No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 459: Kyle Porter recaps the 2021 majors

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

Major championship appreciator Kyle Porter joins to chat about a lot of our favorite topics, how he consumes golf, how that's changed since we got into podcasting, as well as detailed looks back at each of the 2021 majors. We project Morikawa's future, appreciate Rahm's emergence, reflect on Spieth's year, take a bunch of listener questions, and cover a lot of ground in these two hours. Thanks as always to Kyle for the time.  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. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Sully here. I don't, I wish I could tell you why it's been so long since Kyle Porter's been on. We're going to talk a little bit about that when he comes on, but brought him in to recap

a pretty, I'd say historic year in major championship golf. We try to digest it all. We listen, take a bunch of listener questions, some great, great questions. And then it took us a while to get to it, but because we had so much to talk about, but at a great chat with Kyle, I'm not going to keep you much longer until we get to that. No, laying up is of course brought to you by our friends at precision pro golf. We are packing the bags, getting ready to leave on Taurus sauce season seven. This upcoming season is going to be brought to you by our friends at Precision Pro Golf to thank them for their sponsorship

and their support of us. You are welcome to go to PrecisionProGolf.com. Use coupon code no laying up all one word at checkout for $20 off our favorite rangefinder, the NX 9 slope. It has all the premium features that golfers love. It's got slope adjusted distances built in, magnetic cart mount, six times magnification, crystal clear display, a very satisfying vibration when you lock in on that pin or whatever you're trying to gun. The precision pro offers hands down the best customer service and care of any range finder in the industry, plus it's the only range finder that comes

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My friend, I don't know when the last time was. Actually, now that I think about it, since you've been on the podcast, it has been, I know it's been way too long, but when was the last time you were on? Yeah, I don't know. It was, the fall, December 2019, when we were in Dallas,

and we re-debrived the 2019 years what it was. Because I remember we talked, we were in the UNI and DJ, we're in a hotel room and, which is always a great way to start a story, but we were talking about the- Speed, the President's Cup. No, the President's Cup had just happened because we were talking about that tiger thing that I put out there about how his life has just been weird as hell. And we would just like riffed on that

for like, you know, 20 minutes or whatever. And then price, but the rating 45, like, to speed make the comeback, I don't know. And we have a lot of reflecting to do to do all of that, I think, as we look back on, the goal of this podcast is to talk about the 2021 Major season which I'm trying you know doing the deep dive on the old majors with KVV and Just doing a couple other topic based pods and looking back at history

I'm trying to do a better job in in the moment in the year kind of like documenting all of this for history sake because it's never been easier for like stuff to go in and out of your brain than it does currently. I don't know if it's just a product of our society today, but you're like flipping through some stuff in the 2021 masters, it was what three months ago. I forgot like 98% of it already. And it's like I just it is good to revisit these things a little bit closer to them happening, I guess, on an annual basis to really try to put them into perspective and try to figure out what all this means, which I think we're going to get into a little bit today. Yeah, I was thinking about this because I know that both you and Andy and Brendan at the Shagun start, do these like, you kind of look back, well, you and KVV look back on this certain era. And I'm curious

if, if like 25 years from now people instead of reading a gamer from like the 2017 PGA, they'll say, I need to go listen to the No Aintup podcast about it. I need to go listen to you, like, you know what I'm saying there? Like you can Like, we kind of look back on writing, and I wonder if whatever medium is being used 25 years from now, we'll look back on podcasting as sort of the, hey, this kind of encompasses everything that happened at that event or at that time. What's funny is whenever I go to do any deep dive

of any kind, automatically just googling like sports illustrated Greg Norman Faldon 96, right? All those like articles from that time hold up so well to documenting history, right? And I feel like our podcast might be the worst documentation to history ever since it's just the dumbest shit they're talking about, like dumb bits that, you know,

everything is so current. Like, I look back on, like, I was flipping through both of our tweets from the majors, just to remember what we found funny. And like, none of that holds up even like a few months later. Like, it very much is very reactionary to whatever happened in the moment. And I look back at, I'm like,

wait, what was I even talking about there? It is not a prideful thing I look back on at all. Maybe by the end of this episode, I'll look back on this with a little bit more pride. Well, it is difficult because you're talking about one thing you're talking about a Dan Jenkins article that takes nine minutes to get through. And the other is like an hour and 50 minute podcast in which you're breaking down. Charles Schwarzenegger and Seawood Kim's handshake at the Masters. And so it's, they're very And so they're very different things.

But I don't, imagine going back and telling somebody in 1987 that there would be this medium where anybody in the world could listen to two people talk about the US open 10 minutes after it happened. And I say all that to say, who knows what the medium is gonna be in the future? And I think that whatever it is, I do think people will go back to podcasts more than they do to written stuff to kind of reminisce.

I still go back to our recap from the 2016 Ryder Cup, which was recorded on a cell phone, without even a microphone, just literally put a cell phone in the middle Ryder Cup, which was recorded on a cell phone without even a microphone. Just literally put a cell phone in the middle of a table, me, you, KVV and poor Athid at Hazelteed. Because that, I think, is a good documentation of the emotion of that week for historical purposes. It brings us milder by face every time I do listen to that.

But that was one of the real quick. That was, there's this great of all things, Doug Gottlieb, quote, about the, remember when the thunder were like, it was Katie, Harden, and Westbrook, and they were all like 21 or 22. And he has this great quote about how, it might be better than this, and it might become like greater,

and you might win titles, but it probably will never be this fun. And that's kind of when I think about that time and like covering specifically that event, not that we need to talk about the 2016 Ryder Cup, although we could talk about the 2021 Ryder Cup, if you want. But that was like, it was so much fun. And we've invariably, I hope, gotten at least a little bit more knowledgeable and smarter

and like there's some probably really dumb stuff that I said back then and still say, but that was like the kind of the apex of like this is like the most fun thing in the world. I would say for better or worse we might have gotten smarter. You know what I mean? It was fun to be young and dumb and blind to all this stuff and not bitter about anything engulf. And I mean, that was the peak in-person sports experience still to this date that I've ever had. We had an advantage, I think, on the older guys because they were more seasoned and something somebody young, new and dumb actually was good, a good shake up for the market.

Not just to be clear, I'll categorize myself as dumb, I won't put you in that bucket. But now I'm like, find myself trending more. And you know what I mean? All right, so we walk off after Rory wins at Valhalla, I gave him 10 majors, right? And then here I am on the recap of the open pod, being like, don't give more a cow a too many made,

it was kind of more fun, it was okay to be hopeful and unrealistic about what these guys were capable of. But this is this not like, like this conversation right here is exactly the arc of the two people that we're talking about, which is Morra Kawa and Rory, right? Think about it. And we can talk about like the I wanted to I do want to talk later on about kind of Roy's disenchantment I think with professional golf

and how more collos on the other end of that spectrum and that's a and we'll talk more about that later because we'll get to it with the open championship but I think that's a little bit of what what you're talking about of it you you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube it It can't ever be more fun because you know too much. It's the powdery herrington quote, experience is overrated, innocence is underrated. So, man, I didn't think we'd get so existential so quickly on this today.

No, it's exactly what I wanted to do. I also want to know, what's your, I hope is interesting for people, but it is to me, what's your process for watching golf? Like how do you take golf on television? Yeah, I was gonna ask you the same thing actually, because I'm very curious about how other, I always think about like how other people are doing it.

I, well, we'll just take the open that just happened, for example, I'm getting up three, four, whatever. And I'm checking Twitter and the leaderboard and data golf just to provide myself with some context for the day. What's the, how's the course playing? Has anything crazy happened? And then I just watch it for a while. But here's what I find.

And I don't know if you find this happening. I find myself watching watch it for a while, but here's what I find, and I don't know if you find this happening, I find myself watching intently for an hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, and then I find myself start to be pulled into Twitter, and by the end of the round, I find myself watching Twitter more than I'm watching the golf. And I think that's bad. I don't think it's great. And I don't like that it happens, but I also don't know how to keep it from happening because sometimes a lot of times,

Twitter's more entertaining than the golf. And it provides so much good information and funny stuff that I don't know. I don't know how to strike a good balance. And I think that if I don't actively fight against it, I just find myself at the end of the week thinking, like, did I even, did I watch enough golf? Did I take in enough stuff?

You know, do you feel that as well? A million percent. You just said it better than I possibly could have. I find myself, I guess, as soon as commercials hit, I go straight to Twitter, right? And then I'm kind of sucked in for that. They come back and I might not even have come back from mentally from Twitter.

I'm kind of doing two things at once, trying to like figure something creative to say and not really taking in the golf and then they're back in commercial. Now I'm checking in on the feature group here because Speed just walked in a putt. And my process is not great. I think it is become more science than art.

And I'd love to try to recapture kind of more of the art of it. And at the same time, shooting from the hip isn't always a good thing when you have a big audience because you can get yourself in a lot of trouble too. But I don't know. Well, that is, I think it's emblematic that we were, I think tweeting to each other about this over the week and like coming

like trying to find a stat and getting it right. Like one stat that involves like something historical. I don't know how Justin Rice sleeps. I really don't like really don't need it. He has to be so prepared for stuff to happen. Like you have all these scenarios ready to go whereas I'm trying to recreate all these scenarios that he's probably got, you know, eight pages of models already on, and I'm saying all this dumb shit, wording it wrong,

so they're misleading, like it's actually really hard. And then also, if you're coming up with a good stat, probably Justin has come up with it already and tweeted it, so it's probably not worth it. Yeah, I think that, I don't know what people would think, but I think that my process and the way that I do things is a lot more chaotic than it probably comes across.

It's mentally chaotic. I'm always in like a hundred different places. And I feel like that takes away from watching and coming up with good takes about the actual golf. And it leads to, yeah, it's not gonna about this with Sean Martin the other day, it leads to a lot of group thing. Where we're all just saying the same stuff

and there's not enough that is like, hey, that was like an original, like I came up with that on my own. And I think you've been good on this because you've talked about how I try to take in as little as possible from other people, but it's still hard because I do think there's something about the friction of somebody else's idea on Twitter

can create something for me. If I see somebody tweet something about this, it leads to that over here that I can actually write about or talk about. So, I don't know, all that to say, it's a very, it's a weird space to be in and I think it's just become very difficult. Yeah, I used to listen to and watch pretty much everything that was out there and then I would go to talk on the podcast and be like, is this my thought or did I hear that? In that moment, I hated that and I kind of decided just to cut everything out and just

back, do just trust your instincts and like share what you think and don't be afraid to say something that might be unpopular. Like never do it just to create controversy. I definitely don't do that. But like, hey, if I don't like something or I think something, I'm going to tell you, even if I know that a lot of people are going to, you know, not think the same or want to be vocal on the opposite end But I do want to I don't know I tried my best. This was this was one of the last open here was the best the most fun viewing experience I had for a major this year as a golf fan. I don't know what it was maybe just the vibe seemed to be a little bit more positive on Twitter

Maybe it was having two years away from the open championship or just everyone appreciating linked golf, but that was that was it for me. That was that was the style of play and we can talk about some of this there on the back half when we get to the open, but the style of play that I love to watch the most and the most rewarding, I think, for golf fans. Do you think about players consuming your your stuff, your tweets, your your podcast. Some, but not a ton, right? I mean, I think like almost everything that happens on the golf course is pretty fair game. I always try to be fair, right?

I mean, you know, if I'm questioning Speed's decision to go for it on 14 on Sunday, it's kind of like, all right, well, we don't know everything, we don't know the lie, there's probably some reason why he's hitting this shot, yet man, that seemed conservative. That's kind of coming from a place of like, dude, you got at least like try to put yourself in the players' shoes

and give them benefit of the doubt in some way. And for the most part, the guys that we like are usually pretty good at taking a joke and taking serious comments. And I know Rory listens to this podcast. And we've set a lot of things about him. We'll say a lot on this pod and you know like we still you know see each other and chat about it and he seems like it's all fair game right. The right people the right players the ones that I

whose opinions I care about are okay with you know people saying things as long as it's fair. They may not agree with it but as long as it's fair that I feel pretty good about it. What do you think? Yeah I think that's right. I just sometimes I think I forget about it, but as long as it's fair, that I feel pretty good about it. What do you think? Yeah, I think that's right. I just, sometimes I think I forget about it too much, and then like JTO respond to something, and you're like, oh, that's right, yeah. Like this is, you know, like it's not just, or Phil would Phil gets it, it's like, oh God.

Yeah, exactly. Well Phil's there all the time, so. I know. So it becomes a little normal as, but with somebody like, like JT or Rory, you're like, oh, exactly. Well, Phil's there all the time. So it becomes a little normal as, but with somebody like Jay to your Rory, you're like, oh, yeah, this is, you know, and I think that as you go, as you get older and you're into this more, it's just like, man,

these guys are humans, you know, and I think it's easy to view them like we did as kids, as like caricatures or cartoons or whatever. But they're like human beings that have emotions and feelings. I don't want to go too far down this path, but it's like a real thing. And so you start interacting with them more.

And I think it puts up some good guardrails for like, yeah, maybe I shouldn't say that one. Maybe I can like, I don't have to tweet everything. So yeah, I just, it's a good reminder whenever you're like, oh, yeah, that person is listening. That person is reading, following whatever, you know, for me to remember that. I will say I don't, it's never for me.

Like, if I have to run it through the test of like, hey, is this tweet gonna like cost me the ability to get this guy on the podcast? It's probably not fair. You know what I mean? It probably doesn't pass that fair test, but like, there's nobody I've needled maybe more than JT and he is very capable

of like laughing about it and fight like firing back and taking it very well. So you kind of learn who who can take it and who can't and it it is challenging but at the same and I don't know I find myself to like banking on I would rather talk about this on the podcast and tweet something because it is impossible to convey tone and a complete thought in 280 characters. And it's not impossible for anyone to twist it in any way they want to. Like, you can take one word and imply that I mean something blah, blah, blah. And, you know, tweet about, still be tweeting about it six months later as if it's an important

issue and golf. And it's like, never what I actually intended to say. Not saying that specific thing has happened at all, of course not, but that just default to like, Twitter's like the worst medium for a lot of complicated thoughts. So it is the worst and it's also the best. You know, when you've got Eddie Tobincy's wife who's bonding to me at the PDA Championship, it's unbelievable.

Like how is, how does, and this is a little what I'm talking about, of like, imagine in 1987, you can just like have the seventh best part in the world respond to you publicly about something and other people can see it during an open and which use playing. You know, like, that's, yeah, that's bananas. And like, we, and so we, it's awful. it is truly the worst, but it's also incredible. And I don't know how to, I still, after 10 years, I don't know how to reconcile those two

things. I just don't. And so maybe I never will, but it's, yeah, it's just a difficult thing to kind of square up. My favorite was when I did some kind of tweet comparing the ratings of Holy Moly on Thursday against the prime time US Open on Thursday night and Holy Moly beat it by a million viewers. And I just brought that to a touch of Joe Tessitore retweeted it with all caps. God bless America.

I was like, what do we even do in here, man? This is, this is a wild, wild world. But allegedly, this podcast was supposed to be about the 2021 majors. And I think we teed it. Shocking, shockingly, we've gotten way off track. You know, I feel like we were kind of due for a major year like this.

And I would call it just a tremendous major year. We have, you know, maybe not the guys we had the most personal investment in, Sans Phil, winning them and becoming the defining stories, but talking about, just looking at it from a 10,000 foot view, we have one of them, one of the most, if not the most significant global star, like transition moment of winning the Masters with the

Deccimatsuyama in terms of probably a concept that we can talk about, you know, forever on here, but not really truly fully understand outside of America, you're outside of the Western world, understanding what kind of influence that guy has and what that win probably had on Japan. Two, we have a legend of the game becoming the oldest man to ever win a major fill at Kiwa. And you have the number one player in the world, John Rom. I don't know if he's known.

Is he number one to go back to number one? I don't know. He is. Yeah. Okay. It was clearly the best player in the world winning his first major championship. And then you have Colin Moorakawa winning his second and like setting off a whole like interesting discussion of like,

what do we have here? Right? Like he's not the number one player in the world, not the best player in the game, but like two major wins and eight starts like is this is as T.C. would say on his way to eight major titles. Like that seems pretty significant, but we'll get to that over at your eventually. So looking back on this year, man, it feels like not the I wasn't the most excited based on the venues going into this year. And gosh, we got a lot out of this. Yeah, we did. And I think that each of the major wins was, was, it's historically relevant for, for very different reasons, right? I think, I mean, you just kind of

sum them all up. But Phil was kind of about the past. Morkawa's kind of about the future. And then, and then, you know, and, and, and Ram as well. Somebody brought this up to me, by the way. I forgot who it was, but when's the last time we had a major season in which nobody in their 30s or 40s won a major. Right, I think about that.

Yeah. So Hadecki, more Kawa, and which Hadecki being in his 20s just kind of blows my mind. I'm actually looking that up because I don't think you're right. And I know you are right, but I don't think you're right. 29. I know.

It's crazy. Hadecki, Rob and more Kawa all in their 20s and then Phil obviously being 50. It's, that's a crazy stat. I need to get Justin around that one because I because we never get the everybody in their or maybe we have we probably got it like three years ago and I just don't remember but it seems like we don't I mean we've never had anybody in their 50s and I don't know that it's very common to have everybody in their 20s. A couple years ago when Speed and Rory held them all, that didn't happen all in one year. It was kind

of over a two year span. So it was a, it was an, I ranked the last seven. So since the PGA last year, I ranked them on, on, yeah, Monday on CBS Sports.com. And it was very difficult for me to not put all four of the 2021 majors ahead of all three in 2020. Yeah. And how much of that is crowd? Yeah. But like, yeah, I think it is because the DJ Masters, I mean, I was there Saturday, Sunday, there's nothing.

It felt like practice rounds. I mean, there was no juice at all. The Bryson thing, it's just a blowout. I did end up putting the 2020 PGA ahead of the Hadecki one just because it was more a comma emerging from this group of superstars at the very end. And the Hadecki went on the weekend was a little flat also. We had a defining shot to Morakawa in 2022.

Yes. You know, I mean, it just didn't have the roar to go with it. And I think we honestly think we'd think of that. Remember that shot differently if there was a crowd around that in that plot going in differently. If we, you know, had a crowd around that. Yeah. I do think the crowd thing is bigger than maybe we thought it would be going into this major stretch. Yeah. As far as enjoyment, it translates more to TV than I would have pictured it ever translating. Especially the shirtless guys, it's saying

churches. The Brits wanted me to be very clear that those guys are outside the grounds of the property. They were not allowed to do that inside the grounds. So, what? Now listen, listen, we had people outside the grounds at Keola, and none of them were shirtless. I mean, I, you know, there's, it's proper here in the United States. And they were on the beach. The clowns they got running around over there.

Oh, what do we start? the beach, the clowns they got running around over there. What do we start? Let's start with speed being the favorite of the masters. That's obviously where we have to start. And it still felt, I guess that was coming straight off the Lero, so it was hard for it to feel very permanent. But I was still like, all right, how long is this going to last? Well, by the time we got to Augusta, right?

And now when I go back and look back at 2021 Stroke's gain to this point, the only guy that is even close to sniffing Ram is Spieth. And that speaks louder. One win to this point this year, no majors, just doesn't really put into proper perspective how good he's been. He's got seven top five perspectives.

Yeah, Ram is off the charts in the perspective, perspective how good he's been. He's got seven top five. Perspective. Yeah. Vram is off the charts in the perspective. It's Stroke's Game Perspective. But, you know, for me, my Stroke's Game Perspective is very high on on speed in terms of, you know, what he's actually been able to accomplish. I'm just so glad to see the numbers check out to where my emotions check out on that. You know what I mean? I'm glad I'm not over rating this. A quick break to check in with our friends

at Pinehurst. We have got a Pinehurst trip on the books for this coming October. I already cannot wait to get out of the heat of Southern Florida. It is a great time of the year right now to get something for this fall on the calendar at the Pinehurst Golf Resort. You know about the number two course that's going to be hosting the 2024 US Open coming up. You know all about the history of this golf course. How many championships they've hosted. It is a lot, a lot, a lot of fun to play where the pros play in a the most fun challenging golf course I've ever played in my life. The only one that you can shoot five, 10 times, you know, 10 shots over your number and still want to go race back to the first TNT up again. Freshly restored number four course from

Gil Hans is a fantastic compliment. If you don't want to get beat up by. Freshly restored number four course from Gill Hans is a fantastic complement. If you don't want to get beat up by pineters number two, pineters number four is an absolute treat. And of course, ending or beginning really any day out the cradle course and nine whole part three course, seven hundred eighty nine yards. But one of the most fun places in all of golf, combining that with a Thistle Du Pudding Green, the Duose Bar right there with food. I'm telling you if you have not been to pineters or if you have been to pineters, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It is the St Andrews there with food. I'm telling you if you have not been to Pyners or if you have been to Pyners, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It is the St Andrews of American Golf.

I know I've messed up that phrase in previous ad reads, but I've got it right this time. St Andrews of American Golf, go to Pyners.com. The offerings there are endless and they keep getting better. Schedule your trip now at Pyners.com. Let's get back to the pod. So I've got a couple of strokes game takes here.

One, I hate that some of the stroke game data doesn't take into account some of the majors. Like it's 2021. Just get put your data out there. What are we doing? What are we doing with that? I don't understand it. I think it's US Open's the only one we have.

Is there a, do we not have PGA, I thought PGA was the only one we had. I know we have US open, but I don't know if we have, I don't know, who could say? Okay, we have both, it's PGA and US open, so I guess I'm just talking about the other two, but there can't be, is there a financial, there's gotta be some reason that it's not out there. I think it's the data partners of the individual majors. You know, like, I think what is it? IBM does the masters. So it's not shot length. There's not shot link out there. And then NTT, I guess, does the open.

And I don't know if they're tracking every single shot. The data wall is preventing us from getting quite quite a bit of information, which is quite unfortunate. And I guess PJ and America and USGA, I don't know if Deloitte does the, I don't know, but I would guess I have to do with the data partners. But the other thing is, speed stroke gain leading into the open this year were basically the same as leading into the 2017 open, which you won obviously at Berkdale.

And that was, to me, kind of a tell. And I don't know, maybe this is where you want to talk about, like, and I heard you and Randy talking about this on Sunday, but like, kind of squaring up, what is Strokes Game really mean versus like going out and winning a tournament? And I thought Morokawa was actually really interesting on this after winning the open, where he talked about,

like, I know statistically I'm a bad putter, but you know what happens on the bat nine of a major? I don't give a crap about statistics. And I think there's something there. And I don't know how you measure it. I don't know what to do with it, but there's something about, I don't know, there's a reason that Speedwind's something about, I don't know, there's a reason

that Speedwind's a bunch of majors and Louis Ustazen doesn't. I'm sorry, there just is. Yeah, no, I think I can help here because I just recorded a podcast last night with Mark Brody that's going to come out next week if you listen to this upon release. We talked about volatility and how, listen, I hook my teeth and my fangs and my claws into stroke skein. I love it. I know you do.

I think maybe the people, two most people in the plan that love this day. And it just doesn't, it's averages. Like it reflects averages. And like I think that is an amazing reflection of how good certain guys are at getting the ball in the hole. Yet at the same time volatility in those averages is what's going to bring trophy some of you hit your averages every tournament. You're going to win zero tournaments like Tiger in his prime might have won zero tournaments if you only hit his averages.

But it's those weeks when you are gaining four shots around instead of two, which is so many, that's where you win golf tournaments, right? And it there's just something to like more. Cala can have set like three out of four putting tournaments be very bad putting and he hits it so good consistently that the one good putting week he has might be a win. And there you go. There you have it. 25% win percentage in majors.

Like it's not that much more complicated that when you are as good of a ball striker as he is. And we can talk about how just crazy legit good he is as a ball striker. We can say that on repeat, but like the numbers are showing us just like emphasizing just how crazy strong he is at hitting a golf ball. Well, and I think this is where stroke skein

and some of the deeper statistical stuff can really evolve because we really only talk about what you're saying, which is just what's your average, which I think is instructive when you're talking about, when you're looking at it guys, maybe they're a year, or they're career, or a couple of years span, like if you look at the last five years, John Rom is the best player in the world,

according to Stroke's game. And if you go to his ODEV-AGR page, he wins three times a year, three times a year, three times a year. So it kind of starts to add up as you increase the amount of time the trouble you're not. But what doesn't work is when you try to take Morikawa's stroke scheme pudding and apply it to the final round of the open. And I guess it works if you say, well,

he's first this week and he's 107th for the year. And so you're kind of juxtaposing those two things. But I just, I think we're using a statistic that was meant to be applied across a long period of time into, and we're trying to shove it into the shorter time spans, and it just, it doesn't make sense to talk about it in that way. Yeah, I think we're still learning about all this stuff, right? And how it applies, and I don't know what it means that of the top 15 guys in the world

in Stroke's game right now, one of them has a negative stroke's game putting. And that's more a cow and it's negative 0.56, which is awful. Like, you don't have to go so far down. Like I am down scrolling scrolling scrolling scroll. I am so far down and can't find I found Kyle Stanley, wherever he's at, you're boy. He is minus 0.75 and he is down there with Mavmignyli Troy Merritt and Chad Raimi in the data golf rankings Like that's what and what I mean by evolved there is like I want to know what your what your variance is I want to know if you if if like how volatile you are as a putter or if like how volatile you are as a putter or a,

you know, whatever, because that's instructive, that tells me something. So I think there's a bunch more that we can do with it. And I still think that broadly, it's kind of, people are just kind of dragging their feet on it, it's lagging. We don't talk about it enough as it is. And I think there are still like five or six steps down the, I mean, think about that graphic they showed it

at the travelers where it should Stroke's gain from, and it was the A on thing, the A on a wrist reward thing. And Nance was talking about it, and he was showing like Stroke's gain from different, I mean, that is, that's awesome. Like, that's really, really cool stuff. And I think that there are, there are just ways that we're going to continue, I think, to get smarter about kind of how we talk about some of this stuff.

Well, it was really refreshing to see a golf course in Royal St. George's that, like, it was so clear on television, watching from home, how important the Stro scheme approach slash iron play is like how much more cow was able to assert himself and almost make it like I don't I don't know if this checks out or not, but it also feels like putting is less important in majors because it is just less of a putting contest because the golf courses weed out the weaker ball strikers. You can't get away with marginal strikes

and Moricao is just gonna give himself way more 12 footers than anyone else in the field. And like again, that take away from talking with Brody again, was just like, you put a good putter at 18 feet and a bad putter at 12 feet. Give me the bad putter at 12 feet. Like the numbers just check out. If you hit the ball really close to the hole,

you do not have to be a great putter to be very successful on a consistent basis. And then the weeks you do putt good, you're gonna win major championships. And that's what we've seen. I just don't know, we can just do this now if you want, when we're talking about Moira Kawa, I don't know how to project him, right?

And I know we, this was like, we talked about I was the first time I tried not to get too jolly in projecting out major championships, given them all away. I've given Rory 10, I've given speed eight, and I set the over under a four and a half career majors from more of a cow, where do you net out on that? I think under and I, I heard Tron say eight, and I eight and I almost choked on my coffee that I was drinking.

Eight is like that's VJ and Ernie Elles' careers like more than their careers. It's amazing. So here's my more calutake and I think that I understand the projection. Like he is, I think, definitively the best iron player since Tiger, and that is, you know, historically the most important thing. I also think that he is, he's enamored with professional golf right now. He's played 50 events, right?

When you tie that to where, and you and I tie everything to Rory, you tie it to Rory, and think about, is he enamored with professional golf right now, or is he disenchanted with it? You do? That's an easy one, yeah. Yeah, it's so easy, and I was watching his, I don't know if you've watched those chronicles

of a champion golfer on YouTube. They're so good. Fantastic. Speed and Rory and Poder Carrington and Phil, all these guys that are one that open. They get them to say some stuff that they don't normally say. And Rory was talking about in 14 when he won at Hoi Lake. He was like, all I did that year was play golf. That's all I did.

In the way that he talked about it, you could sense that, again, it's the Patrick Harrington quote about innocence, just this, it was almost like a childish, not childish like Bryson, but like a child love for the game that when you're 32, you've been the number one player in the world for 15 years and everybody around you is trying to make you a freaking corporation, you don't have it anymore.

And you can't keep it. And that's what's gonna happen to Morakawa, I'm sorry. I love him, I love watching him. He's not a sociopath, he's not, like he's awesome. Like he's awesome to be around, he's awesome to watch. But somebody and people are gonna try to make him into a corporate, that's just, everything gets commodified, right?

And when he's 30, he's not gonna be enchanted with the game like he is when he's 24. And that's meaningful. That is worth five strokes, eight strokes. Well, however many strokes, uh, tournament, and it's just, you, you, it's going to be impossible. I think going forward, Sully, to, uh, to maintain this childlike love for the game, because of the kind of culture and society that we're in. I sound like I'm 75 years old saying that, but it's different in 2021 than it was when

Phil was coming out in 1991. It just is. You get made into this singular corporation and it sucks and I hate it, but that's just how it is. And I just don't know how long Moor a cow can hold on to that innocence. That's really, really, really well said. And what I would say that more a cow has working against him is to like your point. He's definitely not a sociopath and is so well rounded and is very human, which sounds a lot like Roy McHarroy to me, right?

And look, I don't know if Phil and Tiger are technically sociopaths, but they're more on the sociopathic end of like, like I'm a maniac, right? Like I, I'm gonna say a lot of things that don't make sense. I'm gonna do a lot of things that don't make sense. I'm gonna piss a lot of people off along the way. In Tiger's case, like I don't really care who I piss off. Like I'm gonna run through this wall,

whatever's in my way just isn't gonna stop me. And look, my agent's gonna take care of getting me signed up and getting me 60 million bucks a year off the course. And all that, but I'm gonna play the best possible golf. And that's the thing that matters to me. And I maybe don't treat the people around me that great. And my family life might not be a little less than ideal as it turns out.

But I'm gonna win a lot of golf tournaments. And that worked really well for them on the golf course for a long, long time. And yes, to that point, I have a hard time seeing how you maintain that same eagerness. And one, my thing with the top guys is, and I'm part of the problem because I, well, I go to them with requests, right?

Like, hey, come be on with me for an hour and like, chat it up, which sounds like a really easy request. But if they go do, if they say yes to that, then they're going to have eight other people bothering their agent, like, what the hell? He did an hour long interview with them, like, why, why can't I get an interview? And then it becomes this, this, this, and this. And it just is so hard when the requests come so hot and heavy. And you actually care what people think about you,

as a human, like worry and speed. And those guys are humans, they care. Like they don't want to be jerks to people. And sometimes you just actually have to be a little bit of a jerk to properly being the right just like actually have to be a little bit of a jerk to you know properly Be in the right mindset prepare yourself to play golf and it is just it's such a lonely game in that regard It is so hard to please everyone every hole Some is going to be asking for an autograph are you okay with walking by a lot of people like can you handle that or is that making you a

Little anxious and is that affecting that affecting your overall comfort level when you step onto a golf course? These are just a million things that I don't know how any of these guys deal with it all. And when they're on top, it's super easy to think that they can deal with them forever, but it just almost never works out that way. I saw Rory at Torrey this year, at the US Open,

and talked with him for a while. And he was so, he just, you know, he was Marcus Armadage, just loving life. Like just joyful about everything, about life. And this was after Round 2 or whatever. And I don't get that sense on the course. And I, from him, you know, and so I think about, I think about that arc with Moracala, I really do,

because even him talking about the Olympics after the open, he's like, oh, I can't wait to be in Olympian, it's gonna be awesome. And it's like a, again, it's like a puppy dog. And I mean, I don't mean that in a demeaning way, but he's just, he's so, and this is how you should be. Like this is the point of having that innocence,

is like you want to... You still live in the dream, right? You're living this is like a childhood dream. And when you're Rory and you win a major at 21, by the time you're like 31, like it's not really a dream anymore. It's been a reality for 10 years. And like when that's your new normal,

it's not special anymore. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so I think that the more I call a future conversation, if you can bottle up this, this like kind of bubble that you're in and make it last forever, yes. Does he have the skill and the talent and the headspace

and all these different things to win eight majors? For sure. And you gotta get some breaks. But you change and evolve as a person. And I have no faith based on last 15 years of watching and covering this stuff that his path is gonna be any different than anybody else's.

God, we have gotten too old. I miss the fun days. 21 majors for like, how? And that's, I don't want that to come across is me coming at him. I think he's awesome. I think it's more of a, like we always reference,

and I heard Randy do this on Sunday, I do it all the time. Oh, well, so on, so it has more majors than Phil did when he, you know, before he won his first. That's like the, that's like the, that's like the Mendoza line. That's a benchmark that we use for these young guys. And it's like, man, nobody's having Phil's career anymore. That is just not gonna happen.

It's a different, the pressure on you now, not to win, but to like be this corporation is way different than it was in 1994. It just is. And I don't know how that changes in the future. Well, and my thing too with over projecting for Moorakawa is, it's not like, he has world number one written all over him. I think he can be the best player in the world,

but he's not even the best player in golf right now. It's not like he is far and away the best, how great can he be? Can we project all this? It's really the reality is more like, yeah, and I tried to make this this point on the recap, but I probably didn't bring it home. And I'll probably fail for a second time. But like he's probably he's just like hitting 600 on balls in play right now, right? And that over time that that batting average starts to fall back closer.

We're seeing that with Keppka. His batting average on balls and play, meaning like your success, you know, your good weeks and majors translating to wins is not going to be 100% and right now it's like 100%. And it's just going to slowly start keeping down. He's going to have closer calls and it just doesn't project out for eternity, right? Especially when we haven't even mentioned this, like this era that we're playing in

is just, it's not set up for guys that run away with many of these, you know? Yeah. I've got a staff for you because I heard you talking about this on Sunday. You said you didn't really ever feel like it was close on Sunday, and I agree. It didn't, it didn't ever really feel like,

there were a couple of moments for if Moorakawa misses the put on 14, you're like, oh, maybe, maybe speed gets in this, you know. But this is the stat. So, speed misses the put on 18 on Saturday, right? And Moorakawa makes the put on 14 on Sunday. I wanna look to it, I think, I think, Spies was what, three feet?

Less than that probably. Less than that probably. Yeah. More cows, probably 25, 20, 23, somewhere in that range. If you just, if you just take those two shots and the percentage of both of them happening independent of one another, the way that they did, the chances of it are 1%. Don't do this, just don't do this.

So, but this one's saying of like the margin. Oh yeah. The, the, the, you know, for, shout out to Bryson, the Razor's edge. Yeah. That you're living on here to win a major is, it's almost, I don't know how you would be one of the top guys

and be able to sleep at night knowing this stuff. Right, that's where I'm at. Like, how do you do this? If you're, Louie, how do you do this? How do you keep doing this? And so it's, you know, there's a 95% chance to speak next to a put on 18. There's a, you know, if it's 25 feet, there's a 90% chance that speed makes that put on 18. There's a, you know, if it's 25 feet,

there's a 90% chance that Mark Howe misses that put on 14. I think I'm doing, I'll probably screw the numbers up, but I think I'm doing them correctly. If you multiply those two together, it's a 1% chance that it plays out exactly how it did. And so you pull everything else out, I know you can't do this, but if you pull everything else out,

there's a 99% chance that's beef and more color in a playoff on Sunday night. Yeah. All right. So you just proved my there are no what ifs. But it you know what I mean? That what I meant by that though is just kind of like it didn't it felt like we watched the champion, right? It wasn't like this close call, you know, this blah blah blah.

If this bounce goes this way, even though you just kind of did that, I, and I appreciate that. It just felt like, I felt like we watched the best golfer, you know, and that, that I think there's something just that crystallizes as a major champion in your memory for years to come when you see something like that more than like, so, you know know so and so happen to win this event in this way like honestly the way he won a harding mark is the opposite into the spectrum right it was like who is going to do it who's going to do it he comes through

an emerges at the end versus like this this was the guy he dealt with that lead and pressure for a long long time and handled it and got it done. So I totally agree. And Spieth talked about that on Sunday night. He's like, look, Morco was one of these. He's done it without fans. He did it differently at Harding Park. He basically said like what he did today was the real deal. And you know, Spieth would obviously know.

So I totally agree with you there. Are we still talking about the masters or what? I guess we haven't got any of the questions we asked for or the first major of 2020, what he would yet, but can I give you like five, I've got five notes here from the masters that I'm just going to roll through. I've got like six, but I'm guessing we're going to have some overlap. Vijay and Bryson in the lead up to that. Do you remember those two, just Psycho paths

slapping at each other? That was insane. Yes, on the range. When Bryson was trying to hit the media center and VJ is just howling, I mean, just, it's a Psycho respect Psycho situation. I stumbled upon Phil Michael Center, I guess, to the National, I tweeted this out,

but I stumbled upon him in one of the, it's like the old practice area. And he's hitting flop shots on Tuesday night. And it's an ashaw, I tweeted this out, but I stumbled upon him in one of the, it's like the old practice area. And he's hitting flop shots on Tuesday night. And it's just him. And you never see this at a major, at a tour event. It's just him like four balls, a towel. And he's just grinding his ass off. Just nobody's around.

I just thought it was like, it felt like this kind of snapshot of like, man, I can't, a couple of things. I can't believe I'm watching this. I get to do this for a living. And I can't believe that Phil at 50 is still, you know, doing this crap. And then he wins the PGA month later. Rory hit his dad on Thursday. Right on the 7th hole. I got memed to Mars on Thursday. I'll take the blame slash credit for that one. Tell that for people that don't know you're watching I was at the westwood hit a shot somebody in the

pine straw and you're just just man spreading all over the pine straw over there and That became a fun one. I Had my arms crossed legs were really wide really wide like like way way too wide and Yeah, you took the you took the photo and the best meme by the way It was was DJ doing the welcome to Memphis sign and putting me on the highway there. That was incredible. The funniest part about that is my wife is not on Twitter,

she's not on Instagram, she doesn't get on social, and so I texted her later and I was like, some stuff happened on the internet today. And she said, she she goes it's so bad that some of my friends already texted me So yeah, all that happened the the thing that made me laugh the most was this Seawoo Kim troll shorts all handshake. Oh my god where they One of them went for the... I was just...

I texted you yesterday, but I was crying over the fact that that Charles shook like two of Seawoo's fingers. He just shook his finger. It was the guy, Kevin Lee, who tweeted at me, was like, just call it a secret hand shake, and I can't unsee that part of it. Because if you watch it from like quickly from a distance, it does look like they're doing like either a rock paper

scissors or a secret hand shake. And so it goes on like three more errors past the point of it being funny even. COVID is a bad for golfers and we were already bad at head shakes. It was not good. Horsesho just kind of owned the early part of the weekend on Saturday. He did so many just, he was like out of his mind. He fell down the hill on 13 in front of Phil.

He yelled F you at the flag on 16. Yeah, that was weird. He was just putting on a show. It was like, it was crazy. So I don't know. That's some of the just weird funny. So Greller shaving was also up there shaving his beard. I forgot about that. I had for a gust of just the fact that it was easy to forget how fast and firm things started. You know, like Bert Veecesburger put it into the water on 15. Guys were chipping into the water on 15. Speed would have chipped into the water

if it didn't go in the hole. So never left the pin. Never left the pin. That was very much a dumb and dumber. He's like, I just bullet-proof vest on. So you know, I would say, well, what if they shot you in the head? He's like, oh yeah, think about that.

But when the rain hit and came out, that's when Hadecki went on that run Saturday night and just asserted himself. And that was a memorable stretch of golf that he played on that Saturday evening. It was, I felt like the rain kind of disrupted the whole flow of the event though. It did. It wasn't that long of a delay,

but it just, you're kind of running towards this like really baked out awesome fiery weekend, and then it just, it kind of flipped a little. And that, look, Hedek he rolled, but it just, I don't know, the thing shifted a little bit whenever that rain came. Yep. Seabu broke his putter when he was three shots off the lead,

the masters and had to put with a five wood or three wood or something. No. The same day of the handshake, too. Yeah. There's a great shot of, because Corey Conner's was the other guy playing with them and he watches the handshake and he had just watched Seawoo put with his three wood for like two hours.

So he's probably going like, I got to get away from these guys. This is, this is too much. Wayne player to start the start the week promoting the golf balls, the ceremony opening t-shot. And on the opposite of the spectrum, the bow from Hadecki's caddy is probably the lasting image from the major season this year. Yeah. The bow and, and the, you know, I think it got buried a little bit, but his walk, they did that cool camera shot of his walk from 18 to scoring. And he's, I mean, he's so just stoic and doesn't give you anything. And you could tell he was, he was overwhelmed by it. And I just, I thought that was, the bow was awesome, but that one was kind of like low key, like really,

really cool. And then the last thing I had was just of course, the story that Jack Nicholas told that week about the caddy that didn't want to caddy for many more because, you know, Jack worked too hard. That was the most, that was a very beautiful Jack Nicholas story, but that was, that was tough. I did see a tweet from Pora that I want to bring up. Do you remember when Ian Baker Finch said that

Rob's new child was named up? Yes. Pora said, Angela Garcia just got Rich Lauren or fired over Ian Baker Finch. Miss. What was the Rich learner thing with them again? he said oh, well, that's right. Yeah, he said She they're not gonna name their next what's 15 the name of fire sword. They're not gonna name their next kid fire That's what keeps you around Twitter like all the all the bad stuff. Well, just could be off

You know 99 bad tweets could be offset by what great would. Speaking of batting average on Paul's and play, Poor Ath is leading the world in that. 100% for sure. That's pretty much what I got for the Augusta. And then Kiowa, gosh man, just kind of flipping back through old images that crowd around that last green. Even like that being two months ago and getting more and more back to normal for, you know, things in the world and seeing fans at golf court tournaments again, we hadn't really seen that to that point. And that felt like a moment that definitely deserved to have an enormous feel to the

moment. And it delivered it delivered in a way that I think I still probably don't have full appreciation for. Yeah, I agree. Keele was the only one. All these majors, you know, kind of as you're watching the final round, you're like, man, I'm going to remember this one, but that was the one where you're kind of thinking, man, there's going to be like books written about this one because this is, it felt the most surreal in the moment for obvious reasons.

And it was just just a feel like though that the world, like the moment for obvious reasons. And it was just, just it felt like though that the world, like the golf world moved on too quick from Phil winning the PGA. Like I try to insert it every now and then like, hey, remember when the Phil won the PGA? Cause that was absolutely absurd. And I still, it felt like the same one Tiger won the Masters

though, it was kind of like, wait, why are we not still talking about this? Cause that was maybe the most absurd thing that has ever happened in golf. Yeah, I think part of the reason for that is that the Brooks and Bryson thing happened so quickly after. I think it was the next day.

And then it just, it was whatever. I don't want to talk about that. But it took away, I mean, it really did take away from that moment because all of a sudden, you have this other thing that you've got to cover instead of taking a week to kind of historically contextualize what happened. You had a great tweet from the Phil thing where there was a moment on Friday where Victor Havelin

had a shot into like seven and he said, I think I want to try this and you said, that's the name of Phil's biography. I got like two reads, he said I want to try this. And you said, that's the name of Phil's biography. He got like two retweets. It was the funniest thing. That's all we. It's more avant garde. All right, that was.

Just in general, like trying to like take in a 50-year-old, like this is our sport. This is the only sport really that this happens in that involves actually moving your body in any way and joining Trevino and Fowdo with six majors. It was a huge huge huge huge huge moment that I I don't feel like we've properly documented it and I don't know if we ever properly could. Yeah, you know, I thought I thought DJ wrote the best column of the week on Twitter.com actually on On Phil talking about how long he's been in our lives and and how

No, no quote unquote knowing somebody that well makes it It makes it feel different and I think here's the thing that I think people Well two things and they're related that people were not really understanding. He was, I mean, him and Jazz Jan Awanon were ranked like the same spot in the world. It, I think the casual golf fan saw Phil's name. Like, I have Phil. Yeah, major championship, you know, PGA, cool.

And it's like, dude, we have no evidence for the last six years that he are five years that he that this could ever happen. I can't lay the guy kind of stinks at golf. Yeah. It doesn't. It doesn't like a few months later. It doesn't make any more sense. He has negative strokes gained on the year. He's the 174th best player in strokes gained in golf and ranked 32nd in the world. Almost entirely because of that victory. And the other thing is like he when he won that and who cares about this, right? I do. But I think it moved him into like being one of the 10 bus spires of all time.

And that's the part where it's like, dude, like Phil is not like Tigers. Like he wasn't, it's not like his career should not be remembered for just chasing Tiger around everywhere. And some of that is just, it's gonna happen because you really had to quote on Sunday about how, what do you remember about Phil growing up? He's like, I don't know, I was watching Tiger. And sometimes I feel like that's how,

and he did, he was joking about it. He didn't, he didn't eat it. Like, he wasn't coming at Phil, but I think sometimes that's how the public sort of looks at Phil and it's like, dude, this guy is one of the 10 best guys of all time. It's like Watson and Nicholas and Palmer and Phil, like he's in that. And I think that I think that we, I don't know, it's hard to contextualize that in Tiger's shadow. And I don't

know that we did it as well as we could have during that PGA. How many, and I'm trying to pull this up as we, as we say this out loud, how many times did Phil finish runner up to Tiger in majors? I've got Beth Page, oh, two. I think it was just that one. Beth Page, I think you're right. And then of course, he has the, the true one, which is the one that got away. Yeah. And had a tremendous, tremendous shot at one of those.

But if I, if I went and read some of the names around Phil in the Stroke's game like Data Golf World Rankings at this point, honestly, if you wouldn't have read them to me and been like, all right, does this person play golf or does this a tennis player? You would have got me on like 40% of it, I'm pretty sure. Like Andrew Novak is for sure a tennis player, right?

Like, I think the quarter's brother beat him a little bit, actually. Darren Fischard, like, is that, you know, the South Africa? That guy plays tennis, I'm sure. Kale, Samuja, the Finn, the Finn. Those are all the guys that fills around in Strokes game. That's the ridiculousness of this. This is what I had so much fun going back. I like you today.

I went back and read all of our tweets and a couple other people's from that PGA. And it's weird to read through them quickly, like to go from Thursday to Sunday really quickly, because you go from like, oh, this didn't gonna happen to, oh, maybe it could happen to, oh my gosh, if this doesn't happen, what are we gonna do with ourselves?

In five minutes time, instead of over the course of four days, like the way it unfolded, honestly, I wrote this comp down. It would have been as if, and I legitimately mean this, as if, and I mean, I will generally mean this as if Richard Bland had hung on at the US open and won that US open. Yeah, well, it felt like for a while there, once it became clear that Phil should win, like, oh my God, if he doesn't, we have a

time Watson situation all over again. Yeah. And you know, maybe, maybe the pain of Watson, maybe, you know, that pain hurt worse than the joy of Watson winning would have felt good, if that makes any sense, because I feel, I still feel like we're more likely to talk about Tom's close call than Phil winning this one. Another ages are different by nine years and it's not quite the same, but like, this was Watson 2.0 if he wasn't gonna close it out and thank goodness he did.

Yeah, and I mean, the way he did it, he just, I know he hit it in the water on whatever that was. That was the performance art though, 13. Yeah, 13. Yeah, he might have been. And then when he changed putting grips on 17 for the Bogey, that was just, I mean, speaking of sociopathic stuff, 70 first hole in a major championship. Speaking of things that you couldn't have pictured

happening, like when Phil became a professional golfer, he moved a drone out of his line during that way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and like, I don't know. I thought that him doing it against Brooks was meaningful. You know, like that was awesome just to see, which by the way, I think I tweeted this out. But if at the beginning of that week, you would have said, hey, two guys with four more majors will be in the final paring on Sunday, and neither of them will be Rory. That would have been tough.

Yep. The Phil stuff was just, he was so unusually steady down the stretch. Front nine on Sunday was shaky from every, I mean, Brooks played the par-fives in like 13 on Sunday, on the front nine, which was just bizarre, but Phil went out and got it. And it does, like, this is like the epitome of what you're talking about. What he did on Saturday and Sunday does not square up with every statistic I have and everything else I've watched from him this year.

He hits it everywhere. Everywhere. And he hit like two bad shots that whole weekend. It was just, I don't know. It felt like, and this is stupid, and I hate it when people do this, but it really felt like, hey, he's a great champion type stuff, and this is what great champions do.

It was very much just like, that was just, God, this is gonna sound dumb as I would go to set. It was just winning. Like, it was just, it didn't, like, throw your damn, your nerdy stats out this damn window. I'm gonna win this tournament, like cram it nerd. Like, you know who I am? I'm Phil Michaels.

I'm gonna go win this golf tournament. Like, I don't care about your stupid strokes gain stuff and how all that works. Like, I'm gonna go win it. Is that, is Andrew Novak gonna go win this thing? Like, no, it's me. Yeah, I mean, that's, and I thought, man, like Kio is the best major venue, well, I guess, throw a guest out of it, but I thought that PGA and it being a Kio, I thought the whole

thing was like, basically the blueprint for what a perfect major championship looks like. Right? Because it's great venue, incredible, historic winner. We got some what we got everything right. It was just I thought it was the not only was the winner the best and the most dramatic, but I thought the whole week was probably the most fun and most just like what I what I want a major championship week to be. Yeah, we got a question from AJ Willie W. X. He said, coming into the year, you continuously said that you weren't as excited for the majors because the venue sucked. Do you still

feel that way? I believe that's directed to me, not not to you, but I do still feel that way. I think Kiyowa was slightly better than I was expecting. I still think the past palam just plays real soft and guys are able, you know, guys are able to hold the ball in certain spots chip really easily around those greens, which I thought didn't necessarily make for the best. And I didn't like what they did with the rough at Kiowa, but for the most part, but thankfully the win blue and that golf course plays so much better in May than it did in August. And it's the kind of venue they should focus. PGA America should be focused on with this new date and looking at future dates.

So when they go to schedule the 2035 PGA, just keep that in mind because they're pretty much scheduled out through that. But the USIA put a 2046 event on the calendar today. The USA and it banded. It banded. It's unbelievable. Yeah, I don't know how well they're going to be prepared for how far the ball goes in 2046.

Or if banded is falling off into the ocean by then. The thing that I couldn't stop thinking about at Kio was how, when was it? 12, Rory got to 13 under with a 75 on the card. That just, that seemed unfathomable watching what I watched this year and the way it played. And it's not like everybody behind him was it, you know, I think this, I think second place was five under, which is kind of around what the winner was this year. And Rory getting to 13 with a 75 on the card, not that we need to make this about,

about him, but we can do that. I thought that was crazy I will say just yeah overall I think it is you know 2021 is still one of the weaker venue years possible in the Rota and yeah I don't feel differently having having watched it I I'm very adamant about what I think about Tori. I think I'm very prepared for the take of like, honestly, can't go to regular tour courses. Just can't do it. Even Pebble, it may be sounds ridiculous,

but like definitely not Quail Hollow for a major, definitely not a major and a president's cup. Like that just think I ain't gonna do it. And going to it, it just is not gonna feel like a major. It's really not. And I felt that way definitely about Tori, which we haven't quite gotten to. But Kewa is a positive, especially looking at PGA venues

of the past and their kind of options. Like I'm in on Kewa. I think they should continue to go there. It's not scheduled to go back there, which makes me very confused on how they're doing this. Yeah, I've got, I'll just blow through these and we'll get to the US Open. But DJ didn't know what kind of putter he was using

at the beginning of the week. He doesn't have the name of it. I thought the ESPN plus coverage, the SVP, McDonough, D'Volk stuff was just, those guys are awesome. It's so good. The Eddie Topancy thing was unbelievable. Cameron Schengali shot a 48 on one side, which was, I think it was a 48, maybe a 47.

When he was tearing it up. Yeah, unbelievable. Kevin Streumann's glasses made me irrational angry on the back of his hat. I don't know why, but they do. Phil on Sunday said he had a rules thing. He said he was addressing the rules official and said, I'm under the understanding.

And I said, how many times has he said that? He's lying. That sounds like a conversation he's had with an attorney somewhere in the past. For an answer he's given in a deposition, if you will, of I was under the understanding that this was legal. I think that's Brooks's hats were just an, and Speedworthy shirt with the X on the back.

It's a tribute, maybe a tribute to Zander. I have no idea. It was, I know, it was awful. Pretty much a neolegial shirt as we, as we, I think we uncovered in the PGA Tour Handbook. Stenson with a very professional club snap and just handed it to the caddy. That was very easily.

Keppka got, the more I thought about this, like Keppka claimed that people were going at his knee as he's walking up the 18th fairway of a major. Like I think you kind of got a little pass on that one as like, wait, can you repeat that? Like people are trying to take your knee out. That was like the tiger snapping his wrist back into place. Really? Really?

That one, yeah, that one just kind of snuck under the gun there. But yeah, I don't know, that's Kioa, we probably do eight more pods on that one. US Open gosh, it's not that long ago, you know, and just kind of flipping back through notes and Wikipedia and stuff on this one. You know, your immediate memories always going to go to who wins and we can get to there at the end. I feel like history is actually going to be a bit kind to Bryson and Rory on this because they get some passes and I don't know if that's quite right.

I mean Bryson shot what 44 on Sunday on the fight nine on Sunday. Yep. Rory. So here's my question on Rory and I was talking to somebody else about this the other day. Since Valhalla, since he won the PJ and 14 what is his real like I am in it Contention at a major on the back nine on a Sunday And if you and if you go if you go back and roll through All I mean the Wikipedia page looks phenomenal. It is right pristine but if you say, I'm in it on the last night, and you've talked to these guys, that's all they want.

Am I in it with nine holes left? And it's, to me, you might have a different answer. I think it's karnusti kind of in 18. I was just looking that up, because he's T2 finish, and I don't even remember it being that good. I mean, he looks like he's going to 14. So he made, yeah, he made an eagle weight. And I remember thinking like, by the way, every major you have a, wait, Patrick Cantley or

whoever is T5. Yeah. Like that type of thing. Wait, John Rom is T4. That was for me. That was that week was wait, Rory is T1 right now or to whatever he was, T2. So I think it's Karnusty and it's sort of Tory, but he kind of ejected quickly. And that's, that's where it's like, man, he like Louis Ustazins

been like legit in more of these over the last year than Rory's been over the last seven years. And somehow we keep being like surprised by it. And that's on us. But like to your exact point here, imagine him getting back into, like, first of all, imagine him winning one of these. How far away is that, right? I mean, we're not even, we're not sniffing it.

We're not really close. This was close-ish. What did Bogey, the, um, he doubled Erie Bogey to 11. That the, the parth, three, right? And then he doubled 12. He didn't birdie 10 or did he birdie 10? I don't remember. He made the good par save on 10, but he didn't, he didn't birdie nine. I think. Yeah, gosh, that's kind of. Yeah. And then he and then he kind of forts with it with a eagle putt on on 13. But it just is, it's not like, I mean, you can name two instances in the last seven years in which he was kind of in it on Sunday afternoon.

That's, that's just not it, you know, and, you know, you guys said this on Sunday, like I, I want Rory to win more than I want Speed to win, you know, and everybody knows how much I want Speed to win golf tournament. Right. So it's not that. It's just like, it's not there. It's just not. Rory, when he teed off on nine was four under.

Rom was three under. Rom beat him by five. Six shots from there. That's, yeah. And I get it like, you know, sometimes I think when we talk about this stuff, there are, it's like, oh, he's still playing good and it's like, man, I'm not comparing Rory to frickin' like Cameron Trangoli.

Right. I'm comparing him to Tom Watson. And the way these majors are gonna shake out, like these big, big big like big time players kind of have the auto like auto slide up the leaderboard right like so many of these other players are going to play themselves out of it that really like a t30 is like last place for Rory like he that is a very bad finish in a major for his talent level because of how well these golf courses should set up the harder They play the just the the the more that players like Roy should rise to the top

You know I'm getting out there. I'm not explaining that very well But like I think I think what you're saying is like the floor is really high Yes, and when you're when you're living at the floor It feels like well, you're not really that close to winning because you're living at your floor like you're not you're not For like you're not you're like a one out of one to ten on a rory scale so yeah, like Yeah, the leader board at this US open after the eighth hole the guys at the eighth after the eighth hole

Again, they're at different parts of the course, but this is the after the eighth hole the guys at the eighth after the eighth hole again there are different parts of the course but this is the score each guy had after eight holes Bryson was the only one at five under Rory was at four Ustaz and was at four Ram was at three and Ram went and boat raced all of them well and this is and I want to talk about Ram but I want to get your take on this because this is what I was thinking about. The US Open and the Open Championship were, I thought, examples of very different tournaments in that the US Open was low key, not that great, for like three and a half days. Yes.

But the ending was as good as Ending's get. The leaderboard was like the OWGR top 10 page. I mean, it was sick, it was awesome. And Brawm winning was amazing. But the open championship didn't have the ending, but it felt more like it found its heartbeat on Friday rather than on Sunday afternoon. So my question for you is which of those do you prefer?

Definitely open championship, right? And this is where, like, I think a lot of the disconnect on, at least on social media, comes from how much venues have an impact on these kind of thing, is if I'm strapping into watch, like, beginning of coverage to the end, and I do that for all of the majors, the golf course has got to be really interesting for me.

Like it's got to, it's got to be a journey of watching interesting shots, watching interesting pins, how slopes are going to play, how well guys are attacking blah, blah, blah, and how balls are bouncing and who's playing the smart shots around the greens, the variety of skills that are tested throughout. That only matters if you're going to watch a lot of the golf tournament. If you tune into the end and you just want to see who makes the birdies, who makes the putts, who's going to win it, who chokes, a lot of tuning people tune into watch to see

if people are going to choke on the golf course. That is going to, you're going to have a different viewing experience than I am personally going to have and we're probably going to differ on how much one we like a golf course into how much the golf course actually matters. So watching guys charge around Torrey is not interesting to me at all. Every time Torrey comes around, I try to like come around like, you know what, I think the hate's gone too far on this and it just hasn't. It's just a boring test of golf as it translates to television.

I know it's a tremendous municipal. I know people in that area love it for a lot of reasons that I'm not telling you not to. I'm just saying I don't. Yeah, I think that I agree with like liking that style of tournament more than the great ending. But I think what happens is in golf and especially with the casual fan, we overrate Indians. Like, the 20, I always go back to the 2013 masters. Adam Scott, on Hell Cabaret, the ending was unreal, as good as masters, Indians get. But I didn't think the whole week leading up was that good. But nobody, like, we don't ever think about that, because all we remember is on Hell

given the thumbs up to Adam Scott on the 10th hole as they're walking up there. And so I think that history will be kind to the 2021 US Open because of the finish, because of the board, and it will be unkind to the 2021 open, but having lived through both of them, I just thought the open was better. I mean, I, I, I, and the, the, the Indian of the US open covers over a multitude of sins throughout the week, but I preferred, and I ranked, when I ranked them, I ranked the open championship ahead of it, and people are like, no, that's wrong, that's wrong. And it's like, I understand why you feel that, but that's just not what I prefer.

Yep. And you're, no And you're exactly right. The ending is what's gonna be like the lasting image. And it gave us a tremendous, tremendous ending. Like watching the fist pumps over again today from Ram and the two putty made, the loose left to right breakers, that when your pressure is on,

like, of course, of course, of course, I've never been anywhere near of a pressure situation, but like, I have putts that I feel more things on that I wanna make more than others. And it's always the hardest on those to get the pace, right? Like to get the ball to come off the putter at the right speed.

And to do that under all, the most amount of pressure you can feel on a putt on these, like true have to get the pace exactly right to get him right two times in a row was badass like it was so awesome to see and it was it just was so much about major championship golf can be about who fails and somebody went out and got it. It happened to be the best player in the world. His first major he gave us the signature fist pumps. That was just a tremendous moment in golf and no point was I like, you know,

bitter about the week sucked, but that was cool. But I just I walked off that week just feeling awesome about what the finish we saw. And I'll remember that. I totally agree. I thought it was fitting to that, you know, you've got, you've got like the eight best players in the world at the top of this board. And I thought it was fitting that ROM emerged from that because I think he's the guy. Like I think he is, I mean, you know, data golf, strokes, all the stuff.

If you look at the last five years, he's been the best of the best. Like he is the best of all the best players. And so I was glad that that kind of bore out at that US Open. Do you, is there anybody else in the anybody else in the 20 best guys in the world that you trust more with those two Puts than him? That's interesting.

I don't know that there is. I mean, he just, is he gonna make him all the time? No, but I just, I don't know. I had the sense that he was going to, he was going to make though. And I just, I guess what I'm saying is I always feel like when he's got big putts late, it always feels like they're going in. If you put a rory out there, if you put a zander out there, yeah, probably even if you put a DJ out there, I'm like, ah, maybe I don't, yeah, this could happen. But with Rahm, I'm like, this is going in.

I was getting ready to say, you're not going to like my answer, but you might be the guy that likes my answer the most. There is one guy who I think I would trust maybe a little bit more. Patty? Speed. Speed. Speed's making those pots, man. Come on.

Yeah, no, that's true. That's true. Well, he's now in the top 20, so I guess we can say that. I think we forget how many times about a tournament that Speed gives us a 25 footer that center cuts, that brings him back into and covers up other deficiencies. You know what I mean? It's kind of like, we made a mess of that horrible wedge. Boom, bangs a 25 footer in.

Like, oh, we're back, we're back. He makes so many of those. He always gives that subtle little, you know, fist pump thing. That it kind of, I don't know, it says a lot. Like, he just, it might take on him with the, like, just the last couple months, which we forgot to mention that he should have on the masters and the PGA, but he understands the rhythm of a tournament.

So, so well, like, he just, I don't know, some guys you're like, man, you still got 15 holes left or you, or you still have, you know, whatever. He just gets that in a way that is innate, that I don't know that other guys completely like fall into the rhythm of it during a week. And this felt like the year of speed getting back into contending in majors and being comfortable contending. And it just was maybe a year I needed to go through to remind myself, like, yeah, I am that dude.

Like, still kind of getting comfortable again, being very, very good at golf all over again. Like going in the next year, it should be a lot different. And it just makes me a little bit sad that so much of major championship golf tends to be like courses I walk into not feeling great about it for Jordan's beef. And we got a great question here. I'm going to see if I can find it. Seymour 675. He says, does the open this year's show blueprint for future course design to challenge players

other than distance was calm conditions didn't play firm and fast yet players of all links had a chance to contend. Not best it could be, but still entertaining with great potential. And I couldn't help but think, man, like all that description right there, Chambers Bay needs another shot. And not just the speed one there,

but like that venue is one of the only ones out there that I feel like has given us a true smorgasbord of playing styles. You know, it had issues, it had issues with the greens, it had, I feel like a lot of people just hated that event because of how poorly it was covered in Fox's first year. And it needs another look. And I know they're scared to go back there. It just didn't, they did not walk away from that feeling like that worked out.

But venues like that are going to create the chaos that we, that we're going to want. And there are a lot more similar to St. George's and that it's just not a driving contest. And I, I think we're going to find, we're going to keep seeing that to be true. I don't want golf to keep, I've been, obviously, made this point a million times, like not wanting golf to turn into more of a driving and putting contest. Like, Open Championship was an iron hitting contest, and that is very fun golf to watch. And anything I can do for more of that, I'm in on. So. Some of this is course set up though, right?

Like it's going to pine herch and not growing the rough up. I don't do it because that, Andy has got some good stuff on the fried egg about this. And he was on this after wing foot of like, look, growing the rough up, that leaves like four guys that can win it. The problem for Bryson is what we saw at St. Rose, St. George's, where you have no idea where this is coming out

of the wispy, just kind of nasty waste area. And that to me, it reminds me of a Chamber's Bay, it reminds me of a Pinehurst. So I, yes, go to those places, but also set them up in a way that is not like, oh, we're gonna, we're the, you know, USGA and we're known for like, foot high, you know, all this different stuff.

I think that can play into it as well. 100%. Last things I had on US Open is something that I don't know if we'll remember or look back on. Ram's ball is somehow not being OB on nine. Yeah. Is, you know, even he thought that over that fence was OB and it turned out to just be a free drop out of that. That's something that I've have a feeling we'll forget over time.

Drew breeze just laying into his daughter, just, I had this as well. Just like, oh, there's Drew Breeze, just having a go at his daughter. So she did something. He was not happy with her and that's the exact moment that caught him on camera. That was pretty perfect. So I think I think I know what happened there. I think it was a situation. They were pointing at, I think it was a bathroom and she like didn't wanna go but she had to go.

I've been there a million times. I knew what he was feeling. I felt empathetic for him because I never have a camera on me whenever I'm doing that to my kids. And it was a face and a set of emotions that I know that's very no very well. Yes. And lastly, Richard Blant, I know he faded really hard, but that was fun for a pretty long time. And it did not, the ending scoreboard were not, you know, paying out very well for him, but that was really fun to have him as a 36-hole leader.

It was, it was cool. I got to write about him on that Friday night, and I was like, I told my editor, I was like, I have to write about him because this is our only opportunity. Like this is not this is not gonna last. Uh, the only other thing I had more color made a seven on 13 on Sunday. Could have could have like really been in it late. He lost by four, I think. Bryson just like found a swing thought in his dreams, which was very strange.

Also more cow a shout out to 75 in round one. And yeah, and he had he's going to be a contender in US opens to come. That's not a bull take, but just remember that. Yeah, I would say it just like speed that helps him if you go to a pine nurse, if you go to a chamber spay, you know, I think that's. Oh, the paragliders out there are insane. I'd never been out there. And I was terrified.

I mean, it was like, I was like, somebody in my clip, Bubba, in the back of the head. This is truly, truly crazy. I remember being at how bored I was, honestly, watching that term, I was like, I'm ready for a paraglider to insert themselves into the drama. Like, what is stopping the bird man

from getting involved in one of these things and flying over the golf course. Yeah. Oh. Like, the last thing. So I'll give a shout out to my, our producer on my podcast, the first cut podcast over at CBS. Jacob Alex is our producer and he had this tweet whenever, uh, ROMswife and Phil were sitting on the driving range together where he said he like quoted as if Phil was saying,

hey, you can take the $2 million now, but I've got a guy that if he can give it to him, it'll be 10 mil by Christmas. It was, I thought it was the tweet of the tournament. It was, it was, I thought it was the tweet of the, of the tournament. Oh, which by the way, we didn't mention the tweet of the, of the PGA championship was Phil giving Brooks his scorecard to sign and scoring and saying, you got to rock the beat. Yeah, we should have done a tweet in a tournament for each one.

We should do that every week. A tweet in the week, a recap, some cut out on the pod. But could we have anything else from the open? I feel like we've talked a lot of open up to this point. And it is very, very fresh. There's not a ton of stuff I'm dying to revisit. But what have you got on the open? I didn't have much.

That was the one I probably wrote the least, like took the fewest amount of notes on. I would like to wish Marcel Seam good luck in Tokyo because he tries to bring home a basketball title for Germany. It's got, you know, the Gassal brothers are gonna be tough so it'll be, he was a delight. He was fun all week. That guy, yeah, I tried to get it on a pickup

where I drafted off you with the tweets of saying, like I just, he's devastating on the pick and roll. And trust, he draws so many fouls, cutting to the basket, just leans into you. That is good free throw shooter. I love the no hat. More guys should go no hat. That's great.

Getting through a few questions here, we try to touch on this on our recap pod to I'm curious your thoughts. Kevin McDowell 79 who gets the grand slam for spieth Rory or more a cava. I'm going to throw Phil in there too. You guys went through this. I can't remember southern hills. Where is it after southern hills? Valhalla Oak Hill and then Valhalla in 24 and then quail hollow 25. I think I think spieth. I think that's the best chance, right?

I don't know where. I still go back to following him and Brooks at, at Beth Page in 19 and, and being like, this guy can't find the clubface. Like, how's, how's he finishing third, you know? So I, I think that it's not the, depending on the setup, it's not a great championship for him. Actually, Kyo is a pretty decent setup, I thought, for him. Yeah. I just think it's a better chance than Rory went in the Masters or more a co-aggetting too.

Yep. Morgan Bell PR, what do you think about the Canadian presence on major leaderboards this year? This is going to surprise you This is coming from a Canadian for a Twitter just to just to be clear, but honestly Canadians have tremendous pride, but I did want to just give a shout out in general to Mackenzie Hughes and Cory Connors Major championship performance is this year

No titles taken home didn't really threaten for titles, but punched way above their weight in majors this year And I wanted to give that a shout out. But yeah, Conner's is, he's a stud. You know, he's, he's a little, Scotty Schuffler like in that it's a major and you're like, I, I, I, I, Corey Conner's probably gonna be there, you know? So I, yeah, that, that's been, that has been,

it has been fun. It's, it's great. Those guys might, you know, win the, metal at the Olympics or something. Last six months, Stroke's gained Corey Con it's great. Those guys might, you know, win the metal at the Olympics or something. The last six months, Stroke's gained Corey Conner's 1.55 Dustin Johnson 1.55. Yeah. Worth noting and he does not get it done with the putter either. That's just straight ball striking. So master of domain B, does Brooks get a fifth major? Can't deny his ability to show up consistently at them, but with some shaky Sundays lately and host of young guys coming on strong, does he snag another one?

I don't know. I mean, and this is the I freaking this so much fun because you know, there's only there's only 40 of them in the next 10 years and somebody and speeds only going to win 30 days of them. And she and yes, he's will gonna win 30. J.C. and she and yes, Speed will only get, I tweeted the other day that, you know, I think Speed probably, he might only get to 12 and people like took it very seriously.

Oh, but, listen, patting myself at the back, my favorite tweet of my own this year was, all right, three horse race down from the PGA. Phil minus seven, Kepp minus seven, speed that even. That was the first speed joke that people were like, they got, they weren't like, he's out of it, like what are you talking about?

They were actually in on that one. Well, J-Ray did the percentages on Master Saturday and it was like, you know, Justin Rose, 25 or whatever. It only added up to 44, and I said, I presume, speed is the other 56. I don't even know the question. I don't even know the question. Brooks, it's easy, it's easy and safe to say,

yes, he'll win another one, right? I mean, that's like the easy answer, but like, it's a fair question at this point. Yeah, it is. The thing I go back to, he's tied or beaten 616 of 620 guys at the last four US opens that he's played in. Oh my God, that's just so absurd. It's truly crazy.

I don't, I don't know. Like he hasn't had to live some of the stuff that Rory's had to live because he's kind of just like whatever to a lot of the nonsense that comes with being a top-tim player. Now, I don't know. He does the pip stuff and the mingle of all this different stuff. So I wonder how much of being that guy eventually takes a toll on him. Sometimes I'd feel like he just kind of exists outside of it. And so it won't affect him as much as a spieth

or somebody like that. I'll say yes, but I think it's, I don't know, man, I think with all these guys, it always feels like they're gonna win way more than than you think or way more than they actually win. And we'll say for the 50th time it hadn't won any since that kind of back nine collapse ish. A collapse adjacent at Beth Page and he looked very invincible in those situations until he wasn't and has been invincible. Vince might not be the right phrase to use with you when it comes to you.

No, no, it's not. The original Vince for the engraver of the Clark joke is really, that's a great nickname. Yes, yeah, that guy was Balcy. I mean, it did not look like there was a chance that he would double at any point, but etching that in before he had hit his approach shot at eight years.

Yeah, that was, that was, he was one uping you a little bit there, but etching that in before he had hit his approach shot at eight days. Yeah. That was, that was, he was one upping you a little bit there, but. Yes. Yes. One underscore, Lunga, the JT situation needs addressing, was it the courses we saw this year or something more deprooted slash terminal? Oh, jeez, I didn't read all my, I didn't read through all that one all the way before I started that sentence.

Yeah, it's, look, like the major stuff is, I don't know, it's not great, it's not terrible. You know, if you look through his, he was kind of in it in the Masters this year, he finished fourth in the Masters last year, he finished fourth in the Masters last year. He led the US Open at Wingfoot. So it's not as if he's just been like, miscut, miscut, miscut. And I think like, this is actually not a joke, but people forget that he won the players

like three months ago. Yep. You know? And I think the thing that, the thing you want to see is the same thing you want to see with Zander, where it's like, hey, let's lead this thing on Friday night and then kind of shut the door a little bit. Like he's kind of doing the rory thing

of lurking around and kind of sneaking around a little bit, but he's the type of guy that it's like, hey, go lead this on Friday night, Saturday night, and then slam the door, and he just, he hasn't done that. We call it, I called Ram a booey, you know, like you just can't sink him, like he just, yeah, he just goes up the leaderboard, even if he starts poorly.

JT is not. JT seems like almost more of an anchor in when it comes to majors. Like he seems like he flashes, and then just sinks, and just falls down the leaderboard. Five top tens in 24 majors. He's, you know, he had two top 10s in 2020, but T21 at this year's Masters missed the Cup of PGA T19 US Open T40 at the open.

I mean, well, we asked him about it directly on the pod and he said, yeah, I'm very not satisfied with my major record. And I think it's very fair to call his major record in the question, especially when his one win was Quail Hollow, which is a PGA tour golf course. And I think that's different. I really do. I think there's something to showing up at a golf course that is not in your normal rotation, learning it and playing tremendous golf on it by the end of the

week. And it it it feels like point eight of a major, honestly, especially with it by the end of the week. And it feels like 0.8 of a major honestly, especially with it lack of validation and other events. It seems like he's unable to do the thing that Speed is able to do, which is what you said earlier of like, okay, I got myself back in it, right? I made a double and that was terrible.

And then I buried the next two and I'm back in it. I made a 20 footer, I'm back in it. And it just, it seems to unwind really quickly for him. I think about even, I can't remember what he did on Saturday at the Masters, because remember for a while on Friday, it felt like we were getting JT's speed on the weekend. And it didn't play out like that.

But I think he like doubled or tripled 13. Yeah. I want to say, I think he made a seven on 13 on Saturday. And it's just stuff that you can't do that. And that's why, man, this stuff, you have to be perfect. Like, more collar almost didn't miss a shot for the last three days.

Yeah. And it's just, it is, we talked about it earlier, as a top player, it's got to, again, as a Kevin Strylman, what are you thinking going to the 2022 Masters? Are you like, well, if I have a great week, I'm gonna win. No, like maybe you have to. Otherwise, you would just quit.

But like, is that reality? I don't think it is. Yeah, I don't know how you watch that and be like, yeah, I'm gonna get mine is. Yeah, I don't know how you watch that and be like, yeah, I'm a good mind. Like I. And like that's not Kevin Strowman's a good player. He's had a great major season. But it's just, it's got to be,

you're the 30th best guy in the world, and you just, you go to majors and it's like, do I have a shot this week? It doesn't really feel like it. Jay Kornah, Kornah Rins says, ask Kyle Porter CBS, hypothetically, which PGA tour venue slash host? Would he most look forward to detonating if it followed the open?

Oh gosh. This feels like a trap. I just had to get that one, Ed. Just a shot. I'll have to jump up to Memphis for that one. Yeah, I didn't get eviscerated by the Twin Cities. So I love Minnesota was great when we were there for Hazelteam. It was awesome.

P. Anderson, 1988, from a course perspective that isn't Augusto, which major course you're looking forward to the most in 2022. Okay, so it's Southern Hills, Old Course, and Brooklyn. That's correct. I mean, it's gotta be the Old Course, right? Yeah, which Randy's take of they should cut it from the road is kind of sick. I can't tell if it's a bit or not a bit,

but it's hilarious, it's really funny. I will say like the the We've gotten some kind of weird winners at the old course. Yeah, you know daily in daily in 95 Who stays in only win on in 200 events on the PJ tour and then obviously Your boy and corn out of the clear at jug was just that was and tiger who could have seen that coming as a random yeah random two of them but old course is is gonna be interesting no matter what it is hope we get some weather of course but in the scoring is probably gonna be low but it is really interesting like par three and a half holes and it there are interesting elements to it if they're properly displayed

and explained well on the telecast things to watch for interesting golf holes, interesting bunkers that just play way bigger than they actually look on TV. There's so many elements to that golf course that listen does a quit modern equipment kind of neutralize some of them. Yes, but go back and watch the tiger exhibitions through there and tell me it's not incredibly fun to figure out. Like, all right, well, if Nine's downwind, that means Ten's going to be into. He can probably drive nine, but he can't drive ten, but if it's the other direction, you

probably drive ten, but not drive nine. How are you going to avoid these two bunkers then? Blah blah blah. The whole, you know, eight holes one way, eight holes the other with some kind of zigzagging there in between. So much fun. Like, the old course is freaking amazing. And it is maybe I just have more affinity for it,

just having opportunities to play it. And it becoming my favorite golf course to play in the world. But I can't wait for the open to return there. It's just something about that walkup 18 and that whole scene. It was the first open I attended. And I'm so, so excited for that next year. I think one thing is like, I don't know if people, and I probably don't, but I don't know if people understand

how much weather changes these events. Like even think about Cuba, it wasn't like, it wasn't crazy, but it was consistently blowing, and it just changed the whole dynamic of that event. It became such a storyline, but not in a annoying way. It became a storyline and, hey, this is affecting like which ballstraggers can win this tournament, type of way. And it made guys hit different shot shapes.

Like, Bryson, remember I was going through my little tweets, Bryson did a shot that was going backwards by the time it landed from like 97 yards or something like that. And I forgot that, but I was like, oh yeah, that tournament, that week, that 72-hole test required you to hit some flighty shots into the wind. Driver driver, web hit driver driver, and had 118 in on 16.

Like. That's kind of sick. Yeah, that is pretty much my end of major stuff. Do you want to do five minutes on rider cup before we will probably need to do a separate pod? But well, can we do Player youth you're gonna think about the most differently. I mean, maybe it's maybe it's just more color I think it is so I thought about this. It's rom getting the check mark It's like all right. You're in like you're a major champion

We don't have to play that game anymore of like, you know, when are you gonna finally win one of these things? Boom, you're in. You're a part of this club now. Moorakawa going from one to two is different. And it, you know, it's not, the hype is not gonna outrace him just yet.

If he wins a third one, I think then that's gonna, when it's gonna get weird for him, you know, just dealing with the attention and the scrutiny that's going to come under that. But it is, I think he can still fly ish under the radar at this too. But at the same time, like a cemented legacy already at age 24 is pretty wild. Mark, I have to be the answer. I will say if you flip it around the other way, I think I'm gonna start thinking differently about Rory at the majors.

And I don't know if that may, I think I think a little differently about his career now going forward. Not about what's happened in the past, but just about what's possible in the future. And you know, who knows? He could win the Masters by five next year. That's in there, like that exists, but that's not what I'm going to be thinking, you know, going into April of 2022.

So more collar is, is it for me, but also Rory on, on kind of the negative side? I would say short term. Yes, that's where I'm at. Like, yeah, you're going to have to convince me before I kind of fall back into this. But thinking about Adam Scott winning one, maybe a little later, probably then he probably should. Sergio winning one, winning his only one later than would have made sense for his career arc.

Like golf, it'd be surprising. Rory hasn't played bad enough for this to like, totally go away. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like't played bad enough for this to like totally go away. You know what I mean? Like it's not like it's not realistic for him to find something at some point. It might not be next year. And it might, you know, take some bounce back from burnout or whatever he's got currently going on. But it, like golfers play this game for a really long, freaking time and Dick Blend led the US Open through 36 goals.

Like, you know what I mean? It's not, I don't long term think like Roy can't win one. It's just kind of like, eh, it's going to have to, it's going to show me something different than what we're really seeing, but it's not, it's not a past tense thing. I, I think it's, yeah, I agree. I think it's less about long term and more about like, oh, I'm,, I think I'm gonna, I think like fool me 33 times in a row. I'm maybe gonna like, just cook, not, not, not feel like, oh, if he shoots, you know,

it goes out in 26, anything can happen. So we're actually really just saying we're not gonna fall for it, but we still will fall for it. That's a good one. Nine months later, I will not remember this at all. So that's the beauty, be it a golf ad. The Ryder Cup stuff, we should do a separate on that, because we don't have time, and we're

going to want to go another two hours. I want to say this before I go. I was thinking about, I was actually thinking about the 2016 Ryder Cup and that podcast we did. And I wanted to just give a shout out to you and all the no-waying up guys, because I think that, again, I try not to listen but it's hard during majors to not listen to you

and pour out all the good stuff. And I mean this genuinely, we've been joking for two hours, but you guys have made me smarter and more thoughtful about golf, and that's fun. Like, are we less innocent than we once were? Are we more like crusty than we once were? For sure. But it's also been a ton of fun.

So I wanted to say thank you for that and just give you all of you guys a shout out at Noina. Well, if we're in the Mutual Admiration Society here, no one makes me laugh harder on Twitter than you did. And this is not a shot at my other colleagues. It's just flexing a different muscle in terms of, gosh, I love talking golf with you man. And it just, if we talk for 45 minutes before we even got to our topic. So thanks. Thanks a ton for all of your contributions to this podcast over the years. It really wouldn't have gotten anywhere close to where it's gotten to without that in the in 2014 when literally we had about eight of eight people listening to you and I talk about

Ricky Fowler. 20. Thankfully, yeah, that's all we had very much. So, but only I'll say about Ryder like, I don't feel great right now. And we can unpack that at a later date, but I really don't feel great right now for a lot of reasons. I don't know if you wanna leave it at that or not,

but it's just not a lot of good feels right now. Yeah, I mean, there's, you know, there's good reason for that, I think. And yeah, we can't go down this road. No, we won't come back. We gotta go. Kyle, you gotta go. Get out of here.

Thanks so much for joining. We gotta do this sooner. We'll do a Ryder Cup pre-efe. I promise we will. All right, for sure. Thanks, buddy, cheers. Get a Ryder Club. Feed a Ryder Club today.

Yes. Feed! That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different. Expect anything different.