No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 115: Abu Dhabi Wrap Up

Episode Date: January 22, 2018

**Unreal week at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship presented by EGA. It was our first time in the Middle East, and we had no idea what to expect when it came to covering golf in... The post NLU Podcast, Episode 115: Abu Dhabi Wrap Up appeared first on No Laying Up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. I'm just gonna say it full disclosure. We've been drinking. A little bit. We've been drinking. Do we want to say that here? There's a safe place. We can do whatever we want.

For our hotel room. We are about to get on a 2.30 AM flight here from Abu Dhabi to JFK. But before we left, we wanted a debrief on our pretty, I think it's pretty safe to call it a pretty special week here in Abu Dhabi. There was. I don't think we came out of the expectations. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I think I remember like an interview or something Rory did back in the day when he

said something like, yeah, and you know, obviously there's a lot of expats in Dubai. I remember thinking like, maybe that's obvious. I didn't know that until he said that. Like I had no idea what the Middle East was like. What any of this place was like. Why golf came here? Why it was so important here? I think I understand it a lot better now. It's kind of the situation where we're a little bit of ignorant Americans. A little bit. We try to stay away from that connotation. It is, but as much as possible, but I think in this instance, we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. It's so far away from the US, and it's much more commonplace for Europeans.

I mean, we met people from legitimately probably 35 to 40 countries this week, but the majority were from somewhere in Europe or had some kind of tie to Europe. But as far as away from, you know, Australia, and Bobway, South Africa, Mexico, Canada, like, yeah, people from Asia, all over the place. It was, it's a, like, the US calls itself the melting pot, but... Abu Dhabi is, Abu Dhabi Dubai. So we haven't been to Dubai. We've heard a lot of things about Dubai, and we've learned a lot. I'll be honest, I didn't know as of like three, four years ago, before we started kind of covering some of these events that Abu Dhabi and Dubai were different places.

I legitimately didn't know that. Can we say it the right way though? Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi. Like all of it, there's so many breads here, there's so many. Like every European voiceover comes from Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi. So we, the full disclosure, we were invited to come out by the tournament and, but a lot of things kind of went into consideration before we came. I mean, it's a long, long trip to make. We've been invited out by other tournaments, just while we're, correct, and set down. We're trying to be discerning to those. Right. Not to, like, we're not trying to tutor our own horn. It's just we want to bring unique experiences and unique personalities and relevant fields as well. Yeah opposite the career builder made it a pretty easy decision like if this was opposite Torrey pines and tiger like it'd be pretty hard to say to like you know kind of ignore the pga tour for a week but

I guess I'd never been to this part of the world and there's a reason that a ton of players come play this one of those reasons is obviously appearance fees like the dirty little seat not even a secret. It's a secret. No pretty upfront about it. Yes. They're not trying to hide it Players get paid to come play this event, but I was everyone I kind of told even there's somewhat in the industry that had been here kind of started saying to me like Oh, you're gonna love it there. You're gonna love it. And I kind of thought I mean like what were the industry that had been here kind of started saying to me like, oh, you're going to love it there. You're going to love it. And I kind of thought, I mean, like, where were you expecting when you before you came? I mean, honestly, the first two or three days, I was kind of still in the limbo. Yeah, I wasn't sold. And then we got off the flight and, you know, we'd heard things that

they were going to, they were going to tax our cameras. Yeah. And like, you know we'd heard things that they were gonna they're gonna tax our cameras. Yeah. And like you know I'd like it just seemed like we were going as ultra exotic place when really after being on the ground here I think the thing that woke me up was kind of the Friday brunch scene. Oh my god. And just just the number of expats here but I don't. I just after I guess we've been here seven days now. It's a I feel really comfortable. Well, we know like to explain it, we didn't know whether or not you could literally drink in this country and we didn't know. Yeah. We left the tournament at 730 on Friday night and it was like any bar scene you could like at the actual tournament. The place was overflowing with this and this wasn't just at the tournament too.

Like people had said, hey make sure you out in the city in Abu Dhabi or if you make it up to Dubai. Go out on Friday midday and just go out and get brunch. Yeah. We're like, all right, whatever. And then we kind of saw it. We're like, oh, okay That's what they were talking about. That's what they mean

You know, so we'll talk a little bit more about Abu Dhabi. Well, I first want to talk about the actual golf tournament So one obviously one of the one of the reasons we wanted to come it is the best field in golf this week Dustin Johnson's here Matt Kucher's here from the US perspective up bright Sorry, Bryson Shambot was also here although that was a bit of an abbreviated. They take they take pride in their USM and British M champs. Right. Here, which I respect. Yeah.

But yeah, Bryson act like a child all week. Or actually, no, he didn't act like a child all week. He acted like a child on the back nine each day. He played well the first nine in the act like a child the rest of the day. That was the intel that we had received. And I witnessed. I did witness him just absolutely chuck a ball at his catty. I feel like he's making strides, but he's not, he's not close yet.

He's getting in his own way a little bit. Tron, Tron just quit his job if you'd heard on one of the more recent podcasts. And this was his kind of first full week covering, covering golf and kind of broke the shackles off of getting in the lab, getting writing the... Getting the mix. I kind of had to convince DJ, you know, hey man, let me get out there. Let me go.

Yeah, yeah. We couldn't convince DJ to come. DJ missed, I'm just gonna say it, sorry, DJ missed out. It actually worked out great. So we shot a bunch of stuff for the first five days, sent all that back home to DJ to edit. So shout out to DJ for the awesome editing and the video work that we did this week.

But your first European tour event, did it feel starkly different from covering a PGA tour event? At first, no, I mean, everything was kind of similar. And I was trying to, one of the things I said to DJ was I was trying to get out of my comfort zone and get totally break the spell of my day job and just dive headfirst into the learning of stuff. I think that's mission accomplished because it was golf, golf, golf, golf, golf.

It didn't feel hourly different at first until we felt, until I heard the music on the range. He lost the first thing. It was so. So there is actual audible music on the driving range with speakers towards the players while they hit on the range. And for the most part it was pretty good music. I think the first day it was like,

I don't know, kind of elevator 80s pop music, but like there was, I think there was a DJ spinning one day on it and then it's a Vanessa Carlton going like they'd some it's Just some kind of catchy hits. Yeah, they had some heat But it but it totally altered the whole I know it's a season of opening event and everything is very You know a little bit more like everybody's in a good mood, everybody's happy to be out here and had kind of a little bit time decompressed from the prior season. Right.

Ready to get back cracking at it. But on the same token, it definitely just set the vibe for the whole range and everybody was just in a good mood. It was a positive atmosphere. It did. I think their actual theme for the photo shoot that we saw on Tuesday was back to school theme. Like they took your book photos

and that was kind of like a, their theme or whatever for that. But it was kind of like a reunion of people and just kind of got to see the camaraderie between the guy. And I know everyone talks about guys in the European tour are just closer than they are on the PGA tour, but we did kind of get a glimpse into that and getting to spend a little bit of time out

on the course watching the guys I wouldn't usually get to see with crowds down. There were some big crowds on Friday, especially, and some on Saturday, but- Even today, I mean, I was, yeah. I mean, you get into some remote parts of the course. There's only a few people around, and you just over here, the conversations the guys have,

and just the banter back and forth, and that comes with, I don't know, the whole general attitude out on this tour was kind of, is your first European tour event? Yeah, it was, I don't know, they were glad to have you out there and they were glad that you were, it was more about the golf than it was the insolery elements in the tournament, which was refreshing. But on top of that, you and I kind of wandered around a little bit

without it being shoved down your throat. We just kind of walked down to the village by the rain. We were here since Monday, midday. We didn't make it to the village until Saturday afternoon. Nobody told us to go there. We did Topgolf thing, we did Rugby. Tim Henman was out there. Yeah, we did a long drive contest. We did yeah, the the top golf crush thing which is some shaky scoring going on on that but whatever. All right, before we rave too much more

of the judgment doubled up. I think I had 540 versus 770. Yeah, I was saving it and the scoring got all messed up. But anyways, let's talk about Tommy Fleetwood a couple hours ago. Just shot a back 930 in the wind to defend his title at the Abu Dhabi champion HSBC championship presented by EGA. Illuminum. Illuminum. Illuminum tubes.

Emmered's global aluminum. Is that what it was? Yeah. Can we can we talk about that back 930? Yeah. I was a little bit. I was actually in the media center in the front line. I kind of went out to the range. When guys were warming up and then Sally went on the course after we watched, you know, the

last few groups tee off. I was like, all right, go have at it. I'm going to go watch because it was such a tightly bunched leaderboard. It was hard to guess what was going to be the group to follow. Yeah, you had five or six guys within three or four shots of lead. And the win was blowing this morning too. So that was kind of something that we hadn't seen the first. It was a birdie fest for the first three days.

It was pretty, pretty easy. It's not a short golf course by any stretch. And the greens were pretty frothy. But 76 hundred yards. Yeah. But, but, but just, you know know there's not a whole lot of elevation change and kind of it's in front of you and then when the wind starts blowing, especially from the direction it blew from today, it's not necessarily dead into you or it's always hurting or helping a little bit off of one side.

So it has a lot more complexity to it. But yeah, Sally went out and followed. Who'd you follow the first nine? So Rory and Fitz, Rory was one back. Fitz was two back going into it. And I got to see some of each of those guys the first few rounds. And I was, you know, some of each of this. Well, Rory and DJ were paired together and we got to see.

And so Rory, DJ Fleet would play the first together and we got to see, and so Roy, DJ Fleetwood played the first few rounds and got to follow that. And Fleetwood definitely hits it shorter than both of those guys, but DJ Roy are right next to each other and driving distance and just kind of watching the lines they took, the lines Fleetwood took were not like, consequentially different, but you know Fleetwood. Except for 14. Yeah, and Fleetwood just is 20 yards further back. But for the most part can kind of play a similar game.

I picked up fits after he went out in 29 on Saturday and kind of watch and play that back nine. And he hit 29. Erie, he shot 29 and hit two fairways. Correct. And we watched him warm up and he was he's searching on the range. Yeah, I felt like it was going to be a bloodbath. Yeah. And he went out in 29.

The lowest front nine score in the history of this course or tournament. Can we talk about the No-Langout podcast bump? It's real. It is real. It's the fact, the evidence is, it's a factual thing. And then watch him on a couple holes on the back and watch him like take three wood

on a couple of dog leg holes that Rory DJ legitimately hit wedge into. Yeah, they have licensed to just fly over the bunker without regard. And he's hitting probably four iron into. And I was the stark difference that comes from like a, you know, the different styles of play and seeing how much hitting the ball, how much it opens up some holes that, you know, some guys just absolutely get punished by. And we talked to Richie Ramsay a lot.

I talked to a lot of guys just about strategy around this course. And it's like, all right, this thing set up for Bombers. I mean, let's just call it like it is. I mean, well, that's the, I think Andy Johnson from Friday is always talking about kind of how dog legs are almost misused in the modern game, where it's, it's kind of a speed bomb or a separator between guys who are, you know, bombers and guys who are more tacticians and precision guys. And this was like the 14th hole out there today was evident of, you know, like there shouldn't be, it should be, all right, if you feel

comfortable taking it down the left side and getting the correct angle versus hitting a little bit longer and taking down the right side versus like there was no, none of that decision making is inherent in that. It was either, it was either, I have to deal with this bunker and I have to deal with a dog leg or the dog leg is totally irrelevant and I'm flying it completely over and I'm going to have a wedge in my hand versus a five iron. Right. We saw a lot of, I don't know, just, I don't wanna,

I'm of butcheries the right word, but just kinda like, like some of the stuff these guys were doing, just, all right, that's not golf strategy. I was a little bit shocked too. Like, I played the pro-am, shout out to Sally for cattying for me. I'm out of hero.

But that was relatively insightful for me because it was, I don't know, I had trouble with the rough. I mean, it was kind of sticky, fescue-ish, like, over-seed, uh, ride type rough. And like these guys were saying, this is like half the rough that they've had in previous years. Where you don't really describe rough to a, to a very dry desert course, but, you know, they said, with, it was tougher this year than a nearest past just because they've they've stretched it out a little bit and the

greens were a little bit faster, but the rough was like half what it was in previous year. It's safe to say that Sir Geogarcy is first tournament as a Callaway staff member at the Singapore Open went pretty well. He won the event going away by five shots and here's what he had to say about Callaway after the round. He said, I love it. I love the golf ball. The golf ball is amazing. The woods are incredible and the irons are great. The wedges are very nice and the putter. They just made me a new one, the Azalea, which is really nice. Obviously, I'm really pleased with everything right now and I still feel like I can get better. Visit CallawayGolf.com slash jailbreak to check out the new Rogue lineup including the

Fairway Woods which now featured jailbreak technology from Calaway, Calaway the number one driver and Fairway Wood and Golf. Sergio had the Rogue driver, the Rogue 3N5 wood and the Apex NB irons, Mac Daddy 4 wedges and the two lawn design Azalea put four wedges and the two long designed a Zalia putter in the chrome soft ex golf ball safe to say sir Joe's feeling good with the new gear and off to a hot start this year now back to the podcast. What happened with fleet would again he won here last year and has since in the in the last year gotten married and had a kid.

He had a kid like what the how does this kid four months old? Four months. Came back here and had to deal with just the everything that comes with defending a title, all of the media attention, all of the obligations and all the distractions. And I think assuming the tournament kind of sets you up with more family rooms

and stuff like that, I mean, he had a big answer. I was talking to his dad, his dad had come last year as well. So like they've come here prior, because it's just a comfortable place for them to come. But talking to him about, I don't know, just like he won the player of the year trophy for last year's season, but they presented that this week. And not only that, I think just,

it's a little bit different when you're defending in your early, relatively established in your career. What was he at the end of or at the beginning of last season? Somebody said it, but probably before this event last year, again, the D1, he was like 188th in the world. I think that's a right now. He's 12. Yeah. Like that is just a state. And it hasn't been any like fluky wins eithery wins either No, no, no, no, so yeah, we I want to talk with weight like European rankings right or cup all that stuff But like would just just specific to Fleetwood. He's very um I Think with his Like it's just been this steadily upward trajectory

Like WC Mexico last year US US Open, this tournament last year. For him to come back, be defending, win player of the year trophy, have all that go on in his personal life, and then follow up kind of the first really exceptional season of his career, and then just come right back out and get back to it and just pick up right way left off. Like to me that's he validated everything that he did last year and I don't know he just like just talking to him and being around him and seeing how he interacted with the fans like the manner in which he did all that and the grace and the, I don't know, I think he's,

I'm as big a fan as. Right, so let's separate out how, just how cool he is on one side and talk about just him as a player. So I hate to come back to like, Noren is being my punching bag, but people kind of generalize what I say about European golfers and to think that I hate all of them.

And it's like, all right, if you can't see the difference between Norton and Fleetwood. And I know Norton's had an incredible run, but you know, his rise to like top 10 in the world, there's, you shouldn't be looking at Norton and being like, yeah, that's a top 10 player in the world. Now, let me get through it. All those guys are going to be upset with you. Let me get through it. Let me get through it. If you don't look at Fleetwood and see a top 10 player,

like, you're just wrong. If you can't see the difference between those two players and separate out the criticisms I've had about rankings and stuff like that, then I can't help you. Because he's done it everywhere. Exactly. So Fleetwood is an absolute star. Like, there's no debating that.

I feel the same way about Fleetwood that I do about Leishman. Yeah, that totally, I can see that. Totally, like just genuinely nice guys that you wanna cheer for, but on the course, they're not the longest guys out there. They're long enough. But they, yeah, they drive it straight and they are absolute flusher assassins with their irons.

Yeah, they hit it. And again, like it just going like Fleetwood is going to be an incredible asset to the European writer captain. There's no one on the US side. I know, like this week, I feel like, I don't know, maybe I'm just reading my mentions too much, but like people have lost perspective. It's like people, I don't know. Well, a, but, any European tour guys listening to this, I'd be careful what you're saying around solid because I feel like he's like a mole or something. You can say whatever you want to me, but what am I a mole? I'm, what are you spying for? I feel like you're going

to, you're going to take this stuff, you're going to take this intel back to, Oh, take you to the US team and say, Hey, Jimmy, if you're, this is how they're going to set this show up. It's actually, they did give us some insight that they're going to be making this course pretty narrow. But no, I don't know. I think I think people are overly generalizing the way us fans think about this upcoming rider cup. And again, we'll talk more about rider cup in the future here.

But the you the 2016 European team was a weak team. I said it before the event. I said it after the event. Like it just wasn't a strong team. The 2014 US team was not a strong team. Like on paper, 2006 US team was the show. Oh, I can't be started about that. Like it just this year is going to be an unbelievable,

a good matchup. I think these guys said they said, you know, after last year's matchup, you're talking to some of the assistant captains and talking to some of the players. They said, hey, like, they went up the Davis afterwards and were like, this is like, you're a little bit cheeky and the way you set it up and that you know, the MoLines were way, way wide and, you know, things were, yeah, I don't know how I feel, that I don't see like totally drastic differences enough in style to have that matter that much.

Not into that. Talking to Richie. Richie won the US amateur at Hazeltein. Right. So he knows that course. He met his wife that week. So he has very pleasant memories of, this is Richie Ramsey. Very pleasant memories of Hazel team.

And he said he was like, yeah, the way they set that course up was absolutely, you know, absolutely. Just, you know, favorite bombers. I get it, but I just think like, I don't know. I don't think that the two teams play that different of a style that it's like, oh, well, we're going to set up the team. Yeah, of course, you can't play. Somebody like Matt Fispatrick.

Yeah, but like, I don't know, I look at like DJ, DJ, what, did he win Mexico last year? He did, right? I think so. He's like him and Fleetwood do a little bit. Yeah. And like, JT is one like on Y-Lie and like speed is a, I get it. It's not like it.

It's not like these bomber guys can't play like tighter narrow courses or courses. No, I get that the bomber guys can't play tighter than narrow courses, but like they can go that way. Mm-hmm. But it's when you make the other guys go the other way. Sure, that it doesn't fit. You take the skill and the precision out of it

and it's just a test of brute strength. Yeah, I can see that. I'm not saying that DJ and Cap can those guys don't have skill. I don't know if they're not regarded at all, but it just, it makes the precision a little less important. The point is, the US team was a strong team in 16

and they're adding to it. Like there's no doubt like JT was not on that team like burger again is not I don't I don't put and maybe I might have said this in the past actually I don't think burgers a better player than Fleetwood I might have actually said that in the past but I didn't mean it if I did. But the European team is obviously going to be stronger with ROM Casey and Fleetwood like there's no debating that, but it wasn't close. Let's go around with my overall point. I mean, there were a few guys too this week that I really watched a lot of Peters. He was a little bit disappointing today. Yeah, tough Sunday, but yeah.

Tough Sunday hits the ball pretty high too, as windy. But like, Terrell Hatten be, he'll be solid. Yeah. Watching, watching Alexander Levy. I hope he makes the team. That'd be awesome. They need a French guy. All the European, you know, all the European journalists were like, yeah,

this guy is totally mad. Like he's, he's just insane. I'm like, seeing him in person, like he swings just out of his shoes at every shot like they described him as the European Patrick Reed. Yes, which was I think that made it out We need that especially in France at this at this course like we had dinner last night with Eddie Peperol And he was like like seriously this is gonna be are you guys going to the Ryder Cup? We're like yeah, almost positive. We're going to the Ryder Cup. And he was like, good, this is going to be like, he's like, I'm, I might attend as a fan because it's going to be that good. Yeah. Like the settings, like the 18th

hole, I hope every match goes to the 18th hole, it's going to be just absolutely lit. But no, people are like, all right, so maybe there's a troll question. It was like, are you guys are you changing your Ryder cup projections now that you've actually seen European talent up front? It's like, no, I was on TV. I was on TV, Europe. Well, yeah, it's pretty sick. You were rooting for Europe.

Yeah, but I just think that's more interesting. It's not like the mastery of guys. This is a, not the first time, like I've been to a European tour event or that we've watched European tour golf. Come on. I probably watched more European tour. Like that was part of the reason we came to this event. Yeah. Big Randy and I would would basically sit there on Saturday and Sunday mornings and and this would come on at 7 or 8am.

And then Neil would watch her back in San Francisco when he got home from the bars. And you know, and like, the weather's good and the weather's miserable back home. Right. And it's like, man, this is sweet. And there's a big Falcon club house. Oh, the Falcon Club house. That was pretty much 90% of the reason why we came.

It was to see the Falcon. Like, like, whoever, big Randy, big Randy made this comment this week. Like, I want to meet the guy that walked into that meeting and said like guys, all right, bear with me here. We're gonna make a big clubhouse and it's gonna be a giant falcon. Not only is it gonna be a child falcon,

like you can get up in the head of the falcon. There's gonna be a little meeting room in the head of the falcon. And so I've been to a couple of events. I went to like Malaysia and South Korea and those events to me felt smaller than a normal PGA Tor event that I went, I've been to. And it was directly back from course to hotel, right?

Yeah, pretty much. But I expected this week to feel like that event. I expected to feel like in Malaysia where I was like, who, I didn't know, who attends an event in Abu Dhabi is it locals is it expats I didn't know Abu Dhabi was 90% expats which we discovered this week but this event felt way more like a big PGA tour event than it did like a small PGA tour event. Yeah. Like this felt I would put it on par with like colonial. Or, I don't know, probably, memorials probably a little bit, it's probably between colonial

and memorial. Like two events that are mainstays on the tour that are, you know, exceptional events. But you know, kind of, I mean, a a there's no income tax here So I got a fat now five percent fat people are up in Orange. Yeah, it's not a genuine one But yeah, I mean like in the in the program Play with a guy from the video. Dabi sports council branding grace and then God that runs the like all the Mercedes dealerships in the UAE, he was basically just saying, he's like, he's like, he's a German guy,

lived in Mexico for a while, lived in Spain for a little bit, and he's like, this is my favorite place I've ever lived. It's just comfortable. It's, I think the way I tried to explain it was like, if there was an international space station on Earth, like this is it, this is like the Truman Show. It is just this bubble that you don't realize that we're bordering Saudi Arabia right now

that we're across the Gulf from like Iran. People are friendly. But it's just like a complete bubble. So I think I've ever been in the more so than Jacksonville or Atlanta where I grew up. Like it's a total bubble. and it's like this weird, I don't know, almost like a mythical place and it's just. The weather is always good.

There's like, it gets really hot in the summer but like it's 75 degrees in sunny every day here in the week been here. So I understand it now as like this. It's like Phoenix. Oh, asus. Yeah, it's like an oasis for a little bit more human than Phoenix. We met a lot of British, we met some like British curls the day we got here that we're just, they come here like every January, like to get out of the weather in England and

that gets seven months. We said we'd been to Dubai the last four years and then we decided to try out Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi I think is a little bit, a little bit more quiet. Um, you know, Dubai, Do your analogy. Do your analogy. Well, so, Dubai doesn't have any oil, so they had to totally diversify. And then over the last four or five years, the price of oil is kind of dipped. And I think Abu Dhabi's kind of head of the curve in that regard, where it almost feels

like Abu Dhabi has fun. They're successful. I would do I be has fun there they're Successful there like somebody you knew in college that was there was That studied hard they went to business school But they still had fun along the way and Dubai seems like the person that you know like Washed out once a Vegas and put it all in black We didn't make it to Dubai. We tried. We wanted to go.

But just the way that everybody kind of talks about it. They're like, you know, some of these guys, like, I mean, Roy loops in Dubai, like, all these guys live in Dubai. They're all that was a cool thing about the event today too. Like all these guys are, you know, it's a, it's an hour drive. Right. It's like, it's like, I'm trying to think it would be like San Francisco and San Jose. Right.

And it's like a, there's a rivalry. Like it's clear that there's a rivalry between the two cities. But, so let's talk about after the round, after, you know, we kind of, we've had an insanely busy week with some 16, 18 hour days and we were kind of like, all right, we covered the golf, like, let's go get our beer. We just went up to the club and I'll scrub the beer and ran into like Fleetwood's caddy up there and Ian, oh, he's the man.

So Neil told us that he sent towels to him and he used them in the rounds and like, this guy is an absolute frame. I mean he's big dude. He's like six, six, seven. This drunk guy bumped into him earlier on like pretty early on in the evening. And I thought he was gonna swing on that.

He's like the nicest guy in the world. Yeah, yeah. And then he was, you know, but like he's totally, and he's like, yeah, like, come have a beer. I'll buy you a beer. I'm like, no, we'll buy you a beer. And he's just, no, he should buy us a beer. He just made a lot of money.

But so yeah, we're having to call beers to the outside. He's like, hey, you want to come upstairs and we go upstairs and like Fleetwood's there partying with his fit. And like not really partying. He's got like a four-month-old and it wasn't getting too wild. But it was cool to just sit up there.

Like the trophy's sitting right there in the middle of the table and I've kind of always wanted to see the scene of how a guy celebrates a win and getting to do that was was pretty special. We're in the head of the Falcon. Correct. And the clubhouse. And then you know Tommy's who were sitting next to Tommy's dad up there who was I think he laid he laid curbs like on like kind of the road works and the construction crews. He laid curbs and I asked him, I was like, you'd golfer. He said, oh, I used to be, I still play.

You know, I still play, but I don't play as much. I'm like, how often do you play? He's like, oh, I only play twice a week now. Twice a week. It's plenty. Yeah, you're a big golfer in the state. Yeah. But he said, you know, he said, basically, he put a club, he waited until Tommy picked

up a club on his own accord. And then I said, all right, it was so then, when did you know that he was a special player? And he said, from the moment he picked up that first club. Really? Yeah. And we talked, we spent some time with his coach, Alan Thompson. Alan Thompson. And he was Tommy's coach from the time he was 13 years old. And just hearing kind of the fascinating story of, you know, he, he coached him up till the time he was professional.

And then kind of told him, I think, you know, he didn't have necessarily confidence in himself. He's like, essentially, he's a small, was a small time coach. I'd be as coached him in England, out in Southport, and thought to be, to take it to the next level, Tommy needed a different coach and kind of told him that he just didn't have the same confidence in what he was teaching him. And their relationship just kind of had reached its peak. It was kind of like he didn't know what he didn't know.

Right. He didn't realize that, so they ended up splitting up for a while Tommy was I don't know who taught Tommy after that And then they ended up and like they tried to change his ball flight Right mentality and everything and he was just totally lost. He just got disoriented and it wasn't it was just Too many thoughts or too many different like he was all messed up on where he was aiming and then he came back to Alan and said, let's get back to working together. And Alan kind of diagnosed, like he, you know, Tommy,

Tommy, like they kind of left on good terms. And he said, he said, hey man, like, you know, you're not long for me and go out and see what else is out there. Sure. Go work with somebody like, budge or something like that. And, you know, and no, like, I don't think he went and worked with Bullock Chunle. Right. Yeah. But, um, but, you know, then he kind of came back and sent him, you know, sent him a short video

of his swing and said, Hey, like, I'm lost, man. Like, you know, and within 10 minutes, he was like, here's what's wrong. Like, right. And it took him, it took him three to six months to really and he was like, here's what's wrong. Like, and it took him, it took him three to six months to really dig out of it and commit to the new thing and everything, but he said, you know, and now is where Tommy, he said tonight, that was where Tommy Fleet would kick in, to where, you know, I told him what was wrong, I told him what I thought,

I told him how to fix it, and then he just went to work. And, you know, from there, I mean, that was, he said that was 18 months ago. And the first three months, they kind of worked on, you know, the, the process of it, next three months was kind of applying in on the course. And then from there, it was like this week last year. Yeah. And from, and from then on, it's like he's been total transformation. And for every, like, success story like that, there's got to be how many guys that just don't ever really either find that or refine it, whatever it is. And to sit

there with a guy that kind of brought him to this level on a night that they're celebrating a win was kind of surreal and kind of to see that just that that peak was was pretty special. What it was cool too, because you could tell that it was a validation of, you know, he didn't, he basically said it himself. He said, I didn't have enough confidence in myself. And I didn't know, I didn't know how rock solid my teaching methods were. Right. It was just this small time guy to range and sure enough, like, you know, here, what I

was teaching was actually world class and it's produced these results. Yes. Can we share what Tommy said to us tonight, which was, you know, so we, you know, here what I was teaching was was actually world class and it's produced these results. Can we share what Tommy said to us tonight, which was you know, so we we talked to Tommy at the players That part of the audio actually ended up going on Kyle Porter's podcast over on CBS So he's never technically been on our podcast But we're like, you know, we really should have you on he's he was familiar with it He's like, yeah, if we get enough, you know, if we get enough requests, I'll come on. Feedback. This is the official request for you guys to flood Tommy's Twitter

or whatever way you, if you want Tommy to come on the broadcast, just hit him with a million mentions and he'll do it. So all right. So we said earlier, like I want to separate out Tommy, the player from the person and don't want to get too clouded by he's kind of a contagious personality. So we said earlier, I want to separate out Tommy the player from the person and don't want to get too clouded by He's kind of a contagious personality and like you were saying he looks even like every fan that asks him something or says something to me Looks, I'm not he ignores absolutely everybody and like comes over and smiles takes a picture with you and he's and the amount of attention

He's getting is increasing every single week and every single time I've seen him in any kind of scenario, every request you ever have of him, he does it with a smile. That's not a normal thing. Hearing some of the other caddies talk about playing with them and the Open Championship last year, the Open Championship last year, basically his home event, it wasn't his home course growing up, but his home event and all these guys said, if I have to hear, oh, that a boy, Tommy Lads, one more time, like they were gonna lose it. And then we heard that, I mean,

the crowds were so friendly today and it's not like he was going against some adversarial. It was, you know, it was Rory and Ross Fischer and Thomas Peters and Matthew's Patrick, like very Western European or and or British or British. There was no necessarily reason to favor Tommy over those guys. And then, you know, but like every time he just,

he's got these like steely blue eyes and he just looks at everybody in the eye and then just talking to it, you know, and talking there and having drinks with his bodies afterwards and it was like, you know, like Tommy's the same guy. He was, he was five years ago. He was 18 months ago and he was at the depths of his career. He was 20 years ago.

Easy to root for. And I encourage people to root for him in that regard. Can we talk about Matt Fitzpatrick? We can. That guy. So I'm not going to lie, going before we start interviewing him, before we went to interview him. Hold on.

Can we just go back to Tommy's shot on 16? OK, yeah, we got to talk about that. Yeah. So people were giving me shit on there. Like I tried to I saw something my tweet like TV can't do justice for how sick this shot was into the win And it was kind of hazy yeah a little bit. There's like a little bit dusty today The point I was trying to make was like yeah, you can see on TV that it shots into the win or something like that But like you and I play golf were sitting there in the fairway right kind of next to him

And like that shot just didn't feel possible. Like into and off the right. I struggle into the sun. First of all, because you just can't really see your target. It was uphill. It was into the wind and it was hazey as hell. And he just flushed it and he had no idea like he knew he hit it well, but he had no idea kind of You know where it was headed in in his caddy was like He was like, yeah So we hit it he didn't know where it's good is that good and he's like, uh, yeah It's he and picked up the bag and was walking before it even apex and it made like a 25 footer for birdie on the previous hole Yeah, and the run was and it was just, it was blowing pretty

effort. Like he was three or four, he was four shots down, like at one point, late in the front nine today too. And that's what, when I watch golf on TV, when the wind is blowing, I don't know, to me, it still doesn't seem that difficult for these guys, but when you actually like, are there and feel the wind and stuff, it was more, it was a or one day to it was not insignificant by any means especially when you juxtapose it with the rest of the week yeah when it's totally totally but not nothing yeah and then he just hooded a three wouldn't come into 18 and messed it all up but got up and down for a really clutch birthday I mean 17 he piped the drive like just pure to hit one to probably 15 feet.

That was sick, because it was a left to right wind, and he hit it like a little draw against the wind. And you could start to see it draw, and then the wind took it once it's been kind of came off, and took it back towards the flag. But it was very, like, they were pretty firm. So you had to, you had a clip one in order to get to stop within five feet or so. But it was just a guy totally in control of his ball. He had a great drive down 18 hit a bad approach, but chipped up to 12 feet or so on 18

drain the putty and just let it out. Yeah, but I mean, it was such a clutch putt. And I'm I'm pumped for a man. I'm excited to watch him. I think he's going to play a lot more in the states. It's like he picked up right where he left off. There's been no. There hasn't been any adjustment period

to where he's basically felt like, oh shit, I'm an elite player now. Right. And it's like he felt confident all the way along and he's just, he's just crying the wave. Right. Before we get into fits, should we talk about the McRib, the artist formerly known as the McRib?

Yeah, the pacemaker. We're retiring the McRib, the artist formerly known as the McRib. Yeah, the pacemaker. We're retiring the McRib nickname, and we suggested a few to the big Aorta, the notorious EKG. And he wanted to go with the pacemaker. So the pacemaker is back. Just doesn't have the same ring as the McRib is back. That was the only thing. I feel like the pacemaker's always been here.

Okay. But he's back. We can say that. Yeah. No, I think this has been a very, I mean, really, he played three. I don't want to say flawless rounds. The front nine on Thursday was just kind of just didn't make mistakes. Just getting the, just kind of getting things primed a little bit. And then got consistently better each of the first three days.

And then he was actually playing pretty well through about 11 or 12 holes today and then kind of sputtered. A little bit. And then, you know, but I think overall it's a, you know, this is his first time playing in three and a half, four months. And he's playing next week and then my biggest takeaway is he's playing, he said he's playing 25 events. The rider couple beat his 25th event of the year. And then the way that he was talking, he said, hey, I'll probably play another four or five after the rider cut. Right. No, it's, he's super, I don't know, he's amped up in kind of the way. Your takeaway, I guess, from the press conference was, this is Roy 2.0. Like he's spent 10 years on tour,. He needed a break just for health reasons.

It took the last few months off and he's re-energized. This is my next 10 years, it's kind of my second phase of my career. So it was like he's transitioning into being a veteran. Yeah, pretty much. There was a ton of encouraging signs. I got to see a lot of Rory this week and it felt like I feel like when Rory gets hot, he either is hitting it to 15 feet on every hole and running in a bunch of 15 footers

or he's stuffing it and making it on a birdies. I felt like this week was neither. It was hitting a ton of shots to 15 feet and it didn't feel like he made anything. And I don't know how his putting numbers would fall out, but he had a lot of wedges in and he was not hitting a lot of them close. He was not far off, but it just was like every single wedge he would hit in. And I'm like, I wanted more. Like I was kept waiting for him to like start firing at it. And he just was just, but also he wasn't.

I feel like with the wedges, he's he's got to have been on or off. He was, and it was almost encouraging that he wasn't like middle game. He wasn't either. He was he was you know, he was hitting him to mid range, 15, 20 feet. Right. So he's going to have, I don't know, I thought the whole week was encouraging from the perspective, it was like I didn't feel like I watched him play great golf at any point. He drove it great. He drove it quite well. Yeah, he drove it really well. But it wasn't, I don't know, I just never felt like he was not in tight

and missing a bunch of short puts, and but I think it was, but he wasn't dialed in from 12 to 15 feet. His irons weren't totally dialed in, and his putter wasn't dialed in from 12 to 15 feet. Nothing that it's concerned. I mean, the fact that he shot as low as he did was very encouraging in my mind.

It felt way closer than at any point in 17. Yeah, well, it just felt like he was at ease with everything. Yeah. And it felt like, I don't know, I was impressed with, I'll be honest, I was kind of after 17, it was a transition year and equipment-wise, and just everything. And I felt like with Harry, it was kind of like,

Harry was like a temporary stopgap. And I felt like this year, I don't know, Harry was, he seemed like he was a part of the team. I was impressed with Harry just not knowing a whole lot about him growing, you know, going in and seemed like he was just his regular loop and they had a very, you know, it was a very seamless camaraderie. So it is like, and you know,

very sad in the past like he's way more, gonna be more plugged into his own yardage book He's gonna take more responsibility for yardages club decisions, etc But it does seem like I mean here at Harry's like I don't want to say learning on the job But it doesn't seem like he's new on the bag No, it's like it seemed like you learned on the job last year. Yeah kind of acquitted himself well And now he's he's kind of earned his keep his keep and I mean the number of times he called Harry and to kind of confirm what his read was on a pugg's was actually I was like whoa like he's

you know like Harry's Harry's here is a real deal yeah no so I thought really good opening week for the McRibb sorry the pacemaker and I'm just really encouraged by how much we're going to see him this year and how much he's gonna play in the US. And yeah, I don't know, just kind of with Tiger coming back this coming week and Rory being healthy now in all of this, like JT coming up the years. I think the Mary Glider has helped Rory too. Just getting that sense of stability. It's given him some balance and some foundation. I mean, shit, the whole nutritionist thing. Yeah, he was talking about his omega three's and omega sixes. I was like, Roy, you're starting to sound like tiger a little bit.

You know, all right. So Matt fits going into us interviewing this week. I'm not going to lie. I thought I didn't know a whole lot and didn't know a ton about him. Obviously news, US amateur champ. I spent a short amount of time in Northwestern, but just very, very short. Very short.

I kind of thought he'd be boring. I'm not going to lie. I didn't. I wasn't sure what to do. I knew there was enough there. Rainian, I've kind of followed him. Hey, just because he was kind of met up with him at Heltonhead, like three or four years ago,

when he was still in him. But didn't really know much about his personality. He just knew about his game. Like three or four years ago when he was still an am and but Didn't really know much about his personality just knew about his game and then for him to I feel like he's kind of bringing and this isn't meant to be derogatory towards his game at all But like kind of bringing a BB gun to a gun fight And like that BB guns getting more and more and more powerful as he as he And like that VV gun's getting more and more and more powerful as he as he fine tunes the swing as he gets in the weight room and everything like that but I think it's just a testament to the guy knows how to play golf. He's not he's not

you know and he's utilized the track man which he talked about a lot on the podcast but he's he's basically kind of bootstrapping himself up to a world-class level from a guy that that managed the golf course, drove it in the fairway and just putt it lights out. I was just impressed too with how willing he was to speak out about his disappointment on his playing time with the writer cup and just he's a well-spoken guy but not afraid to say some thing. He's hungry. Yeah. No, there's a lot of kind of passion behind what he does. And it seems to be a guy that works really hard.

I know you were talking to his manager just about how his golf swing is high maintenance, and that he works a lot at it. It's so much based on timing. But I was not expecting him to be the kind of guy to joke around during the middle of a round, during the final round of a Sunday, like he hit this just trash driver off five into the wind and just kind of like turned and smirked to me like yeah, that was for you. Like, he would just come up,

I don't know, I kind of try to stay in the shadows and like middle of the round on Saturday just came up and like fist bump. Yeah, dude, what's up? Yeah. Some guys just like get totally locked in which is to be more of what I would expect. Like not yeah. Like talk to people during the middle of a round but didn't expect him to just be like that cool and kind of entertaining in front. So he walked after he walked off and again I tweeted about these stories but like after he walked off and shot 29 on Saturday

like looked over. Two fairly. Yeah. He's like, I should come on the podcast more often. Like he knew like I was going to say something about the podcast, but so today his catty, he's walking between nine and 10 and I'm saying I'm 10 to I kind of just gotten out there. I was in the media center prior and he, he's just ripping a cigarette. Just like taking the longest drags I've ever seen, he's just walking up and I'm like, good

one, huh? And he's like, oh, this is the best part of my day, man. And I felt like, like Neil, Neil and Randy would have been like, this guy is speaking to my soul right now. And he's like, he's like, yeah, man, it's the only long walk on the course. Otherwise, I don't have a chance to just kind of be to myself and smoke a sick and just kind of decompress before the back nine. And then everybody walks up and the hubbub kind of commences. But he was like, this is just my little 30 seconds of the day. What did you think of playing the pro and with Brandon Grace? Brandon was fantastic. It was a ball striking fiesta all day, not on my end,

not on his end. You hit it pretty good. I was shocked just at how he doesn't carry a three iron, he doesn't carry a four iron, doesn't care if a four iron, he carries like utility irons. And for somebody who hits this long irons and mid irons as well as he does just trap some and compresses him. That was a little bit surprising. But yeah, just I mean, he's I'm a little bit, I don't

want to say concerned, but a little bit taken aback that he hasn't won more and done more on the world stage because he's just, he's so, he's so rock solid and well rounded with every element of his game. And then Zach, his caddy was, that was kind of, that was the big takeaway for me from the day was how cool Zach was and how willing to interact and just how good of a story he had too. He's just a genuine authentic guy. And they were talking Afrikaans each other all day, which was fascinating as well.

It's funny. I've never really cattyed before. So catting for you alone, and I was not even, I was more focusing on like filming you than I was catding for you alone and I was not even, I was more focusing on like filming you than I was cadding for you, but like I didn't, just being so, in my head I thought, like I could caddy for a tour guy, like I could do this. The more I'm out there, the more I realize that I absolutely couldn't. Like he's, he just got, he's, has the rogue driver in play and I'm asking a ton of questions about it. I haven't even hit it yet. And he's messing around a lot with it in between holes and he hits this drive off one of

the holes and he had it set to like 11 and a half or something because I think he was told he was like yeah shout out to the phones. He was he was tinkering with it. Yeah. He was he was changing. Hit this drive settings. Just to me looked absolutely murdered and And he's like, before that even A-pack, he's like, oh, no, no, no. And he goes right back to the screw, unscrews it,

and D-lofs it, hits another ball. And to me, look the exact same. And he's like, oh, that's more like it. Maybe was five feet lower. But that was to me, was like, oh, my God, like, this is, I'm always known this is a different sport, but I didn't know how different of a sport this was until we saw that all right Let's wrap it with a few other little nuggets from the week. We got a we got a flight We got to catch your I still need a pack here. What time is it? It's 10 30 p.m I'm gonna flight in for you check check the jacks game. It's true Check the Jags game. See if it's true. I'm going to read the airport. I'm not sure how we're going to do this.

Dove all. What else? What other, like, any guys you saw this week or kind of younger guys that you hadn't got a chance to see or anything, you kind of, anything else stuck out of you? Well, maybe mispronouncing it, but Thomas. Deatree. Deatree.

So it's something we learn too is everyone in the European door has some kind of accent to us, has some kind of accent to us has some kind of accent. So I listened to your podcast. Like, and that was part of the treat for me this week was just rubbing shoulders with the Sky Sports guys and then, you know, the guys that write for the Times London, the Sunday Times, David Cannon, David Cannon, oh my gosh times, God, and David Cannon. Oh my gosh. We need to have David Cannon.

Yeah, I'm talking to David Cannon on a couple of different bus rides to and from the course. You know, just, I mean, the guy's been photographing golf for 40, 45 years. He's been to what, 120, 130 straight majors. The statistics behind like his career are just fascinating. And he was telling me a story about, I don't know if you've ever seen the 30 for 30 on Hillsboro.

Oh. And he's going, so he has to, there's a court date set. Explain what Hillsboro is for people. So Hillsboro is just kind of English, soccer, disaster. The 1989, I think it was that 96 people died at this long story short. Like there was a there's a 30 for 30 on it. And there was kind of a police mishap. They ended up like open literally opening the floodgates to like let way too many people

into it. And people got smashed. And you keep spectators and like these pens to keep them from fighting with one another. And they got smashed up. And that was not a takeaway from Richie's Scottish, Eddie's English. I just talked to them about the consensus. You always lump Brits in together. Right. But it's like, no, the English like to fight.

That's what Richie said. Yeah, no, but that's yeah, just in general. Like I think that's you know, because some of the year-olds were guys were saying that as well. White be year-olds were social media guys. They're like, yeah, like I'm probably English, but I like and I don't really like to fight, but I know I know my countrymen like to drink and fight.

But anyways, David Canaan was I photographer at this match that, you know, 96 people died at thicknesses. He was on the field and they kept letting all these people in and he kind of heard some ancillary conversations that turned out to be not so ancillary that kind of paved the way for this mishap to happen. And it's been, it's been 30 something, you know, it's been 30 years basically. And they're, you know, he's saying he's like, he's like, I've never been to court before, ever. And I have to go testify before basically like, what's England's version of the Supreme

Court during, and the court date is set for during the writer cup. So it was just stark. But so he used to cover English football and golf. And he said after that, I just completely lost my appetite for football, which is, that was golf's gain because he's iconic and he's probably 80% of the photographs that you see on... Getty or any other.

Yeah, on the newspapers of note that those are David Cannon photographs. Right. A little bit of, I mean, I think it may not be that intriguing to people listening, but it is definitely to us kind of the way European tour operates was just like an extreme breath of fresh air as far as allowing us to kind of shoot what we wanted and kind of just the general laid-back

atmosphere of the whole tour just was it was so much fun. Like it was so much fun to be around and just kind of feel comfortable. You never feel like you're stepping on people's toes there and just kind of the ability to you know, not only was it talked to guys. Not only was it talked to guys. But it was, you know, it's, all right, accommodating, that could be a result of this being one of the first tournaments of the year.

And it's kind of an away game for them and at least here. But beyond that, it was hospitable. Yeah. You know, where you felt like, all right, if you had a problem with the internet or if you, you know, if you didn't know where to go for lunch, like these guys would kind of point in the right direction. And everyone, I'm, yeah, no idea there were this many podcast listeners in the Middle East too. We met a ton of people that were, you know, that pay attention to the show or whatever. But Dave, who lives in Switzerland? Yeah, I mean, we had a, we had a blast. So, great experience. I think, it was perspective all the way around. Yeah, no, I was just, I mean, we had a blast. Yeah, it was great experience.

I think. It was perspective all the way around. Yeah, no, I mean, there's certain hubs of golf around the world. This is the only one that none of us had ever really been to, I think. And this is something I want to go back to. I want to see Dubai. I want to go to Dubai. I want to go to more events here.

I want to go home on. Yeah. New tournament is here. So that was another thing I wanted to touch on was in the past, this tournament has been the lead internment, but then there was the codder masters in the middle and then Dubai. And three week stretches is a big ask for a lot of guys, especially as they're heading into some of these guys head over and play Riviera or a lot of these guys are playing Valsba or Bay Hill. And then you've got the WGC Mexico and Match Play and it's like, you know, these guys really

have to have to, you know, it's kind of like dominoes in the first three months of the season, which events you want to play and how you want to get a little bit of rest before things ramp up and this year having Abu Dhabi and Dubai back to back. Right. It's been huge. It's been essential getting rid of that. Yeah, getting rid of Qatar in between the two of them It's great for and it sounded like Qatar is just you know that like Some of the guys just they're like this term is awesome Dubai is awesome I don't know. Some of the guys just, they're like, this term is awesome. Dubai is awesome. Cutter wasn't all that comfortable. There's some bad ombre as a rain cutter. It sounds like. Yeah, it's not, it's definitely not like that here. I mean, I think the Emirates that we've met

and it just takes such unbelievable pride, especially like, yeah, it is United Arab Emirates, but like, they are Abu Dhabi is a thing. And like, it's like New Emirates, but like they are Abu Dhabi is a thing and like that's like New York versus Boston right? How I would kind of ascribe Dubai and the pride is real is real and it was you could feel it and you could kind of Just see people beaming with pride with how this event went and everything like that So I was honestly not expecting to enjoy it nearly as much as we did But well then and then you know, it was really to say one of my pet peeves in the states is you have, you know, a terminal end or, you know, there'd be a thrilling finish to a tournament and then everybody just leaves. Right. And, you know, like, and I'm not sure if this was just a product of

everybody just having to drive an hour north to Dubai or what, but literally like the scene outside the clubhouse or on the back terrace of the clubhouse was, there was just as many people out there three hours after the round as there was right after the round. A good, probably a good amount didn't know the tournament had ended or had. No, I felt like, I felt like all the the tournament had ended or had no I felt like I felt like all the like maybe yesterday but I felt like today everybody that it was European tour officials it was yeah it was volunteers it was everybody was like everybody worked hard all

week and they celebrate and this was kind of their celebration and the fruits of their labor and it was it was really refreshing instead of everybody just saying we're out. Hey, let's go home. Yeah. On that note, let's go home. Let's go home. We're out of here. This is 1045 Sunday night. We have got a pretty long that ahead of us, but then we got a we got it eight or nine hour layover in New York. Yeah, exactly. So, awesome week here. I can't wait to come back and cover some more European tour golf. I know we're going to be back for Germany later this year And hopefully Scotland and gonna be back to the Ryder Cup and hopefully doing a lot more stuff over here But pretty pretty awesome week. Thank you everyone that helped make it happen. Thanks for everybody that followed along and On that note we'll catch you next week crack on crack on

That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most.