Subpar - Aaron Flener talks keys to a successful player-caddie pairing and gin games on the road

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

On this week's episode of GOLF's Subpar, Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz are joined by PGA Tour caddie Aaron Flener. The man carrying the bag for J.T. Poston talks his keys to keeping J.T. focused through tough stretches of play, why Geno Bonnalie turned down his 'suite' offer and which fellow SAXX underwear model he'd trust most on his bag. -- Thank you to Rhoback for being the official apparel provider of GOLF’s Subpar.  Use the code “SUB” on Rhoback.com for a generous 20% off your first order.” -- We are excited to share our listener offer from Ship Sticks, who gets you from your front door to “fore” easier than ever. They’ll pick up your golf clubs from your home or office and deliver them on time, guaranteed, to golf destinations anywhere, in and outside the U.S. No more airport headaches, no more lugging heavy bags. Just easy, stress-free travel for golfers like you.Ship Sticks. Because golf is hard enough.Use code SUBPAR or visit www.shipsticks.com/subpar to learn more and take 20% off your shipment. -- Thank you to SAXX Underwear for partnering with GOLF’s Subpar.  Enjoy 15% off game-changing underwear at https://saxx.com with code SUBPAR24 now.  -- Subscribe Now: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt5ESUx6omMUsMoEKvMTzlA Shop The Birdie Juice Collection: https://fairwayjockey.com/collections/birdie-juice Follow Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/golf_subpar/?hl=en Follow Twitter: https://twitter.com/golf_subpar?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

All right, here we go. Welcome back to Gulf subpar. Coltnos Drew Stoltz. Sleys just got back in town. Before we get going, I want to tell you about Roeback. And believe it or not, it's not hoodie weather here in Scottsdale. It's death weather. This is surface of the sun level hot that we're dealing with here. It is walk outside, melt your face off your body.

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That's 20% off all polos, hoodies, and crews with code sub. Make sure to check out now that it's summer, and they will have you ready for whatever travel or activities you have. Boom. Look how good we look. It is hotter than shit here. It's hot even inside. I mean, it's an issue.

I just got my electric bill. I've been gone for a month. Yeah, it's not great, Bob. Yeah, no. Just to say, just so you don't melt in your. You're high. I've got to run the whole day. I think if you have it on 78, it runs the whole day. Yeah. This is what people love, by the way, is how hot summer weather is. This is good podcasting. Props to us. You didn't know it's hotter and shit in Arizona in July.

What was almost as hot as the weather here was Davis Thompson's putter out of the John Deere classic. The man lit the place on fire. Broke the scoring record 28 under par, one by four, made it look easy on Sunday. Yeah, I mean, took all the drama out of it too. It's like, all right, here's the kid trying to win for the first time, two shot lead. Let's see how how he deals with this. Not a great wedge shot on the first, but hoops of, I mean, dude, I don't know, what was it? 44 feet. Yeah, 44 feet. Goes right in the center, dead weight.

Birdie's the next. 29 on the front. And I was like, that's probably dirt nap unless something really strange happens here. It is, we talked about this on radio today. By the way, put it in cruise control in the last few holes to stay at 28 under. Three wood off a par five, very conservative on 18. 28 under par. To win a golf tournament.

In a non-signature event where most of the best players in the world, world weren't even there. And on top of that, 16 guys made it to 20 under. Like, I know it's not the hardest course in the world. I know it was dead calm out there and the greens are fairly soft, but I really don't give a shit. It's becoming absurd, the level of golf at the top. And these aren't even the guys that we rattle off and like, look at the best players in the world. And he just won for the first time until a few days ago, unless you really follow golf closely. You probably didn't know what Davis Thompson is. Yeah, but he's 25 years old. He had finished second three times on the PGA tour. And everyone around him, everyone that played with him at Georgia,

He's the real deal. He's a study. He's two-time first team All-American. He's won at every level. He won the prestigious Jones Cup. He won in college, high school, everything. And so to me, this was no surprise. He's a big dude, six-four, like he's got all the makings to be a really good player.

I'm not going to say open up the floodgates because that's not fair. He is really good. I wish he would open up and show some personality. That might help a little bit. Subdued, to say the least. I did show you a little clip I saw the man loves his hip-hop. not scared to dance to a little biggie, which I was like, hey, maybe we, maybe we show this a little bit, guys. The personalities out there, there's, we got a few.

I would like to have a few more. Let it, let it eat if you got it. The video I saw it like, yeah, put that out. Where's the agent on this? Show the world. Like, he was just flatline, which is a great trait playing golf, but it was like Patrick can't lay 2.0 out there. I mean, nothing, nothing from the, until the end, then he cried and all this stuff. The wife he came out and did all that.

But, yeah, to your point, like, he's a good player. I don't think, clearly not like a household name. If you got to follow golf pretty closely, I think, to know much about Davis Thompson. But like Cam Davis a couple weeks ago, it's like you watch him and you watch why he played this week and you're like, what goes wrong when it goes wrong? Like that looks pretty simple, pretty damn good. He hits it hard. He putted the shit out of it.

It looks like the complete package. Yeah, he's a real talent. Like I said, we need a little personal. A little juice out there. But also, shout out to John Deere, because that's tournament that, you know, doesn't get all the love in the world. They've been sponsoring for a lot of years. They're one of the staples on the PJ tour. I believe the second longest running sponsorship on the PJ tour. They put on a great show. Had Counting Crows at the course Saturday.

And Lainie Wilson, watermelon moonshine there on Sunday. Did she ask about me? I had to leave, but she did give me a little wink, said, tell this leasy. I said, hello. Just like her to do that. Just like her to do that. Working on, uh, starting to think that song might about. Yeah. You go back and revisit those lyrics. You know, my name, I'm not mentioned by name, but just let me tell you, it was a special time. in the kid's life. A lot of fun. Also shout out Chef Jeremy, Duck City for a great week.

I visited just every night. Just every time. Just every night. Way to go. Loyal customer. Same table. 7 p.m. Book it.

Props to you. All right. Well, let's get to the really big news that is going to come out when this podcast gets released. Because at noon, Eastern time on Tuesday, we're rather confident that Keegan Bradley will be named the 2025 Rider Cup captain at Beth Page Black. So ladies, I think this name is going to shock a lot of people. I know it shocked us when we heard, but I'm here for it. I'm pumped about this.

I didn't even know this was a possibility. Like going in, it's like, okay, I think it's Tigers if he wants it. I think that was pretty clear. Turns out he probably doesn't want it. And then there was a few other names, kind of the usual suspects, the guys that have been around. We'd kind of retread these guys out there. And it wasn't a whole lot of, no disrespect to any of those guys. I think we need like a facelift in this thing.

Like, look at what Europe's doing. Luke Donald, young guy still playing. playing. Great. Look at the guys the out of around. The Mol and Ari brothers play a huge,

huge role in that thing over there. Both young relationships with the players. Close starts over there. Was spectacular. I was hoping we'd get young. The problem is,

like, if you want to get younger, it's hard to find a guy that's old enough to not be competitive and still playing, but young enough to be relatable to all these guys. The list is very short,

but I didn't even think Keegan was on it. I mean, he won twice last year. He's had two runner-ups this year. I thought he was like hell-bent on making the team, but this is a pretty tough thing to turn down if it comes your way. Sleas, he's 19th in the world.

Yeah, he's like right next to Justin Thomas on the Ryder Cup standings right now. Like, they think Justin's thinking about making the team, you know? Yeah, it's, he thought he should have been on the team last year. A lot of people did, but I think this is great. Kegan is very passionate. He's very patriotic. We saw him how he played in his two Ryder Cups back in 2012,

2014. He went four and two playing alongside Phil Mickelson. But I was looking at something earlier. I said, imagine telling yourself when Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley were teammates at Medina that Keegan will be a captain before Phil. I mean, it's so much has changed since then, but like there was a time a few years back before all of it. I would have bet a lot. It's Phil Mickelson at Bet Page for the U.S. side, Ian Polter for the European side.

Probably two of the more fiery guys. Polter for sure. He's the villain in New York. It's like, boom, the bet is made for that. And then now things change. Mok's. He will be... Kiggs could drag in Phil on the old vice captaincy.

He could. That ruffled some shit. That would be awesome. And I told you my idea on radio, if they don't do this, I think we're making a huge mistake. There's a fella that's got this rather famous logo that Kegan wears on his shoes. Looks like he's jumping through the air holding a basketball. He's rather good friends with. A man named Michael Jordan who loves the Ryder Cup.

He's been an assistant captain at the President's Cup. Comes to pretty much every Ryder Cup, but that crowd in New York is going to be, unbelievable. It's going to be raucous. The first T, I've already, we've seen pictures of what the first T's going to look like. It's going to be a joke. That place is going to be jumping. You've been doing an opening ceremony at the Ryder Cup twice now. Imagine, okay? We're getting ready

to go. It's 6.30 in the morning. Got the Chicago Bulls theme song coming on, the intro music coming on. First person out the tunnel, Michael Jordan. To get the thing going. You don't think that place will go fucking insane? I mean, it'd be, I think we need to do that. Just whatever it takes.

Like, home field advantage is crazy. We saw over there until you're like kind of experience it and also they got to great starts on all those matches it just felt like everything was going their way the momentum was all on their side the entire time over there i think new york is going to be i'm a little concerned i think it could get out of at times but that's what i love about like this is a rider cup it's different it ain't the normal deal and i want us to go full bore on this and with their relationship between kegan and mj yeah trot them out by the way how about some custom jays for the boys when they go out there too and us yeah and us obviously of course there's a lot of ways to

go with this. But to sum it all up, I had no idea Keegan was even in consideration. It wasn't a name I would have brought up on my top 15, just because I thought he was so hell-bent on making this next vintage of the U.S. team. But now that it's been announced, dude, I love it. I love the fact that we're finally going to switch things up a little bit. Let's get a little younger. And I think his vice captains will reflect that too. He'll have a little bit of veteran in there. And I think I'll have some contemporary guys, too. So, well, hopefully all this stuff that got leaked. It's true or else we're going to have to record the shit segment. If somebody else comes out and takes that, we're running back, Zach Johnson.

I'll tell you what's not going to suck is this week's episode because we've got the big cat in the house, the one, the only. Aaron Flaner who caddies for James Tyree post. And we've had Flaner on before. He's a beauty. I can't wait to sit down with him again. Golf is all about how you handle your balls. Sometimes they go where you want and sometimes they don't. But thanks to the original pouch underwear from Sacks, you can keep your balls on par with the patented ballpark pouch. Plus, with active cooling technology, quick dry fabrics, and chafe-free stitching, Sacks will make you feel like a pro all the way through the back nine. Enjoy 15% off game-changing underwear at Sacks.com with code subpar now.

That's S-A-X-X-com promo code subpar, the Fleener. He's rocking them at all times. I'm not sure if you saw his little Instagram video that came out recently. I've seen it. It is sexual. We will address it. It is sexual. Here he is the Big Cat, Aaron Fleener on Subpar.

All right, folks. What a talent we have joining us today. He is a caddy. He's a rising country music star. He's an underwear model, a household name in Nashville. He's the right-hand man for JT Post. And we got Aaron, the Big Cat Fleener. How are we doing, Kat?

How are you guys doing? Thanks for having me on. Good to have you. I am pumped, my good friend. This is going to be a lot of fun. The first time we had you on was back in the early days of subpar. Are you and Gino joining us before anyone really knew who you two were, y'all were a little nervous. Now, look at you.

You're singing in Nashville bars all over the place. Gino's signing autographs going up and down the fairways. Things change. Things have changed. I think Gino's a little more well-known than I am, but at least I'm not sleeping in vans, you know. Yeah, that's true. We don't get to the vans. That's true.

We used to just text them to, hey, you want to come on on Tuesday, and now we've got to go through agents and all this type of shit. Talk about appearance fees, you know what I mean? He texted me today to see if I could set him up on a bourbon tour in Kentucky. I said, sure, man, whatever you need. Yeah, I got an idea. Call the place and don't probably take your credit card and let you go through. I got this special deal.

It's called 100% retail. I'll set you right up on the tour. Before we get into some serious golf talk, because, you know, obviously golf is all about how you take care of your balls. We got this relationship with Sacks underwear, you and four other pro loopers out there. Tell us a little bit of how this relationship started. Yeah, so I think initially they wanted to get Joel Damon on board.

He's, you know, he had a million other things going on. So his agent, you know, said, hey, what if I get you four caddies instead? You know, they'll, you know, they'll be funny and they'll buy into it and they'll do it for cheaper. So. Smart. That's kind of how it started this. if I wanted to be a part of it. And I was like, you know, I can't turn down free underwear.

You got to wear underwear. Yeah. You got to go through them. Can't be chaper in a profession. You got to go through them. Yeah, especially big boys like me. I mean, you got to have some draws on out there. Yeah, especially this time of year.

But like, legitimately, the Sacks, the group of guys that represents the brand is awesome. Did you have say in who the other caddies would be like, hey, this would be the right guy? This would be the right guy. Not initially, no. I mean, I think Gino kind of picked us out. out a little bit and then you know Ellis came on this year because he wasn't making enough money already

so he needed to dip in and get a little bit more so we brought him on board. Tell us about the first time because obviously it all sounds like a great idea on paper. You're like yeah I'm going to tell people I'm an underwear model. Then you get out there for the first shoot and you actually got to

get down to your undies. Were we nervous at all? I mean not really because you know we had you know golf shirts and bids and stuff on and the underwear were, you know, a little bit, you know, the longer ones. And they gave us, you know, one of those little cups to put in there. Oh, they did. Oh, that was all natural. By the way, no one else mentioned this shit when we talked to it. Everybody just said, no, I just got a huge piece. Look, I'll give you a full disclosure. I'm not

trying to, I'll pull the curtain back for your voice. God, what a guy. By the way, Ellis must have told us 17 times how cold it was. He's like, it was cold. He literally, mentioned it 10 times, I bet you. Not once that he mentioned, oh, but by the way, we got some enhancements. I mean, it was going. I did watch this interview, y'all did. He did bring that up a lot.

He was a little self-conscious about that. Not once did he mention, oh, but by the way, they gave us a massive cup to shove in there. I love you to say, he just said a cup in your third and a day. No, massive cup. What do you want to give you a little baby one? You think you're going to put it on? No, I'd rather go in with what I got. That's so good.

Ellis, by the way, needing to make a little more cash. As you said, that's mostly because of his gin game, I hear it. You've been staying at some houses where all these gin games have been going, and you said it gets rather violent sometimes. It gets intense. I mean, at Hilton Head, it was me and Ellis and Austin Kaiser and Big Wave Dave and Joe Griner. And I literally thought there was going to be some fist fights break out across the room at one point. I was like, do I need to call the police in here?

And it wasn't team against team. It was teammate against teammate yelling at each other. So they get pretty intense. Who was taking it the worst? Who's the most aggravated? Big Wave Dave takes it the worst by far. I mean, guys,

there's his daddy. Oh, no. Oh, boy, I can't wait to see it. That's going to be a fun topic of conversation. Beautiful. When you're out, when you all you caddies are there together, doing these commercials and stuff for sex,

who's like the most shy? out of the group because obviously it's not you or gino no we're pretty much down for whatever um you know Lamani should be the most ready because he is a former model um but he uh sometimes he he shies away from the from the spotlight they wanted him to do the uh the shirtless ad that i put out a few days ago and he declined uh due to being a father and a husband and so since i don't have a kids or a wife. It came down to me doing it. And I was happy to do it. You know, I'd take one for the team. Whatever the team needs, I'm there to provide it. And for those that don't know. Crushed it, by the way. There's this Calvin Klein ad with

Jeremy Allen White, who's in rather decent shape. Not as good as clean. The girls tend to like him. And Fleener, we look different. I would say we look different. I would say we look different. But you're both professional models. That's right. It's right. I bet you have a better voice than he does. No doubt about that. Fleen, what are the DMs look like since you pop that bad boy on the gram? I got to think you're loaded up right now. A lot of laughter.

A lot of, you know, I love this. I can't believe you did this. I don't think Memol seen it, which is good. She does not have social media. I think she has maybe a flip phone. So as long as it doesn't get into her hands, you know, everything will be all right. Meemaw, close your eyes. How many takes did it take to nail it?

He did a few different takes of each two seconds, but it's not because I messed him up. He just wanted to have a few to pick from. Or just to hold over your head later. Yeah, maybe just for the own personal library. For a while, he didn't put it out. And I sent him a message. I was like, I don't care if you put it out or not. I was like, but you've got to send it to me.

I was like, I've got to be able to sit it around. to my friends and make them laugh. So he's like, oh, no, we're definitely posting it. And I was like, shit. Did you have the cup? Did you have the cup for this one? Or was this just raw dog? This is all natural, yeah. God bless you. It takes a special, special man. Staying on your fashion. No screenshots. Staying on your fashion for just a minute for those that are listening here on audio. You got the free Scotty shirt on. I love the fact that you wear. Have you, has Scotty seen you wear that yet? He is not. This is actually the first time I ever put it.

on. So I don't know if he watches your show, but Scotty, I just want you to know that I'm sorry for what my home state did to you and I fully support you. And, you know, Ted Scott, ever needs a couple weeks off. I'm here to fill it. Right. Exactly. If it, you know, if it ever lines up, you know, JT wants to take a week off, you're going to play. I'm here. Real quick about Ted Scott. Just what, what's the conversation like? I mean, he's one of the nicest guys out there on the planet for that matter. But this run, him and Scotty Sheffler have been on, has just been ridiculous.

And I mean, we all joke about how much money Ted Scott's making. But what's it like when you are hanging out in the caddy area at tour events? I mean, it's just like the first time I ever met him when he was still back working for Bubba. I mean, he's a great dude. Always just like very encouraging, ask you how you're doing. I will say that he was not a big fan of what Ellis did the Monday of Memorial

when Ellis went ahead and texted him congratulations before the tournament started. I don't think he liked that very much, but John's like, I'm just going to go ahead and get it out of the way. Yeah, I wanted to be the first to congratulate him. It's a brilliant call. By the way, it doesn't matter what you do. You can't stop him right now.

Well, you really can't. It's been impressive. He's going to be the first caddy flying private. Like, not hopping on with his boy, just like, no, just get my own. I just get my own. Yeah, no. You don't like your catering. I'll go ahead and handle this.

It's crazy. I just like he takes me with him. Yeah. Ted, I'm free. Yeah, he can swing by National. You'll sing. Sure. Entertainment.

We'll get to your singing a little bit. You mentioned Gino earlier. We were just at the John Deere classic. Wonderful event up there. You and I enjoy Duck City a couple of nights together. Yeah, thank you for that. You got a rather nice upgrade at your hotel room. Nice little two-bedroom suite.

You said it was like 1,300 square feet. Your man, Gino Bonelli. is sleeping in a van down by the river. And you offered him in the other room, and he declined. What's going on here? I don't know. He's just a man of his word, I guess. He said he told the guy who's going to sleep in the van, so he slept in the van.

But, yeah, when I checked in, they said, well, we don't have the room that you booked. We'll just give you this two-bedroom suite. And I was like, okay. I get in there. I mean, it had washer and dryer. He could have brought his sacks over there and washed them off. And we could have had a great time. But, yeah, he's just, he's a van guy, I guess.

It's just, you know, you get him in a nice place. He doesn't really know how to act. Yeah, that's his DNA. Instead, he didn't even have a shower on the van to wash his actual sack. Yeah, I told him he could come over and use the shower if that's all he wanted to do. But, yeah, it turned me down. Maybe he doesn't like me anymore. No shower?

I mean, how do you get around? Where was he bathing? I think he was taking a shower at another Caddy's Hotel that was maybe closer to the course. I think he was clean most of the time. If Netflix doesn't follow him around, at least for a portion of the year, just see what he does on a weekly basis. I think it's a huge, huge whiff. Or there's an opportunity for someone else to come in

and just, like, document your whole year and where you stay and what you do. Because it's different. He can have this whole show. You can have a six-episode season about, just about Gino's life. All right, let me ask you this. What's a more successful reality TV show? Gino Benelli or Hock Tua girl?

I would rather watch a show about Gino. As far as current popularity, probably the other girl, yeah. I was going to ask you, I mean, Nashville's a big city, a lot of stars. Is it big enough for you and Haktua? She's taking up some room right now. You at the Zach Bryan concert when she was up on stage. Taking a little of your shine. I was there.

She didn't know the words of the song that they brought her up there for, which wasn't a great look. But, you know, whatever. She's hot in the streets right now. She hopes she capitalizes on her 15 minutes of fame here. Yeah. Yeah. Did they bring her up to sing Revival? I mean, yeah, it's like the most known song that he has.

The whole damn stadium sings it. Not her. Not her. Not her. She about to have her old reality show, so who's the dummies? I guess it's, we just needed a little two-word catchphrase and bam. You blow up. Stay on John Deere for a minute because I tuned in for a little bit last week during the

holiday season. It's lucky enough to catch. Actually, I think you were covering the group. You guys were playing. A little hazel rocket. A little hard right on one of those holes. I don't know what holes it was. How much blame do you take for that?

I was that immediately. I was like, that's Fleaner. Flander fucked that up. Can we save this subject for the E-9? Oh, you got this kind? I got a little something special about that. It was an incredible shot that he hit, hitting it right of the scoreboard from 120 yards.

It was not Fleaner's fault. It was a gust of win. It was like a pure shake. It went way further in the air than a shank shit. So it was like as far as shanks go, it was good, but I was like, Fleener had to have done something. I don't think he'll get mad to me for saying this, but that's literally

probably his fifth shank of the season. Yeah. And he's 27th on the FedEx Cup. Yeah, Webb used to do it once in a event. I feel like he played pretty damn good. We'll circle back to the shank. My man Greg Parker, you know Parker. He's out there in the fairways all the time. He, uh, kind of. Yeah, he's not

old. Yeah. Physically. You know what I'm saying. Physically he's there. But he's probably been to the John Deere 20 times, worked it 20 times. He goes, Colt, been standing this fairway for a lot of years. It's the first time I've ever heard anybody yell four on their second shot of 13. Had a damn good shot out of the weeds, by the way. The shot out of the weeds was all time. It was almost tough.

The late five after that was incredible. Yeah, just says a bogey's a nothing burger. Mentally maybe hurt a little bit, but good caddying on that chip out from the weeds. That was, I'll ask you this because it kind of relates. I'm not saying he was running hot at that point, but it's a long season. And at some point, JT's going to make some bogeys. He's going to get pissed. He's going to start, you know, hanging his head.

What's the blueprint for handling him when his dobbers down? You've got to let him go for a little bit sometimes. You got to pick your spots. You can't just be the rah-rah guy all the time or, you know, it loses its effect. Let him go for a little bit. Try to make sure it doesn't affect the next shot. You know, make sure he's ready for the next shot and he's all in on that. But yeah, I mean, these guys are playing for their livelihood.

They're super competitive. So when things don't go their way, they're going to get a little upset. It's just natural. So, you know, let them work it out for a minute on their own. And then if you need to say something, you can. And if not, then just make sure you're ready for the next one. I'll tell you this. I was with that group when the shank happened.

It was JT. Post and Jordan Speeth and Zach Johnson. Zach was playing good. But right when I got out there about number nine, it was not good. anybody. Even Zach, like, cooled off for a few holes. It was ugly. And I show up and Fleener goes, we haven't made a birdie since you got here. Michael Grella goes, Jordan hadn't made a par. Yeah. It goes somewhere else. I'll take the blame. They turned it around, though. I literally watched like four holes live of that golf tournament. It just happened to be that one. I was like, this is God talking to me because Fleen's coming on on a couple days. He just blessed

us with a shank. I do love that JT threw the ball back to where the shank ended up after he made his bogus. Return to Cinder, yeah. That's good. Nice little arm on him, too, I thought. Oh, yeah, he's not scared to he won. How are obviously a lot going on in the game of golf right now. It's very good for the caddies and the players because there's a lot more money going in. What's it been like for you guys out there? I mean, you and I joke every week.

You'd be like, oh, yeah, this week finished 20th. He made $240,000. Yeah. It's just, it's nuts right now. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a good time to be in that top 50. And in those no-cut events, I know some guys have, feelings on them. But yeah, for caddies, it's incredible right now. Whatever tour you're working on, it's PGA, Liv, whatever, it's a good time to be out there. Do you have any good

buddies that are caddies out on the live? Yeah, age guy, Benji, and then John Yarborough just started working for Phil. I'm sure there's more that I'm not thinking that Kyle Bradley works for Hudson Swofford. Have you talked to them all, like, what life's like out there compared to what it was on the PGA tour? Yeah, I mean, they say it's good. I mean, I think, you know, it made the PGA tour up their game a little bit for us.

And so I have no complaints with how we get treated at all on the tour. But, yeah, I mean, I haven't gotten into it, like crazy deep with any of them. Is that the toughest thing, Fleen, I would think about being a caddy? There's some great great too, but knowing that like on a given year you could do the exact same job, the same

caliber work, put in the same hours, the same workload, and one year you can make X, and then the following year you can make one third of X, just depending on how your guy plays. Yeah, I mean, you're relying on somebody else for your, for your well-being and your income. I'm very fortunate. My guys had a lot of good years since I started working for him, And, you know, that's nothing due to me. I mean, you put somebody else in there, and he's probably going to have a similar career. So I'm very blessed, I would say.

But, yeah, it's, you know, I think I have a different perspective than some because I've worked, like, real jobs for a while. So even bad weeks to me are, like, well, I mean, I don't feel like I worked. I was just out here hanging out on the golf course with some of my buddies and making money. So yeah, when it's going good, it's incredible. I actually had this conversation with another caddy. He was working for a guy that's not having a great year last week. And he's like, man, he's like, when it's going good, it's the greatest job in the world.

And when your guys struggling, like, it's awful. You feel like you can't do anything to help them. So it's, you know, people look at it and think it's glamorous and fun all the time. And that's just not the case. Yeah, there's definitely some dark days out there. There's no doubt about it. You got to just feel helpless, I would think, at times, when your guys running cold. What were those other jobs you had before?

I taught children's golf clinics at a par three course in Nashville when I first got out of college, which is maybe just babysitting them, making sure they didn't hit each other. I worked for the state of Tennessee as a procurement officer, which I didn't know what that meant when I started doing it. They had to explain it to me. So that was a, how can I describe that job? It was easy and boring. So I still don't know what it is. What do you procure?

Yeah, like when you work for a state government, like you can't just give your contracts out to whoever. You have to have like an evaluation process. So we documented the evaluation process and made sure nobody was getting shown favoritism. Good job to take some bribes, though. Good job. You know what I mean? That's nice. I would say caddying places like Phoenix Open, Charlotte,

and the Masters are slightly more entertaining. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely more fun than working in a 22-story building every day. All right. Well, you're living in one of my favorite cities in the country, Nashville, Tennessee. You and I have had some very good times there. Give us a little, it's a perfect Saturday night. Or maybe it's college football season. We start in the day.

We're going to have ourselves a day. college football Saturday. Take me through the day. Where are we bouncing around to? Big day. We're probably going to

set up somewhere during the day, a sports bar or something. You know, maybe a bar stool or a tin roof or somewhere with a lot of TVs. And then,

you know, for the night game, maybe, you know, you may not care where you're at by that point. You'd be looking for, you'll either be looking for

a, to get home or somewhere to go out, maybe run up to printer's alley, Miss Kelly's, do some karaoke possibly, buy a tray of jello shots, hand them out, make some new friends. Hello, friends. Yeah, it's really the possibilities are endless in Nashville right now. Honestly, you can, there's so many new bars popping up in restaurants, and there's no lack of things to do. Miss Kelly's beautiful spot.

It is. It's down, you know, you feel like you're, you feel like you're, in a, like a basement and, you know, you got your DJ up there that you can, if you don't want to wait for your friends to sing, you may walk up there and hand him some money. Maybe. Who else? I'm in the stage. Singing whatever cult want him to hear me sing.

So here's the deal with Fleener, okay, because there's a lot of people that they go out to karaoke bar and they get up there and they like to sing, right? Well, they sing some lame stuff. Like, I want somebody to get up there and bring up there and bring them. bring the energy and get the place going. And that's what my man, Aaron Fleener does. He brings a ruckus. By the way, I reached out to your boy, JT. Got some little nuggets here that maybe we'll get to during the E-9.

But he sent me a video. I believe it was his bachelor party, dude. And you sang you decided you need to sing the Star Spangled Banner to kick this. I think it was y'all around the golf course to kick this thing up. And by God, I swear you've never seen a performance. It's like Chris Stapleton brought tears to my eyes. You gave it everything. Yeah, we took a party bus down to Sweetens Co,

which is like probably an hour and a half from Nashville and got there. And, you know, I just felt like we needed to kick the day off with something special. So, you know, at Sweetens, they kind of tell the background story to people that haven't been there before. And then you do a warm shot of whiskey. And then I decided we should sing a national anthem before we got kicked off. So that's what we did. You sang the shit out of it. Proud to be America.

I'll show you this thing. It's quality. That is awesome. Is JT at all concerned that you're going to, pop one of these karaoke nights in Nashville, get discovered, boom, record deal, and all of a sudden he's out of bag? I don't think so.

He could find somebody else to carry his bag if I hit it big, and then he'd have lifetime backstage passes. Yeah. Win, win. Good point for Jake Stairie. The hell are we waiting on? It's awesome. I can't wait to get back to Nashville with you.

Should we get to the E9? Yeah, let's do a little E9, Fleen. You know the game. I do. Well, he's a single, man. Yeah, 100%. You're a single man. We can ask celebrity,

crush for the big cat. Ooh. Haktua. I'm trying to think. I wish I would have sent me these before. I guess that's the point to this. This is not know what you're going to ask. This isn't CNN.

Your yardage book for this thing. You got to come up with the answer. Margot Robbie's pregnant now. Yeah, Margot, you got a competition for her. I'll tell you that. So maybe stay away. I'm trying to think. I don't watch many movies or anything.

I'm not a big celebrity guy. maybe she's just a normal girl and you want to give her a shout out right now maybe the little lady you got a date lined up with here in just a few minutes oh i'll pass on that one for now i can't thank you anybody Megan the stallion and we're going to put that down as your answer Megan that'll go out on Twitter carry Underwood Laney Wilson I mean there's a lot you see yeah do a duet with this is the best question oh yeah lady I like Laney I wish we could have stayed around for that concert at the deer the other night all right Laney Wilson it is yeah you keep your hands off Slees has a big crush on her, too. You have to fight me for that, bud. So knuckle up. All right, here you go. I'll let you, this will be a compliment to one of your fellow Sacks ambassadors.

You have one round, Fleener. You're a hell of a talent. Closest to the pin winner, by the way, at the players. Shout out to you for that. But you have one round for your life. Whatever your handicap is, you have to beat your handicap or else you're done. You get to take one caddy from the Sacks lineup. Who do you want leading you around?

To be my caddy. Yeah, to help you, it's your life on the line. He's not playing with me, okay. No, no, he's looping for you. I think I'm taking Joel stock. Oh, wow, this is going to cause a ruckets. How come Joel? Because I think he would take it seriously.

I mean, it's just for my life after all. It is. So, yeah, I think he would be encouraging and helpful, and I don't think he would make fun of me when I hit bad shots. So, yeah, I would take it. I think Joel. You wouldn't hit many. Joel stocked.

Fliner can hit it. Yeah. Incredible long iron player. Ellis stinks. If I remember correctly. What's that? I said you're an incredible long iron player, if I remember correctly, from the last time we played. I'm good at everything, man.

Good point. Good point. Bread analysis. Well, you mentioned the shanks earlier, and you kind of gave it away a little bit, but I was going to ask if, has Scotty Schephler one more times on the PGA tour this year or JT Post and hit more shanks? I think Scotty's won like one more time. Yep, six to five. So maybe don't try to catch him. I hope not.

Do you have me to tell the rest of that story? Sure, yeah. So we're first to play in the fairway. Jordan's ball is like 10 yards in front of ours. So he hits that shot. And he's just standing there looking at the ground for like 10 seconds. And finally I have to be like, hey, get over here. Like he's standing right behind Jordan, and Jordan's turned to it.

So he comes over. Well, then Jordan hits his shot and then pulls it a little bit left of where he wanted. I think he thought the wind was, you know, blew it somewhere that he didn't think it was going to. So he's standing there throwing up graphs. By this time, JT's walked like way on ahead of me because I'm putting a divot back. And so I walked past Jordan and Michael, and Jordan's kind of, you know, murmuring about the wind. and I said, I don't know about yours, man. It hit ours pretty hard, left or right.

That's why you're a great caddy. You can make jokes in stressful situations. Yeah. So I could tell Jordan was a little stress. He had just bogey 12 and knocked his golf all into the woods with his putter. So I was trying to lighten the mood in the group a little bit. Yeah. I don't know if you guys felt that gust.

We took a hard gust of a small tornado. A little tornado came through. It was hard. Not to harp on the shanking, but we will. Is it a certain club? Like, is it, does it creep up with the wedges or is it long irons or just anything? It's been, it's been the last two I know for sure have been nine irons. He had one at Colonial on 15, from the middle of the fairway.

They almost hit onto the street over there. I know that street. I've hit it on that street. What's it called? It actually didn't go on the street. We ended up making five. It's where our TV compound is. Yeah, I fired a few over there.

the T. I can't remember the other ones. I try to forget them. Yeah, I'll blame me. Everything's going fine. You're 27th on the FedEx Cup. We can talk about Shanks and laugh about it because things are going good. All right, my next one here, I got to, let's see, I'll go to this one since we've been talking about your singing a little bit. Give me a current country music star that you think you could slide in right now and not miss a beat. Like if he just, he goes away and they say, hey, you got to go do this guy's show every night. This is my style. This is my style. Yeah, I resemble this guy. This is what I would be if I was a country star. I mean, Colton, I saw this guy at Billy Bob's not too long ago.

Lee Bryce is kind of right in my wheelhouse. He's better than me, but he's a guy who I can kind of hit some of the things that he hits. And also like Cody Johnson a lot. But people would know I'm not Cody Johnson because I'm way taller than him. That's why. Yeah, that's why. Otherwise. But I'll say this, Lee Bryce when we went to Billy Bobbs.

I think you and I both left were like, damn. Like, that was an amazing show. And he has way more hits than we could remember. Yeah, yeah. I went in, you know, thinking of like three or four songs. And he had way more. And he was just so good life. So, yeah, that was a good night.

Billy Bob's. I mean, what's better? World's largest honky talk. What's better than that? Fort Worth stand up. It's a good town. Great town. Stayed on the same topic.

Let's just say you get asked to open for any. anyone in the music world other than Garth Brooks because I know that's who you're going to go with. Okay, you're not opening for Garth. You have to pick somebody else to be the opening act for. Who would it be? Am I like going on tour with this person? Yeah. Hell yeah. I got to go with my boy Dustin Lynch then.

We would have a, think about the time we would have. Wow. Going town to town every night. I mean, come on. If the bus is rocking, don't come knocking. Oh, boy. Yeah, that'd be a good one. I might have to come out for a couple of shows.

The opening act for a big star would be a good, it's kind of like backup quarterback for a mom. You know what I mean? Like everyone loves you. You're not expecting, not a whole lot's expected of it. Yeah. And they,

and you get a lot of the residual benefits. The only problem is you got to kind of pace yourself after your show because most time you come out with the main act later on and have to go and go do something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

People don't care what you're doing out there at that point. That's fair. That's how Hardy come out at the morning. And I was like, he looks different. than he was an hour and a half ago. But it was beautiful. All right.

Next one for you, Fling. Why do you think it is that math seems to be more difficult in the city of San Diego than anywhere else? Particularly maybe Tori Pines. That's a great question. I can think of one day that was really tough.

It was, I think the reason was because they started that tournament on a Wednesday. And usually I'm not ready to, Thursday's usually my math day. Like we're not really start getting into it. And Wednesday's usually like a practice day,

you know, where I'm just like, if I get it wrong, you know, it doesn't matter. But yeah. JT. I mean, what happened? I told you that one. Yeah, he said, just asked him about some of these digits that he still gives you a hard time about. It was multiple?

He said it was. I missed two in the same round. by how much? The first one was by like probably 10 yards. The second one was by like 18. Did you add instead of subtract or vice versa? Well, I mean, I can tell the story if you want. But the first one was on, we started on the back, we were on 13. He drove it in the bunker, chopped it down the hill.

So I had to rake the bunker and he went on down. And so once I got down there, he had already. like step some stuff off. He was saying all this stuff to me and I'm trying to do the number and I think I added something that I was supposed to subtract or something. And he hit it over the green, which is a great place to be on 13 at Torrey Pines. So he was, you know, I always fess up. I got up there. I was like, dude, that number was wrong. So that's my bad. Then we got all the way around to seven and, you know, we're back on track.

You know, all is forgiven. Like, everybody makes mistakes. And there was a middle head that had a number on it. And then there was the same front number head, like, right up in front of it. And I went off the middle number head's front number instead of going off the actual front number. And the pen was like back right, one really hard pin. And he hit this beautiful shot.

I mean, it's going right at the flag. And we don't see it land. And he's like, where is that? I was like, I think it flew over the green. Another good spot. I think it hit the TV tower back there. I mean, if it wouldn't hit the TV tower, we'd have gone in the canyon. Yeah.

So he snaps his hand back around at me. Was that number wrong? Like, yeah, it was wrong. It's just too. We won't go through the play-by-play of what was said after that. I will just say that we didn't talk a whole lot the next two holes. And we had a little chat in the parking lot after he came out of scoring. But since then, I haven't had any mess-ups.

It was a Wednesday, dude. You get a pass. I think it's Tori Pines because your man, Matt Irwin, when he's on the bag for me, got one wrong as well. So I think it's just San Diego's fault. Yeah, but, you know, around there, there's a lot of good misses. So if you blow it over greens, it's not a big dude. Long is normally great, almost everyone.

Also, shout out Matt Irwin, happy birthday. Yes, happy birthday to Matt Irwin. About to become a father. Yeah, I know. Wow. Incredible. They grow up so fast these days. Sweet Jesus.

Well, you have an incredible collection of T-shirts. Okay. You got a wide range. Okay, we're going to Augustine National. We're going to the Masters. You're allowed to wear the T-shirt under the caddy suit. You're in contention on Sunday. Who are you bringing out?

Sunday of the Masters, chance to get the green jacket. Who's going to be underneath that caddy suit? Well, they changed it at the Masters. They don't let us wear whatever we want to anymore. Well, that sucks. I think guys were like advertising brands and stuff, and they didn't like that. So now we have to wear green or white. But at the Memorial, we can wear whatever we want.

one under the East. Well, let's just say, the memorial is a great tournament, but let's just say it's a couple years ago, and there's no rules at Augusta. What would we be going with? Okay. Man, it's a tough call. You know, I have a T-shirt with Harry Higgs' face on it. I have George Strait.

I have Dwight Yockem, have Charles Barkley. But I think I would have to go with my Reba McIntyre shirt. Yeah. The Riba is popular. Yeah. Riba would bring you home. I think she would. I like that.

Sir Charles got you like a 500 par 67 at the Memorial, I believe, this year in some tough conditions. There's no way we shot 500 at Memorial. Maybe 3 under. I don't know. You shot something good at par. Three net five. Yeah. Okay.

You shot 69 with Chuck. Yeah. You 69 with Chuck. That was nice. You ain't the first. I think. I think Augusta would understand for Reba. I think Augusta would make an exception for Reba.

They should. If I had to guess. Everyone should make an exception for Reba. All right. My last one. This kind of ties into Sacks a little bit, but I fully expect you to be an expert in this particular arena. Okay, I need, give me the keys to the prevention and the treatment of chapped ass,

a.k.a. the ring of fire. Yeah. I mean, luckily, this is the Sacks partnership. I haven't had any, any, any problems like that. You've got the ballpark pouch, keeps everything in place. But, you know, we used to go, you know, yellow bottle gold bond. You know, I've heard of guys taking some, you know, unsinned deodorant stick down there to give you a little glide.

Smart. You can't get scented, though, not scented, or you're going to have a fire on your hands down there. That's, see, these are the kind of details we need. Yeah, and you can't go green bottle, gold bond either. You're going to, you'll lose your mind. It's too hot. This is all good. This is all good.

Learning a lot. You ever dabbled in the Boudreau's butt paste? It's kind of an after, it's like once you already got it, which is a bit of a problem at that point. But it's a good, it's a good one. I haven't. I've never really had, it was surprising, but I've never really had big problems with that. Wow.

You just maybe, yeah, you're all, you got to. you're calloused up probably down there you know what I mean it's like a golfer's hands and just like leather mitts that's probably what your gooch is like the only thing worth of shit I learned from Jeff Quinney was the uh the second thing of deodorant the unsinted unsented deos second stick of deodor it was a game changer because of Memphis I was walking like a western cowboy yeah getting ready for a shootout dude there's a couple tournaments on the jicks I was like I'm gonna have to withdraw yeah there's no way I'm walking 18 holes in this there's I will be bleeding it is a serious problem

problem. Underware technology has come a long way since our days, our early days out there, I'll say. That's true. I remember playing like in boxer shorts, like just like loose boxer shorts. I don't know how I ever did that. Yeah. How do we do those back in the day?

All right. Dr. Fleener, those are good remedies. Just to give you a chance to, because all these tournaments love listening to our show. And like you said earlier, the caddy areas have gotten better and better over the years. But right now, best spot for the cat. on tour all year. Ooh, I got to say, I mean, we were just there a few weeks ago. Travelers did it pretty nice for us.

They gave us courtesy cars. What? They've got us in the clubhouse, great food, plenty of space, you know, recovery area for us. A cold plunge a couple times. It was top notch. I mean, BMW also gave us cars last year and had us eating. and player dining. It's a little easier for them to do

with smaller fields, but those are really good ones as far as like full, you know, Wells Fargo was always good back when it was full field event. Yeah, I mean,

everybody's doing it pretty well right now for us. Come mostly. The Thunderbirds. The Thunderbirds, guys, you let me know what you need. I'm actually a player liaison

this year, so I get to tell all the players to fuck off when they make requests. This is going to be, so far i'm going to get dragged around by the way but if you need something in phoenix let me know we'll be sure to take good care of you boys out there hey i want to say one more thing too um you know keegan was just announced as the rider cup captain and i'm not just saying this because colt's my boy but i think if they don't make colton assistant captain we're doing we're making a mistake that is too

nice of you wow that's uh that would be incredible i would love to kegan if you're listening you're out there all the time you're tuned in with all the guys they're responsible they're respect you, they care, you know, you know how to keep them loose and motivate them at the same time. I think it's, you know, it's an idea. I'm just saying it's an idea. You're an idea guy. Go ahead. And for the record, Fleener has nothing but great ideas. Push them on that Venmo right now. That was actually not discussed one bit. It wasn't discussed. That is awesome. Fleaner, you are the man. We always love sitting down with you. I love walking the fairways with you out there. Keep up the great work. You and James

Tyree are doing fantastic things. Y'all are going to win you a big one soon. I hope so. I hope so. And if not, you'll be the best underwear model on the planet. I can live with that. Okay, all right. That was Aaron Fleener, joining us on subpar. Special thanks to Sacks for all they do. Best underwear in the game. Been a lot of fun working with them, but the big cat, Aaron Fleener.

What a beautiful human. It's about as good as they come. Protect yo Sack. That's what Fleaner does. He and J.T. They're like one of those ones. I feel like we don't bring them up as much, but like, that I expect to always be together. like for a long time, which in a world where caddies juggle, they kind of come and go,

that one feels like a little deeper than golf. You know what I mean? Kind of like a max and a Joe Griner and things like that. But Fleener, dude, that guy's got a lot of juice, love him. And yeah, shout out to the sacks. Everyone at that organization, they picked some good, good guys to represent the brand. I mean, Fleener's like us now. He's got like three jobs.

Dude, Fleener has like five partners, like the sponsorships and stuff. Like, he's like a player. There are players that would kill for all that. Pro caddy. professional karaoke singer, underwear model. Yeah. What can the man not do? The man is busy.

He is busy. I've been busy too. Shipping my clubs all around. Oh, tell me about it, boys. And the little gift that keeps on giving here, our friends over at Shipsticks, I'd tell you this, because you weren't here last week, I had to go over to L.A. For a little event where I shot a grisload.

Had to, because I hit balls for two days before I went to this thing. So I was using them the day before. Had to check them with me. By the way, I took my driver off the shaft. I always do. When I show up on property at L.A., it's rattling. I got a, it's never been broken before. Rattling. I don't know who to blame, but I'm definitely blaming it on the, on the airlines. I shipped it home because I didn't need them right after that. Zero errors, zero mess up, all my clubs in the same condition as when I brought them. So the one time, literally the one

time that I don't ship them, it breaks. And then I just blew it all over LACC. I was in, I mean, I was hitting it into Irvine. Bet you haven't made a 12 since you shipsticks. one thing. I'm one round deep. I'm back on my streak. One round without a 12. But yeah, I mean, you know it. I know it. If you travel, there's one way to go. Use our friends at Shipsticks. 20% off your ship. All you got to do is go to shipsticks.com slash subpar or just shipsticks. Use the code subpar. Ship yo clubs. Take care of them. You know what I mean? Treat them right. Your babies. The boys need the boys need some love if they're going to perform. Mine are pissed at me and I don't blame them. Yep. Mountain of strokes. You and Roy McAvoy. Lanch Dog. I was playing the wall. I was like, I legit, don't know what shot I'm. I don't know what number of shot that I'm hitting right now. Well, let's move past that. You're playing great golf again. It's water off the bat. We got a great field this week over at the Genesis Scottish Open. I actually get the week off from CBS. Not mad about it. I don't know if you

know this. It's hot here. So I hadn't heard that. Yeah. But we'll be going up to Lake Tahoe for the American Century Championship. That's pretty much the fifth major. But let's get to our picks for the Scottish Open this week. Loaded field, highlighted by Roy Macroy, who is the defending champion. I'm going to go all the way down to the next betting favorite. He has won at the Renaissance Club before. He became a major champion this year. Zander Shaflite, anywhere from eight and a half to nine to one, depending on where you get him. You like the way Zander's playing right now? I kind of like the way he plays every day. I like the way he's moving it around a little bit. Okay. I'm going out on a limb too.

Big one. Big sturdy redwood limb. Ludwig Oberg, 16 to one. I feel like it's decent amount of juice for him. And also, I think there's some guys there that like the whole purpose is, let's just get ready for the open. They look ahead to the open. I think Louisville's still young, and I was like, wants to win every damn thing that he's in, and he probably will at some point.

But I'm willing to go out on that limb and take Ludwig 16 to 1. Bold, bold. This is honestly in this golf course, I was there a couple years ago, it's not your traditional lynx golf course. It's got a lot of elevated green, so you don't really play the ball on the ground

as often as you do at the Open Championship. Yeah, it's definitely not like a lynxie style like you're used to seeing over there. All right. Which I kind of don't like, by the way. If I watch golf over there, want to see links yeah my dark horse isn't that dark uh around 30 35 to one it's a light horse the time is coming let's go time to cook min woo lee oh say no more

hope he wins hope he wins five times and i hope he sits right in here in studio and i was a couple pops with us and talks about it love the man uh another very likable dude i'm gonna go with 60 to one trending trending trending by the way we're talking about rider cup earlier lookout for this kid in about a year and a few months because i think he's gonna be on the team so hit the gala 60 to one oh i I totally agree. He'll be on that team. Keegan will be for sure putting him in the red, white, and blue.

Love says this game. He is a stud. All right. I can't wait for the American Century Championship. We'll be out there Lake Tahoe if you see us. Come say hi. It's going to be a lot of fun. You're going to watch Charles Barkley shoot a million as usual.

And then probably lose a shit ton of money. He is going off as the least favorite. The darkest of all horses. Will he finish last is the question? I don't know, was it top 75 and there's like 79? Doesn't it have to beat like four guys? I thought there was 90 guys last year. and it was top 75 because everybody's raving how good he was like.

It's less. It's less. But anyways, the Miz, he's not very good at all. Also, a bit deliberate. I know you're talking about some of the routines out there this past week at the John Deere. Wait till you get a load of this one. By the way, I think that was very fair of me to call out some of those things. A lot of thoughts going on. Aim point. Beat it. I'm sorry.

It's got to go away. Charles will not be doing any aim point. No, no. You don't need that. He's a natural. All right. We'll see y'all in Lake Tahoe. Have a great week, everyone.