consistent disregard for his position that old timers were reminded of wrong way. Corrigan, the aviator of the thirties who set off from New York for Los Angeles and instead flew to Ireland. Vanderbilt said, well, it's better than a kick in the ass afterward. Echoing Massey's long forgotten sentiment. Golf historians will argue over what happened to Vanderbilt on the 18th T some of William is caddy who failed to dissuade him from using the driver. Others will blame Napoleon who set a bad precedent at Waterloo. God love old sports writers. So this final part, I did make an effort. I tried. I reached

out privately to mr. Rick Riley. I figured the only way to close up the nineties I thought was to get him to read his column summarizing this one, which I think is one that we all read in 1999. I remember, I can't do the impersonation of it. I will read some of it if you'll allow me, but I wanted him to read the whole thing into the record, but I did not hear back from Mr. Riley on whether or not he'd be able to contribute. Come on, Rick. I mean, listen, nobody's in writing company influenced mine more than the rallies did back in the day. We're Facebook buddies.

You should have told me. I know you wanted it to be a surprise. I could have hit him with the Facebook message. I hit an agent up. I hit him up. It just never, never hurt back. But it's often Italy just living his best life. Says the only golfer on earth who

can't make a double bogey when he has to is Francis John van de Velde, which is too bad because he needed a simple double bogey on the 72nd hole on Sunday in Carnoustie, Scotland to win the British Open. The trophy was polished. The 10-year exemption was ready. The wife was lip-sticked up. All he needed was a six. He made a seven. The last hole at Carnoustie is a 480-yard par four with a wee burn that crosses the fairway three times. All you want to do to make double bogey is hit two little five irons in front of each other then a little wedge and three putt for immortality. Instead, Vanderveld hits driver, a freaking driver.

A driver brings the first crossing of the We burn into play. A driver brings Carnasti's risk breaking botany into play. Vanderveld needed to hit a driver like Strom Thurman needs a nipple chain. I can't tell you when I was in college driver like Strom Thurman needs a nipple chain. Because I can't tell you when I was in college, like how much I like anguished over like, how I wasn't as good at similes as some sports writers like I was like, Oh, God, it's what it's like, I just poured over like, how can I get better at

similes? And it just obviously, that did not fell out of favor. Yes, I'm so but man, what an era of like, let me just think of like the goofiest, wackiest cultural thing and then throw such like like as, you know, behind it. It continues. Why doesn't his caddy stop him? Well, there was a lot of the wind says John Vandeveld's odd caddy Christopher, who wouldn't give his last name. A 30 year old Parisian who wears a beatniks tuft under his chin

and a white beret over his beach bleach blonde hair. Wind Chris wind. You've got three shots to reach the green. If I'm Chris I snap the driver in half and say fine hit the driver. Okay, Vandeveld hits the driver and pushes his shot a kilometer right nearly under the 17th tee box. Now he's got 240 yards to the green with nothing but burn and heartburn in between. Any erect walking mammal with an ant's nostril of scents hits 120 yards wedge into the middle of the fairway then another 120 yard wedge onto the green. Three putts and orders up champagne. Instead, Vandevelde hits a two iron. A freaking two

iron. A two iron is the worst idea since loop rock for Ernie Braulio. Why oh why doesn't this caddy stop him? Well, we talked about this, but the lie it was just so perfect. Says Christopher is perfect. Spelled parfait. Is he like Chris is a lie. If I'm Chris, I said, my Zat is a nice lie. Is it not John and throw everything but the wedge and the putter into the burn. So they miserable hub hits a two iron and the ball sails two kilometers right caroms off the grandstand bounces back over the burn into some high some Heather high enough to lose. Can you guess which golfer we would say

in there to lose this golfer in it? To lose Lee Jansen and Ian Woosdum. John was pissed, said Christopher. He says to me, why don't you make me hit wedge? He says, I don't even know how to say this. You are a glutton. I think that he and I, we want too much show. Now Vandermeldt has the worst lie.

This is my favorite line of the whole thing. Now Vandermeldt has the worst lie since I did not have sex with that one. Fuck yeah. You can barely see the ball. He hits it right into the wee burn. So leg three, the ball is sitting mostly underwater with the six foot high Creek wall in front of it.

And obviously he's going to have to drop and no, no, no, no, please tell us Sean Vandamelte isn't taking off his shoes and socks rolling up at the legs of his pants and climbing into the gonna have to drop and no no no no please tell us John Vanderveld is it taking off his shoes and socks rolling up the legs of his pants and climbing into the wee burn to hit it he's gonna play it out of the burn why oh why doesn't his caddy stop him well he wants to do this but as he walks he's very tall says his caddy and Vanderveld finally has a sudden growth spurt of brain cells and decides to drop back instead back into the haggis this time he easily hits it over the wee burn burn straight into the beach. Now he's got to get up and down out of a greenside bunker just to make a playoff, which he does. Of course,

by then he needs a whiskey, a massage and emergency psychoanalysts and proceeds to lose to someone named Paul Laurie, who's as shocked as anybody to even be in the playoff, seeing as how he might as well be a vacationing upholsterer from Glasgow. I said, for a time, decides Christopher, this was the best day of my life. Now it is the worst. John Van Vel put a brave face on for fans, but once in the scoring trailer, he sobbed into his hands. Next time, he said bittersweetly, I'll hit sewage. You'll say I'm a coward, but I'll hit sewage. I said, no, next time give Christopher the wrong dates. Oh, dates. Poor Christopher lost to history as to like, we don't even know, he would not give his name. Oh, so that's it for 99.

Carnews, see that was a ride. Take us to 99 PGA. This is a extremely blind spot for me. I know who wins, I know where it is, and that is legitimately, I think all I know from this. All right, well, so I'm happy to bring us home here. You know who wins. I know where it is. And that is legitimately, I think all I know from this. All right. Well, so I'm happy to bring us home here. You know how much I love the PGA championship by God, you know, that's so they're so good with highlights. And then I have no wait actually, once again, you have to watch a kind of a weird super hyper edit. We can't

even get the full round of this. So this was an easy research assignment for you for this prep. The prep for these things takes a long, long period of time. This had to be what a 10th of the normal time that you have left to put into one of these. Well, you're raising the bar, hoping that I'll do a good job here by throwing that gauntlet down being like, you only had one fucking thing to research here. So let's know PGA doesn't give you even much to do. Like it just doesn't take long to research a PGA one because like there's just not that much available. I got to talk to this new Derek guy, this new CEO that got here. See if we can get,

get some more full rounds on the... Talk to the pro at your club and see if he can get that figured out. All right, so all you might remember, there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the lead up to the 1999 Ryder Cup about whether players should be paid for their appearances there, but money was not a concern according to the Associated Press going to the PGA. And now for a tournament where money is not the issue, assumed Doug Ferguson writing in the Associated Press here, players were playing for a record purse this year, $630,000, which is roughly what you get for finishing 23rd in the Tour Championship in 2024 these days.

The AP even speculated that some players might even pay to play in this event because there is so much legacy and history. Players are going to be willing to play in these tournaments because of what history the event brings, what the trophy brings to a player, and I'm not talking financial. There is no price tag you can put on that." Said one Phil Mickelson. Oh my God. This is about the PGA or about the Ryder? This is about the PGA. We'll get to the Ryder Cup in just a moment.

The favorites of course, David Duvall has won four times on the PGA Tour this season, which you have so eloquently described earlier in this podcast, including the players' championship. However, he's a bit non plus about the whole thing. I don't think you could rate my performance much above mediocre, Deval says. At 7401 yards, this is not the longest course in the history of majors, but it is being billed as the longest course at sea level in the history of majors. Because we're going to Medina that is because the 1967 PGA Championship at Columbine Country Club in Denver, Colorado played at 7,436 yards. But all the players are quick to point out that that was not a true reflection of its length because of the thin air. The AP says at this rate, it might not be long before a major championship is contested at

a course that is 8,000 yards long. Thinking about it as some sort of unthinkable thing. I hope I don't ever see that, says Justin Leonard. It will make caddies obsolete because they won't be able to walk that far. Certainly not if the temperature index is more out in pants. By the way, Keowa in 2017 played at 7,800, excuse me, in 2021 when Phil won, played at 7,876 yards. Aaron Hills got up to 7,839 yards at the 2017 open in the third round, but that's thus far the longest courses that we've had in majors. Also contending, of course, is Tiger Woods

who has won three of six tournaments, he's played since the Masters. Eventually, either someone's going to make a mistake and I'm going to sneak into a victory or I'm going to outplay somebody. You can't win every time you're in the hunt. The key is giving yourself chances," says Tiger. Monty, too, who's fresh off a win in Europe, says, if I win a major, it happens. If I don't, I won't lose any sleep over it. So I don't know how much you played Medina.

I don't know if that's true. I think that guy's lost some sleep over it. I don't know how much you ever played Medina back when you were hanging out in Chicago doing computing and auditing for various financial barons. Medina underwent a big renovation to get it ready for this. It actually got into some of the history in the get it ready for this. It actually, you know, we got into some of the history in the buildup to Medina. It was originally just a gun club with a pool. And the early years members had, could boat and fish on Lake Kataja. Is that how it's

pronounced? And go skating in the winter. There was also a ski jump and toboggan runs at Medina. There were different events and parties, including one in which a camel, Miss Medina was brought in to entertain members. There was also a bear that lived in a cage on the grounds for a brief time. And this is a zoo? Must have been, I don't know.

Maybe this is the World Fair type era. But unfortunately the bear bit a little girl's finger and the members had to find a new home. I mean, who could have seen that one? Don't. I mean, also, if I'm a dad of daughters, don't let your daughters stick their fingers in the cage. You know, I think this was back in the thirties and the twenties. So, you know, there wasn't a, but anyway, they used to have during the depression, they have sheep. They had sheep graze the course of Medina to sort of keep it from kind of becoming overgrown. Back to present day Sergio Garcia is entering the week coming off of some interesting baggage

as we've heard just a bit ago at Carnoustie shot 89, 83 to miss the cut. He had won the Irish Open that year just his sixth start as a professional. So it was sort of a surprise how awful he was the Open Championship as you detailed but as a 19 year old he was still seen as a possible pick for the Ryder Cup but after his performance those curmudgeonly British press were really kind of seeing asking whether he was kind of up to it up to the pressure of everything. He is the youngest player to play in the PGA Championship since Gene Sarazin in 1921. The PGA also this year announced that starting in 2000, the PGA championship will no longer

be a sudden death playoff. It will starting in 2000 be a three-hole aggregate playoff. Gosh, I wonder if that will be relevant when we go to Valhalla next year. On Tuesday, Ben Crenshaw, the Ryder Cup captain for 99 sits down in his press conference when the media and Solly gentle bend does not come gently to the mic. This is of course the site of his famous rant about Ryder Cup players wanting to be paid, which the AP already said was a non-issue going into this there that we weren't going to have settled any more talk of this. It was all good. And, you know, it just proves that everything that is new is actually old. We have, we've been here, done this before. The Associated Press calls

Crenshaw's emotional outburst that added fire to a controversy the PGA of America had already tried to put out earlier in the week. People are sick of issues like this in the sports world, Crenshaw says. When you can't just show up and play for your country, I don't know. That's not reward enough? Well, then my heart bleeds for the game of golf. During this sort of rant, without naming them, singles out some players that he is specifically kind of pissed at, including one who hadn't even played in a dag gum rider cup before. Whether some players like it or not, there are some people who came before them who

mean a hell of a lot to this game. It burns the hell out of me to hear some of their viewpoints. I am personally disappointed in a couple of people in that meeting and they know who they are playing for your country. I can't imagine anything more than that. It's a honor in itself, a duty, a duty. AP reported that Crenshaw had trouble controlling his anger at times during the presser. Every fine player worth their salt has given their heart to the Ryder Cup. This, as you can imagine, does not go over well with the players

who had met with Crenshaw early in the week to try to sort of work out the issue of whether they would get more than a $5,000 stipend, which was what they were getting at the time. The Ryder Cup was generating about $23 million in revenue at this point. And the players were kind of like led by Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Marco Mira and David Duvall. Where is our piece of the pie? Duvall said that he had an angry phone call with Crenshaw afterwards because he felt singled out. Phil Mickelson grumbled that it should have been kept private. Tiger said that he understood Crenshaw's perspective, but what they really wanted was just to have money to donate to charity. David Duvall did that sick thing where you talk about yourself as if you're a character whom exists outside your own body. I never said I thought David Duvall should get paid to play in the Ryder Cup said David

Duvall. I just said I should get money to take back to our communities. Mark James couldn't resist getting in a little dig when they asked him about the Europeans whether they needed to be paid to the Ryder Cup. We get to stipend that we can cover our incidentals like a little frock for the wife, etc. Tom Watson said at the time the 1990 Ryder Cup fate would hinge on whether Tiger Woods stepped up and act like a leader this time around. Seems like Tom's been kind of lecturing Tiger pretty much throughout his entire career. I can't imagine why things are frosty between them.

And Tiger said in response, I remember 1997 after the fact, some of my friends told me about some of the things that were written and how I wasn't a leader of the team and I wasn't a leader in the tournament. Well, I wasn't a leader of the team. I was 21. It was my first time ever playing in the Ryder Cup. I didn't want to step on anyone's toes.

I did not have the authority to do such a thing. This year's Ryder Cup, I will be a little more boisterous. I will try to add some support for leadership. I will offer as much as I can without being disrespectful to players who are veterans who have been on the team numerous times like Marco Mera and Payne Stewart. Tom Lehman said on the- Which we know leads to, see that can? Thank you for, I almost forgot that I originally had it in my notes. If you did not listen to our Ryder Cup 1999 pod, it's one of our favorites that we've ever done. I will not spoil the story for you, but Tiger has an absolutely all time nerdy Tigerism in that. So please

go check that out. Which one was that? Was that our golf feuds one? It was golf feuds. That's right. Yeah, that's right. The the the the press, the English press versus the United States. Tom Layman said of the whole controversy, I'm so sick of it, I could just barf. Phil Mickelson said, I thought what we said was kept confidential. I'm disappointed that something leaked out. Thankfully, Sally, Phil never had trouble again with comments he perceived were off the record. But alright, so for

all the money that Medina spent on a remodel, the players were not particularly kind to the supers leading up to the tournament. That is a lot of bitching. And this was not an era when the media took the players sides in this kind of thing. Nightritter columnist Jack Saylor referred to the players as spoiled brats for the way that they talked about the greens. Randy would not be happy to hear some of these quotes taking shots at the super. Mickelson said, over half the greens are brown or discolored. Lee Janssen said,

the greens are not great. They're hard but I don't think the weather had anything to do with it. They could be in better shape. Poor Superintendent Dan Quast said, "'I think we did a good job of getting the greens ready.' Fred Koppel said, "'They'll get roughed up. I can see a lot of three or four footers being missed and patients wearing thin.'" Some of the players also took some time

to shit on the redesigned 17th, which is now a 204 par three where water doesn't come into play. "'I think it's very bad bad said Paul Aizinger. It's a shame. It was a great hole before an impact hole. I don't like anything about it now. Paul Lorry who is the open champion as we heard a bit said that he was it's been quite an adjustment to deal with his newfound fame. I went to the store the other day and to do some shopping and it took me 30 minutes to buy a pair of boxers. Definitely pulled up out of that Scottish accent. Australian. Sorry. I went to the store the other day to do some shopping and it took

me 30 minutes to buy a pair of boxers. No, not that either. John Vanderveld spoke to reporters for the first time since his collapse. Solly, I want your listeners, I want our listeners to know that they are very lucky that you drew carnage in this because I probably would have done a very bad French accent the entire time talking about his collapse. As it stands, I'm only going to do a few quotes here. I do think about it sometimes, but not in a bad way. You know, I think I have analyzed what happens there and it happens again.

We'll see what I do. But I don't feel bad I gave a hundred percent and walked out of there with my head and my chin pretty straight That is all I could do Vannevald said my face was pretty funny right after I hit that drive on 18. It went so far, right? I didn't even know where the ball was until someone told me and when I looked at my face, I was still smiling Vannevald of course kind of hamming it up for the press at this point. If I ever arrive at the major three slots ahead, I

guess if that happens ten times, maybe I will win one of them. I love this dude. Alright, so I into our first round. Sergio Garcia is our leader. Uh the young 19 year old Spaniard sets a course record with a 66 in round one. I think I proved myself today. The British Open is done. I don't want to hear any more questions about the British Open. At the British course he had cried in his mother's arms after he shot 89 in the first round.

I am a very happy man or happy kid I should say. I always like being two strokes ahead. If tomorrow I can be four strokes ahead, I can tell you I'm not gonna feel any pressure. Sergio who had played with Phil Mickelson and Hale Erwin in the first round kind of repressed the shit out of them. Hale Erwin, 54 years old, said he rips it.

If I swung that hard, they'd have to pick me up in 14 different places and put me back together. Understandably, he's 19 years old and he's from a non-English speaking country, but Sergio's English is not as strong as it is today. Like, you know, kind of coming out, he was, you know, still kind of learning English, but it's an interesting time capsule. I remember his 99 Ryder Cup, like listening back on that, it's like, oh yeah, you forget

he wasn't always like perfectly fluent in English. So speaking of Hale Erwin, the motherfucker shoots 54, shoots three under. He's on the first part of the leaderboard. Like Hale was that dude. He was kind of tearing it up on the, our guy Brian Watts also shows up in the leaderboard. So I remember him from the- Oh, of course. From Burkdale, which is, you know, he spent all that time on the Japan tour.

Also JP Hayes and Mike Weir and Jay Haas in second. A little bit more on Weir in a minute, but not the kind of Mike Weir's sort of one of his first appearances on the scene, certainly in a major. Tiger Woods and David Deval are lurking after shooting a two under 70. In the second round, we have Jay Haas as our leader.

He shoots a 67 to take a one stroke lead over Mike Weir. This is really, as I said, Mike Weir's first appearance on the scene as a major. He had won three times on the Canadian tour, but he had not really broken through yet on the PGA tour. A month later, he would win the Air Canada Championship and he was the first Canadian to win on the PGA tour in how many years, Solly, would you guess? 26. 45 years! Oh my god. Yeah. So he shot a 68 to be solo second. The best round of the day probably belonged to one Tiger Woods who shot a 67 and he played his last six holes at even par despite a deluge of rain that was just dumping

on him. It's like one of my favorite Nike commercials ever, the Rory Ripple commercial, where he is sort of growing up watching Tiger. The scene where he and his dad are watching Tiger from the bar that his dad sort of ran in Hollywood, that's this round that they're watching. The water is dumping and sort of pouring down the brim of his hat and Rory is then kind of goes out and hits balls in the pouring ass rain at the at the driving range to sort of prove that he too could do this Tom Watson said of Tigers 67 Tiger Woods emasculated the golf course Sergio shoots a second round 73 to drop into fifth place. So his plan to be two more shots ahead did not go all that well. Hale Irwin is back!

He shoots another 69 and he's tied for fifth after this day. He said that some guy in the gallery shouted out, hey, you're not 50. And he said, oh, you're right. I'm 54. Bill Mickelson said of playing with Sergio Garcia, I gained a lot of respect for him this week, not only as a player.

Let me tell you a story. I played the front nine today and four over, and on the 10th tee, he came up to me and sort of shyly asked, do you mind if I say something? I said, go right ahead. He said, come on, let's go have some fun on the backside. I thought that was pretty cool. Years later, I thought, let's destroy golf together. Let's not do it fun on the back side. I thought that was pretty cool. Here's later. I thought let's destroy golf together

Let's not do it at all for selfish reasons That was seriously such a good 1999 Phil impression he's like has that uber polite. Yeah Yeah, that was very, very, very good impression. All right. And the third round, Mike weir shoots a 69 and he's tied with tiger at 11 under going into the final round. And all these sports writers do not know what to do with this development. They are treating Canadians like they haven't even heard of golf. Bob Ryan of the Boston globe says that Canadians were as natural a fit for golf as baseball was to the people of Afghanistan. The golf season is what? Two hours long? Joke Ryan. He said that Tiger and Sergio would be

asking themselves, who is this little five foot nine guy and why is he saying a boot? Weir wins, would golf crazy Canadians riot in the street? Ryan asked Weir. That's a good question, Mike Weir said. They might get excited or they might not care at all. I hope I get to find out. Weir had said my realistic expectations this year were to get into contention in some tournaments, not to win majors.

Stuart Sink is also lurking. He is tied with Sergio who is kind of hung around a little bit, two shots back. All right. The real story however is whether Tiger can close a major for the first time since 1997. He's won eight times since he won the Masters but no majors and people are starting to feel like this guy overrated. What is he like? It's kind of the Messiah. Come on. This bulls**t. Come on. This is bullshit. Come on. This guy is like this fucking guy. All right.

So Tiger starts. Yeah. It's like 10, 10 tournaments in a row. Yeah. Tiger kind of has some playfulness in him. So I back then at majors that I kind of seems a little bit foreign to me. Not everything felt like kind of life or death. I think probably because you're 23 according to Jim McCabe, Associated Press columnist before

his third round, he was doing that trick on the range where he juggles a ball on his wedge and then hits it like a baseball bat. And when he whiffed, the crowd booed and so he smiled and did it again. And the crowd was delighted by him sort of batting the ball, you know, down the range. I can't imagine him doing this while sort of in contention tied for the lead at the final round at a major. At one point in the third round, Tiger actually had a five stroke lead and everyone kind of thought he might be running away with it. But he made four bogeys down the stretch and Mike Weir chipped in from the trees and then rolled in a bomb on 17.

Suddenly he was tied with Tiger going into the final round. So I finally have some pictures here to share of the final round because it is kind of a pretty epic, uh, show down here. So I, I wish I could truly capture the twirl that our guy Tiger does off the first tee, but this is kind of the end of it. I mean, it is the full two arms like just like kind of like the president's cup one, kind of like the one in the 15 and Augusta, it is both hands like pointing at the fairway, kind of like the one in the 15 in Augusta. It is both hands like

pointing at the fairway, like just pimp stepping, picking up the tee before the ball even arrives. It is pretty sick. 13-year-old me was doing this en route to many 48s in my nine hole middle school matches. I mean, he did that the next year, I think at St. Andrews in the final round, like what literally widest fairway in the world hits an iron and does like the full presence got twirled off that one too. He would let some twirls go back there. There are, it's a kind of an extended highlight package. So you do get to see every one of Tiger shots here.

It's available on YouTube and everyone has Sergio's. So you don't get any of the like audio broadcasts. So you only have to have to search for others little snippets of Nance and Venturi and and McCord and Ferdy and stuff. So it isn't quite like watching it, but you do really see Tiger kind of strutting his way around a little bit. So Sergio, he makes par on the first and he actually dumps his tee shot in the water on number two. He's sort of walking away in disgust even before the ball lands and it is not close. It is, you know, three, four feet short.

I've even hit in the bank. But impressively, he hits his drop to about eight feet and curls in a putt from here. I mean, this ball, he had to probably start, you know, a good three, four cups outside. This is for bogey, rolls this in, which I'm like, you damn this could have gone sideways like real quick. But you know, we're doing fine.

Tiger however, birdies, number two, it is, you know, and we are, as I was sort of talking about, we have the full like arms in the air, like walking after the putt, like just being like, yeah dog, like I got this, like we're fine. We're gonna be humming along. Sergio part five goes forward in two, ends up short in the bunker here,

like we're gonna get up and down here. Fucking short game is looking ridiculous, like really, really good. Okay, so we're making a birdie here. We're hanging in there, like, you know, even after the early bogey, like we got some stuff. So I, unfortunately, Mike Weir, by the way, at this point, we're already bogey, bo after the early bogey, like we got, we got some stuff. So I, unfortunately, uh, Mike, we're by the way, at this point, we're already with bogey, bogey, bogey.

We are pulling the ejection cord early, kind of like goose and top gun. Uh, and he's hitting the canopy and he's going out to sea. I mean, it's bad. He ends up shooting 80 tumbling all the way down to 10th, never shot a score in the seventies all week. The ever so rare, 68, 68, 69, 80. Uh, and at various points, the fans were like shouting choke, choke, choke at Weir, which Tiger did not think was very nice. Some of the things that were said were not too kind. Obviously fans were rooting

for Sergio and they well should. Some of the things they said to Mike, I did not think were fair. Appreciate that Tiger sticking up for the Canadians. Tiger also hits it in the bunker on two and gets up and down. I mean, we got some short game on display here. Tiger makes a bunch of like, it's interesting because they beginning around his short game is fucking dialed. And by the end of it, it's like, it's not so great. Go back to that bunker shot real quick, just like looking at what, what a bunker was like in the 90s. Just like at grade. This is after a redo too, like this could not be much more straightforward.

They did not play golf courses like this for very long. Spent a lot of millions of dollars to get to here. All right, Tigers coming to the fifth hole, Tiger steps on a drive again and he just pimp steps after it. So I mean, our man is feeling himself, but kind of dumps the long iron in the right bunker. Sergio's kind of stalled at this point. He's making pars on six and seven and eight and nine. And when he starts the back nine, he's actually five shots down.

Sergio's five down going back. He's five down and he is nine under and Nick Price is actually in second place at 10 under. The Tiger is sort of sitting pretty at 14 under. Tiger said later, I was cruising. I had played well on that front nine and I was in total control of the championship. He was up by four. I mean, I know this ends up close. I guess in my mind it was nip and tuck all day long. But so our guy, you know, we're getting here at the seventh hole. Tiger comes to I, oh, this is kind of part of what's helping tiger build his lead.

It hits a pretty good drive and it lands on the right side of the fairway. The seventh hole at Medina curves hard to the right. It's really hard to sort of go for it into unless you're on the left side of the fairway and tiger, even though he's hit a good drive, has kind of missed his spot. And the way that he's sort of lining up here, as you can see, if you're watching this on YouTube, his right foot is basically like kind of like way wide out, like he is going to take a lash at this ball. And I would say that

the whole is 588. So in order to get to the green here, kind of, you know, we don't have because we've gone to the broadcast, we don't have exact because we've gone to the broadcast, we don't have exact yardage, but he's average like three 13 all week off the T. So I'm thinking he's got to carry this ball at least two 50. And it has to be like a ridiculous banana cut to get it around this. So this sometimes you will see this shot on tiger highlights. Venturi kind of asked the crew,

I was able to find one clip with the broadcast audio on it, and he says, you think he's gonna be able to do this? And Ferdie's like, oh, yes. And Venturi says, well, nothing will surprise me. And Ferdie says, such a difficult shot though, Kenny. Tiger, as the ball is in the air, like Ferdie has kind of a mini orgasm. He's like, this might be the greatest shot

I've ever seen if it carries. The ball, it carries by about a foot, it lands like just over the over the bunker and rolls out to about 25 feet. It is just it is a six six shot. I mean, you can see Nance talks about how you can Oh my god, you can see that ball curving in the air. It is really, really good. And, you know, as Venturi, as you know, Venturi, God love him. God bless him. He's always saying like kind of weird shit in here. Like, well, you can throw out the word lucky. I know that like who at home is sitting and be like, Oh,

what a lucky shot. Lucky shot. Fucking smoked this back with, you know, 1999 technology just smoked a three wood that carried 250 to get on this screen. Was it a three water to use iron on this? You can see in the larger thing it is, it is a wood. He does. It curves a lot. So in the early part of this round, Tiger's speed on lag putts is so, so good.

I mean, I feel like this is one of those differences that they kind of started notice late in his career They just rarely gave himself Stressful like par putts in these situations. It just kind of got a little bit hair worse. And so he lags us to a foot He's 14 under and this is what officially gets him to be five shots ahead of Sergio So we get to ten tiger hits probably his first shitty drive of the day kind of a block, block right that ends up in the deep rough. All he can do is kind of take a lumberjack lash at it. It doesn't get to the fairway either. Still with the wedget pin high as the third par five, but kind of a missed opportunity makes par. Nick Price at this moment, Bernie's 11. He has four shots back and it feels like he is the only one with an outside chance.

Tiger's at 15 under, Price is at 11, and Sergio is still at 10. He has five fucking shots back, and we got eight holes to play. Sergio looks like he is dead on 11. He is like fucking buried in the trees here. I have no idea how he's able to get this shot. He hits it like, he hits like a low sort of ripper punch,

and it sounds like it hits a leaf or a branch or something, but it ends up like just short of the green. Like, wow. And it is, I'm like, whoa, man. And he almost chips this in, Sully. Like it's probably, if you're just listening to your car, like it's probably a foot off the green and he's probably 25 feet,

but he hits like a low little runner and it gets, you know, pretty damn close to, to going in Tiger, pretty gone 12 here, we got Tiger starting. He doesn't feel like it's, you know, anything is like going wrong. He's Tiger still kind of motoring long hits like a textbook drive on 11, an iron shot behind the pin that sucks back to

about 10 feet. He's got the, like a big ass breaker that he probably needs to start three feet outside the hole. It got no chance at all. Oh, no way. He fucking jars it. Of course, we get the fist pump and the full like Michael Jordan tongue sticking out. This is we have seven holes to play Tigers up five. Nick Price has just made back to back bogeys. Let's let's get the engraver going. Okay, like this shit is over. It's

there's no no way. Protagra roasts the drive on 12 and maybe his best of the day and you can hear Stevie say, great job, Taga, as he splits the fairway. But he's kind of got the ball below his feet on 12. It's not exactly like an easy shot. It's sort of like a, it's quite the sort of elevation.

He hits like what I would describe as like a punchy cut that doesn't cut. And it ends up sort of on the left side of the green like you know probably 30 feet away or so but he's got a long ass sort of leg putt that has a shit ton of break in it. Whatever. No big deal. Guy's been like lag putting great all day. No like first putt has way more break that he can see and he sort of leaves himself five feet and lips fuck out First bogey of the day. No big deal. Whatever. So four shots ahead We come to the par 3 13th where just a minute ago Sergio has flagged it from behind the pin Interesting. Wow, what I mean, it's like from 222 so. And, and I mean, this would be nice pot to break, you know, go in whatever. Yeah. He fucking jars it.

And what does he do, Sully? Oh, that's right. This is one of the most memorable moments of this round. Sergio fucking puts his fist out and looks back and gives Tiger the what's up stare. But sure he cannot believe it. I think he just looked back to the tee, a and said, how you like that one? Sergio said it was just a look to the tee to say I'm still here. I, the cat can definitely see what is going on. Sully, uh, he is some

really good work by CBS here. He is. Oh wow. So we get this one of truly like the most memorable moments for me. Young Kevin Van Volkenberg was was like kind of cheering for Tiger until this point. And I was like, fuck yeah, Sergio, this guy, he's awesome. He's, he's super charismatic and definitely not ever going to be a dick at all or anything. Future things. McCord says it was kind of like going into a bar and this is later he doesn't say this on the broadcast but it was kind of like going into a bar and finding the biggest guy there and hitting him right in the mouth. Steinberg in a documentary kind of about this that the PJ of America did, documentary would be generous, it was about five minutes long,

Lee Steinberg said he saw the look, oh he for sure saw the look and it was game on now. All right, whatever, you little nerd. Tiger's sort of looking back at sort of, and he steps up and just hits a nuke ball, like way long, like way over 13 green. Oh, man. Jesus, sloppy chip too. Just kind of like an uncommitted like flop chunk

that runs through the green and over the rough into the other side. And you're like, what, what, what is going on? Like, it just sort of feels a little bit surreal here. Sloppy chip again. And now Tiger's got like eight feet for bogey and he misses that and hits it through the break. It's a fuck double bogey. All of a sudden the lead is one shot. So I just completely flipped the script here. Tiger said, I kept telling myself he's never won a major championship. And I have if I play the last holes in even par, I'm going to put it on him to do it. He's got to come and get me.

All right. Neither of them make a birdie on the 14th, the last par five. Tiger kind of plays the whole pretty blah, like poor drive into the rough, shitty layup in the rough, third shot to 35 feet. Sergio, better chance, but doesn't really make it. And 15, Sergio hits it under a tree, but not the tree that you might remember. And he hits kind of a really sweet, like low punch. So many trees on this golf course for having just been renovated as well. Hits this like low punch punch kind of gets it up like just behind the pin there. We're like, all right, cool. Like my man's like doing all right. Oh,

no, he had sort of an indifferent chip and it runs like eight feet by really needs this one. I mean, it looks good. It looks good. Like look at this image here. So it looks like that ball is going in, but no, uh, that the lips out. And so we've made a bogey. Sergio probably needed a couple of breaks here and just kind of a few things didn't go his way. But now we come to the main event, Sally, the 16th tee. Uh, Sergio has fairway wood here and looks like a decent shot. You feel like, all right, like we're, you know, we're in good shape. The ball is, is, uh, it's headed. Oh no, it bounces, takes a fricking Ben Affleck, wicked hot bounce and goes into the, this giant oak tree. All right. So, uh, what's coming up next is, is, is fucking iconic. I mean, we, I,

this just like, I, I have a theory, Sally, I think this shot to come is what made Randy break his orbitable bone years later. I feel like if you don't know this story, we'll be telling it in the future in some form, but Randy was playing golf course by himself, ended up with a ball lying right next to a root, took a big old lash at it with a four iron and knocked himself out on the golf course. Basically, lucky he didn't just like bleed to death right there on the fairway. I feel like if Sergio doesn't do what he does here that Randy never takes that chance to sort of go for this. But you know, in this moment here, McCord is like, well, he's got to pitch out. There's no way. But no, Sergio is like looking down at this ball. He is like, you know what? I think I'm going to go.

God, his shirt is just like, I guess whole thing. I have maybe seen this clip 3000 times. So we're staring over this. We're taking a cut and you know what? We're going to swing with our eyes closed at this. I mean, it is, you can, you can see it. I kind of thought that was urban legend a little bit that, you know, he's actually closed his eyes, but no, he really does. If you look at it, like he's making contact with his eyes closed,

I guess, you know, to just not flinch at the last minute, uh, our right or left foot is just flying out of, uh, its stance as he makes contact. Like somehow the fucking ball like curves around the corner and ends up on the green. I mean is they are just in shock. The announcers, it's just it's such a fun kind of thing. And of course what happens next, our guy runs down the fairway and Pogo sticks into the air, kicking in like he's some sort of Spanish equestrian pony. It's all if Phil jumping for joy at the 2000 Masters

is the smallest vertical leap for joy in the history of golf. Then this is the other end of the spectrum right up there with Tom, with tiger jumping the height of Tom layman shoulders a month later at the rider cup, when Justin Leonard's putt goes in Sergio, I, you know what? At the time this did not register with, with me at all, but like looking back in history as knowing what I know about Sergio. Now I definitely was like, Oh, what an innocent

guy. Like this is so fun. But man, our guy hams it the fuck up. Oh, yeah. I mean, the full like he and over my heart, I guess he goes up to McCord and takes McCord's hand and puts it on his chest so that McCord can feel his heart pounding. What a fun moment this is for golf. We're, we golf. We're thinking, you know, this is him walking up the fairway. He's recreating like what it was like. He's gritting, he's smiling. We all tried this as kids too. Like everybody went and tried this shot in some form or fashion. Here's another like a slightly better picture of these scissor kicks, Ollie. Just, I mean,

we're a good four feet off the ground there. It's pretty good. What a delight. So, you know, we, we got, uh, meanwhile back in 16 fairway tiger, he's got a two shot lead at this point. Uh, and he can hear that Sergio's like he's hit it on the green and he's kind of thinks, Oh fuck, like how close did he hit it? But when Sergio puts from like 70 feet away, doesn't hear a roar. So he kind of assumes, okay, like Sergio made par, no problem. Still got a two shot lead. I'm telling you, like, I don't think I have a clip of it here, but Sergio's pot was like right from like 60 plus feet and my God, he had that thing online. I mean, it was like fucking if he had, you know,

it's impossible to make a putt of that length, but it was like in the throat. And this is someone who was just smiling and grinning and Sally. I mean, this is, this is definitely not someone who you would ever think would, you know, become a massive spin a cup, take off his shoe and throw it at a bunker. You know, just be a whiny dickhead with two have feuds with two of the most famous players the last 25 years. Like just, we love, we love this big racist comments disqualified from a tournament in Saudi Arabia for ridiculous comments. We're going to love this guy forever. So you know how like Tiger was like really smart all the time about never going for sucker pins and never like,

you know, he just hit into the fad of greens when he's supposed to know he fucking like for some reason goes for this pin on 16, which is short, right? And he ends up in the damn bunker. Like it is a inexplicable sort of error. It is a massive, massive miss for someone of his like iron talent at this point. The irons are getting a little loose down the stretch. Tiger's lucky to get away with this one. I mean, I, in my head, I'm remembering like him grinding this out and like making a bunch of great pars and like winning it by one, but I don't remember this kind of collapse for the you know, kind of getting away with it. Yeah. So from that bunker shot, he

hits a tear. I mean, this is and so we're talking like 25 feet above the hole that he has to now make this and does not make it. So we're back now to a one stroke lead. Sergio hits a pretty good shot into 17 has probably like a makeable 10 to 12 footer and just barely like misreads it. I mean, just it's, you know, it ends up maybe a foot right, but as they had the pace perfectly. And the crowd is like fucking going crazy for Sergio at this point.

Like it is so weird to watch a tournament where tiger is not the favorite, where people are very much not in his corner. It is just kind of, I mean, I don't know. It's an interesting sort of case study about how things would sort of play out. Anyway, so Tiger, I mean, come on, we're fine. We're going to hit like, you know, a good shot into, uh, into 17 and everything will be fine staring over this ball. Probably, you know, we got a probably five iron.

It's like two Oh nine. Uh, no, look where he fucking hits it. It is like way long. This is such an Icarito ball. Oh fuck. Like is, what is happening really? And the crowd sounds like they just watched someone like fall off a tightrope and hit the circus tent floor.

I mean, it is like, oh my God. And meanwhile, like as Tiger is staring this down, Sergio just stripes it right down 18 fairway. Like we are like, man, this might still happen. This is the chip that Tiger hits. It is like he tries kind of like a chunk like run out and it just, I don't know, whatever reason it grabbed way more than he thought. And so you know what? Like we got to make this or the shit is tied going into 18. So I remember reading years later, this is kind of one of the most important moments

of Tiger's whole career. His dad was like starting to be in not great health at this point, so he would never like come out to, you know, walk or watch ever. And he didn't even, he doesn't even come out to 18 green after this is over. But Tiger said that he knew this putt was really fucking important.

I mean, he's got to put this outside the hole. It's got a good amount of break in it. And he basically said like, he told himself, all right, like what did dad always say? Like you got to putt to the picture in your head. And so he drew a picture in his mind, puts this ball, a good cup out left fucking drains it. I mean, it is truly like a clutch clutch thing. Nance calls it later, like the most like memorable shot of this whole tournament. I mean, he's, you know, he can then go to 18 t and not have to like think like, Oh my God, retired is all sort of fucking collapsing. And we get we get this, you know, like fist pump of relief, fist pump of like, dear God, like I survived that one. Sergio meanwhile hits a really good shot into 18.

He's got probably 15 feet. So like, maybe, maybe like this is still like a thing. No, just misses it. And Tiger's able to sort of, you know, he stripes it down the fairway. Hits it like a high power draw. Remember another thing in the Sports Illustrated article. It's basically like, all right,

he had trouble drawing the ball like all day. And he was like, you know what? This shot calls for a draw. You're gonna step up and hit a draw. Didn't take the safe, easy route, especially what he did later years where he was just like cutting everything. Hit a high draw right in the middle of fairway,

hits it to 10 feet, easy to putt. Wraps it up when Sergio, ah, misses this one. And so it is when Tiger finally sort of like, we get Sergio a little bit, he's just, he's still doing a little bit of hamming up, but you know what, he's earned it. I mean, guy got taken very class acts tour, like we're, we are smiling in the tent here.

This is, I mean, what a, what a, what a lovable kid. I mean, this guy will never, never, ever like, uh, go astray. He'll never, you know, just completely help blow up, uh, to entire tours and, uh, and say, you know, very, can't wait to be done with this tour. Yeah, exactly. Uh, and so when we get Tiger, finally to, uh, comes off, he makes the putt, he hugs his mom super brief, uh, when he started, closes us out and then then he goes in and Butchi gets the biggest hug. I mean, just like full barrier head and Butchi's neck. Of course, Sergio has come back at this point out to 18th green and oh my goodness, look at this. Look at these two guys. Like you just look at the El Nino in the back of Sergio's

hat too. I mean, these, these two guys should have dinner and I mean serve whatever season, you know, don't, don't, don't be married to any cultural menu items. It just, it's weird to think of tiger as the villain because you know, he, but he sort of was captivated by Sergio. Uh, and people were just, you know, he, tiger city felt like the crowd was very much rooting against him all day. Uh, they were saying some things that they shouldn't have said. And I would have showed some emotion after that last putt, but they would have gotten on me pretty good. He said, I'm happy that I kicked the door down in my second major, but this is different situation. The first one had more of a social

impact and this time I'm just glad to hang on and get it done. Fun kind of like tidbits here and there. Tiger had actually, this you know, he had re kind of vamped his swing, which had cost him about 10 yards sort of per club, but he felt like he was a lot more efficient. Wasn't getting the club over the line. This is really when the changes had finally sort of feel like they clicked. Feel like it works out pretty well for him here in the future. While we're talking about inflection points in history, Solly, Bob Estes, there was a big deal

about whether he was going to make the Ryder Cup. All he needed was a fifth place tie to get the 10th and final qualifying spot for the Ryder Cup team. And he bogeyed 16 and 17. And then Jeff Maggert made the team instead. Jeff went two and two at Brookline. Did lose his singles match, but he and Hal Sutton went two and two at Brookline. Did lose his singles match,

but he and Hal Sutton went two and one in partner play, which sort of set the stage for the Sunday comeback. That's what I got on 99. Super fun to go back and watch just to kind of see Tiger sweat a little bit. You know, that adage that we always say like, oh, Tiger made every putt that I've ever had. No, definitely not.

Go watch him make a mess of 13 when he makes double when leading by four after getting stared down. I think what is so kind of cool about that moment is it was like Tiger seemed like he was impossible to intimidate him. It was impossible just to rattle him. And here's this 19-year-old punk kid just absolutely throats this, you know, two on 13 from 220 and then walks back pointing at him and then tiger makes double from there. Yeah.

Like, whoa, like our guys rattled. But of course, Tiger would then go on to a spoiler, uh, when the next three majors in a row after the masters, he doesn't win the master. That's right. Yep. Very, very, he would win four of the five. Or the next five. Yeah. All right, Kev, that's gonna wrap the 90s. I'm gonna give you just a couple trivia questions. We

covered almost all the years from within this, but just a few trivia questions. There's nine players that won multiple majors in the 90s. How many can you name? We just dove deep into all of these. How many can you name? Nine players. Wow. Okay. Tiger Woods, Jose Maria Olathabel, Nick Faldo, Ernie Els. Oh God. I want to say Norman, but I feel like one of his opens was in the 80s. That's correct. Do not. Not Davis Love, not Phil didn't win anything. Nick Price. Nick Price. How much we up to? Five? You've gotten five. There are, so you have six. You got Faldo Price,

Jose Maria, Ells and Tiger. Payne Stewart. Payne Stewart. That's correct. You're 91 and 99. And then Lee Jansen. That is correct. Oh, going more? Sorry, you need two more. Two more? Yeah, you've gotten seven. Oh, fuck.

OK, Marco Mira. Got it. Oh my god. You can do it. OK, let me think. Let me think. Seven. This is a harder one, but.

He was and didn't win a second major. Jesus, let's seven. This is a harder one, but. He and Whism didn't win a second major. Jesus, let's see. Somebody in their car is like shouting, pounding the cash board. No, I mean, it's kind of hard, but. How sudden, they're winning a second major. Jack's last was in 86. Watson's last would have been in the eighties. Fuck. Oh, Ben Crenshaw. No, that's not correct. One of us was eighties. One was nineties. Damn it. This guy won a PGA and

an open 91 PGA 95 open. 95 open. John Daly, John Daly. Yes, John Daly. She on daily. Wow. All right. One player won four majors in the 90s. Who was it? Four majors nice that have to be Valdo. That's correct.

OK, we didn't. We never did 1990, but he won the 90 Masters and open 92 open and 96 Masters. One player won three majors in the 90 Masters and open 92 open in 96 Masters One player won three majors in the 90s. Who was it? Oh So underrated uses Jose never won a third else didn't win his third until the 2000s.

Frick. It's not paying Stewart. Cause he only won two. A hint again, 94 we didn't do. Nick Price? Nick Price. Wow. 92 PGA, 94 open, 94 PGA. So that's fair to not get off top of your head.

We gotta go back and do 94. I know, I know. I said this was the end of the nineties, but we'll probably go back and do them. But we're probably gonna keep going with 2000s first. Yeah, I think so. But this is a long one, Kev, but thank you as always. Thanks to everyone tuning in.

If you like this content, there's many, many more years of these that we've done. We need to get those organized all in one place. But we appreciate everyone tuning in. We'll see you back here next time. Cheers. For Fandl must be 21 and older and president in select states.

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