No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 790: 1997 Majors Deep Dive

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

1997 was a transformative year in men's golf. Soly and KVV dive into Tiger's dominant performance at the Masters, what this meant for golf, how it was covered at the time, and how it all happened. We also chat about Ernie Els at Congressional, Justin Leonard at The Open, and Davis Love's triumph at Winged Foot. Come for the results, and stay for the hilarious tidbits uncovered along the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and Better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Solly here got another deep dive episode back by special request. A lot of demand for these episodes. We've got a lot of great feedback. We greatly appreciate everyone that's reached out, everyone that's listened, everyone that's laughed along to some of these stories. We've got another really good giggly moment in this one the kvv

hit us with which uh i just relived it we recorded this a few months ago uh i had a blast reliving that one i think you guys will greatly enjoy we do the 1997 mat uh major championships if you're listening to this maybe for the first time we're not familiar with these deep dives we kind of started going we originally started doing like 1991 through 93 or really doing big block years, but we started breaking them out individually for each year, rewatching old film, reading old articles, and just kind of relaying some of our favorite stories, trading back and forth. I take the masters and open. He takes the US Open and the PGA and kind of informing the listener along with the person who didn't research the particular major about it and kind of reacting the listener along with the person who didn't research

the particular major about it and kind of reacting to it in real time. A lot of fun. Thanks to everyone that's been involved. I want to thank Roback as well for being a great partner. They are fresh off new restocks of our favorite polos, hoodies and QZips. They just sent me another great batch of clothes. More hoodies. I think I've almost completed the full collection of hoodies.

Listen, as much as we're on camera, I need to keep a nice rotation of rowback hoodies going because I can't be seen wearing all the same stuff all the time. But we're getting pretty close to having the full, the full, you know, the full gamut, if you will. I love going to their website and just looking at the stuff because it is really that good. The hoodies are fantastic. The Q-zips are back. I love these Q-zips. I wear them as an outer layer to play golf all the time. I wear them around the house. They are the definition of versatile. They'll keep you looking and feeling good. And of course the polo. So the Polo is fantastic. The material is moisture wicking. It's got a great stretch. Really enjoy some of their

nice striped design. I just think they're really, really crisp along with the collar. It doesn't lose its shape. And if you haven't already, it's time to load up on some row back both for yourself and for others. You can use code NLU at rowback.com for a generous 20% off your first order through the end of this week. That's RHO, BACK.com, 20% off bottoms, QZip's, Hooties and more with code NLU. Get ready for the golf season with Rowback. Without any further delay, here are the 1997 major championships. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the no laying up podcast. Solly here. We are back with yet another major championship recap with my guy, Kevin

van Volkenberg, 1997 edition KVV. How are you feeling? So I, I'm doing really well. I have a really good joke that I want to use, but I do not want to spoil what is potentially 97 masters anecdote. So I'll keep it to myself. Okay. We are going to be adding a little bit of a visual element to this version of it. If you are listening in your car, there is going to be a YouTube version with just no highlight clips in it, but a couple of just still images that will help illustrate the

story just a little bit. We're working on getting more episodes up on YouTube, not as easy of a process as people would like to make it. But, these look back episodes, there's just enough stuff that happens and it's like, I mean, you got, I can't describe this image. Like you got to just see this. You got to go with it. And we're getting into, I forget all the years we've done. I know we did 91 to 93. I think we skipped 94. We did 95. We did 96. I think I had that right. The goal was kind of covering this weird little time period in the 90s before

golf changed forever. And I think the first major that we're going to get to in 1997 is the moment that golf changed forever. I let you do the 1996 Masters, which was dramatic. And I called for the ball for the 1997 Masters. And then kind of immediately regretted it when I spent hours and hours and hours and hours preparing for it. And then remembered that Tiger wrote a book about the 1997 Masters. I was like, I should probably use a little bit of what's in that and have spent the last week or so driving around Jacksonville listening to the audio book, which you can find on Spotify, which has been great, but getting the 1997 Masters in Tigers own words.

And, uh, that will be seeping through a little bit in our coverage of the 97 masters. That's lovely. I know the joke that I was going to make early on was about to come on ride that train moment. Uh, so I, uh, I guess, if you know that for sure, then I can let it be that's like my highlight moment, which we're going to get to. Listen, you still get credit for, for making for making me laugh, even though I already was aware of that moment. You know what? These majors, I think the reason why we have picked these and I think why that they

have resonated with people is like they're just old enough to like you don't remember them in a crystal clear way. But there's also just enough like clips out there or like remembrances of there. We're going to push ourselves and we're going to try to do like the 1961 open at some point, you know, something crazy like that. But these are really the sweet spot of like, Hey, there's a lot of newspaper archives. There was a lot of people covering golf at the time. There's just a encyclopedia of stuff out there. And so I guarantee there's some great things in your 97 that nobody remembers because that's just how memory works because there's a shit on a mind in the 97, you know, us open that nobody remembers. Well, the problem with doing something that people do remember quite well and is well documented about doing 97 masters is like, I fear like leaving something out that is like, you know, obvious. And there's one thing that I was, you know, I was 98% done. I was like, Oh God, I forgot this happened. You cannot forget about that one.

That's got to go in there. And that's what sent me on a, on a rabbit hole to go find it, all the stuff that I could, but I promise there's a lot of good stuff. Getting into it, length of the course at the 97 masters, 6,925 yards. It is playing firm this year. There are 86 players in the field the prize fund is 2.7 million dollars The winner will be gifted 486 thousand dollars in today's dollars that is just a five point two million dollar purse 932 thousand dollars to the winner that is the state of golf in

$932,000 to the winner. That is the state of golf in 1997. The winner of a major championship does not get a million dollars in today's dollars. I have a feeling that is all about the change probably because in large part of what we're about to witness, the OWGR going into the 1997 masters goes Greg Norman Tom layman Colin Montgomery Mark O'Meara Ernie L's Steve Elkington of course of course our guy jumbo. Oh, Zaki. Yes Yes, way in the top 10 Nick Fowler has fallen all the way to eighth in the world Phil Mickelson is nine Nick Price is 10 Scott Hoke 11 Fred couples 12 Eldrick Tiger taunt woods is ranked 13th in the world.

Um, just I'm gonna have many quiz questions for you throughout this. How many start, how many professional starts is Tiger Woods made before the 97 masters? Uh, would it debut at the John Deere that year? Or maybe the little walkie. Yeah. Milwaukee. That's right. Um, 12, 14 starts. And how many times has he won?

Uh, I think he has won twice at this point. He's won three times. He won in Vegas. He also won the Mercedes that year. And I forget what the other one was, but I'm sure someone will yell at me for that one, but he's won three times going into this one. I'll get into the odds here here in a second, but can I just say one thing real quick? The taunt part of Tiger's name.

I feel like it's really underrated, you know, column eldritch a lot, but like, you know, taunt is actually his like second middle name. I think we got to bring that back. I've tried it to never catch us on and I don't really know why I for all the other nicknames that we have for him. I'm surprised that one has never stuck the big taunt. He has played in the Masters before twice as an amateur. Of course, he is the three time defending us amateur champion on the backs of winning three us junior championships, but he has never broken par in six rounds at the masters.

He made the cut in 1995, missed the cut in 1996 and leading up to it in 1997, famously back at Isleworth practicing and playing a lot of golf leading up to what he shot a very, very well documented 59. I was playing with Marco Mira the next day. He buried their first hole, which was the 10th hole at Isleworth steps up on the 11th or second hole. Everyone knows what he does. Thanks a hole in one and Marco Mira just jumps back in his cart and drives home and tells the story to every person he's met for every, every single day for the next 25 years.

I think I saw Marco Mira in a car park, uh, like at the open shape and ship this year, probably, I think it was my recollection of it as he told that story. I never tell you about the time tiger made an ace, uh, right before the master's. It's 97. Um, I'm going to refer a lot to Tiger's book throughout the course of this, uh, cause a lot of stuff obviously is going to permeate through, but he talks so much in that book about how he was playing at Isleworth leading up to this and how that does end up a factor. We all know what he shoots on the front nine and how the Isleworth practice

and the golf he played leading up to it changed the way he approached the remaining 63 holes of this golf course. But golf didis also has a great oral history with a bunch of quotes from different people. One of them Paul Aisinger, uh, don't might be a little revisionist history in this, uh, telling of the tale for Mr. Aisinger, but he said before the masters, Tiger was favored, but the sports talk radio guy in my area was saying how wrong that was. Uh, what has Tiger Woods done to be the favorite and come on? There's a better chance that he'll miss the cut. So I called in, I didn't identify myself, but the guy knew my voice.

I just wanted to tell the guy that he had it really wrong and not only could Tiger win, but he could win by a lot. And you'll never, you'll never understand this kid. I'm Paul calling from, you know, from Seminole country club down here. And I just, no, not that Paul. I'm, I'm, I'm, yeah, I just want you to know he, this kid handles pressure better than you can ever possibly understand. And again, he talks so much in the books about his preparation for Augusta.

And he talks about in 1995 and in 96, he had played practice rounds with Jack Nicholas, Freddie couples, Greg Norman, Ben Crenshaw, Raymond Floyd, Arnold Palmer, like you name it. He talks so much about what he learns from them. He gives specific examples. If you're a golf nerd, the 1997 book has a little bit of the Netflix-y. This is how a cut works. It's a little bit, basically, if you're a 14-year-old that's getting really into golf, it is the

perfect book. It teaches you about the masters If you're a golf nerd like us, there's a lot of stuff in there that you kind of breeze past that you obviously know about but man, he is so incredibly focused on Controlling his distances controlling his spin learning where the best places are to play from at Augusta and talks in such great detail I'm gonna skip way ahead to the very end. The end of his book, he spends basically lambasting the world of golf and the direction that it has gone since 1997 of distance, changes that were required to be made to Augusta because of distance, adding the rough, adding the trees, making it an execution golf course

instead of a strategic golf course. And he goes whole by whole examples of how everything has changed and how it was way more interesting in 1997, way more match with Alistair McKinsey and Bobby Jones had envisioned and exactly the relationship between technology, the lack of spin, driver heads, all of it, like it's all there. I don't think people really know that, right? This is all real hit them up situation. But like, I'm going to take some names here and talk about why this I mean why this might be being a little bit traumatic about it. But he's like very clearly states that it's a bad, bad thing.

I have some of the quotes on the back end, but all that rewinds to say leading up into this on a wide open Augusta national, um, with, you know, tricky greens and a golf course that's just unlike anything else that they play. He is talking about angles the entire time, where to miss, how to play certain holes. There's enough width in that golf course. And again, with this style of play versus just the easy driver wedge stuff, there is now how, unless the pin was in a specific spot on 11, he played down the right side, but when it was on the right side,

he played to the left center of the fairway, unbelievable detail about exactly how to play this course and how it made him think and how, you know, Raymond Floyd taught him, you know, when you're out of position on number two, just blow it way right into the crowd because you'll get up and you never would have pictured it. But when you get over there, you're chipping straight up the hill and he actually uses that one time when he gets into trouble and all that. So I'm not going to go into all of it, but really, really nerdy stuff that's just fascinating. I love listening to him talk about how Ray Floyd taught him how to chip with

like a four iron and stuff, like real nerd shit that it's like, no, no, no, like you should basically put the ball back in your stance and take a four iron and just bump it along. And you know, every now and then, like he gets nostalgic now these days about those times. And so he's a lot more into telling those kinds of stories. And he loves talking about like the practice round with Floyd and like, just, yeah, just blow it into the stands and yell for

because that's another stands the patrons. He told that the very same story at this last matter at the masters this past time when he played. So, but yeah, it talks about he wanted to learn from the champions, wanted to learn exactly how they played the course and how he, you know, his experience playing in 95, 96 led to me. He's always putting from above the whole, always going after pins and he asked

Fowdo, like, you know, how many pins did you go after today? And he's like, I don't know, like four, maybe five. He's like, well, I went after 18. Uh, so maybe I have something to learn. Uh, got the guy that just won the masters and how he goes and plays the golf course. So he learned about how you can play conservatively and shoot really low at Augusta says some stuff that would drive the data boys. Absolutely nuts.

If I'd rather have a 15 footer up the hill, then a six footer down the hill, which I even, I might agree with the data boys on this. I don't know how accurate that is, but just speaking to his, his nerd level at this time, Carl Jackson, who was a famous caddy at Augusta, he was the master's caddy for 84 and 95 winner Ben Crenshaw. He said, Tiger did something I really respect. The 96 masters, his last year's in amateur, Tiger played a pracc around with Ben. He followed Ben and me around as we talked about likely pin positions. It was obvious he was paying attention. He missed the cut that year, but on Friday before he left, he looked me up and said, Mr Jackson,

those pin positions were exactly where you said they'd be. Thank you so much. And I remember thinking that young man was raised right. I don't know if we need a comment from, from Mr. Jackson in 2009 about whether or not, you know, Tiger was, was, was raised right. But, uh, you know, he was before the world had really damaged tiger. He was, uh, you know, uh, well-spoken and just very like, uh, thankful and appreciative person. Like hespoken and just very like, uh, thankful and appreciative person. Like he is just hearing like do interviews and stuff. And it is totally different than it would be just a few years later. Interesting thing to think about, like just how, like, you know, for Carl Jackson,

who'd been cadding in a guest all that time, like to see a black player come along, who was like the force of nature and to see be so invested in his success and the idea that this person might change everything. That had to be like kind of a really emotional cool thing to a lot of the caddies there. I mean, there's a famous story in the, you may get to about, you know, the cooks and the people coming out and clapping, you know. I mean, imagine just seeing that like after Augusta's history of then, but it was still a very complicated place and, you know, probably is today for a lot of people,

but certainly back in 1997, those will learn a lot, lot worse. I will get to a lot of that. And it was, to me, again, that story feels so well documented. Again, we're 26 years later and I, I don't believe that race relations and golf have evolved to perfection, but it's like,

we've had this conversation for most of my adult life, my entire adult life and most of my life as a kid, like things have definitely evolved since then. Going back and reading articles in the buildup to this and how it all happened was, it was a reminder of how monumental this was, right? And how, you know, again, you get to, you dive into what is actually happening in the conversation in that time period, not just how that conversation has evolved in 26 years. And it was just a reminder to me of some shocking facts again about Augusta and race and, and him being the, do you know the answer to this? How many, how many black players had played at Augusta or in the Masters before he did?

I think that I remember looking this up previously, I think I get this right. I think he's the fourth, like you're exactly right, which is crazy. In 1987, only three other people prior to him, African Americans had played in the masters. Correct. Golf do better. Yeah. So, uh, in the, in the lead up, he said, and his Tuesday presser, he said, I just came, I just came here to win.

Um, which again, of course, probably rubs some people the wrong way. Ticket prices allegedly reached $10,000 for this Masters at some point. And a really tough story that I'm not going to get into the details of because it was pretty complicated, but a local ticket broker actually committed suicide after his planned like black market ticket supplier got a better offer from a corporation for tickets and it left him like 172 tickets short of people that he had promised tickets to And he he actually committed suicide This was a well documented story that was it was written up in a lot of places

But I'd never heard that one before diving back into this This is the first masters for Lance Barrow after Frank Trachinian had produced the last 38 Frank Trachinian would have some quotes later of being watching it at home, just despondent at this, the fact that he was not covering like the most significant masters maybe ever. Of course, leading up into a tiger got a putting tip famously from his dad the night before the tournament. And again, going back to his practice and how the state of golf in this time, he talked about at home at Isleworth, he would practice shots with persimmon drivers to test where he needed to hit the ball on the face

to shape shots certain ways. Right. If you like, because of the gear effect on precision on, on persimmon drivers, practicing hitting off the heel and guaranteeing that it wouldn't go left and practicing hitting it off the toe to get that feel of getting The ball to go right to left and you could feel the ball in the face more with persimmon Than he could the titanium drivers He had a king cobrid driver at that time. God how much fun would it be if we'd sit just always just had wood bats, you know forever Like that, you know the idea of like artistry, I don't know. God, it makes me drool as like a freaking golf nerd to think about, you know, Persemin would have gotten better for sure.

And you know, there would have been different wood technology first, or sure, but yeah, just the idea of that. Like, all right, I think I'm going to have to make this go left. So I'm going to hit it off the toe. Some pre tournament writing. Uh, this is from the associated press. This is the only like only true metaculp I could find. I'm sure there's more out there.

This is, uh, there's an article under the subheading of, uh, Tiger Woods may have a tough time at Augusta. And, uh, in the image that's up on the screen now, it shows a picture of Tiger. Uh, the, the, the title of the article is Tiger not out of the woods yet at Masters. Also the term hasn't started yet. And under the picture of him swinging, it is, it says Tiger Woods is expected to have a tough time at Augusta this week. I don't know where they were getting this from because almost everything I found leading up to this, uh, said like pretty clearly like, Hey, this guy's, this guy's the real deal and something's about to happen.

Um, he did not sneak up on many golf riders. John Streege, is that how you say it? Yeah. Um, for the Orange County register and stretch, but yeah, stretch. He wrote, um, that a black man could make history with win at once all white masters. Like it was all before the tournament even started. It was about race. Like it was almost everything is written of like what would happen here if this very

complicated, uh, complicated place would, you know, if a black guy won there when Clifford Roberts, the famous, you know, co-founder or the other, I guess the former president of the club is famous for saying, uh, as long as I'm alive, then the golfers will be right in the golf and the caddies will be black. Now Tiger Woods, the, the first great, really great black golfers coming along only at age 21 has never won a major and is already being predicted as like, yeah, this is going to happen. Nicholas and Palmer had said leading up to this, that he's likely to

win more masters than us combined. Um, this was, uh, so I really don't know where this writer was getting this of like, yeah, my, he's expecting to struggle this week because, um, he was the favorite at plus 800 leading up into this Norman Fowdo and price, uh, are at plus 1000. Um, again, in that AP article, it says, while Gus, the national might be tailored for woods, his power, his sometimes erratic irons, shaky, short putting and lack of experience, keep him from being the flat out favorite when the 61st master starts on Thursday. Couldn't even get that last part right.

Cause he is the flat out favorite. Also shaky iron play. I mean, I guess, you know, we're talking about maybe the greatest iron player of all time. Uh, I guess at this time, he, and he talks about this too. His, his, his swing is not, he's not pleased with where his swing is at this point, especially rewatching these highlights. And he's often criticized for changing his swing shortly after this, but he goes

into great detail as to, um, because the club gets across the line at the top, his backswing has a tendency to get long. And when his timing is on, he can do it all, but he had trouble controlling his spin, had trouble controlling his distance because, uh, you know, his hips would outrace his hands and he, uh, would not have a consistent ball flight. Even if it's a couple of shots in this tournament that go long, he has the Icarito ball of, uh, just not somebody that has in full control of placing his irons in all the right spots just yet. That part seems like a somewhat fair, you know, assessment because in Tiger's

own words, like he had work to do after this outrageous performance, it's about to happen. But again, in John Streg's article, uh, he wrote about how Tiger was on the cover of a USGA magazine doing a fist pump and the USGA got letters about it. Uh, the letters included. And again, this is I'm reading the these are obviously not my words. The one quote is who is this some uncivilized savage. The next letter was I am disturbed by the cover photo of Woods doing his now famous war dance.

Said I find Woods's pose and reaction insulting images like these are expected in the NBA and the NFL, not the USGA. Uh, and I feel your cover is of the in your face style, which is certainly not what we need in golf. Yikes. One of those were signed letters. I'd like to go track some of those fellows down now and see if, uh, how they feel about, uh, having put that into the public record.

Like that was shocking to read. And again, just putting you back in the place of like what golf looked like even in the mid 90s, golf is famously behind the times and almost anything. And yeah, that was that was the reaction to a black guy being a one of the top players in the world. So going into Thursday, I have seen the 1997 Masters official film, I would say about 10 times conservatively in my life. I think most of my memories of the 97 Masters are just based on watching this film.

Like I know when some of these quotes are coming around the corner, I know the emphasis that the announcer has on like, here he is on 15 with a pitching wedge. Like I know what clubs are about to come. I've seen it so many times. I know what Earl's about to say. Uh, it's been on golf channel so many times that I watched it every single time. You are, by the way, this, in this moment, 12 years old, 11 years old. I am nine, 10 years old, about to turn 11 that summer. Yes. 10 years old. I remember watching it that Sunday. And I remember it being pretty monumental, you know, almost, I don't remember

if my mom or my dad, I remember watching the kitchen. I remember them saying like, you should come watch this. Like this is, this is a big deal. This is happening. I'm 18, by the way, at this moment. Okay. I'm just, just a freshman in college. How big are you in DeGolf at this point? Not very much. In fact, very little. I remember watching. Only just to write letters to the USGA when you know. Express my outrage.

You know what I do remember? I was a freshman. I remember the freshman football team as a freshman at the University of Montana. And on my floor were several African-American guys from Florida. And they were just so riveted by it. And they were like, this, I don't give a shit about golf,

but you gotta come watch this. And so we were like huddling around TVs, sort of in our dorm rooms, like kind of, you know, not sitting and watching it for hours and hours, but like, we just like checking in on it, keep your eye on it, like, man, tigers, like the real deal. This dude's awesome.

So that was a pretty cool core memory for me. Another true, another trivia question that's coming later. How many people, you are among how many people that watched the final round of the 1997 masters? 12 million, 10 million? 44 million people. And I don't know how that translates into, into ratings or whatnot and all that, you know, but I believe it, they estimated at 44 million

people watched the final round of the master. Like there's like, not even 300 million people in the U S at that point. Right. I mean, I don't know if that's counting global audience or where that comes from. That's on Wikipedia. So, so you know, it's true. Okay. The 97 Masters film opens up very dramatically and the announcer says this is about a son and a father This is about a golf course and its history about America and a prodigy Someone new with a talent we could not imagine. It's about youth determination and pride It's about some of us and it's about all of us and it takes place in four days in April amid the tall pines in Georgia. It's the story of the 1997 Masters. Good job. Whoever wrote that, you know, well, good TV writing there. Someone who's tried to do a little bit of that

voiceover type stuff. Like there's a cadence to it. I appreciate it. It's about, I don't have a full documentation of all of Augusta's commentary on its past, but the fact that it's an Augusta film and it says, this is about a golf course and its history, um, is about as big of an admission as you get from them, I think on, on the racial past. If I, I, again, there may, there may be more that I, that I cannot think of off top of my head, but I just found that part of it. Interesting.

Um, Gene Sarazen, 95 years old, uh, hits the opening shot with Byron Nelson, who's 85 and Sam Snead, who was 84 years old. Tiger Woods is paired with, of course, Nick Faldo. Do you remember who else he is paired with on this day? I really don't, uh, because they're playing in twosomes. I don't, I don't remember this about the masters. I kept like digging like, who was the other guy in the group? They're playing in two subs.

I don't know if that was when they went to threesomes in the masters, but that was, that was a surprise to me. Not only that, they repair after round one. Oh, wow. Remember this, but he ends up playing the second round with Paul Aisinger and not Nick Faldo because he ended Nick Faldo's career. That might have been the reason why, but. I feel like I just learned there's no Santa Claus. Like we've been talking about pairings and all this stuff for years.

And I guess I will say in my US Open research, like this idea that like there weren't like cutesy pairings or whatever, remember when people got so upset about, you know, Bryson and Brooks being potentially paired together, like the USDA has been doing that shit forever. Like just, there's no like, oh, it has to be the number one player in the world with the number one amateur, like pairing, pairings for every major in this area are just like a, basically a role that dies.

Yeah. Um, he gets, he's an afternoon tea time here. And afternoon tea time on all four days again, thanks to this repairing. There was no morning, morning afternoon, uh, ship. So we had invalidated and validated. He never had to play in the morning. Dude, that's what that's totally unfair. Well, most guys would say that's easier because it's a softer golf course and less wind. And he never had a tee time before two o'clock at the 97 masters and

comes out wearing a black. Again, I don't know if this is any kind of statement of any kind, but he has black shoes, black pants, black vest, black hat, and black trim on his shirt as he goes out. I don't think it is any kind of statement. It seems like pretty antithetical to kind of Tiger's approach to all of this and how he did not want to be defined as just, again, he talks a lot about this in the book as well about, did not want to be defined by just his father's heritage. He thought it was disrespectful to his mother's Asian heritage and the Caucasian blood that he has as well of saying You know that's what his joke of calling himself Kaplan Asian

He expressed some regret in using that frame but phrase But it was something that he his buddies had come up with and kind of joked about but he would later learn he said in America You know, they if you're considered black if you have any, any drop of blood of black in you. And he had to, that was a lesson he kind of had to learn in that process as well. Maybe as Phil said, he learned that NFL teams who wear black come out more aggressive for any aggressive colors. Well, he got a lot of flags throwing them on this front nine because it did not go great. He stepped up on the first tee and just absolutely shit roasted one high and left. And he looks like he lost the masters on the very first shot.

I mean, this was not even like upset, not even like mad about it. He just looks like there's tears. Yeah. He looks devastating. What's his hand over his mouth? And, uh, like it looks like he cannot recover from it. Um, they note that the highest opening nine by a master's winner is 38. Um, there's an old golf channel highlight look back package and Jim Thorpe comes on.

He's like, tiger come in first nine holes. Kind of sucked a little bit, you know, and got sucked. There is no better way to describe, uh, what happened on that front nine because he bogies the first hole. He bogies the fourth. He bogies the eighth and has to make a putt on the ninth hole for bogey to go out in 40. Really interesting stuff in the book as well, talking about the walk from the

10th tee, from the ninth green to the 10th tee and reflecting back on it. He was, he said he was especially thankful for his dad's trainings. The tough training had prepared him to be able to handle that adversity of that front nine. He said, if he had not trained me as he had, I could have easily crumbled in that moment. Also gave thanks to his mother's Buddhism. He had been to Thailand with her three times. And he said, after my front nine, I needed to find what my mom called the quiet spot. It came automatically in that green to tea walk. It had become so much a part of me.

I did feel cold blooded as my dad had put it. I felt in control. The walk was only a few yards and I accomplished a lot in it. Uh, he also reflected on butchers training and how one shot does not dictate what's about to happen. And he has like a swing thought that comes to him to say, like, my swing got too long on this front nine. I need to shorten the swing up to my swing that was at our worth. And he steps up and hits a two ironed down the fairway. He says

he felt it immediately. It was the same feel he had in all of his practice at our worth, the short and back swing. It was instant correction. And he just rode the field. Truly one of the most significant find it moments in golf history. Look, I've been there, you know, I've walked from the 19th to the 10th green and thought, well, which one of the 27 swing thoughts in my head might click? I've never quite gotten, you know, where I went and then went, you know, 14 under the next, you know, 36 holes or whatever. But, you know, maybe, maybe that day still

come. I would say this is a great time for a Neil drop in of found it as the two iron runs down the fairway because he birdies the 10th hole proceeds to chip in from behind the 12th green for a birdie, which again, he talks about how great he played on the back nine. He's still Icarita this ball back left of that, of that, that pin. I feel like I remember watching this part live when he chipped in there, but the film also takes time for a quick drive by on Norman. Got to say he's got an absolutely sick drip going.

Love this. Whenever Norman busts out the white like straw hat, that's when he looks his absolute best. He's got a killer vest on. I'm not hating it all on this image that's up on the screen now. This is a great drip. But the drive by is he goes into the water on 15 and shoots 77. So he will, he will not be winning the masters this year. Tyra steps up on 13 hits a three wood around the corner, hits a six iron on and two putts for birdie. He then steps up on 15. And again, great detail in this on the book to say like, they knew the cover yardage on the, I believe what he's referring to are the gum drops in the middle

of the fairway on 15 to say like, if you cover these mounds in the fairway, the ball is going to run, it's going to run down there. It's a speed slot It's gonna get way down there and my dude Let me tell you this ball got way down there because he has a hundred and fifty yards into the 500 yard hole with 1997 equipment and hits a pitching wedge into it makes Eagle So we are we've turned it four over par. We are one under par for the tournament six holes later. He goes on to birdie, uh, the 17th hole par, the 18th, almost,

almost made a birdie on the 18th hole to shoot a back nine 30 and shoot 70, uh, in the opening round of the 1997 masters plays himself right back into the tournament. Probably the only other golf of anyone else that we're going to discuss at any point happens happens. Next was John Houston misses the trees on 18 to the right. Like he's on, he's over by 10 fairway in the rough. Any estimation says to where this shot ends up. I got to think back left in the, in the patrons there. He fucking holds this. What? He holds this shot from over on 10 to shoot 67 and take the opening round lead.

Holy shit. Like way right on 18. Again, there's more trees over there now, but he holds it from the wrong hole into 18. He shoots 67. Paul Stankowski shoots 68. I don't think I've ever seen anybody way right. I've seen people way left over in that, like no man's land, uh, where it's like used to be the driving range way back in the day, but, uh, it like speed was over

there by the bathroom once, uh, and certainly Scotty hit it over there. Like, but I've never seen someone so far right that they were in 10 fairway. Uh, Paul, he's gonna shoot 69 again. He's going to be paired with tiger the next day. And that is it for Thursday. Konstantin, a Roka, Jose, Maria, Ola, Fable and Nick price are at minus one and T five after round one. I the last thing I have to clear out here is this sick image of tiger Fred couples and Greg Norman playing a praccion. I believe this was in 1996. I

was supposed to show this part of it earlier, but absolutely sick drip on pretty much everyone involved here. All right. Big trivia question here. The tiger is traveling with a bunch of buddies, including his friends, his friend Jerry Chang, who refers to a lot over the course of this week. They finished the round at Augusta on that Thursday. He goes and hits some balls on that Thursday. But where did they go for dinner that night? Did they go to either Hooters or T-Bones, uh, Stakehouse? You're along the right line of thinking, but they have the meats and they're

thinking Arby's. They went to Arby's on Thursday night and proceeded to go to Arby's every night after every round with the rest of the week. That's awesome. That's awesome. Something you could only get away with when you're 21 years old. But even after the champion's dinner on Sunday, or they re-up the Arby's, they went to Arby's on the way home as well.

So, man, I would love to know what Tiger ordered at Arby's like every single night. That would be, he didn't get into that, which makes me think that might be a made up story also that they didn't actually go, but Friday afternoon, tigers off at two 29 with Paul Aisinger. He's got blue on gray wearing some nice white kicks, looking a little more athletic on this day. Just goes out, chips in for birdies on two, uh, bogey's the third hole, but birdies five and eight to go out in Uh, bogey's the third hole, but birdies five

and eight to go out in 34 makes a clutch par on the ninth hole. Very, very sign of the times here. He hits fluff with the double fist pound where you do the boat. You know, you alternate, those hands go on top. He's got the very serious face going, uh, walking off the ninth green. It is firm. Again, let me emphasize it is very firm at this Augusta national, uh, this year at Augusta national, Tiger gets up and just lamb bass one around the corner on 13. He's got eight iron in from 170 and sends it right over the flag. And I've never heard this part in his book. He talks about how, uh, he credited. He's got, he's got an eagle putt from about 20 feet long of the hole. He credited the golf channel and their studio in Orlando for letting him

into their tape room to study old film of the masters. That's awesome. I've never heard him doing this. He lived in Orlando at the time, went into the studio and he said he had watched that putt a million times. He had watched, he knew that it broke less than it looked and it seemingly almost broke uphill. He drains the Eagle putt, takes sole possession of first place.

Jim Nance will tell the story to say he says it's, I think it's 5 39 PM and Tiger Woods is leading the masters for the first time. Again, this was 22 holes. Goal. He was at plus four. He's now at six under par and would not relinquish the lead again. Steps up, hits a sand wedge into 14, makes birdie. He either drives it into the crosswalk on 15 and takes a drop or it finished a

foot behind the crosswalk. I mean, this way goes way, way, way down there, hits another wedge in, hits it to 15 feet, two putts for birdie. way down there hits another wedge and hits it to 15 feet, two putts for birdie. He would post a 66 on this day and it would leave Monty just looking like this. Who Monty shot a 67 and is asked about it. It would, you know, would be paired with Tiger on the next day. We'll get to some of that, but Tiger shoots 66 and now has a three shot lead at the halfway point of the masters. Monty would say

You know, you can hear the Roars out there and you it's obvious who did it and what it was You can tell the difference between an Eagle Roar and a birdie birdie Roar, but mostly I just wanted to show this Monty image and we'll get into some more Monty stuff, but again after shooting this 60 66 cat heads to the range after his last nine holes were 30, 34, 32 hits two buckets of balls with butch. Nick Faldo shoots an 81 to miss the cut by a mile. And that is pretty much it for him. He never won again. Uh, this was a year removed from him winning the 96 masters and he never won

again, but involved in some personal strife of as a believe we have documented that many times pretty much in all of this. Yes. Which is, I mean, gosh, it's kind of, I don't want to say it's sad, but I mean, again, we've covered almost every year of the major since 91. That dude was there. He was always, always there, always a factor. Um, him and Norman, and it just would never be the same for, for either of them

after that 96 masters, but what does it mind? It, minus eight, Monty at minus five, Constancy in a roket for Fred couples, Jose, Mariella, Fable and Jeff Sleuman at three, Aisinger, Price, Dankowski at minus two. I have to double check this. I don't think any of tigers playing partners during this master's broke par. He just did whatever he did to them. And that was the beginning of the tiger effect. Monty, yeah, of course, just, you know, left the course, went home, gotten bad, didn't say anything at all. Of course he did. He definitely didn't,

No, I definitely didn't comment at all. Yeah. Can't imagine he had anything to say. He wouldn't say the pressure is mounting and I have a lot more experience in major championships than he has. This is, I believe from golf digest David Howell said, I remember Collins comment after the second round. He said, I'll be hitting first into the hole. Let's see what tiger does when I put it next to it or something of that effect. I think that's a comment that Colin has always regretted.

Butch Harmon said, I reminded tiger of that just as he left the putting green and went to the first tee. I put my arm around him and said, let's show Colin Montgomery who you really are. And he said, oh, don't worry. I'm going to snatch his soul from his body. Tiger would say, definitely motivated me. He had more experience.

No doubt about that, but he hadn't won a major and neither had I. If someone who had won a major championship had said that, then I would have let it pass. But since I, since he hadn't won one either, I thought we were on a clean slate. He would also say about Saturday, uh, the course got a little bit wet overnight. He was hitting low draws. So the ball would tumble and the mud would come off the ball. That's either total bullshit or that's how in command he was, uh, of, uh, his golf ball in this time period. Saturday is the day that he wins the 1997 masters. And, uh, you, uh, his golf ball in this time period. Saturday is the day that he wins the 1997 masters. And, uh, you can see by this first tee shot that listen, Monty,

he was just not going to be a threat to tiger. Uh, at any point during this day, Monty's got a big cotton, uh, just hallway golf sweater vest on. Just two athletes in their prime. The most athletic men you can imagine. Um, this is the day of the walk in on Saturday. He birdies the second hole, but really bungles the third hole and ends up having 20 feet for par. You can testify to this image that to the podcast listeners,

he is walking this in from deep. This ball is a foot away from the hole at least. This would not be the last time he would at least. This would not be the last time he would do this. He would birdie the fifth hole, walks this one in on the sixth. Only problem is this one actually lived out, but he was absolutely feeling himself gets up to seven and walks in a birdie there. He has iron into the eighth and he hits this like moon ball. He is almost like fading away from the hole as he hits it because of the upslope and it takes like nine to 10 seconds in the air or it feels like it comes down an elevator shaft,

hits it to 18 feet, two putt birdie, finishes parzen, makes a par on nine. He has played his last 36 holes in 16 under par. He is nine clear halfway through the Saturday round. Uh, and he's just, he had taken the lead 13 holes ago. And this is the leaderboard. He is 1200 par slummin at 300 kite at 300 and Monty, uh, 200. He had, uh, ex ex Monty went out in 39, uh, after tiger went out in 32. So, well, it's just he has had so much more experience. He was just, you know, we was just trying to bait tiger into thinking

that it would be easy, you know, real admit of it. I'm sure the 11th hole is so, so different during this time period. The, the T is, you know, further to the left than it is now and tiger, it's so wide, tiger can just blow balls around this corner that nobody else could really get an angle to the right. He hits it around that corner has a perfect angle in to the back left pin. He hits a nine iron just short of it. We've made a lot of jokes over the years about in the dramatic reading of Armin Cattain's 19 Tiger Woods book about the shot that Butch Harmon had worked with him on so much like the knockdown nine iron shot, the shot that he did not have for so long. He hits it on this shot and in the book,

it is very funny. The audio book is very funny, narrated to say, I hit the shot, butch. I did it. Did you see it? He does hit the shot into 11 and you can guess what happens next. He walks in the birdie putt. He would go long into the 13th hole, and the pin is actually in the back right, so he's in a really difficult spot, and he would later describe it as, people will never know how difficult that shot is unless they're down there. I had a spot, and he makes a gesture to, you know, motion about two and a half feet wide. About this far of a spot, I had to land the ball into, and then spin it on top of that, then have it kick left, then get up on the green and then check. That's a pretty tough shot.

Yeah. Gosh. He does it and he says it's the best shot that he played all week long. He actually didn't make the birdie putt, I don't think, but gets worn for slow play on 14 has hit six iron into 15. I'm not sure what happens there, but hit the green two putt birdie sand wedge into 18 hits it long right to the back right pin sucks it back to within a foot makes birdie at the last to shoot 65 missed one green missed one fairway 32 33 seven birdies no bogies would say, uh, my game is pretty good right now. I'm driving it well. I'm hitting my irons, controlling my distances, and I'm actually thinking well.

That's a pretty good combination. Well, I'm getting, getting a lot of good yardages. Hitting my spots. Also, he talks about the putting tip his dad gave him before leaving the house on Thursday, but said that the tip was too complicated to share. Oh, Monty would just again Monty just not like looking his best in the press conference after this just looks like he's seen a ghost would be quoted as saying I appreciated that he hit the ball long and straight. I appreciated that his iron shots were very accurate. I did not appreciate how he putted. What? And he like,

he like waits for laughter. I think what he's saying again, I'm letting him, okay. It is, he's complimenting. I think he's saying this in terms of like going into it. Like I had appreciation for how far he hit it and how good his irons were, but the putting is what really surprised me. But it's a weird kind of quote on its own. But he, uh, yeah, and he says, when you add it all together, he's nine shots clear and I'm sure that will be higher tomorrow. Rick Riley writing, he said, after playing with woods on Saturday,

Montgomery staggered in looking like a man who had seen a UFO. He plopped his weary meatiness into the interview chair and announced blankly, there is no chance. We are all human beings here. There's no chance humanly possible. And when asked about last year, he said in reference to Norman blowing a six shot lead and losing the Masters to Fowdo by five, he said, this is very different. Fowdo's not lying second for a start

and Greg Norman's not Tiger Woods. Ooh. You know what I gotta say, Folly, we give Monty grief and you know, he's an easy person to kind of joke about Well, what a great quote he was like all throughout like he said interesting shit Whether it was like controversial or whether it was dumb or whether he's putting his foot in his mouth Whatever we'll get to some of it during my turn at the US Open But I very much appreciated Monty's willingness to speak his truth

I think you learned a little less that after this would much in the same way that Curtis Strange would later learn a lesson about speaking on Tiger Woods. You remember who plays himself into the final pairing with the cat? Is it Tom Kite? It is not. It is Constantina Rocco. Tom Kite would finish second, ultimately, but Rocco will be playing

in the final pairing with Tiger Woods and would, and would of course go on to shoot 75. Uh, that's how it goes. But, uh, do you remember what happened on Sunday morning? A, uh, maybe, maybe in the early afternoon, a, a competitor that had finished up his round on Sunday, uh, what happened, uh, that day, because this is the one, the thing that I almost forgot to include in this. I do remember this. I remember, uh, I can't remember who he did the interview with, but Fuzzy Zeller is out by the big tree and he is, I think it's a local TV station maybe, and he's trying to sort of

compliment Tiger in the way of like, oh, this is amazing. And of course, in his southernness, I guess, is the nicest way to put it makes a one of the all time fucked up comments in the history of professional sports, I would say. Worse than I remembered it. It was it's worse than I remembered it. He said he's going he's doing quite well, pretty impressive. That little boy is driving well, and he's going. He's doing quite well. Pretty impressive. That little boy is driving well and he's putting well. He's doing everything it takes to win. So you know what you guys do, uh, do when he gets in here,

you pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not to serve fried chicken next year. Got it. And he walks away and then says, or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve. and he walks away and then says, or collared greens or whatever the hell they serve. He would later issue, so that clip did not come out for like another week or another couple of days. It did not come out that day,

but when it did, Tiger was like off the grid when it happened and Tiger again in the book like addresses that how disappointed he was in it. Fuzzy would later take out a page in the New York Times I believe to issue an apology and in very 1997 way of apologizing. My comments were not intended to be racially derogatory, and I apologize

for the fact that they were misconstrued in that fashion. Then this next part, this is, it's, it's where it gets pretty tough. I've been on tour for 23 years, and anybody who knows me knows that I'm a jokester. It's too bad that something I said in jest was turned into something it's not, but I didn't mean anything by it. And I'm sorry if I offended anybody. If Tiger is offended by it, I apologize to him too. If you were offended, I take that. You know what's fucking I thought about this a number of times over the years. And like, first of all, fried chicken is fucking delicious. And like, you of all, fried chicken is fucking delicious.

And like, you know, the idea that like, oh, tell him not to serve fried chicken is not racist. That's the most offensive part of all this. No, I think she, I actually want to double down though. I think the most offensive part is whatever the hell it is they serve. That would clearly shows like a divide of like those people, like the, not just tiger serving this alleged alleged like literally tigers serving cheeseburgers of the following year, like he says, as

American as is anybody. And so the idea that like, one person, one group would not be seen as like American as an other is super insulting. But just like, Tiger Woods would then represent this other like they serve that's just so awful. It's so fucking like truly bigoted and horrible that you know, I remember Kmart dropped him or whatever. Dang it. That was my next. Got dropped by fucking Kmart, baby. Kmart.

Woke asked Kmart dropped the drop. You know what? I think it's so like it's it truly speaks to fucking golf that this was not the last fried chicken fucking comment of Tiger Woods's career. Like how 15 years later, how fucked up is that that later on 15 years later, Sergio Garcia would step in the same fucking bigoted shit and say, you know, we'll serve fried chicken after they had, you know, their spat at the players. Just the part, the reliving part for me that got me was little boy. Like that was like, whoa, fuck me. I mean, I remember the, the collared greens and the fried chicken comment, but that, that's just a really, really tough scene. And even more insulting to like try

to pass it off as a joke. Like, yeah, I would venture to say that black people are probably hundreds of years away from being able to joke about a lot of this. Like hear this joke from white people on this, especially with how golf is, you know, golf is at this time. So darn it, I was really hoping to drop that Kmart bomb. I think I was sorry.

That was one of my favorite. That was one of my favorite. So Sunday at the Masters again in the book, he talks a lot about blown leads at the Masters and how in 1980, I don't, I'm unaware of this. Sevvy had a 10 shot lead going into Amen corner in 1980. And when he left Amen corner, the lead was three, just three holes later, he would go on to win. But he kept just, he was very well versed in the history of golf and was just adamant that it was not over. Talked a lot about how big of a score you could make on the 12th hole, which is ironic because he would end up making a 10 there, uh, just a few years ago. And just kept saying that you needed to play like a mistake free round of golf needed to play very well. It could, could happen. You know,

Constantine Rowe could shoot 63. And you know, the second you make a mistake, he can really double down on you. He is not ready to be crowned just yet. And it sounds very believable. Like he's very process-based and he rolls up in his Sunday red. The brand not quite as strong just yet. He's got the black kind of stripes underneath the sleeve on the red. I'm excited for when it goes to full red. I don't know if you remember this one because he's, he has the sweater on when he finishes. Like that's the image that people remember the really baggy sweater, but par's the first hole hits an eight iron into two and makes birdie eight again, eight iron into a par five hits six iron into the fourth hole when Raqqa hits one iron. Again, that's just from the same tee. That's the, the club gap between them is five clubs.

He makes bogey on both the fifth and seventh holes and then pulls his second shot on eight way left into a spot underneath the trees. It's a front pin. He has got a huge mound between him and the hole and he, Ben Crenshaw said you could hit a bucket of balls and not hit one as close as he does. He has this incredible bump shot that rolls up to like three to four feet and he makes that for birdie and kind of gets back on the back on the on the proper train. He hits wedge into 11 rolls in the birdie putt raises the putter. He's now 16 under par 10 shots clear has a six iron into 13. He's and to again another two-putt birdie you left the legal the eagle putt on the lip there

It's three wood lob wedge into 14 Absolutely stuffs it and is the first player in Masters history to reach 18 under par This is an image of Tommy told the shirt for some reason that got mixed up into into into this series of images here They post 18 under three 14. Uh, and they show an image of his dad watching on the monitor, uh, the, the tiny monitor there behind the 18th green. His dad is not in good shape at this time, has not spent much time, uh, at the golf course, but, uh, was not going to be, uh, missing this moment.

Um, he's interviewed before, uh, Tiger finishes his round and ask what a motion's feeling. Earl would reply saying, pride, pride. And as he gets to the 15th hole, the baggy sweater is now on. He drives it into the crosswalk on the 17th green. Again, it's just the most prodigious display of golf that the world really had ever seen to that point. I mean, it's just hard to describe again. This is a time period with ballada balls, small driver heads when like the risk of hitting it, three 30 was there. Like if you wailed on the ball and hit it offline, bad, bad things happened. No one else in the field was capable of hitting it to where at the spots he's hitting it.

And he just reduced it down to a wedge contest The Parfys were truly par fours for him. He made it a par 68 shout to Bryson and It's just it just looks like he's playing a totally different sport just total domination blows it way left on 18 parts the crowd couldn't find fluff Like fluff gets lost in the group of people and they and they he was out there working on to try and triangulate a yardage, hits his shot way up on the top. Um, and he needs a two putt to break the record. He says he didn't allow himself to enjoy it just yet because he had a quadruple breaking putt. Um, hits the putt six feet by and has to play it outside the hole. Uh pours it in. There it is. A win for the ages. Makes the

fist pump. They cut and show an image of Earl and his mom, Katilda, our guy, Hughes Norton, his agent at the time in the background there. It was a great podcast guest. We had a couple of years back now. It comes off the green. Everyone knows what image is next. He is there hugging his dad just behind 18 green. Get to the green jacket ceremony. The jacket is baggy. It's not a tight fit in 1997. And he says to the people, he says, my pops told me this was going to be one of the hardest rounds of golf you're going to play in your life. If you just go out there and be yourself, it'll be one of the most rewarding rounds you'll play in your life. And he was right.

Before this or right after this, he gets a phone call from somebody says, the president wants to speak to you. And he's like, Oh, president, I just saw the chairman right outside. He's like, no, the president of the United States. Bill Clinton called to congratulate him. Final leaderboard would read Tiger at minus 18, Tom Kite at minus six, Tommy Tolles minus five, Tom Watson at minus four, Roka and Stan Kalski at minus three and T five. This was going to be the most fun part of the show, but you've,

you've spoiled this part. But as they leave the grounds and the, you know, the comment you mentioned earlier about the, you know, the dinner. Uh, no, no, no, no, we're prepared. We're prepared here. We're prepared. Sorry, sorry, sorry. They get ready to go down Magnolia Lane and do you hear it? Because I know I do. The Cadillac, Jerry had been driving around all week and they said this song has never been played. Of course, roll it down Magnolia Lane.

The hip hop group Quad City DJs. That we know the popular song. Come on and ride it. Vote the train. It's glaring out the windows, growing down Magnolia Lane. And he is of course the master's champion. He said they went back to the house not before, of course, stopping at Arby's on that Sunday night. He said I was not a big drinker, but I was the master's champion and everyone was going to town that night. Later that night after much celebration, I fell asleep fully clothed and hugging that green jacket like a blanket. He said he woke up with a massive headache.

He had a charity day the next day in Columbia, South Carolina. He had to fly to that. He said it was an all day party and the libations continued. Those are his words in the book. From Columbia, he left for Cancun because he had a sponsorship with Planet Hollywood and they're all star cafes. This is like Bruce Willis and still smells just alone. And I think Schwarzenegger maybe with the three, the Planet Hollywood dudes.

It was like the competing hard rock cafe thing. God, that's awesome. I believe the phrase is Planet Hollywood and their authentic all star cafes. It was quite a good right after. Oh, look, it's it's Bruce Wolf. But he was off the grid. That's kind of when the fuzzy stuff blew up. And when he got back, that's what he kind of had to address it. But going into some of the writing that would come afterwards,

our guy, Rick Riley, of course, commemorated this for Sports Illustrated. He said, it didn't matter who you were. If you were there the week everything changed in golf, you just had to reach out and touch a piece of history. Almost 50 years to the day after Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier at Augusta National, a club that no black man was allowed to join until six years ago at the tournament. Whose founder Clifford Roberts once said, as long as I'm alive, golfers will be white and the caddies will be black. A 21 year old black man delivered the greatest performance ever seen in a golf major.

Someday, Eldrick Woods, a mixed race kid with middle class background who grew up on a municipal course in the sprawl of Los Angeles, may be hailed as the greatest golfer who ever lived. But it is likely that his finest day will always be the overcast Sunday in Augusta, when he humiliated the world's best golfers, shot an 18 under par 270, and won the Masters by a preposterous 12 shots. It was the soundest whipping in a major this century, and second only to old Tom Morris' 13 shot triumph at the 1862 British Open. When Tiger finally slipped into his green champions jacket, his 64 year old father Earl drank in a long look and said, green and black go well together. Don't think this is a great Riley.

I could have read the whole thing. I actually, I was going to look into getting in touch with Rick Riley and having him reread that for this part of the pod because I feel like this is just he commemorate, you know, this is a seminal moment in golf and I think he really captured the moment but Another part of it He says it was something to see the way a 6255 pounder with a 30 inch waist Crumbled one of golf's masterpieces into bite-sized pieces the longest club he hit into a par 4 all week was a 7 iron On each of the first two days he had wedged into the 500 yard par five fifteenth hole for his second shot honey

He shrunk the course last Saturday His seven birdies were set up by his nine iron pitching wedge sand wedge putter nine iron putter and sand wedge Meanwhile, the rest of the field was trying to catch him with five irons in three woods and rosary beads When Nicholas said last year that woods would win 10 green jackets, everyone figured that he was way off. We just never thought his number was low. Said yes for Parnivik who finished 19 shots back unless they build Tiger T's about 50 yards back.

He's going to win the next 20 of these narrator. They would actually build those Tiger T's and he would not win the next 20 of these. Narrator, they would actually build those Tiger T's and he would not win the next 20 of these. It was a week like nobody had seen it Augusta National never before had scalpers prices for a weekly badge been so high. Some were asking $10,000. Even after it was all done, a seemingly useless badge was fetching up to $50 outside the club's gates.

Never before had one player attracted such a large following. Folks might have come out with the attention of watching another golfer, but each day the course seemed to tilt toward whoever Woods was playing. Everybody else was Omar Yaresti. Never before had so many people stayed at the course so long, filling the stands behind the practice range 1500 strong, to watch a lone player hit thrilling wedge shots under the darkening Georgia sky.

It was the highest-rated golf telecast in history, yet guys all over the country had to tell their wives that the reason they couldn't help plant the road of dendrons was they needed to find out whether the champion would win by 11 or 12. Only 47-year-old Tom Kite, who would finish second in the same sense that Germany finished second in World War two. You refused to give up. Oh, fuck. God, the World War two jokes wriggle through our golf sports writing is just crack me up so much.

Poor top kite. We grouped in with Germany. This one rocked me. He was a schnauzer with his teeth locked on the tailpipe of a grey humbus as it was pulling into beltway traffic. How can you be so optimistic when Woods is leading by nine shots? Well said, Kite, we've got it down to single digits. Don't we? There seemed to be some kind of combat for mortals going on behind Woods for second place, but nothing you needed to notice. Nobody came within a light year. Raka, Roka and Tom

Watson each trimmed the lead to eight, but mentioning it all is like pointing out that the food on the Hindenburg was pretty good. At the very end, Woods made it to the elegant Guston National Clubhouse dining room for traditional winter's dinner. As he entered, the members and their spouses stood and applauded politely as they have for each champion. Applauded as he made his way to the seat at the head of the table under a somber oil painting of President Eisenhower. But clear in the back, near a service entrance, the black cooks and waiters and bus boys ripped off their oven mitts and plastic gloves, put their dishes and trays down for a while, hung their napkins over their arms and clapped the loudest and the hardest and the longest for any kind of

winner they never dreamed would come through those doors. One of my favorite scenes in ever in a golf piece. And I've always wondered as someone who's covered now the Masters four times, like how he got that, because I would be surprised. Maybe back then you could sort of follow the champion through the clubhouse into the big dinner. But if you tried to do that now, they would absolutely like throw you in the jail. I've tried to follow like champions around just to get more color and extra stuff. And it's very hard to get that kind of color.

I have a feeling it came from the workers because there is some great just pieces that other journalists had gotten talking to some of the workers there and what this moment meant. Isaac Lee is quoted in the Statesman Journal saying, just talking about some of this, but talking about the racism that the club, he says, it's not as bad as it used to be here, but everybody around here knows their place. It's a good job. As long as they don't show the racism too blatantly, it's okay. Wow. Which like, yeah, that, that one kind of rocked me a little bit, but

you wouldn't say that now because like you certainly would lose your job. I would think like, you know, embarrassing the club, right? And because shows you like the difference between something can go viral and someone can be sort of like spread all around the world And Augusta would have to answer like you give a quote to the idopes Statesmen or whatever it is or the and that's never no one Fred Ridley is never gonna see that or whatever It's that's fascinating to think about Lee elder made the trip up and got a speeding ticket on the way on that Sunday He wanted to see the final round tiger did did see him there

He said he was thinking a lot about About Lee elder and about Charlie Siford You know who was not allowed to play in the Masters or not invited to play in the Masters despite winning a PGA tour event I I should have known this. I guess I didn't know this. Did you know Charlie Tiger Sun is named after Charlie Siford? I did I did I definitely should have but did not know that Lee elder said it might have more potential than Jackie Robinson breaking into baseball. No one will ever turn their head again when a black walks to the first tee. Tiger would add in that Michael Jordan and president Clinton called to congratulate me the story about, uh, oh, that Mr. President. Okay. Thank you. So that's pretty much it. I mean, there is, uh, again, the book is fantastic

and it does go into what happens next for him changing his swing and why and I was listening to it on a walk and I was like gosh, it does make a lot more sense I know people have criticized it a lot But he is pretty clear about saying, you know exactly what was wrong in his swing and the timeline needed to fix it And it's hard to argue with what came 99 into the early 2000s later from that but he would average 323 yards off the tee that week 25 yards longer than the next player He would not make the most birdies that was Tom Watson made 22 birdies But he set the record lowest 72 hole score youngest winner widest margin of victory low middle 36 holes

Low first 54 holes low final 54 holes most under par on the second nine, most threes on a winners card and rounds better than the field. He shot the low round of the day twice during that week, which is wild. Prices on Tiger to win the Grand Slam fell from 5000 to one to a panicked 66 to one. And then I got a hat tip to you on this one that found this story that I almost certainly would have missed. But there's a fantastic Ken Green story. This is from golf digest. He said, my last masters was in 1997. And once again, I had a ton of friends fly down for the tournament. The night before the first round, a bunch of them were outside the rental home playing hoops when I walked out to observe the talentless crew.

At some point between the rainbow airballs, triple dribbles and diabetes, asthma and Haler timeouts, the ball rolled under a car on the driveway. So of course I reached out to grab it for them. My Connecticut buddy Doug Raimi, who was just walking out of the house, kiddingly gave me a bump on the ass. Little did he know I was just then reaching for the ball and the contact broke my thumb. The next day I played awful and I shot 87. I was going to withdraw because it was pointless to try to play a pro golf event with a bum hand. Then I found out I was paired with the king, Arnold Palmer for the second round. Arnold was a hero of mine and this was the only time I would ever play with him. There was no way I was quitting now. The next day, Arnold was

a joy to play with. He told me stories that were just classics and so funny. I gave him my word. I wouldn't tell anyone. Let it never be said that I can't be discreet. And when we got to the 14th hole, I realized I'd probably never have another chance to have a beer with the king. As I walked up the 14th, I sent my friend, Erz, to the concession stand to buy a beer, which he gave me as we teed off on 15.

I then walked up to Arnie and said, Arnie, this has been an absolute blast and I'll never have a better chance to have a beer with you. So I salute you. He looked at me and said, you should have brought me one. For that, I was initially fined by the tour, but I had my buddy write a letter claiming the beer was not alcoholic and the fine was rescinded. I can attest today. However, there was nothing alcohol-free about that beer. I was like, how could you honestly believe that was the truth? Ken Green truly one of the great characters of this era of golf. Like, I don't know if he's listening out there on the slim chance that he is. Like, we would like to have you on the podcast

because you tell some amazing stories. The earlier story in this is that he was going through a divorce at this time and his ex-wife refused to give him his master's tickets. He had like 10 tickets. And so he basically snuck guys through the gates in his trunk of his car. And it was like, there's no other way to do it. Yeah. So.

They started like searching his car by the weekend. And he would like make multiple trips outside. Yeah, he's a character. There's going to be some stories there, but that was lengthy. I promise when we get to the open, it will not be as lengthy, but, uh, that is the moment the golf changed forever. It is also the moment as I was getting into my open, we're going to get to US open, you're going to go next year.

But as it got into the open championship, it was like already like, all right. Well, this is what's going on in the leaderboard, but what's tiger doing? What's he doing? What's going on here? You know, he might be off the lead right now, but what's he doing right now? And that that effect takes place immediately following this tournament. Literally, like the idea of like a tiger tracker, right? You remember a tiger tracker was like one of the first accounts we all followed. Every newspaper in America became like a tiger tracker at this point because the amount of interest that people had in him versus the Germanies of the world was insignificant. Our friends at ZipRecruiter conducted a recent survey and found that the top hiring challenge employers face for 2024 is a lack of qualified candidates.

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Just go to this exclusive website right now to try Zip Recruit for free zippercruder.com slash NLU again that's zippercruder.com slash NLU zippercruder the smartest way to hire back to the pod. So the 1997 US Open held at congressional country club. First time congressional had ever hosted a major. It was played at 7213 yards. If you'll indulge me with apologies to Dan Hicks, I want to read Dan Hicks's opener in my best TV voice here. Washington DC, our nation's capital, a place where our nation's course is charted. And this year, a place where a very important caucus has been arranged. America's best and brightest, a strong contingent of international dignitaries, as well as the world's newest ambassador, Tiger Woods, have all gathered in an attempt to conquer golf's toughest test. The puns about like our nation's

capital and shaping of the laws and stuff are heavy in pretty much everything that has been written here. So I do remember anything particular about the course set up at Congressional, particularly the finish at Congo? Is the 18th Hall of Par 3? It is. For the first time in 88 years, the US Open will end on a Par 3 because they flipped 17 and 18.

There is a big pond that fronts 18. This is sort of the source of some controversy because Congo had been sort of redone a couple of times here and there and there were some discussion of like, can't really end in a par three. David Fay, the director of the SGA at that point said, the club has been through so many changes. It was ready to have a caterpillar tracker for a logo. It was time to say enough already. Besides, when we looked at the big picture, we decided having a par three as a finisher is a strength, not a weakness. We have transformed the viewing for almost 20,000 people and we'll be able to see approach shots putting on 17 and the entire play on 18 when this will come into play later.

That's as good as it gets on an open course. It will be spectacular because if I remembering right. So what is now 18 that like kind of weird peninsula green is the 17th hole for this US Open and 18 played for if you're if you're thinking of congressional, if you watch the 2011 US Open, the 10th green plays like the famous Rory shot plays from the clubhouse across the pond to that green site. But if you flip that, that's where the 1997 par three was in a plate is 18. So the 2011 10th green would be where the T was for the 97th 1997 US open 18th tee and you play back towards the 10th tee from 2011. Do I have that right? I believe you have that correct. But if there's an congressional member who wants to come and correct us, you're welcome to do so. But well, they get this now, even the current version of it. Now that now that 10th hole does not even cross that pond anymore. And they've redone that again. So it's very, very confusing.

Jaime Diaz pointed out the first time I thought I've always remembered this as a kid is that like, yes, it's weird. Yes, you might be controversial, but guess what? For the first time in history, they were like recordable history, the US Open could end with a, with a hole in one. Like you could be down, you know, by one and all of a sudden flip the whole thing. So I was thought like, Oh, that would be so cool if that was a new thing. This US Open marks 41 consecutive US Opens for Jack Nicholas. It is his 150th appearance in a major.

And guess who's playing? Not alongside him, gonna get paired together, but guess who is also in this open, this open, Tully? His son, Gary, qualifies for this open. And Gary acquits himself fairly well. A lot of sort of, I would say, Tiger Mania we'll get to in a sec, but just a few sort of fun things along the way

before we delve into Tiger. Tom Weiskopf is back in the field at the US Open. And he has skipped the previous years US Open and the previous years senior US Open, even though he had won the senior US Open at Congressional when it was sort of held there. So I guess when I said it was the first major held at Congo, it wasn't quite accurate. It's the first like, you know, non-senior. That's accurate. No, it's not real. Come on.

When the last time that the senior US Open was held at Congo and, excuse me, in Weizkopf played, he shot a pair of 75s in the first two rounds to barely make the cut and was paired with an amateur, uh, David Stahl, who he then blamed afterwards for his poor play because, uh, this David was a such a slow player and who repeatedly marked his ball with a shiny quarter instead of a penny. Uh, and We Scott said anyone who has ever played golf, when you are three or feet less from the hole and you're someone's on, you don't mark the ball with a quarter, you marked it with a non-reflective penny. I won't say that he was the reason that I played badly, but it was a distraction.

A major distraction. So, oh my God, I thought I made excuses on the golf course. So Saul said afterwards, I was crushed by the whole thing. I've never been treated like this in my life. And so Weisskopf was still answering questions about this when they came back to Congo. And basically it was like, that incident, as far as I'm concerned, was resolved the Monday after the event when I personally talked to Jim Stahl.

He accepted my apology and said, we're going to go on with our lives. I think for the most part we did. He wrote me a letter to confirm it. So I just thought that was like one of these random, like little things where the idea of like, you could get so pissed off at someone for not marring their ball with a penny that they would be big letter writing phase too. In golf, a lot of letters being written here, but also pretty easy.

Like, Hey man, do you mind like swapping out that coin for, for something less like how, how could you have let that go on and affect you? Here's the quarter. I have an extra one in my bag. Would you, you know, Penny, would you mind like just throwing that down? So Tom Wisecove, get a little prickly. This is John Daley's first major since entering Betty Ford treatment for alcoholism. And so there's a lot of anticipation of like, what's, what's good?

John going to look like what's gonna be back. It's lost a ton of weight is very sort of unsure himself stairs a little bit nervous about, you know, doing interviews and stuff. A fun anecdote though, I found that dovetails of what you just told us from the Miami Herald about daily, he asked Tiger early if he wanted to play a practice round or the week and Tiger said, yeah, sure, I'd love to. So when Tiger got there, he learned that daily had also invited fuzzy Zeller. Oh my God. I did not know that. Yes. And so Tiger was like, peace out. Fuck y'all. I'm not playing. And just basically walked off and went back to the range. And so fuzzy went to go and play with John daily by himself. So Tiger was like, yeah, not doing this. Tiger Mania has reached ahead here, as he said,

or excuse me, it's just picking up steam. I don't think it would reach ahead till like 2000. 1100 credentials were issued for media credentials for the US Open, which is 400 more credentials than the previous one. And all the talk, of course, is can Tiger win the Grand Slam? And Tiger, to his credit, is sort of like, he says, can Tiger win the grand slam and Tiger to his credit is sort of like, you know, he says, you know, can you can you win the grand slam? And he says,

I think it can be done. Take Phil Mickelson last year. He won four times. If you win the right four tournaments in one year, you've won the grand slam. That's easier said than done because major championships bring together the best players in the world are the most extreme conditions. It's a matter of peaking at the right time and having a lot of luck on your side. But if it happens, who knows? At this point, Tigers kicked so much ass in the Masters that instead of like everyone being like, there's no way he can do this. There's, there's a lot of like, actually, can this guy do this? Like maybe we should like get on board with the idea that he might

be able to win the grand slam. Tom Watson says he might be the kind of player who comes around once in a millennium. Good. And I was a kid, so it was easy to get caught, you know, swept up in anything, but legitimately anything felt possible coming off a 12 shot win. It was like, could, is he going to win like 75% of the time now? That's what I remember it feeling like. Yeah. And then truly it was the only story that mattered. Like you talk about like, you know, tiger track and stuff like this. Everybody was going to wonder and the other stories and that you could see

the other players on tour were starting to get a little bit annoyed of like, well, you know, that was awesome. But at the same time that the money hadn't quite like hit their pockets yet. So they weren't quite really wetting, wetting to be okay with the idea that Tiger is going to be the only story. So just, just fold it up quickly. His results after the 97, uh, masters, he took it more than a month off, then played the Byron Nelson, won that.

And then T for colonial T 67 at Memorial got you made, made cut, did not finish. Imagine sending Tiger Woods home on Sunday, uh, at the, at the memorial. And then that was his last start before the U.S. Open made cut, didn't finish. What? The idea that like all these fans were like, wait a minute, like you made the cut, but you can't have him like, you missed the Saturday cut. And they said, Oh, cause he shot a 74 on that Saturday. So do you know the story, uh, or ever you ever heard the story of, of Greg

Norman at the Kemper open right before this US open. So Greg Norman, he's, he'd become friends, pretty good friends with Bill Clinton at this time. And Bill Clinton had visited, uh, his house down in Australia when it was on some sort of diplomatic trip. And Bill Clinton, they had, you know, they were cigar smoking buddies, they were, you know, planning to play some golf together. And Bill Clinton sort of stumbled going up the stairs at Norman's house and tore some ligaments in his knee. And so this was like a kind of a, you know, international incident of some kind. And Norman was felt obviously like terrible, Bill Clinton Clinton golf for

quite a while. You know, we will Clinton was sort of, you know, one of the first celebrity presidents a lot of ways. And so this was a huge deal. And so at the Kemper open this year, you can start to see Norman, as he said, you never really was like the golfer that he once was, but he was still this huge like figure within the world of golf still technically the number one player. But the pressures of being Greg Norman and sort of, you know, things were starting to kind of wear on him at the camper open the announcer in the first tee on Thursday said, Hey, it's Greg Norman. This is like their long time announcer of the camper. If Greg Norman invites you over to his house to see all his trophies, I'd advise you respectfully decline,

referring to Clinton's fall visit. And Norman goes over to the guy after he hits his tee shot and marches into like a tent next to the tee and just like chews out the guy, just reams him. Says, it was wrong. We've got a couple of announces on the two. I think they make funny comments, but that was a bad timing.

Was it Gary Player that was yelling out of there. That might have been a good player. You know how hard it is to switch from one impression to the next. Sometimes. So later in the round, Norman's on one of the, he's on the 16th hole and a fan sort of yells out, you know, Hey Greg, they're chum in the water. And Norman thinks at this point that he, someone says, you know, you're going to hit it in the water instead of like, Hey, the rest of the field is're chum in the water. And Norman thinks at this point that he, someone says, you know, you're going to hit it in the water instead of like, hey, the rest of the field is like chum in the water.

And Norman goes out there and flips off the fan like twice. Okay. And so he gets, as he shows up in the US Open, he's just getting like grilled right and left by the media. And there, and he's like, I don't want to talk about that. We got a bunch of crazies out here. He's really pissed about the sort of wild kind of stuff in that. Just chum in the water.

Back to Ken Green. So after what happened in Augusta, Ken Green got suspended by the PGA tour for a little while. And so his suspension is up here. And he shares kind of that one of the things that he did and that he got him suspended, what is the, he accused Raymond Floyd of being a cheater and which I had never heard. Like he basically said that Raymond Floyd

and he had played together in the Masters one year and that Floyd was never nice to him until he wanted to take a questionable drop. And then Ken was like, I don't know, it's on you. And then Floyd was super nice to him after the fact. Like, Bray Floyd is like one of the toughest dudes. I don't know why you go like throwing around shit about him being a cheater. But so Ken Green has paid his fine for the beer drinking at this point and is allowed to, I guess, you know, be unsuspected at this point. This is probably my favorite thing that I found in the

entire thing. So as I said before, Jack Nicklaus is, is, you know, having his 41st open. This is probably my favorite thing that I found in the entire thing. So, as I said before, Jack Nicklaus is having his 41st open. Jack is still like a story and everywhere. People still kind of want to know, can Jack compete? He's 57 at this point, so no, but there's still kind of that hope holding on. So, Nicklaus talks to various people in the media about how much better he's been feeling of flight. He says that his hip was in agonizing pain, but now he's pain-free. He credits this mysterious alternative therapist in Lake Worth whose name he will not reveal. He says that this alternative treatments have not only cured his sinuses, but they've made his hip feel better. And that this therapist is so powerful and so mystical that he's been able to cure people of Lou Gehrig's disease.

These treatments have helped people help bald men regrow hair. The first time I went to see him, there was a lady in the waiting room told me, congratulations, your life is about to change. Oh, I would love to see the emails that Jack Nicklaus forwards. Like he has got to get caught up in so much stuff. So many scabs, so many lies.

So I'm just reading directly from this is from the, I think is the Miami Herald. As part of the treatment treatment this therapist for lack Of a better word because he's got a not a doctor heats Nicholas's blood to 104 degrees He gives Nicholas Frequency matching treatments in which Nicholas's feet are immersed in water and an electric current is set through his body Like did we almost electrocute Jack Nicklaus? Did something hippy like almost kill Jack Nicklaus? Hey, you know, top 10 at the master's the following year.

That's right. There's something to this. It's only this. This is great. The man does not charge for his services. Instead, patients are asked to make a donation. Nicholas said he gives the man $20 a visit. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Like I feel better than I ever have. That's worth 20 bucks. I'm going to split it in the tip jar on my way out. Fuck. Oh, this we at some point, we're going to do a deep dive into Jack's like business history. Oh, this may have been a time when he didn't have much more than 20 bucks to his name.

So that's very true. That is very true. I mean, it's funny that to see various references, like, no one's ever really like done any kind of like deep dive into it, but there's always these like little hints of the golf writers at that time about how Jack was like on the verge of like going broke from dumb investments. And it makes the, it makes the shit that happened where he's like, you know, renting out his name, image and likeness to, you know, and he's suit, has to sue his own company, you know, make all the more sense. Like he sold his own firm.

Obama was swimming and money and Jack was like, just sort of, you know, kind of stitching it together. God $20 for life changing therapy donation. That's fantastic. This is the first event in the tour's 97-year history that caddies were told they could wear shorts. Shorts were a big point of contention back then for caddies, but it was going to be like 100 degrees and Washington at this time. And so the USGA relented and said that they could wear shorts. Just a previous year, this is all true for all rounds. Tom Lehmann and Davis Love were shorts in a practice round at the PGA championship and we're told on like the third hole, they had to change immediately or they would be disqualified from the tournament.

Disqualified, disqualified from the tournament for wearing shorts. So, you know, look what you made me do live. You went and you just maybe go off and went off and formed to live right after this stuff. A lot of tiger talk here. Steve Jones, you know, of the, you former, the U.S. Open defending champ. We talked about less. I didn't want to quite put woods on a pedestal just yet. He's a, he's a, yeah, he's a person just like everybody else. He has to put his pants on by himself. Is he still doing that himself? Well, I don't know, Steve. I mean, it's possible that he was not getting, you know, people, other people were putting his pants on for him at this point, but we will, we'll get into that. Right. This guest, I guess, resentment is the right word is, is like simmering a little bit.

There was a whole story in the Miami Herald kind of about how while earning stripes, Tiger faces resentment. Uh, it was sort of the thing here. It just sort of talks about how his peers on tour have a little bit of kind of like, you know, frustration with the fact that he's, you know, the dude at every single thing. Davis Love is quoted as saying, I think Tiger needs some friends out here to tell him some things that no one will tell him. Basically, you know, because it sort of had treated some people like, you know, poorly at various things. The facts and was quoted as saying there are many players who take shots at woods behind his back. In fact, and says, but I try not to hang around those players. So, you know, a little bit

of a little bit of kind of bad blood already brewing. Well, I mean, you got to think too, also just this, the golf world was not highly trafficked, you know, at this point. And then all of a sudden just thousands and thousands and thousands of extra media on site are there for that guy. Like they're there for that reason more than they are the golf term. Like the whole world just got flipped on its head. It's only natural that it's still a much more reasonable reaction than say Fuzzy's Eller's reaction at the masters, I would say, but that kind of reaction doesn't surprise me all that much.

So round one commences and guess who shoots a 73 in round one? 57 year old Jack Nicholas. Gary Nicholas also shot 73. He and his father shot at same score the first round, which is kind of amazing. Kind of cool. But you know, our first round leader, uh, you wouldn't believe Colin Montgomery shoots a tasty 65 in round one. Everyone started to thought like Congo is going to play so tough. It was going to absolutely like kick their asses.

But then, you know, Marty comes out and just blitzes it says, I love this type of golf. I love hitting fairways actually means something. Park golf means something. We don't have enough of these tournaments in my opinion. So I guess how many drivers Marty hit in route to his 65? Three. Zero. Whoa. He did not hit his driver one time and in route to that 65. He also missed four putts inside of 10 feet.

That was the greatest ball striking round I think I've ever seen. Phil Mickelson said after playing with him in round one. Tiger Woods in his professional debut with the U.S. Open shoots 74. Spraying it all over is actually one under at the turn, but shot a 40 on the back nine and just kind of, uh, really didn't have it super pissed, stormed off the course without talking to the media. And a pool reporter had to go into the locker room,

try to get some quotes from him because as we said, there's 1,100 people media here who really are here for tiger and tiger, you know, alone. Uh, I want to release this exchange of the pool reporter reported because it's classic Frosty cat. Uh, reporter colon. Uh, what are you going to do right now? Tiger? I don't know. Reporter. I mean, do you plan to hit balls or Tiger? I don't know. Reporter. Is there something going on with your swing? I don't know. Do you plan to talk to butch? I don't know. Is that it?

I don't know. Do you plan to talk to butch? I don't know. Is that it? Again, I just got off reading the 97 masters book where he's always like, you know, I always talk to the media after, uh, after around good or bad. I learned that lesson with the 1995 masters about that. It's like, yeah, all right. The reality lesson was still learning. I'd be a little different. Rick Riley. I probably learned this trick from Rick Riley, but Riley sort of followed Tiger for as long as he could, where he saw him go into the parking, players parking lot, get into his courtesy car and pick up his portable Sony CD player and slam it against the floorboards of his car, which is a sick anecdote to me.

The Quad City DJs CD went flying. Just, AAA batteries flying everywhere. C.T. is exploding. Our guide, Greg Norman, fresh off of Flipping Off Fans. Shoot 75, was sort of grumbling his way around the course, is a very much a dawn factor in this tournament. In addition to Monty Steve Strikker, shoots a four under, gets into contention. Strikker had sort of switched clubs prior to that year,

after having a good year in 96 and played poorly all of 97 and basically said, like, I like my old clubs better, but you know, the money was too good and I had to make it work. I know I'm a good player. I'm going to make it work anyway at some point. So it's, it's remarkable how like honest some of the quotes are from this era about this kind of stuff of like, well, it just was like a huge difference. But I think he was playing like Palmer brand clubs and got an offer from Taylor Bate. I think is this year, is this the year of his second comeback, second consecutive comeback player of the year award?

I might be. That is a good question. I did not look at the record that it will never be broken. One, because the award went away, but two, Steve Strikker won two consecutive comeback player of the year awards, which I don't know how that's possible, but it's one of my favorite golf facts ever. How sudden gets in at four under and Tom layman at three under a player that honestly, I was not familiar with the old game. Hideki Kase from Japan, the original Hideki. This is the

only year that Hideki Kase played on the PGA Tour, the only major they ever played in. Can Hideki win? Yeah, exactly. Like, I feel like that should have, you know, come in to devogue much sooner. Hale Erlen is also on the first round leaderboard with an even par 70.

And I note this because Hale was an absolute menace on the senior tour this year. He won nine times on the senior tour in 1997. And he won in 1987. He won the senior senior PJ championship by 12 strokes. So Harrow Aaron was basically the Tiger Woods of the senior, uh, now the champions tour that year. Senior tour was like pretty darn big in this time period, right?

It was, it was pretty new. I think in the early nineties it started at something like that. But I, I remember seeing in some of the, the articles about 97 masters, just about like how much real estate the senior tour got in sports pages and things like that. And how it was, they're writing about that in the same, uh, same kind of article as masters lead ups and stuff. It was just a lot bigger presence than it has now. I think just because, right, like before Tiger came along, like Jack Nicholson, Arnold Palmer, and Lee Trevino, those were still like the biggest names in golf. And so there was this

real desire to not let that go. And so as much as like you would have wanted to be a fan of Fowler or Nick Price or, you know, it just wasn't the same stratosphere as those guys. or Nick Price or, you know, it just wasn't the same stratosphere as those guys. Sure. The second round is delayed by a two hour and 20 minute rain delay, which the softer conditions kind of help guys fire at some pins and get back into a tiger shoots a second round, 67. They get some inside the top 10, but Ernie L's shoots a 67 that puts him into a tie for second place. L's really took advantage of the rain delay because he had five holes left to go in the rain started and then he came back out and played those five holes of the U.S. Open going par birdie birdie birdie par to finish. But Tom layman who was sort

of a shot off the lead hangs around and creeps into the lead by shooting even par 70 highlighted by a perfect approach on 17 where he hits it to four feet. So I want you to remember that shot as you sort of hear this quote from layman. I had a feeling that I was going to win last year's tournament and I didn't. So all you can do is keep plugging away. As long as I don't beat myself the next two days, I'm going to be a factor on Sunday. Sorry, Tom. Nick Faldo shoots a second around 74 and ends up plus six after two days.

As you said, Faldoos kind of done at this point as a competitive golfer. It did strike me as I don't know, strange or whatnot, because it's hard to win majors period, but that like Faldos, this precision ball striker, not super long driver, never really sniffed a U.S. Open after the 1990 one where he was in it in the mix with down the stretch, you know, and he, he was in a playoff with Curtis Strange at the, at Brookline in 1988. But those are the only two times that Faldo ever really was like a US open contender.

You would think for someone as precise and as disciplined as him that he would have been in more of the mix of those, but just wasn't. Our friend, Monty shoots a 76 in the second round. He has such rabid ears all throughout the round. He's backing off shots. He's getting a little hotty at every whisper. And at one point he snaps at the crowd, save your cheers for the rider cup. All right.

Which that won't invite more heckling at all. No, not one bit. The rain delay may have helped Tiger and Ernie, but it did not help Monty. I tend to suffer more than most with the heat and the humidity and I get headaches quite often. And he's a set of the crowd. Obviously they've been to certain tents, referring to the beer tents.

That didn't help matters. It disappoints you when you people cheer, you'll missed puts. And he said that he began to fear for the safety of his wife in the gallery, that these rogues in the gallery would sort of be. Which little do they know what's about to happen a couple years later at Brookline is going to make anything that happened pretty lame. We'll have to save this for when the Beth Page Rider Cup comes around for this as a

warning to all all ye timid souls. John Daly who shot 77 on Thursday goes two over on his front nine, Sully. And in the walk from the ninth to the tenth tee decides, fuck it, I'm done with this walks through the clubhouse into the parking lot, gets into his car, lights a cigarette and drives 850 miles back to Memphis without stopping for other than gas or like bathroom breaks or whatever. Like doesn't tell Ernie Ls, doesn't tell Payne Stewart who he's playing with that he's not, doesn't even tell his caddy that he is quitting. Caddy is standing on the 10th tee.

There everyone is looking around for John, uh, you know, wondering like what's going to happen, where is he? Is he going to show? Uh, never shows. They just go on and play through, go on and play, uh, on and play and have to play as a twosome. Later, his agent, Bud Martin says, I think he's embarrassed that he had to quit. He said, that violates golf protocol,

not telling his partners. And he's sorry. Around the seventh hole, he had a pretty good idea he wouldn't be able to go on. He felt totally drained. And at nine, he had just had enough. John's still working through some demons in this era. Now, I'm three, to Monty's credit, he sur just had enough. John's still working through some, uh, some demons in this era. And down three to Monty's credit, he surges back into it.

Seven to 67. Count me out. Uh, he trails by three, um, after shooting a seven around 36, he only trails by three layman, uh, which is pretty darn, let's just fight from our guy, Monty here. Uh, so layman is still the leader, uh, two strokes of five under, uh, let's just fight from our guy Monty here So layman is still the leader two strokes at five under. He's really hoping to avoid some tortured history No one has ever led the US opened three straight years going into the final round without winning Jeff Maggart is in the mix two at 300 but you know, we don't really care but the main threat

The main threat to layman is Ernie Els, who shot another impressive 69. And I'm going to tell you right now, this is from Riley's gamer. It's impossible that Ernie Els may have invented Neil's game of lingering versus loitering. Oh, no. Els, meanwhile, was doing the kind of thing that wins you opens loitering. By Saturday night, the South African was hanging around at even par. And on Sunday, he got his five o'clock wakeup call, went out with layman and Texan Jeff Maggart and wrote himself an invitation to the chase.

And Riley said, Els likes his logger and is likely to be found drinking it with a bunch of caddies. In fact, he's more often going to bed at five in the morning than getting up at that hour. Ernie is so laid back, he's frightening Montgomery says. So Ernie, Ernie L is the original Lloyder. Lloyder, bad guy. Yeah.

Round four is, turns out to be kind of a thriller. Monty and Layman and Maggart are all tied after nine holes, but then Els joins them by chipping in at the 10th. Layman probably should have won this with his ball striking, Zali, but he could not putt. Like he just kept missing. He was hitting it to 10 feet. I mean, some of the irons that he hits in this sort of official open video

are really, really impressive. Tom Layman probably at this point, the best iron player in the world, and just couldn't quite match it with the putter. And Ernie Ells, on the other hand, couldn't miss with the putter. During one stretch. He won putts, uh, 10 of 13 holes.

So not hitting a ton of greens, but just roll on the rock. Great. Layman makes a ridiculously good birdie on 15, like a five iron to maybe four feet to pull into a tie with Elzin Monte. Cause he'd sort of had a little bit of a string of bogies and everyone is still tied when layman comes to the 16th green. He misses like short right, probably the worst iron swing of the day to that point. And hits what he thinks is like a perfect green side chip. Our friend, Bill Clinton,

as the check offs gun was earlier mentioned in the podcast is shouting from the, Riley is obviously watching from the one of the 16th, like grandstands with Bill Clinton because there's like numerous Bill Clinton anecdotes throughout this gamer. And Bill Clinton is shouting out as layman's green ball is trickling across the green. Stop, stop, stop.

It trickles. It trickles across. Good Bill Clinton for one word being used there. That was impressive. Riley said golf balls are not generally under executive order branch jurisdiction. And this one refused and he made a bogey. So at this point, L's and Monty lead by one. So then layman comes to the most dangerous hole on the course, the 17th, the 480 yard par 417th that we've talked about,

one that goes down and out onto this sort of little peninsula, roasts his best drive of the day. Uh, Elz had played it just minutes before and also hit a great drive and he'd hit a five iron that is as good and smooth as any five iron as you will ever see in your life to like eight feet behind the pin. So Blamin is at the top of the hill, kind of watching Monty and, uh, and Er down on the green. Monty had hit like a really bad iron kind of over right of the green and had to hit up a chip. And so like there's a lot going on at this moment, like Lehman sort of sitting in the tension of things. And Monty decides that there is like a commotion going on when he hits a great chip up to six

feet. Monty decides there's a commotion going on before he hits his par putt. And so he waits a full five minutes. Oh my God. Like for it to settle down and for he feels comfortable putting. Like just noise in the crowd or like another hole? OK. Yes. And so this is Riley's description of it. After Elle's missed his birdie putt, Monty took more than five minutes

to come and try his five-footer for par. The Scott, who seems to have remarkable hearing, said there was a disturbance left of 17, and he was unsure of what was happening across the water on 18th grade. So he waited. All that dallying got to me a little bit, Elle said. And as you know, he missed the putt. I just went and knocked mine in.

And Riley said, Monty has thus became the first professional athlete in history to freeze himself. So layman is at the top of the hill. He's looking down. He's a shutdown. He knows he needs to make a birdie. He says, he's got layman's in the group. Oh God.

Layman's in a group behind and Monty made it wait five minutes. Yes. So layman layman at the top of the hill, perfect lie, perfect yardage, perfect shot for his, you know, a little draw or a Riley referred to it as a controlled crash hook. Pan is on the left. All Lemon has to do is hit like his stock shot. He, Lemon says, I can't describe how good that situation was. Imagine being so hungry.

You can't stand it. You come around the corner on a huge platter and all your favorite foods are right there. It was just so perfect. Sadly, the swing was not perfect. He basically like toe hooks it into the mound, drops, hits the bank, plops right in the water, nowhere close to being a good shot. The US Open is essentially cooked at this point unless our guy makes a hole in one. Spoiler alert, he does not. That's such bullshit. Like the, the, that happened today, like on social media of Monty made him wait five minutes in the middle of the fairway. That like that is, is that like a big part of the story afterward? Did he got iced by Monty? Okay. Yes. Yes. It was

mostly that people were so interested in being fun of Monty. There was sort of like the ice himself. But just that like Monty complains a lot about the crowd. And there's a lot of like, Riley even wrote a whole thing about the crowd was so raucous in part because of all these new fans that Tiger had brought into that it sound, Davis Love, I think was quoted as saying like, it sounded like a basketball game out there. Like people were just yelling and screaming.

Monty's yelling, damn you people, come back to your fancy, Shanti. You don't you have homes? So, uh, L's two putts on 18 wins the US open and says, you know, I found my game was really there this week. I won't do an orniel's impression. My mom and dad were here and I wanted to show off to them a little bit. I didn't realize this, but L's became the first foreign player

to own two US opens in 86 years Since Alex Smith of Scotland, which surprises me that like Gary player didn't win Two us opens, but I guess in his sort of thing that he only ended up one one Monty afterwards said I cried after the round sure it was the emotion of the thing I believe it's the toughest tournament to win the more. And I've come close three times now. I cried. I'm only human. Oh, and he would come even closer just a few years later at Wingflip.

Tiger in the aftermath said that the course, it humbled me big time. Very much felt like he, his game was not quite ready for sort of a test like this. Um, and L's in sort of the wrap up says, uh, you know, if you remember in 1994, I said that that came too quickly for me. People better be patient for me. I wasn't ready to be contender and majors for a long time. Maybe I wasn't too patient with myself, but I didn't want to lose this week. And I believed in myself.

So that wraps up the US open and nice. Yeah. I, I, it's one of those. I don't think I've fully realized how snake bitten layman was in three straight US opens. I mean, it, uh, yeah, even doing them year by year, you, I didn't even like peace all that together of, uh, how much freaking heartbreak he had in three straight US opens. It's kind of, well, like reading all three of his things, like how he, you know, it's such a different game, right?

Cause he's hitting one iron all the time off of teas and he's just hitting, he's fine and it dead straight. You know, it's, you look at like what Bryson goes on to do, does later and just sort of changes the calculus of the Ozone forever. Like it's just, it's a very, it's a very different, it's not even like a very different game. It's a completely different sport. Completely.

And that's the influence of technology on it all at all. It's crazy. Again, that's kind of why we dove into this era was golf was just a lot like, look at how many just in the last six years that we've covered, how many collapses we've had or how many like heartbreak, just failures of trying to close this shit out without equipment was such a totally different question than it is now. But you can't just wail on it, right? You got to actually step up and hit precise, like center of the face shots. Yeah. I'm going to spoil this part for you. 1997 open championship, not as exciting as the 97 masters. All right. So I have less content on this one. Maybe the most

exciting thing was tiger, of course, getting off the plane, rocking this, rocking this look with the white sport coat and those circular glasses that he wore back in the day. We are going to Royal Trune golf club in western Scotland. Uh, we're again on the Monty theme. His, uh, dad is father's the club secretary at, uh, at true price fund 2.6 million bucks, 418,000 to the winter, 7,079 yards. Essentially the same link that it was at the 1962 open championship. Tiger opens up the week by dumping on the US fans by saying Scottish fans don't just cheer for shots that get airborne. And he says, when he tells them, he doesn't have time for autographs. They respect it. So you can already see in just a few months, Tiger

getting pretty worn out by, by a lot of the attention that he has come with this. So Earl Woods will make some comments on calling Montgomery going into this saying he has, he allows himself to be psyched out by letting problems get inside his head. There are two steps I would suggest. First he must admit he has a problem. Then he needs a sports psychologist who can teach him techniques to block out the crowd. I mean, no lies told. Pretty spot on dude. I mean, I don't, I don't, it's, it's funny to think about somebody's dad saying that about another competitor. But yeah, that is, uh, is pretty spot on. But story heading into round one is of course, Tiger Woods, uh, he ends, he steps up and ends up

driving the first green. So this whole week, the front nine plays, uh, downwind. And, um, that's a kind of a common theme. A lot of guys step up on this, on this opening hole and give it a, give it a lash. So he opens up on that Thursday, driving the first green, uh, tries to drive the first green, excuse me, ends up in two different bunkers, but actually ends up saving par to start it. That's got a pretty solid fit going here. You know, white top with the, you know, the long sleeves underneath, but blue pants, little baggy white shoes and, and you know, the blue hat is that's a, is that Calke spy being the tan on the background there?

I do not think that is Cal. No, it's that must be, it looks like either it looks like that's being to Elkington. Yeah. Steve Elking did in Bernard Longers, who he is playing with. So, so, you know, there's a lot of shots of the cat, you know, in precarious spots and bunkers, you know, I was a takeaway I had was how far of a cry that this shot is from what we would see at the old course just a few years later that, you know, he famously missed every bunker. But yeah, there's a bunch of the bunch of just the links golf stuff. So you're gonna again, like coming off this, having read the 97 book about how much he learned about Augusta, it looks like there's still a lot of links golf stuff. So you're going to, again, like coming off this, having read the 97 book about how much he learned about Augusta,

it looks like there's still a lot of links golf stuff that, that Tiger still has to learn, but he has great appreciation for it. One of the things I would say is he needed to get much tighter fitting clothing because he looks like a hot air balloon in a lot of these shots where the wind is just absolutely whipping. The Michelin man is going to be carried away. It looks like one of those, like one of those superhero costumes that people wear for Halloween where it's like the fake muscles, like the incredible costume

or the Hanson France things from Sarah at life. It's not a great fit, but again, like most of the focus on this round one is on tiger. He makes a triple on the railway again, like most of the focus on this round one is on tiger. He makes a triple on the railway hole, which is the 11th hole, but finished with a one over round of 72. The hometown boy, our guy Monty did not have a great day. The first clip we see of him is hitting a wayward iron off the tee of a par four and you're not going to believe this, but he was upset about something that happened in the crowd directly behind him almost immediately after the shot.

You hooligans, calm down back there. I'm just, I'm so disdusted. Cody, I know you since grade school. You know, my father will get you kicked off the course in one minute. He's the club secretary. Oh, there you. Mark Calcovacchio, who won here in 1989, shoots a 74. And there's no way I could do justice to what happens here, but this is a vicious overhand club throw, putter throw that he makes at his bag. It's pretty impressive. Tommy Tolles on this day drives the first green with the first group still on the

green. The image that you're seeing here is somebody lining up a putt as the ball goes racing. This is where it finished in relation to the hole about six feet past the hole. It almost aced the hole and there's not even a pin in on the green. Darren Clark looking quite young and dapper, if I may say. He becomes a part of the storyline coming in. Jim Furrick, as he has referred to it during the entire open championship film is getting involved in the proceedings and Both he and Darren Clark would shoot for under par and their opening rounds on this Thursday

Fred couples Justin Leonard and Greg Norman are at minus two And then we have Cabrera, Barkley Howard, who's an amateur. Davis Love, Andrew McGee and Jesper Parnivik all at minus one on this Thursday. Do you know without looking who wins this 97 open? Only because he's a factor in the following major. So I would not have remembered it without like giving it serious thought. I remember when he won, but mostly what I probably remember was like, oh, an American who wasn't tiger. Well, I'm not going to spoil it just yet in case people are driving don't know, but Rick Riley would say about this Thursday, he said, as it was molded in one of the windiest places on earth, Royal Port Rush, outside Belfast and Jim Furick, who swing is so awful, the wind improves it.

Got a lot of, a lot of jokes about Furick swing in this era too. Like just people, not quite ready to accept that the gym was going to stick around and be, you know, who he was for 15 years. If you remember from our, I believe 91 deep dive into the open champion, uh, uh, uh, but Ian Baker Finch, this would be the, uh, now famous scene of him shooting a 92 in this round and withdrawing again. This is from Rick Riley's separate article that kind of dives into, uh, You know his his whole kind of collapse This is about Ian Baker Finch. He said he played a few practice rounds at true with his buddies and he was right around

Par but now he was unsure about entering because his back had flared up in Ireland another Australian player Peter senior barked don't be so bloody stupid finchy. I know how hard you've been working. Just go out and do it Suck it up. Try your hardest. Golf is like sex. This is that's in quote golf is like sex. Trying your hardest is the worst thing you can do yet Baker Finch thought he's right. I can't just give up. He played. He said worst decision I ever made in my life hit the first fairway and made par but he doubled the second with a bad chip. Double the sixth to hook drive double the postage stamp eighth out of the left bunker Bogey the first three holes in the back doubled the 13th with the hook drive

Hole by hole whatever milliliters of confidence he built up over six months leaked out of his spikes Walking with him his friend Gary Edwin a golf coach prayed that Baker Finch would pull out of the tournament with a suddenly bulging disc Or an instantly sprained thumb said I thought about it, but it didn't seem right. A Baker Finch to the end. He tripled the 16th hole by hitting his drive out of bounds right, then his second one off the map left. He doubled the par three 17th. He needed the eagle, the 452 yard par four 18th to keep a score under 90. Sure. That was the, he said, that was the absolute worst feeling I've ever known. Walking up the 18th of the British open about to shoot 92 that made the shot at St. Andrews feel like chicken feed, which you remember two years prior at the old course. He hooked one out of bounds at the widest hole in golf on the first tee and had to

read tee by then his nerves were afraid not fans and reporters lying the fair way to see for themselves. If it was true that a British open champion was coming in with a 20 handicap or score. Lying to and faced with a simple 60 yard chip to the hole he finally surrendered to the fear. He took out an eight iron and dribbled the ball onto the putting green not trusting himself to put another ball in the air. Lest he skull shank snap or slice it into yet another parking lot membership lounge or woman's handbag. It was the equivalent of taking off your skis and walking down the jump ramp. The blood drained from his face, the life from his eyes. He signed a scorecard, Limpley shook a few hands and took his wife and Edwin

into the one room where nobody else would be, the champion's room reserved for men who have won the British Open. In the 137 years of the event, no champion had ever entered it like that. He ignored the plus chairs and couches and collapsed on the floor with Jenny and a ball crying next to him and Edwin staring blankly ahead. Numb. They stayed like that for 45 minutes, hiding from the press and fans who were looking in through the windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of the touring pro from the country club of hell.

Wow. What a paragraph. Not done. Then Baker French got up and did what nobody, uh, what nobody, but he would do. He went to the press room, swallowed hard and answered questions. He said, I can't get any lower than this. Uh, it was so humiliating that some writers couldn't bring themselves to scribble the words in their notepads that night. Bellhop after bellhop filled Baker Finch's room with flowers, champagne and beer from players,

but it was useless. The next day, the score the scoreboard read WD next to Baker Finch's name. You can't, however, withdraw from a 92 in front of the world. Baker Finch flew back to Australia knowing there was only one thing he could do, work harder. So. Yowza. Yeah. It's incredible writing, incredible, kind of, you know, I know we relived that part, but again, reading it again was just shocking to get to that moment. It's incredible writing, incredible, kind of, you know, I know we relived that part, but

again, reading it again was just shocking to get to that moment. Just one of my all time favorite golf stories, like as a seminal moment in like Kevin Madmogorovic's journey of like being a writer was like, and the understanding of like reading about failure is often more compelling than reading about victory. That was one of the lessons that that story taught me very early on. And Riley was a big influence in that. He don't need, I mean, we say it on every one of these Rick Riley complete minutes in this time period, just a total tour de force. And it really is, I couldn't wait to read each one of his columns.

Tiger hits the eject button on the 10th hole on Friday makes an absolute mess. He was playing super quick. Like, well, I've never seen Tiger do this. Like playing super quickly out of like, like Gorse and stuff like that, just hacking it around the green makes a quad. It almost looks like he's giving up. Then he would, he would walk in a birdie on the 18th hole to make the cut. It does the signature putter raise. Just, I don't know why I like this image of this weird collared shirt that he's got with the Nike on the emblem and the, the, you know, the corners kind of fanning up a little bit.

Yeah. Just a look that didn't last forever on tiger, but those striped shirts that he wore in the center are very strange. Like the weird colors, like the greens, you know, he really never like even the fluorescent colors that he chose later in life seemed to fit him better than the weird like pea soup greens. Darren Clark shoots 66 leads at minus nine. Justin Leonard at minus seven. Jesper is at minus six.

And among the special guests at the open this year, his royal highness, the Duke of York, Prince Andrew is in attendance and featured in the, uh, in the highlight video, which was, uh, oh dear, probably not going to make a current version of that. If that was to be redone, but, um, Tiger, I was going to say, Tron did reference a Epstein's plane the other day on the trap draw. So I mean, it's very possible that, uh, you know, all things lead back to Prince Andrew and Epstein. And it's always all things lead back to Prince Andrew and Epstein.

And it's always that all things lead back to the trap draw. Uh, Saturday, Saturday, Tiger has himself a day. He goes out in 32. When he gets to 16, he's 290 yards away and, uh, the announcers are like, well, yeah, he's, he's waiting for the green, but he can't get there today. Uh, hits this just massive banana cut hits at pin high, 20 feet left of the hole. He makes the putt chips in for birdie. Then on 17 needs a par at the last to tie the course record of 64 and he makes the 10 footer to do it. So Saturday 64. Yeah.

Fred couples, uh, coming up the, uh, uh, the 11th hole, the, the railway hole, a hole that was playing really, really difficult, um, holes out from the, from the fairway. He's got our guy Joe Lekava, of course, by his side. And what do you know? What's, what do you think the next thing that is that couples does as he's walking up this 11th hole? Does he take his hat off? He takes his hat off and waves it to the crowd. In, in true, Hey, our guys deserve to celebrate too.

He's sticking with his guy, Patrick Kately hats off on that shot. In the meantime, Jesper Parnivik has just continued to absolutely ball out. He's speaking of hats. He's obviously famous at this time for his famous flipped up cap. But we can just take a second to acknowledge the fact that he's got the underside of his bill sponsored like that is just that is next level stuff. Activations used to be smarter than, you know, who no one's thinking about it. Activate in the bottom of your bill these days. Come on. Unused real estate.

I don't know about you. Jesper Parnivik was weirdly influential on my junior golf career, like watching him mash. And like I was always jealous of the size of the divots. He took obviously as a big turf guy, but watching how closely would stand in the ball and how pure he was with his irons like made me. Uh, one, I mean, that was one of the swing fields I would try maybe on Monday. It would be a different swing feel. I would try on Tuesday, but I always love watching yes for of it hit the ball. My buddy's golf team, we originally, when we like 20 years ago, we formed like two golf teams for a Ryder Cup team. One of us was team Tiger and one of us team Phil and my team was team Tiger. And when the scandal sort of broke, we decided to rename our team, team Jesper.

And there's some regret now that we didn't just stick with Tiger, but we've been team Jesper for like 15 years now, whatever. So he's, he's played a, I have like several ball markers in my possession that say team Jesper on it. So he's lived on in my personal golfing life forever. Darren Clark gets it all the way to minus 12, but he made a bunch of bogeys coming in. He falls back to minus nine and Jesper Parnivik is the 54 whole leader at 11 under again. Clark at minus nine, two shots back.

Fred couples and Justin Leonard are at minus six, five shots back. Uh, there's a great shot at the end of this of, uh, of tiger. He is the last one left on the range. Does a little messing around, puts on a little show for the fans and is doing his, uh, his little club bounce thing on there. And, uh, gotta say, sorry, this is just pants. He cannot, those pants are so high and they're so dramatic for two pairs of pants. Massive.

You could hide an NFL linemen's thighs in those pants. It was just insane. This is obviously before the commercial he shoots where he does the, the, the bouncing on the club and the full swing because he takes a full cut at it and whiffs the ball, uh, unfortunately to the, and then he ends up hitting, he does it again and hits one, but not nearly as pure as he does in the commercial. From Riley, as we get into this final round,

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

in 1994 thinking he needs birdie to tie. He only needed part of tie. And if he hit it 15 feet, right, he'd have a, you know, putt to win. And, you know, to putt to tie short size himself and does not get up and down and misses out on a playoff at 1994 to Nick Price. But some coverage takes that are published on the Sunday morning. The BBC defended their decision to show only brief extracts of Tiger's course record equaling round. Their coverage did not start until 12 30 p.m. And they had to show racing from Newberry due to a contract.

You don't know how contracts work. Yes, exactly. It's just very pleased to see that. It's not a charity. Sunday, Tiger makes a couple early birdies, but he triples the postage stamp after dumping it into the right bunker. Riley would say, you know, the U.S. Open is where Tiger learned you can't make a big number.

Earl Woods told Tiger Tigers agent and used Hughes Norton last week. And Trun is where Tiger learned you can't make three big numbers. He had three terrible holes that cost him 10 total shots. If he made three pars on those, he would have finished second place. Just as in the U.S. Open in June, he made more birdies and fewer bogeys than the winner. Maybe the hero is the hero because he goes for hero parts, but a few bogies out of this kid instead of eights. And we might have had something. Uh, tiger would say afterwards that people said things they shouldn't have

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

I agree. Yeah. Darren Clark goes out and birdies the first hole, uh, then steps up and cold shanks one with an iron onto the beach and out of bounds on the second hole and makes double then goes and clangs one off the hole with his approach into the third hole. Then part of it steps up and hits the stick. So this is this image you're looking at here. Uh, is there two shots into the, into the third hole, then part of it steps up and hits the stick. So this is this image you're looking at here. Uh, is there two shots into the, into the third hole?

Um, Clark yips the putt, unfortunately, but part of it steps up and makes his birdie. Um, Leonard makes five birdies and a bogey in his first seven holes to get it to 10 under par again. They're going downwind out to start here. Uh, then it starts to get a little nervy for Jesper Parnivik here. He plays the par five, six hole, which is called guess what? Turnberry. Um, Oh, how unfair to him.

He tries to put it from like 40 yards, ends up making bogey and his lead is down to one over Leonard Clark, pours and a birdie to get back within two after a really difficult start, uh, to his round, but he is back in the hunt. Um, skipping ahead a little bit. Parnivik birdies the 11th hole to stretch out, uh, to a two shot lead, but things really start to go poorly. He, uh, makes a bogey on the 13th hole and the lead is one. Now going back to Justin Leonard is in the group ahead, not like pre-

and not, I would love to see the strokes gain data from this round because doesn't hit it great. Seems to be having problems from everywhere and makes just 15 footer after 15 footer after 15 footer. Like he, it's making so many freaking par putts. And then he gets to the 16th hole. Again, this is after making so many putts in a row, not eight footers, like bomb putts in a row has this putt on the 16th hole from 20 feet for birdie for the tie. Absolutely drains it. But part of it is on the end. It still has the part five 16th to play as you skip ahead. Leonard is

up on the 17th hole putting from 35 feet for birdie and drains it. But part of it has a 5 footer for birdie on on 16 and yips it. He misses the short 5 footer and Leonard is leading alone at minus 12 after 17. Again, part of it's putt to tie the lead, not a long one. It's just not a lengthy putt and it misses on the low on the right side. It's not a very pretty stroke. Weird center shafted butter. I'm looking at here. Yeah. It's kind of weird, like kind of, uh, kind of bar behind it too. I wish I would have got a better shot of that one, but Leonard steps up on 18, hits a fairway wood down the left side, part of it gets to 17 and chunks it.

I mean, it was awful. Like it goes way short and left into the, into the crowd. Leonard hits a long iron into 18, hits it right in the middle of the green. He makes kind of the walk. It's starting to look pretty much like it's Leonard Leonard's to lose at this point. He two putts par and part of it bogey 17. The lead is two. It's over Leonard shot. Final round 65. You know, they cut to part of it's wife and two kids and a nanny on the 18th green.

Whoa. Oh, wait. I double I triple quadruple take here. I don't think this is Eland. I don't think it's her either. I think they didn't meet until like 2000 or a couple of years later when, when tiger, uh, when she gets hired on, uh, she's younger than tiger anyway. And so there's, that's no way that she, she would have been, you know,

16 or something at all this to say, Jesper's family has a type when it comes to, when it comes to nannies because that is an attractive younger twenties, uh, blonde. I can only assume is Swedish that looks a hell of a heck of a lot like, uh, like Elon. But, uh, I know what though, I will say that didn't even sister nanny for the Parnivics and that was how they met. Uh, I, I, I know, you know, sister was also a model who did some nannying. So outside chance. That's a sister. I don't know. That's, she would be more age appropriate.

I would have Josephine Nordgren that is almost certainly her. Now that I've done this, uh, this Google search, look at us and finally you investigate. It's incredible. Uh, yeah. That has to be her. That really has to be her. That. Well, anyways, great finding that who, who'd have thought when they were making this film together in 1997, that it would be, this shot would be studied like this is a brooder film, but, um, I mean it, it again, kind of talking about the failure and what that kind of registered here.

I feel like if I, if I have a memory of watching this, it's, it's kind of sears in this, this grief era of golf of like, dude, somebody blew almost every one of these. And like they just zoom in on, yes, for part of its face on repeat. And there's this incredible shot that shows Darren Clark and Justin Leonard, like kind of hamming it up before they're getting ready to go accept the, you know, the trophies and the runner ups have to accept their silver medals. And I mean, Clark is in a great mood and part of it just looks like he's in a different, on a different planet. It's really tough, but the letter ends up winning it by three, despite being

five shots down, going into the final round. Rick Riley would say you say this is the Tiger Woods era and you're probably right, but Woods may have a stubborn Texas Chihuahua clamped onto his tail and Leonard, who has won two PGA tour events and a major in the last 11 months. If you add 27 year old Ernie L's to 21 year old Woods and Leonard, you might have a big three starter kit for the first time in history, three men less than 30 years old have won the first three majors of the year. I found that interesting. I didn't realize that the first youth movement, a lot of big threes. Everybody always wanted another

big three, but as Gary, as Gary would say, there's only one big three. Holy, I don't, I don't remember what happens after this, but I don't think Justin Leonard is in a big three for very long. I'd have to check the tape on that one, but he had a very nice career. Listen, I'm not big of fun, but pretty outrageous claim by Riley there, but more from Riley for Leonard, there was nothing to do but admire his name and scryed on the trophy, not five minutes into his reign as British open champion. Uh, he says, wow, pretty fast work.

Does he have a dry cleaners in Dallas and then a tiger stripe females, then the tiger stripe female streaker on the 18th green. He said, I got to see this. Uh, he said, as he bolted from a ring of riders and he says, relax, he's single. Couldn't find the images of the tiger striped female street girl on the 18th green. But how dare they erase the tiger striped female stripper or streaker to history for us? We should, this is, this is an important part of history's documentation. We should be able to have that at our fingertips.

Other writing art spander noted that Justin Leonard now has as many major titles as Tiger and one more than Phil, which that would change in the coming years. But I don't have a whole lot of other funny little stuff other than this was David Begg's final year operating the press tent at the open. A bunch of players, you know, in the video say a whole bunch of nice things about him. Nick Price says it's great to have known him for 15 to 16 of players, you know, in the video say a whole bunch of nice things about him. Nick Price says, it's great to have known him for 15 to 16 years says, you know, we'll miss him. Jack in his tribute to him makes it all about himself and says, I mean, yeah, David, he's been through the whole game with me. He's seen me go from a young man to an old man. It's like, what a great tribute to David there. Get this, you're not going to believe this next part though, but Nicholas is not sure if he'll return to play in the British open next year at Royal Burkdale.

He said he'll see how he's playing next year before deciding he had played in 36 straight British opens. So he would of course return that year in the next three years and also come back in 2005. Maybe he's got one more in him. He also said, yeah, I did not think I would be coming this year, but in the last couple of months I've been hitting the ball well. I think if I could be competitive, I shall be back at Royal Burkdale next year. And you know, the thing is I got this like guru who like just does all these kind of weird things. It's gone.

It cost me 20 bucks. He then, he then tipped the luck room attendant one pound and left back on his blade. That is it. Brief from 97 open championship, but not the most exciting one. I would say similar vibes from the 1997 PJ championship. So do you remember where this one was held? Winged foot. Winged foot. This is the only time that wingfoot will host a non-US Open. It has hosted US Opens in 1929, 1959, 1974, 1984, then again in 2006 and 2020, but this time just got a PJ championship.

I will say right up front, they sort of take it apart, not exactly the tough test that we have become accustomed to for Wingfoot and other times playing at this moment shorter than Trun. It sounds like 6987 yards, which, you know, I guess not that surprising wind isn't quite as much of a factor there. But do you any idea what the yardage will play when Bryson wins the US Open at wing foot? 7700 yards. Not quite. 7477. Although certainly some of the teas may have been moved around a little

bit to play it more like 77, especially after he was just demolishing it early. A bunch of people think that this if Tiger hasn't won the last two majors, but by God, this might be the major that he wins because butch Harman's dad was the teaching pro at Winged Foot for 33 years and butch essentially grew up at Wingfoot. And so he is taking Tiger around and teaching him all the little nuances of don't go at this pin, don't go at that pin. You know, this is a great sort of test. Wingfoot Greens, famously small because AW Tillinghast felt that big greens made for unsavory golf, that it was sort of barbaric to have big greens.

And so you had to be a precise player. So Wingfoot's greens have always been sort of famous for those reasons. A funny story, not a lot of like fun anecdotes, but certainly one that I found on the Wednesday before the PGA Championship, Paul Azinger and Phil Blackmar were getting fly casting lessons at a local park before the tournament. getting fly casting lessons at a local park before the tournament when a bunch of kids showed up and started throwing crap apples and As Aislinger referred to it chunks of asphalt at us Basically made Paul made it seem like they were at Fallujah and they were being attacked He just don't do that it just don't do that he referred to them as hoodlums and said that they were just it was an epidemic and He kind of when the when the New York press pushed back and and

He said this is probably normal for them. I guess this kind of behavior And when the New York press kind of pushed back a little bit He said that you know, he he made him that, you know, this was a nationwide epidemic. There are kids out there with no compulsion for what's right and what's wrong. What if they had hit us in the face? Would they have thought that that was cool? So I'm really glad that Paul and Phil Blackmore survived essentially going to war. Wow. Thank you.

I, I, I will thank them for their service the next time I see them. Prior to the tournament John Daly is back. He's he's competing in this again. He's asked what chance he has of contending. He says none so But as round one begins surprise surprise guess who leads after the first day tied with Davis love John Daly She's a 66. I was gonna jokingly guess that That was what's gonna follow. He credits improved fitness and focus saying that

these days he stops by TCBY yogurt instead of Dunkin Donuts when he's on his way home from the course and that this has helped him lose like 60 pounds. He looks very similar to the sort of, at least physically like he looked when he won the PJ championship back a crooked stick He's also wearing the sort of been Hogan cap. I wish I had a picture of this to show you because it's quite Striking to see John Daly and the Bryson slash Hogan cap

He says he's kind of forthright with the press, which I gotta say, like, not a lot of understanding about alcoholism or like compassion for a lot of things written in these days. Daily says, golf is an addiction and so is alcohol. It's taken me a few years to learn that I can't think ahead. I can't plan for the future. Basically it's one day at a time, one shot at a time. And he's asked if he thinks this is sort of

a second chance at life. And he says, do I believe I've had a second chance? I believe I've had like 15 chances. I've had a lot of chances and I'm scared of the disease. I'm scared of what it can do to me and what it's done to me. Yeah, I guess I'm scared. I'm going to screw up again and I'm doing really good today, but that's all I can say. I'll get through tomorrow and worry about tomorrow when it comes. Barry Stanton of the Journal News wrote in a column, John Daly might be somebody's hero, but he's not mine. He wasted his talent that could have made him

one of the best players of the game. I hope he wins his personal battle, but I don't care if he wins this tournament. John Daly playing out of the rough is exciting, but it's his own fault that he got there. Jesus. Yeah, kind of a harsh, there you go. Look at that.

You could pull up the picture. I've got his image of the Hogan cap, which is sweet. Thank you very much for pulling that up. Not all the luck that you see a lot of job, but look how skinny he is there. It's quite impressive. Davis Love III shoots 66 to Ty John Daly for the lead. Davis Love started thinking back at Trune when he made a quad on the postage stamp this same year, just the last major.

Maybe I don't have what it takes to win a major championship. I said he was sort of racked by doubt. Davis Love famously sort of had a lot of near misses when Ben Crenshaw won the Masters. Davis Bogie, the last final two holes, basically, you know, you hand it to Crenshaw, you know, we ended up winning easily, uh, you know, blew a, uh, US open at, um, at Oak Hill, like just a lot of kind of like, maybe Davis love is like the most talented person in the game, hitting it far as tiger these days, uh, and even John Daly, but just can't quite close a lot of these deals.

Uh, a lot of low scores out here, a bunch of scores in the 60s. In fact, more scores the first day in the 60s and the 70s. And Lee Janssen takes the second round lead with a 67. And people are starting to get mad that this is not your daddy's massacre at Wingfoot. Love trails by a shot after shooting 71.

And our man, Phil Mickelson fires a second consecutive 69. Nice to get into contention. He's only two shots back and it's wing foot. So I so I'm sure nothing bad will happen right there at the end Tom kite who we saw back in the Masters recap here He was the Ryder kept captain that year and he actually shoots an even par on the he gets into contention He's I think he's a you know the first day He's like only three shots off the lead and he says that he's playing so well this year That he just might have to name himself to the Ryder Cup team. I haven't eliminated anybody Says when they ask him if he might be a member of the team reconstructions going well for for for Germany

for Germany. We've rebuilt, we've rebuilt, we've built something. Uh, tight. Kite says he was motivated this year by a quote that he saw Tiger give, uh, saying that, you know, uh, Tom Kite and Tom Watson were pretty good players once, once upon a time. Uh, and he, Tom Kite says, well, since I was a pretty good player one time, I thought I'd better show up, uh, and play well this time. So in round three, Justin Leonard surges into the lead with a 65. Wow. Just making, you know, guys are, this is, you know, winged foot. Guys are just roasting it shooting 65. Did the superintendent retire, threaten to resign just like in 2020? I forgot about that. God, that was sick. No, and not that I could find, but I hope so.

It's like a hundred degrees. So I don't know if they were just having to water the shit out of the course and keep it soft to keep this stuff from dying or what, but it's guys are just kind of going at it, but I guess what I would say is that in round three, Leonard and Love really kind of pull away from the, Davis Love shoots to 66 and the two of them Leonard is at seven under

and Davis love is at six under and the next best player is already even par. So it's it kind of reset itself a little bit, but the two guys and they truly said, you know, it's kind of like a match play situation as they're going into the final round. None of the other big names really show up to play. I do want to just note that our guy Phil shoots a 75 in the final round, perhaps a sign of things to come and final rounds at Wingfoot. He ends up in 29th after being tied for fourth after two days. This has really become kind of, I'd say, an underrated performance in major history. Maybe it's because love really never won another major or because he, you know,

didn't win four of them before this or whatever, but he shoots 66 in the final round to win by five shots. I'm just going to spoil it. Wow. It's not a lot of drama. I didn't know that. Yeah. It's his third 66 in this tournament. So like, I think there's a chance that the Mackenzie Hughes should actually

be called the Davis love the third because it's going 66, 66 on the weekends who win the PJ championship by, uh, by this many shots. Pretty darn impressive. Um, if, if I may, really random thing that I think I remember, I'm pretty sure Bob May did that 66, 66, 66 and 2000, uh, to get into the playoff. If I remember right. Yes.

Someday we're going to do 2000 solid. It's going to be a trip. Oh, Bob May, we're going to get into such a fun period. Like we're going to have some, like if we keep going in order like this, it's about to get way more fun. Since Bob May is like,

I feel like that performance, like one of the most underrated things in major history. I remember that major as well as I remember any major in my life, just watching and just, you know, feeling like conflicted because I wanted tiger to win, but also like being like this dude is what a story. Also, I still believe someone threw tiger's ball out of that bush on 18, but we'll get to that in another time. Love had really tortured himself for years, um, you know, whether he was good enough to win.

But he had also signed up really tortured himself a lot because as many people probably know, his father died in a plane crash in 1988. Right around the Jacksonville area, they he took off. He was not the pilot, but the plane took off from sea island and there was really bad weather. Uh, and it sort of forced them to turn back. No one knows exactly what happened. Although it was didn't seem to be attributed to pilot error, just bad sort of weather and crashed in the swamps kind of just north of Jacksonville. And he said he really just he never like he moved on, he kept playing golf like he was very young then and, you know, was thought of as like being the next prodigy. But he didn't really come to sort of grips with it until he sort of wrote a book about he and his dad and that sort of helped him start to heal from it. So as love kind of blitzes

everything the final, um, final things in the field here, what is known as one of the sort of more famous images in golf is here, a rainbow appears over the 18th green, uh, which everyone sort of, uh, felt like was almost like a sign that love's father was kind of with him there. It was quite sort of poetic, I guess, for, uh, you know, those who will, who will connect such things, those writer types, uh, and really kind of a beautiful scene. It's like, can I, any guesses on what Nancy's, uh, final call might have been? I think I know it. That's what love is all about. Love is all about. That's right. A young, very earnest, overly kind of soft Kevin

VanValkenberg cut out the headline that said love conquers all and like pinned it to a picture of he and his girlfriend together and sent it to her when she was off at school of Massachusetts. picture of he and his girlfriend together and sent it to her when she was off at school of Massachusetts. And that's one of my sort of, you know, softy boy sort of memories. Most of that was like, Oh, what a cute headline. We're going to be in love forever. Spoiler, we were not didn't work out. But, you know, back to love, he said, you know, nothing will ever place the relationship I had with my dad, but I found some of my own reasons to love the game. I wanted to be the number one in the world player in the world and if my dad were here He would say okay. Let's take that next step

I'm learning to let myself go whether it's letting a lot of my feelings about my dad go or by talking and writing about him Or just my golf game just by letting myself play. It's all related this week I felt so much freer on and off the course So very poignant sort of nice moment to close 97, the very famous rainbow picture, I think, uh, sort of, uh, speaks more than I guess any writer could, could sort of put it in place. Well, that's another thing too, with getting like doing this in the order we're doing it and, and, and like you just, you watch the, the, the failures

and the, and the rebounds and triumphs, right? Like he missed a three foot putt to get into a playoff the 1996 US Open in the last one of these we did. And comes back a year later and wins. Tom Lehman, you know, all the US Open heartbreak he had comes back and wins the Open Championship in 1996. Like it just helps you understand the era a lot more of the, you know, the isolated incidents that kind of marry them all up together.

It's fun. And it's not the most exciting. Some of marry them all up together. It's, uh, it's fun. It's not the most excited. Some of these termites are not the most exciting, but, uh, it speaks to a lot of golf history. So I want you to note, Sue, tell you that Tom Kite, before the tournament told, uh, told Davis love that if he didn't qualify for the Ryder Cup on points, that he was still on the team, which much has been raged Corey Pavin somewhere after he wouldn't guarantee tiger the same much later.

You're a liar. A liar. You're going down. We should have had, we, I mean, a lot of years we might need to add writer cups into this because we probably should do, um, you know, I don't know, not that these need to get any longer than they, than they already are. So, uh, anyway, we, I think we what's one to shout out to people that have really enjoyed these, because we've enjoyed the hell out of them and we've had a fun time and just

making each other laugh and hearing stories about how we make you guys laugh with it makes it totally worth all the research and digging through and shout out news, newspapers.com, which is a big help to us for digging up some of the old clips. I hope that like majors, you know, with newspapers sort of collapsing and like Twitter kind of Disappearing, you know in the archives of that like I I hope there's like shit for other generations to find right about majors That go down. I mean, maybe it's just like gonna be listening to podcasts and talk maybe it's like all the more important that we you know Talk about the shit that actually happens during the day and these golf tournaments because like there needs to be some sort of historical record of this stuff because it shows you how, you know, some of these hilarious stories about Nicholas and his like weirdo masseuse that who would have ever remembered that unless the Miami Herald, you know, put it in a notebook. with Nicholas in 90s and 96 and then a guru therapist in 97, but also shout to the UG, UG register guard as always.

Cause you know, that's the best. I think the Eugene register guard is like shout out to Mr. GZ like we just, every, every episode we just give out a shout out to the Eugene register card, the paper of record when it comes to 1990s golf trivia. So, uh, likewise, I'll echo in the sentiments that we get a lot of great feedback on these episodes and they're a lot of fun to do. Um, sometimes can feel like we've read in Wikipedia page, but people seem to love them and it's a lot of fun to,

fun to have fun to do that. So, um, we are recording this in November. If I forgot to say that in the intro and, uh, we'll be airing this probably in January, but so hopefully you never know sometimes some things can happen within a two-month time period that can make some stuff feel dated but Greatly appreciate the time and effort you put into these my man and we'll probably be back with I'm assuming 1998 somewhat soon So thanks a hell yeah Be the right club, be the right club today! Yes! Now that's better than most.

How about in? That is better than most. Better than most!