Subpar - Sean McDonough Interview: From Monday Night Football to the PGA Tour, what it takes to make a successful sports broadcast

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

On this week's episode of GOLF's Subpar, long time broadcaster Sean McDonough joins former PGA Tour pro Colt Knost and his close friend and on course rival Drew Stoltz for an exclusive, in-studio, interview. The former Monday Night Football play-by-play man talks what it takes to put on a successful sports broadcast, breaking into the business as the son of a legendary broadcaster, and who amongst his peers is at the top of their game right now.

Hello world. Welcome to another week of golf subpar. Colt-nosed at Drew Stoltz. And Slees, let's just get it out of the way. Congratulations on a much-needed victory at the Zerat Classic. You picked the team of Cam Smith and Mark Leashman. Finally, all the cliches, all the inch by inch, brick-by-brick, all that talk, finally paid off, needed a dub, got a dub, back in the mix, made it a ballgame, finally picked the team with some heart,

closed it out at the end. Did it a little scary. Didn't know if we were going to need a playoff or not, but got it done at the end. But dude, that's a, that's a fun. fun golf tournament. I feel like it's been week since we had a real shootout coming down the stretch that had some drama in it. This week

had it. And that alternate shot format, I think talking with my friends, too, that is a fun format to watch. I don't know if once is enough for the year they add it. Like another event like that, but it's fun to watch. I think one team event is plenty. It mixes it up. It's fun. I think if you do it too often, it'll kind of just get a little

old. But yeah, the alternate shot is awesome. You should send Louis O'S days a little thank you note for blowing that one in the water. They're in the playoffs. But, man, congratulations. to Mark Leashman, Cam Smith, some of the favorites going in. Cam Smith, I mean, just, it's a joke how good this guy's short game is. It is impressive to watch and almost as impressive as that hair. Oh, my God.

Thing looks incredible. He told his girlfriend he was going to cut it if he got it when he won on the PJ Tour. Now he's won. We'll see if that actually happens. I would advise him against that because once you get the ball rolling in the right direction, don't mess with the Mo. He's got juice out there. I mean, everything looks good.

And when I was picking that team last week, I was like, what a nice safety blanket it is to have a guy like Cam Smith with that short game. really can't put him in any bad spots where he's not going to give you a chance to get up and down he did it over and over but leishman short game not getting enough credit he had some really cool shots out there i mean how bouncy was that place played awesome it was bouncy it was firm he was taking out that little middle iron and just kind of hoodn it a little playing that hook shot rolling it up stiff um that alternate shot you got to have a couple dudes with some short games to get it done but um man they were they were rock solid all week but that was just a fun tournament

to watch i loved it i wish they'd put it like a team event maybe in the olympics to add a little spice to that since nobody seems to really give that much love Yeah, it was a great idea by Zurich and the PGA Tour to make that a team event because it, you know, it draws guys there because it's something different. It's fun. You don't get to play team golf that much unless you're the top players in the world. And now if you're on the PGA tour, you can experience it if you want in New Orleans, such a great city. I was there all week, had an absolute blast. A little tired, but I'm ready to recover and do it all over again in Tampa down at the Valspar this week. But Sleez, before we get to our guest, Sean McDonough, we got this awesome swag, a birdie juice.

There's that look incredible creature. And we know there's been a few issues with a little bit of shipping. We want to apologize for that first. There was a little glitch. We got it all fixed. Your stuff will be getting there very, very soon. And we hope this is not happening in the future. But still, go check it out at the golf.com pro shop.

Got all the birdie juice. Got some more stuff coming. Got some vizers. For the visors. We're coming for the large domed fellas. But yeah, appreciate everyone reaching out. Our first run.

It sold out quick, but we haven't got all the kinks worked out, but it is getting worked out. And everybody will get their stuff. And we got more stuff coming too. So we're going to keep just kind of filling the assembly. line going forward with some new gear. Yep.

So go to golf.com, get on that pro shop, go to the subpar section, and buy up all the birdie juice, all the get amongst its swag. All right, let's get to our guest this week, Slease. His voice slightly better than ours. Slightly, he doesn't sound like he's coming off a four-day bender every single time he gets on the mic. But yes, our good friend, Sean McDonough, who's made a little home here in Scottsdale comes in and out, called some of the biggest games in the world, does a great job.

Kind of a utility guy calls everything. He can do it all. Baseball, hockey. He knows so much stuff about every single sport. but a great dude, great stories, and a pretty solid little golfer too. Yeah, you can find him on ESPN. Basically, it seems like all year long.

Yeah. Just awesome to listen to, a very knowledgeable guy. And here he is, Sean McDonough on Golf Subpar. All right, the man with us today, I would say, is one of the most dangerous 10 handicaps in all the land.

He also happens to be one of the best sports broadcasters in the game. Football, basketball, baseball, hockey, the luge, I might add. If it's a sport, he calls it ESPN broadcaster. Sean McDonough, pleasure to have you brother thank you i would rather be a good 10 handicap than a good sports broadcaster you're doing both right now it's sick how important golf is to those of us who love the sport and how our mood is affected by it but it's always a pleasure to be with you too i like having a good 10 handicap

on my team though for gambling purposes you have invited me once or twice i think because uh you know the fun thing about playing with with you and the other guys out at the other pros out at whisper rock is, you know, if I'm a 10-11 and you guys have to play as a plus four or plus five, you know, I basically get a stroke a hole. Like, me and I could make a few parts. You know, a few bars in there. Right. So I have to help at some point.

So it's a lot of fun. That's awesome. Well, you got the Syracuse sweater on right now. Yes, I didn't know this was televised. Well, we're a casual show. Our female fans watch. We're a casual show. And I understand that.

I'm sure you're a huge with the female audience. But you got to be excited about this. right now. I really am. I love Syracuse. I've said many, many times that one of the best thing that's ever happened to me in my life was having gone to Syracuse and the connection that I've kept with the university for all these years. And, you know, Coach Beheim is a dear friend, really because I love his wife, Julie, who's mentioned many times on national TV when they play him with good reason. She's a rock star and, and she's Buddy's mom. Thank God. She brought Buddy into this world because Buddy Buddies is getting it done. Dealing. What is it was

Syracuse is one of like three big sports journalism schools, sports broadcasting schools. No, it's one of one. Well, we might. That was insulting. No, we might touch on that a little bit later. But what is it about soon? Is that just historically? That's where everybody goes.

They have the best program. It's like going to Harvard for whatever. And it really happened by accident because I don't know if you guys have heard of Marty Glickman, but if you haven't, you should. Marty Glickman was a great athlete, was a football player at Syracuse in the 1930s and was a track star. There was a documentary out there about them that's fantastic. And I would encourage anybody to find it. it. But Marty was an accidental broadcaster. He told the story when he was in school there. There was a

radio station. Now, this is, you know, the beginning of radio. Radio. Yeah. They wanted somebody to broadcast a high school football game. So they reached out to the star of the football team, Marty Glickman. He said, I don't know anything about announcing anything. And they said, and I'm going to botch the facts, but it was something like, we'll give you 10 bucks. He said, okay, deal. Right, deal. So I'll figure out how to do it. So he did it. He was great. He loved it. He became a broadcaster, became the voice of the New York Knicks and the New York Giants and, you know, a lot of people in the New York area who wanted to be broadcasters idolized Marty Glickman. So like Marv Albert went to Syracuse because Marty Glickman went to Syracuse. So then, you know, that started this chain. It's almost like they built the sports broadcasting program after the fact. You know, they said, oh, all these kids are coming here to be sports broadcasters. We, we better build up the program. You know, Bob Costas. That's why I went to Syracuse because Marty Glickman went there, Marve Albert, Dick Stockton, Bob Costas, who was about 10 years older than me.

And I think that's just continued. You know, now kids who grow up wanting to be a sports broadcaster, want to be Mike Tarigo or Dave Pash or any of the other guys who have come there. It's like Duke for hoops. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we should have gone there. We messed up. What sport sports broadcasting like a major? You go in there?

Are you, so you're training to call games and things like that. What are you doing class? Is that the best class ever? No. And it was, and it's changed since I was there, obviously, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. But the, you know, when I got there, you had to spend basically the first two years with what they called the liberal arts core where you had to take a math and a science. And I was way ahead of my time in that regard. Because, you know, it's very common now in sports to talk about tanking.

Yes. When I got to Syracuse, you had to take a math. And everybody, one of their first days on campus, went down to Manly Fieldhouse, which was the old basketball arena before they moved into the carrier dome. And you took a math placement test. And then depending on how you did, they told you which math you were in. So I kind of heard through the grapevine that, you know, it didn't matter which math you took. You just needed to take a math and pass. So I tanked the test. So I would have the easiest math because I'm a spastic. Brilliant. Smart. Algebra 101. Yeah. That's like handicapped

management. Yeah. I don't need to be taking some hard calculus or statistics. So, But anyway, they still don't have a specific sports broadcasting major. They have a broadcast journalism major. They have started this sports media center there to make it a little more specific to sports broadcasting because there are a ton of young people who are coming there just to be sports broadcasters. You know, I would say dozens, if not hundreds every year. You know how I know he's one of the best, though.

You just watch him right now. You know, he's talking with his hands, but all the other people that come in here, they beat on the table. Sean is very aware. He just goes like this. Audio people hate it. Audio people don't like it when you bang on the table. At what age did you know?

Obviously, I mean, your dad was a legend growing up, Boston Globe, CBS, NBC football. At what age did you know that this is what you wanted to do? Five. I mean, was this that long? I mean, your voice is just obviously, if people didn't know who you were and they heard you talk, you'd be like, oh, he's a sports broadcaster, no doubt. Oh, well, I appreciate that. You know, that kind of happened by accident.

But the, you know, my dad, as you said, was a sports writer for the Boston Globe. when I was a kid, the seasons didn't overlap as much. So he covered everything, but mostly football. You know, that's what he was best known for, particularly many years later when I was in high school and heading into college when he became the first information man on the NFL today with Brent Musburger and the late Great Irv Cross. I was sad to hear he just passed away with a really, really nice man.

I actually had a chance to do games with Irv when I was at CBS. But, yeah, I'd follow my dad around. The most important thing, Colt, when I, I was a kid was we went to spring training with the Red Sox in Winter Haven, Florida, and I'd get homeschooled in the morning, and then I'd go to the park with my dad. And the writers couldn't have their kids in the press box, because if, you know, you let one kid in, everybody have to come. So my dad was friendly with the Red Sox radio announcers.

They said, Sean can sit in the back of our booth, and that's our booth. You know, we can dictate who is allowed in. So I would sit there and I'd watch them as much as I'd watch the game. And I remember thinking, you know, that looks fun. So I got a little tape recorder. And I'd sit at the TV at home and annoy the crap out of my family, you know, broadcasting. Back then, that was the heyday of the Boston Bruins with Bobby Orr and all, you know, and I would broadcast every game that came on the TV.

And I'm sure it was horrific for my family, but they tolerated it. And I knew. I was very lucky. I knew when I was five, six years old. That's what I wanted to do. So growing up, you were trying to emulate, like, the broadcasters you were hearing on the, on the broadcast, as opposed to like the players. You're like, I want to be that guy.

And I'm still that way. You know, I talk to friends of mine who are. refs. And when they watch a sporting event, they're critiquing the officials. Broadcasters are critiquing the other broadcasters or the producing or directing the camera work as much as we are watching the game. So, you know, that's definitely true. Who are some of your favorites to listen to in today's sports? When you're not, when you're on the call, who do you enjoy listening to? You know, I guess because I appreciate that this isn't easy. I have friends of mine who say all the time. Oh, it's easy.

Anybody can do that. Just sit there and talk about the game. And I said, well, come to the booth sometime and sit there and watch this and then and you you've done it you guys have both done it now you've been you know on national tv doing a great job by the way thank you and it was fun to be with you at harding park and uh we got a few chuckles we're gonna do it again in a few weeks we are a couple little inside zingers too yeah send them boys yeah but um say patrons yeah but uh you know to me there's nobody better today than jim nance you know and i'm biased because i love jim so much as a person And, you guys know, he's just a wonderful guy, you know, and doesn't make it about him, can do anything, whether it's play-by-play, interviewing, studio hosting.

You know, Mike Tariko's the same way. You know, when I grew up, it was Kurt Gowdy. You guys were probably too young to remember him, but he did every big game. Back then, there were just a couple of networks. You know, there weren't all these networks. There was no Fox. There was no ESPN. There were no regional sports broadcast.

So it felt like Kurt Gowdy, when I was a kid, was on every Super Bowl and Rose. Bowl and World Series and he was great. Dick Enberg, I loved, you know, just the same thing. Rose to the occasion of the big moments. Great storyteller. Never made it about himself. Where's your Boston accent? Because you're a diehard Boston guy, roots all through there. Typically, you can spot a Boston guy from a mile away as soon as you hear him. You don't have that. Is that something good to work on for broadcast? I got rid of it. It was wicked hard, dude. Yeah, there it is. Yeah, get some shit like that. Yeah. No, it's, I never really had it. And it's a I think to all of us because my parents both had it.

You know, people remember watching my dad on the NFL today. I remember being at Syracuse in the dorm. And one time a friend of mine knocked on the door on a Sunday afternoon and said, I was just watching your TV, your dad on TV. He said, Ken O'Brien has a sore arm. What's an arm? You know, ha, ha, ha. So, yeah, my parents both had it.

But none of us, I'm the oldest of five and none of us really have it. And I don't know why. We had a guy calling to our serious XM show the other day. And our producer puts it in and said, you know, Michael from Boston. And I mean, it was the thickest Boston accent or no ours in any word. I thought it was a prank. I was like, is this going to be some spoof question? Because it was the thickest thing you've ever heard.

Oh, I bet. You hear you on the broadcast and there's nothing. You know what bothers me? Every now and then in certain words, it'll come out. But what bothers me is when you see movies and it's or, you know, and I think Saturday Night Live has done sketches about this too, like the really bad Boston accent. Yeah, the one with the applic at the party. That was one of the best.

Yeah. I think Seth Myers has done, you know, it's like towns near Boston, you know, the, yeah, it's, it's poorly imitated in a lot of TV and movies. But I think a gentle Boston accent, that it might be an oxymoron, is, is a good thing. But a hush Boston accent is wicked hush. And I think it can be a little tough on the years. What was it like starting with the Red Sox at such a young age? I mean, you were four years out of college.

You got the job to be the... You guys actually prepare for this? A little bit. It's weird. It is weird. I think I'm actually our producer and do everything. It's very off-brand. Mark, you got Mark.

There you go. Mark and Zach out there. Yeah, it was, you know, I felt like I deserved it, if only because when I went to Syracuse, I did minor league baseball. One of the great things about the student radio station at Syracuse was we had the broadcast rights for the Toronto Blue Jays, AAA team, their top farm team, the Syracuse Chiefs. So, you know, if you won the audition to stay for the summer and broadcast those games, you were doing 140 games a summer of AAA baseball while you were 19 years old, 20 years old.

So by the time I got out of college, I had done probably 400 minor league games, so at the highest level of the minor league. So, you know, I felt like I was ready to do it. And, you know, it was difficult called in the sense that when I got the job, there was like the headline in the other paper in Boston that my dad didn't work for, the Herald was where there's a will, there's a way. So it's like, you got this job because you're your dad. And that was hard. But Jim Baker, the TV critic for the Boston Herald, to his credit, the first game I did, I'll never forget, I still have the clip. He said, you know, even the harshest critics of Sean McDonough of being hired have to admit he did an excellent job on opening day, blah, blah. And then Jim was very nice to me thereafter, too.

So, you know, it may be the connection, the helps open doors, but I also think my dad got me fired twice. So pretty sure the Red Sox ownership really didn't like him. And I don't think it helped me much at CBS either when I left. So probably opened a couple doors, but I'm pretty sure he got me can twice. Not him, but the relationship. that he had or didn't have in these cases with some people. Starting off in the AAA and then going to the Red Sox. I feel like baseball, just from the outside looking in, it's got to be the hardest sport to broadcast because it's like, okay,

first pitch one, low and outside, ball one. Now you've got 72 seconds before another pitch is thrown. It's another ball low and outside. Like there's so much dead air to fill. Is baseball not the hardest? It can be if it's like that. If it's a slow, boring game with not a lot happening, as you guys know, because you are patient enough to wait for me.

to be here. I was just on a Zoom call with Red Sox President Sam Kennedy and the GM of the Red Sox Heim Bloom. And it was very nice to do that. They did it with all of us Red Sox broadcasters. And I'm going to do 40 games for them on radio this summer. But one of the topics that came up was the pace of play. You know, and as broadcasters, we were begging them to use whatever influence they have. I think there should be a pitch clock. There just needs to be. I think America is losing interest in baseball in large part because it's so slow. It takes for, you know, and there's, to your point, Drew, there's nothing to say when the pitcher is walking around the mound for 40 seconds. Rub the ball, look around. I mean, you can try to tell stories and whatever, but you can only

say so many times the wind's blowing out toward right and the left fielder is shading the line. And, you know, it's, it's not fun. And I think it's hurting them not just in their broadcast coverage, but in terms of interest in the game among fandom. And I think it's going to continue to fade if they don't, if they don't address it. But a great baseball game's great. And baseball, I think, is the most natural of the four major sports for the radio. It's a great radio sport if it's a good game. But yeah, it's hard when it's slow. And you got to have another guy in the booth with you who can, you can wrap back and forth and make. Well, I've been very lucky in that regard. out of nothing.

Yeah, I've been very lucky. You know, not just with the Red Sox and the other baseball I've done, but in the other sports. I've worked with a lot of great people who are great at what they do. You know, we did it in golf. And, you know, that is a huge part of it, too. You know, you're part of a team and most of the time, you're half of it. So if the other half isn't good or isn't fun to be with, it can make it a really tough experience. You know, a story about your point about how slow the game is.

the when we had the rights on the student radio station at syracuse the it's a 24 hour a day student staffed student talent on the air radio station so most nights after the game was over there would be a music shift and it was a wide range of musical interest back then so whoever was the DJ who was going to come on had to be the engineer back in the studio for the game you play the commercials and so had a guy who I won't mention it was like a heavy metal he had no interest in baseball at all and he considered punishment to engineer the game so we were doing a road game one time in tidewater the New York Mets farm team was the tidewater tides we had a PSA that aired as one of the commercials it was for the National Association of the Blind and it started out my name is

Edna and I'm blind so I'm doing the game here's the pitch ball two and all of a sudden hear in my headset down the line. My name is Edna. And I'm like, well, the guy, Gil, I'll just say his first name back in the studio, was bored. So he thought he'd amuse himself by just, you know, so, you know, when we got to the commercial, I'm like, hey, Gil, could you cut the crap, please with my name is Edna? You know, it's, it's supposed to be a somewhat professional operation. But yeah, sometimes the boredom of baseball can cause people to do things they might otherwise not do. I mean, I think even in our game in golf, I mean, pace of play, speeding it up would help the broadcast. And you know what?

I thought, and I was really proud to be a part of it, we got a lot of great, not we necessarily, but the people who made the decision about the pace at which we showed golf shots at ESPN at the PGA championship. We were going shot, shot, shot, shot. I mean, it wasn't watching guys line up putts and let's talk about this guy for 45 seconds. I think, and Mike McQuaid led the way our producer at ESPN, I think people who love golf and who are watching this, especially when they're on the app or ESPN Plus, they want to see golf. Yeah. And we got a lot of we ESPN got a lot of praise for the pace of our coverage.

And I think deservedly so. And I think the other networks would be wise to emulate it. I think they're moving in that direction. But I still think the pace of golf on TV could be a lot faster. Yeah, that's the big grief with golf. It's like there's too much fluff. There's too much stuff. And they only show four guys or whatever.

You don't see all the action. But that's a good job by you. How different is it for you going? from baseball where it's like okay 72 seconds in between pitches fill this airtime and ramble about whatever you can to go into golf where it's like you got 10 seconds say something good and then shut up right and as you guys both know the hard part about golf is when they come to you on your hole or when you're an on the course commentator you don't know how long they're coming to you for you know are they going to stick around and watch the guy you know finish the hole knock in his three

foot par put? Are they going to show somebody else on the same green put next? Or are they going to, you know, go off to another hole and maybe come back to you, maybe not? One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from anybody in all the time I've been doing this now is when CBS added me to the master's coverage in 1996. And the late great Frank Chaconian was still in charge of CBS golf. And he's, you know, he invented golf on TV. And he said to me, the most important advice I'm going to give you is He said, we have you on here in part because we have enough golf people. We need more announcer types. And you're a good storyteller.

And I like storytelling. But I'm not going to wait for you to finish your story. You know, if Phil Mickelson is putting on the 12th hole to take the lead, we're going to go there fast. So whatever story you tell, you need to be able to finish it at the end of each sentence. And he gave an example like, you know, I talked to Tiger Woods on the practice screen this morning. and he said he's using a new putter. Like, well, you could stop after that.

And he's using this new putter because, whatever, it's longer, it's slightly more loft, whatever. But, you know, and it's actually a great skill that applies to all the other sports, too. But Frank said, you know, I'm not going to wait while you say, you know, I talked to Drew Stoltz this morning and he said, let's go to 16. You know, you're like, we're going.

So you can't be talking. That's really cool. Yeah. So it was great advice. And that's part of the difficulty of doing golf. And you have to pay attention because, you know, as you guys both know, a lot of golf coverage on TV is on tape. I don't know what percentage it is, but it's a high percentage.

And it has to be because they're on 18 holes, and then there's multiple places on each hole where people are playing. You can't show it all live. I mean, it's impossible. So to me, I've always, I think some of the most talented people in sports TV are the producers and the directors and the associate producers and the people in the tape room who not only are figuring out, okay, what's live and what's on tape?

What should we show live? What should we show on tape? But then they've got to get it in the right sequence. And they have to make sure, like, let's don't update the scoreboard until, you know, we show the guy putting on tape, even though we know he's already eight under. Let's keep it at seven under until we show him making that put. So there's so much that goes into golf on TV. I don't know how it even gets on the air.

Yeah, they do an unbelievable job. But you mentioned you started at the Masters of 96. I think it was our friend McCord, thank God, who got himself in trouble that opened up a spot. You slid right into Cougar spot. I'm pretty sure, you know, and I used to say to him, I'm like, don't apologize. Don't, you know, just you stick to whatever your principles are, but I want to keep my spot. It was a matter of time. It was a matter of time.

But then 97 rolls around, this guy, Tiger kind of splashes on the scene. What was that week like for you being at a good national tiger? You know, one of the things I appreciate about this job is when you get a chance to witness true, true greatness. And, you know, that's what we're witnessing, something that's, You know, you just knew. This guy is, he's not unlike everybody else in the history of the game. He's pretty darn close. And, you know, my first one, if I have my math right,

was the year that Greg Norman blew the lead. And I had to kind of give the eulogy, because as he got late in the round, and that was hard, you know, because you don't want to bury the guy too much, but you also want to try to put in some sort of historical context, you know, involving where does this rate? among, I don't know if it was a collapse, because Feldo played well, really well, but... 78 on Sunday with league.

Yeah, it was... I don't know about well. Yeah, there's probably a few shots. Right, I guess. But, you know, and plus, you know, here I am brand new. And, you know, you don't want to be the guy to, you know, to bury him, but you also, we always owe it to the audience to say whatever is the most pertinent thing at that time.

So, but that was a real treat. You know, that's someplace that's more than lives up to the hype. You know, you go there with expectations. You think there's no way. these are going to be matched and then they're surpassed every time, no matter how many times you've been there. Well, as I was just saying, that's perfect because you say it lives up to the hype and you've been to every arena, every ballpark, every stadium there is. What are some of those other places that you go to and you're like, wow, this place is truly special? Fenway Park.

I figured that was a lot of last. Shocker. Wow, a lot of places. You know, college football, a lot of the places that you would think are great are. I love going to Ohio State. I'm still a sucker for the dotting the eye in Script Ohio, almost any place in the SEC. Allen Fieldhouse in college basketball. No offense to the Duke people, but I would take that over.

Really? Oh, nice. That's a bold statement. And I, with a qualifier. All of my experience for many years in Cameron was as a broadcaster. So it was tilted toward the negative because the broadcast position there is awful. You know, you're in a little basket that hangs from the roof. It's a terrible vantage point.

You can't even stand up straight. You know, I can't even. So imagine, you know, a guy like Billis who's 6'6 or whatever, he is 6, 7. You know, you're whacking your head off pipes. And it's hard to see. It's super hot. I heard it gets a little warm there. Oh, it's super hot.

You know, they told stories about the late great Rick Majeris, who, you know, was a large man. And, you know, you had to climb a ladder to get up there. You have to climb over fans to get to the ladder. You know, it's just so I really didn't like going there. Not only, you know, it was like, oh, Cameron, but I just didn't want to do a game there, even though it's Cameron. And then I went to a game as a fan, and it's completely different. As a fan, it's awesome.

I mean, it's deserving of, you know, it's ranking among experiences because as a fan, it was fantastic. Yeah, those little small gyms in college basketball are the best where they get loud. But the carry a good high school. Pretty awesome too now. Yeah, that's a monster. Well, that's cool with 35,000 people in there, you know, for a basketball game. You know, have either of you ever been there? No, that's a hard place to get to.

You know, you stumble upon Syracuse. We have planes that go there. Yeah, they do go there. They do go there. It takes a lot of hours to get there. It's really cold. Well, it depends on where you're coming from. Yeah, true.

From here. Yeah, from here in Arizona, it is a long trip. And that's one of the things about, you know, my experience now at ESPN doing ACC basketball every Monday on the big Monday. is a plug, but big Monday's over. So it won't be till next January. But it's hard to get, you know, from Phoenix to Durham. That's a long trip for you.

Yeah, there's some small towns too in there. But to get back here, you know, for the extra couple of hours each way, each week to come back here and have it be what we experience here with the weather and getting to hang around. Get to hang out with guys like you. It's whisper rock and play golf year round. It's awesome. I have the best of both worlds.

I'm here basically for six months. and back in Boston for six months in the summer and fall when it's beautiful in New England. You call all the sports. You've done everything pretty much under the sun. What is your favorite? What gets your juices going the most? What sport?

I get asked that a lot, and it's really hard to answer because what I love, and I'm not trying to dodge your question, but what I love the most about it is, yeah. If I had to pick, I'd say football. Syracuse football, no.

Yeah, really any football, particularly college football. It's one of the things that I, you know, I was honored beyond belief to do Monday Night Football for two years, but I really missed college football. They're both great, but they're different, you know. And I missed the atmosphere more than anything. You know, the atmosphere around college football games is unique and special. And it's one of the things that made this past season so hard, you know, to go to these stadiums with nobody there.

I remember the first game we did this year, Todd Blackledge and Todd McShay and myself, we were at Wake Forest. They were playing Clemson. and about an hour and a half before the game, the two coaches, Dabo Sweeney and Dave Klausen, met at midfield with some administrators and they're standing there talking. And they were playing fake crowd noise

through the PA system. And they were talking about what was the acceptable volume level for the fake crowd noise. You know, so, yeah. Yeah, it was weird. I'm so glad they got through the season. And it looks like, you know, college basketball is going to make it all the way to the finish too.

hope the audio guy didn't mind that light tap. But you're welcome, Mark. He's a pro. And it's amazing that we have and that we will. And it's great that we've been able to continue playing the games. And with nobody really getting sick, you know, I think one of the great things was, you know, some of the conferences, particularly the Big Ten and the Pac-12 when football season started, you know, they were really, really concerned, which I understand.

I mean, there's nothing more important than anybody's health. But the fact that we got through the whole football, season. Do you ever hear of anybody even getting really sick? I mean, you heard of players getting COVID and sitting out, but you never heard like, wow, that guy's in rough shape or that guy died, thank God. I think all the sports have done an unbelievable job. They have. But so, you know, that we've made it this far and now I think there's really light at the end of the tunnel. As a matter of fact, on that Zoom call I was talking about with the Red Sox management, you know, they were talking about trying to move quickly to increasing capacity and hopeful that the

city and state government will allow them to do that. It's just not the same without the fans or the patrons. Or the patrons. We'll get a little, we'll get some patrons. Yeah, we'll get some patrons. Yeah, we'll get some patrons.

I haven't heard the number yet, but. I haven't either, but, uh, but some is better than none. I said spectators once on the, oh, don't do that. John Feinstein's book about the masters.

He, he mentions it in there. I said spectators. And I couldn't change it to patrons fast enough, you know, catch myself. But, so I think you're allowed some mulligans.

But one of the things I came to appreciate very quickly about the masters, and this is going to sound like a suckup, and it is. But it's also the truth. And you guys know, it's the best run sporting event that I've ever been to. I mean, just the way they get people in and out. And the prices, you know, in this day and age, where everybody's gouging the crap out of everything and everyone, you know, the food prices in particular.

And, you know, it's just, I think there's a class and dignity and respect for the patrons there that should be emmer. in other sports and other sporting events. You show up with 20 bucks you can get drunk and full at Augusta. Yeah. Or even, you know, just you have like 12 Cokes if you don't want to drink. Yeah. You could be sober.

You can get like a beer and a chicken sandwich. I haven't been a patron in a few years, but not that long ago because I love to go and just walk around. But it's it's ridiculously cheap. Yeah, it's cool that they don't just go because they could charge whatever they want and people would do it. You go to Jerry Wrapped. I think they sell enough merchandise.

I think their merch sells. level out the bottom line. But even then, they could charge way higher prices. You go to these college football games or Jerry World. Like he said, oh, you want to Coors Light? Oh, yeah, that's 1720. Okay, cool. Thanks.

Yeah. And then people are you still going to buy it? What are you going to do? Yep. Not drink beer. I watch football? Not possible. Let me ask you one thing that I think is always interesting because you mentioned

you love college football so much. And the fan bases are very, very loyal to their teams. And they're not scared to say if they think a broadcaster is maybe, sucks. Or rooting against their team. Learning for another team? Yeah. I will admit to we can occasionally suck.

You know, we're all human. Some days we're better than others. We try hard. I think most of us do. Not all. There are some guys I watch who I think they're mailing it in sometimes. Name names. We're done.

But the whole year against our team or you're for the other team. Now, I will say this. We're all human beings. Sometimes you'll meet with a team. and both teams before the game, as we do. Unfortunately, this past year on Zoom, I hope we get back to in-person meetings. But, you know, sometimes one coaching staff is friendly and cooperative

and tells you interesting stuff, and it will allow you go to practice. And the other guys are a bunch of jerks. I mean, I fight sometimes when I get in the booth, you know, the bat. You know, I really don't like that guy and I really like him. But when the game starts, first of all, you owe it to, the viewers to not be that way, to not be biased. And I think all of our thought processes are caught up in just talking about what we should be

talking about at the right time and the right order, telling stories at the right time, talking about what's happening in the game. Is that a good call, a bad call? You know, that the fan part of you goes out of your head. You know, like, I watch Syracuse during this tournament as a spectator sitting on my couch, and I scream at the TV and I scream at the officials. and I'm texting my friends, the officials are out to screw us and them. And when I do a Syracuse game, I don't, I feel this much of that, you know,

because you're just so focused on doing your job. And you owe it to the other side, if there are, you know, the people who are cheering for their team to not feel like you're biased. So I don't, yeah, I think that's one criticism of announcers that's kind of up there. You mentioned the meeting with the coaches before game. What's like your preparation like before game? Say you have a Saturday afternoon, football game. Well, football is the hardest preparation by far because there's so many guys on each

team. You know, a basketball game, college basketball game, there might be seven, eight, nine guys on each team that are going to play, where in football there might be 60 on each team. And it's just, you know, I grew up around football, around my dad. When I went to Syracuse, another one of the great blessings in my life was I was a work study student in our football coaching staff for the late great Dick McPherson, who was like a second dad to me, one of the great honors. of my life was when he passed away two and a half years ago, his family asked me to give eulogy at his funeral up in Syracuse. And it was hard because, you know, I was going to cry every 10 seconds.

And I pretty much did because he was just such a remarkable man. One of the things I learned from him was, you know, in Syracuse, you're the football coach or the basketball coach. That's a big deal. That's the only game in town. And you're the most famous person in town. You and Coach Beheim, who was the coach when I was a student there, That's how long he's been there.

But I just learned how he interacted as a public person. You know, he treated everybody well and not to be fake because he cared about everybody. He cared about me. I was the lowest man on the totem pole. But I kind of, I watched how hard football coaching staffs work to prepare for the game all week. And I think I kind of, I don't want to pat myself on the back, but I hope my colleagues would say that this is true that I work really hard in the preparation for the game.

You know, it's by far the most important thing. 98% of my time is probably spent in preparation 95% and it's the other 5% that's the time you're on the air. But, you know, you want to know as much as you can. Particularly if the game goes south, you want to hold the audience and have some, you know, good human interest stories or good insight information that the coach has told you or something to hopefully keep the people who are still watching entertained.

Do you have those plugged in pre? Like, all right, here's my four or five stories. I got. If things start to drag ass here and I need to keep everybody, I'm going to go to one of these and then bam, check them off. Yeah, and we do that as a group. You know, like we will, to answer your question better, Colt, you know, we do the game Saturday. Sunday, our

producer on our college group, Josh Hoffman, asked us to sort of watch the game that we just did. And, you know, I can remember almost all of it, so I don't necessarily have to watch the tape. You know, you can probably I'm sure, after you play in a golf room, you can remember every shot you hit in what the yardage

was and was it was a good bad and why was it good or bad. I'm like that and I think a lot of people in our business are too. But, um, but, but you know, we kind of, so on Tuesday, we'll have a conference call and we'll, as a group and we'll review the previous game, what was good, what was bad, how can we be better? And then we'll preview the next game. So we've all started in our preparation because you want to give the graphics people enough time to build graphics during the week that we have information that we find is interesting. And they also tell us a lot of stuff that they found in their research that they want us to know and think we might want to talk about.

And then, you know, there's flashbacks or whatever. Hey, can you get that clip of that kid when he was in high school and he, you know, dunked a basketball from the foul line or something. So it's a collaborative effort the whole week. And I try to watch at least two or three games of that the teams have already played, the most recent games, you know, part of it just to help me with the familiarize myself with the names and numbers. A lot of times you can do that. But it's a lot of times you can do that. But it's, you know, if you watch the film, you know, okay, that guy is, he's number nine, wide receiver, but he's also six, six. He's the tall, skinny guy, and the other guy's the shorter guy who plays in the slot, whatever. So, and you can steal some good stories from other broadcasters. You know, a lot of times they're doing preparation for you. You know, they tell a story like, that's a good story, you know, and that should be repeated. One of the things we learn is not everybody watches every game that all these teams play.

So repeating the best stuff is a good idea. where you've been on live television, live radio, all that stuff for a long time. There's no way you've gone through all this time as good as you are without a little slip-up or a little hiccup here or there. You got any standouts of times where you just, you got done saying something, you're like, whoops, that's probably going to be a problem. Oh, yeah. I think I might have told you guys in the previous appearance on your many media platforms.

Numerous. This is an enterprise. I mean, now you have a set. I mean, when I met you guys, I think you had, you know, two Dixie Cups and a string that you guys were talking into. That's it. Now you have a staff and this impressive set. But, yeah, I accidentally said shit on the air. That'll happen.

Yeah. And it wasn't, as a curse word, I was doing, it was a Red Sox game, but it was on ESPN. It was with Ray Knight, and Dwight Evans for the Red Sox was coming to the plate. And I think he had 2,299 career hits. So I wanted to say he was one hit shy of 2300, and it didn't quite come out that way. It's got a mixed up a little bit. got it mixed up. And then I, and you know, you know, when you, all of us like misspeak sometimes

or we utter a sentence that doesn't come out quite right. And then you run it back in your own head. And I ran it back in my head. I thought, oh, my God, I just said what I said. And then I looked at Ray Knight and he had his headset off. I was like, yep, that's what I said. So I said, I did say he's one hit shy of 2,300, didn't I? And Ray, I said, absolutely. That's what you said. And the guy's in the truck, right? No, that's not what you said. If you do it long enough. What are you going to do? I mean, it's not like you said on purpose.

It just crossed your words up. Yes. One shit shy. That's hard to say. One shit shy. That's easy to say. It's easy to say. And Syracuse wins the basketball national championship in 2003.

I go with a couple of buddies of mine and meet a bunch of Syracuse friends down there. So they win. Camerlo Anthony. Jerry McNamara, who's on the coach. Legend. Yeah. He made seven threes, I think, in the championship. game against Kansas. So I have to go do the Frozen for college hockey in Buffalo, New York.

And I love hockey and I love doing the Frozen Four. College hockey was really my first job at Nesson in Boston before I got the Red Sox gig a few years later. So it's Monday night. We go to Bourbon. We go to Syracuse Hotel and we go to Bourbon Street. And my flight was at maybe seven or eight in the morning. So literally it was go to the hotel, you know, throw your stuff in a bag fast and get to the airport. And it was not a direct flight from New Orleans to Buffalo. But anyway, I was not at my sharpest for a couple of days. So we're doing the Frozen Four.

And I'm pretty sure it was the University of New Hampshire Wildcats who are blue and white. I had done a lot of big East basketball that year. Connecticut, really good. And New Hampshire scores a goal. and I scream, it's a goal for Connecticut. New Hampshire people probably love that. And I'm like, you know, I'm never staying out all night, two nights before a game again, so,

or three nights before, whatever, but it was amazing. And that's why, you know, I've changed real Raftery, Bill Raftery, who is the absolute best, by the way. And I don't know if either one of you have ever met him, but you need to have him on the show. First of all, he's the nicest, funniest guy.

and he's the most well-like person I've ever met in life. I mean, when he dies, I can't imagine where they're going to have that funeral because it's not going to be big enough, even if they had it at Madison Square Garden. But, you know, he likes to go out and have a good time as I'm not telling tales out of school there. And it got to the point where I told him,

I am not going to dinner with you the night before the game. Like I put in the, and in football, I have the two nights before the game rule, just because, you know, you can't, I don't know if, you know, maybe some guys play golf a little better if they're hurting a little bit. But, you know, it's, you owe it to your employer and you owe it to your audience to be at your best. And it just got to the power, no, you know, you don't want to be on the air doing a big Monday. And talking like, great Jack Buck, you know, I think that was his voice.

But, you know, you'd be kind of, you know, that, that, yeah, that frogginess that you get, the hoarseness when you're a little hanging. is because you're dehydrated. Been there, done that. We've had it on radio a few times. Oh, I bet you have. Believe it or not. So I have the football two nights before the game or on lockdown and basketball

one night before the game. That's fair. Rafri likes to go though, huh? Yeah, and as I said, and he's, you know, and he, Bill is in, you know, in mid to late 70s now. And I think he lies about his age. Okay, and he goes backwards.

Well, you know, one, many years ago, some had run an arc about him, and they got the age wrong by like it was a year or too low. And he was like, I think I'm going to adopt that. I'm like, Bill, you don't need to worry about that because people will hire you when you're 100. You know, people love you. And, you know, he's at the top of his game.

And he was just made the lead analyst on the final four, what, four or five years ago. And he was in his 70s then. It should have, you know, and I understand why. Billy Packer had that job for all those years. And he was fantastic. So, you know, that's one of the frustrations of this job. You know, as somebody was trying to get up in, you know, golf commentary, There's a lot of good people ahead of you.

A lot of times it's just, you're terrific, but there's not an opening or an opportunity. But, you know, Bill's won the sports Emmy for the best national analyst in any sport in his mid-70s. You know, he's still hitting his stride. And he's, he can go, and he's never sloppy. I love that. Yeah, and he'll be up the next day with the perfect hair,

and he'll be in the gym, whatever time doing his, you know, he likes the elliptical and it never looks like he's hurting the next day and part of it is he it's a social activity for him you know it's not I just want to go out and drink it's a he loves people and he loves spending time with people so he's not I gotta meet this guy yeah pros pro yeah he'll stay out but he's not

he's the furthest thing from sloppy aversic and that's one of the things that bothers me like when on social media which I don't do but you know it's a good idea yeah I know but the you know but I know people talk about, you know, his nickname is Uncle One More because it's not one more. It's one more place. Where's the next place we're going to go? But remarkable stamina and as fine a person as I know. And I don't have a better friend. Yeah. Uncle One More. We've got to talk a little bit about your golf game. And we'll just stay on the topics of broadcasters. Where would you say your golf gang

ranks among the elite broadcasters in this world? Oh, okay. Well, I'll have to think about that. First of all, thank you for including me among the elite. Elite. It's probably easier to start with, you know, I haven't played with that many of them. I'm better than Tariko for sure. I can vouch for that. Michael's you're better than that. Way better than that.

Well, actually, one of the thrills for me was one day at Whisper Rock, as you guys might remember, I think, were you hosting them or you might. I hosted with you. Yeah, we had a picture taken. All three of us were, you know, the recent Monday Night Football announcers. So that was really cool. I never got the picture. I don't know whose phone took it. Do you have?

Yeah. It's my Instagram. It's my profile picture. I don't even want to think about it. It was my Christmas card for five years. Ma, can you edit that out, please? But, you know, I understand Joe Buck is a good player. I've never played with him.

He's a friend. I've been trying to get him to come to my charity tournament. But it's hard because it's a Sunday-Munday thing, and he's always doing football in the fall. So, but one year I ran into him at Oakmont. wonderful place. Maybe my favorite of any golf course. Not easy.

Not easy. But my partner, I have a buddy of mine, Kurt Coulter, who's the seven-time club champ at Oakmont. Oh, wow. You got to be pretty good,

right? He's Jim Furek's cousin. And he's perfect for that course because everything is a high, really high, beautiful, Fave at Lansoft. My little,

you know, snarky little hooks coming into those greens. I don't have a little snarky. It's a little ropy. It's a hot one. It's a hot boy. A little less altitude sometimes than you'd like.

But that doesn't play quite as well there. But I ran into Joe there one year, and he was playing with Mark Bulger, the old quarterback, who was the member. And I think they were in the top flight or one of the, you know, when I understand Joe was low single digits and pretty good. You know, Billis is a vanity handicap. He says he's a six or seven, but he's,

I'd play him even and win money and half. There we go. I'm trying to think, well, who else? I've never played with Nance. I don't know how much Jim plays. He's got to have a decent game. He's got to have a good game. Yeah, Houston.

I'm sure he's really, really good. He belongs to, I think he's at Wingfoot. Can you get it on some places, Jim? I would think he could. He lives on Pebble Beach, as we all know. So, and just the best. He's one of those people who's good at everything. He really is.

I love those people. At our place, John Bucci Gras is a really good golfer. Yeah, he plays a fun. Bochie's 4-5, I would say, 3, 4, 5. somewhere in that range. Michael Eves loves golf. Good player. I've played with him. He's, you know, legit five or six, four or five. I might be selling him short, actually.

I'll tell you who's not, is that your place. Chris Berman. I've got paired with him one year at AT&T. Doesn't have the smoothest game. No. But he is a blast to play with. He is a blast to play with. I played in the Deutsche Bank program with him one year. And I think the, and what Padreg Harrington was our pro,

talk about a fun guy to play with an approach. him. And the one thing I remember about that day is I've never seen anybody sweat. I was literally about to bring it up. He's the only guy that brings a sweat rag around Pebble Beach like 50. Yeah. He had on, you know, tan khaki pants and it looked like he had jumped in a pond. The year I played with him at Pebble, he plays with J.J. Henry. And they made the cut. And they were right around the number coming in. And I've never seen a human more nervous in my life. And Chris? Yes.

The day we played, he helped. He was 16, 17, 18, whatever. And he helped on a lot of holes. He did. It was hilarious to watch, though. He gets done with the rounds. And of course, they love to interview him because he's fantastic. It looks like he just got out of a murder investigation, like an interrogation.

He's dabbing himself and he's got sweat everywhere. I was like, you just played pebble. Most guys are in sweaters and he's dripping. Yeah, I think he could sweat pretty much any place. And, you know, imagine you're doing Major League Baseball in the summer. And, you know, you're at the All-Star game. he's doing the home run derby all those years. You know, you're in Cleveland,

and it's 100 in humid or whatever. And what I remember about Padraig Harrington, and it's been really fun. And one of the nice things, like doing a little bit of golf for ESPN is the golfers are such good guys, and they remember you. Like, I played with Lee Westwood one year. And I was probably a year later,

we had the British Open, the Open Championship, and I walked over toward him on the practice tee, thinking he's not going to remember me. And he struck up a conference. like I was his long-lost best friend. That's awesome. So it really helps you, you know, do your job too. When you, you know, we play, I play with Billy Horschel and a bunch of other guys who, you know,

Brant Snetiker who could not have been more fun and but Padraig Harrington we get on the first tea and he says I can't, I'm Irish, but I can't do the accent, but he said, okay, fellas, you know, the most important thing today is to have fun. And I thought, oh, that's great. And he said, and what's the best way to have fun? He says, to win. He said, so, you know, as you guys know, it's, how many times I said as you guys know, I'm trying to be deferential to you guys. I'm really not sure if you really know this stuff or not. But I'm pretty sure in this case, you know this stuff. The, it's par as your partner, right?

So no matter if everybody makes a million, you got a par. You can't, you got a par no matter what. So, so he said, like, we have a part no matter what. So I will only get mad if, like, you lay up or you, you know, don't go for the pin. We have five of us. We only need one score. And then I'm like, I really like this guy now. Because, you know, as an amateur, but who likes to, who's competitive, you know,

you want to feel like the guy's engaged. And he's engaged in conversation with you, but he's also, you know, a little bit interested in trying to win. You guys probably don't care about winning. But, uh, bro, no. No, the pro, no. But he really did. And he came in afterwards into the, he was the only pro who came into the amateur food tent afterwards you looked around the room yeah and uh that's not normal and sat there maybe not but he sat there

for a long time and in a very polite way said okay after well okay like if you guys want to know what i think of your golf swing or game i'm happy to give each of you a point or two and we're like sure so he was like you know you stand too far away from the ball and you do this and blah blah blah blah man thought that's really cool that he cared enough to you know make some mental notes he's great what do you tell you you're perfect don't change anything said to get a bowling ball and sell the clubs. Give up. We had him.

He was in your chair. Wonderful guy. Wonderful, wonderful guy. I really enjoyed it. And a guy I've enjoyed running into over the years since. Yeah. He's going to be a great captain, unfortunately. Yeah.

It's going to be hard to root against them, but we will. Are we going to have fans? Yes. Yes. You can't have that event without fans. 100%. Without question. Time for the E9?

Yes. All right. Let's hit it. This is the emergency nine? Emergency. All right. We ask us to everybody. and you got to really think here.

You'll be made about the life of Sean McDonough. You can pick any actor dead or alive to play you. Who's it going to be? Oh, boy. We also get to give our opinion. Okay. I think I got a good one. Was it just based on like physical resemblance?

No, whatever you want. Who could play you? Well, this is shameless name drop. One of my famous, my closest friends is Matt Damon. There you go. Oh, Jesus. What a name job.

Get over yourself. And I think he's an amazing actor, too. And I know he'd care. Like, I've watched him. what he does to prepare for what he does. Matter of fact, the movie, the military movie where he was the medic and... Saving Private Ryan? Yeah.

Which I'm sorry, I'm chuckling, but it brings to mind a story that he told that is probably not suitable for this setting. Perfect. We might. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. But he was addicted to drugs in that movie. So to get ready for that part, he was running 15 miles a day and he stopped eating. And it got to the point where his heart started to have a problem.

And he went to a doctor and the doctor said, yeah, you're basically becoming like anorexic. Like I know you're into preparing for this part, but, you know, you have to eat something and you've got to stop running 15 miles a day. And so he's super into whatever it is that he's preparing for. And just a great guy. I've known him since he was 19 years old, maybe. And he's a little Maddie on the block. Yeah. Good Boston boy.

Yeah. Cambridge. And the, it hasn't changed a bit. I mean, I knew. He was a runner for a game that I did in the booth in the old Foxborough Stadium back when the Patriots were terrible, which is hard to believe that ever happened. But it did. I was doing a game for CBS, a regional game with Hank Stram. It was probably going to 4% of the country.

And Matt was our booth runner. And he was really excited to have the gig because he paid 50 bucks. and he needed the 50 bucks. He doesn't need the 50 bucks. Now he makes like 50 million. So you were Matt Damon's boss for a little bit. What's that? That's nice.

You were Matt Damon's boss for one day. Yeah. But I still have people with CBS. I can't believe that Matt Damon was our booth runner back in 1990, whatever it was. He's really found a nice niche for himself. Who did you have for him? Although I will say this. If we're going to rag on people about golf,

sure. I had been trying to bug him and other people. His dad was a passionate golf. I had no interest in golf. And then he got the part in the Legend of Bagger Manx. Thank you very much. Legend of Bag of Vance. And they sent him, which might have been a mistake,

someplace to basically get instruction for five or six weeks. And he was a robot. You know, if you watch him in the movie, Joel Grette, you played Bobby Jones. So I met, you know, through Matt, because they got to know each other obviously making the movie. Joel can, that's Joel. He can really play.

I mean, he's got a beautiful, natural golf scene, but he grew up playing. But Matt, Matt's a robot. and he's still a terrible golfer. He doesn't play a lot. I can't have it all. He's a good family man, which is in the, you know, he'd rather spend time with his kids,

which most golfers out there say, really? That's the hard thing with golf movies, those are you need a good actor, but he also need a guy that is believable for some of the shots. But he called me from wherever he was, Savannah or Hilton,

I can't remember, where it was somewhere down the southeast. They got him with a coach and he got a lot of instruction. And he called me, he said, like, I'm a five-day golfer and I'm addicted. Why didn't you make me play this?

I'm trying to tell you for years. You know, you should play golf. You'd like it. He's a very good athlete. But he, you know, he just, his swing was a little robotic in that movie, I think. Stop making blockbusters. Matt, if you come on. He'd love you two guys.

Be incredible. Come on. Yeah, we'll set that up. All right. He likes everybody. That's, that's, that's, oh, okay. Well, that's not a compliment. He's a grader.

Forget you, Matt. No, okay. I had Paul Giamati. Okay. Who I think is awesome. Really? What's wrong with him, dude? He's a talent.

He's a talent. He's a super talented. He's very talented. Do you think he occasionally overacts? Like there's a little time like, I'm like, wow. I like him. You know he's really an actor. Like billions, billions, he's a DA, he's a district attorney on billions. He's good. He pays a variety of roles. I just went kind of looks a little bit. I had Ed Harris. Great actor. Yeah. Awesome. I do it all. I'd prefer him. Ed Harris. No offense to Paul. I mean, Paul Giumati. I'd like to be as good in my job as he is at his. Like a military badass. I don't know. I mean, you're He does it all.

You're a dude. Very talented, man. All right. It's like Sean. Yeah, I'd stick with Matt Damon. Okay, well, this, this may be. We probably can't afford him. Do we have a good budget for this movie?

What's that? Do we have a good budget? No, I did. We got unlimited funds. Unlimited funds. Especially if Matt's in it. This may, you may have just answered it, but are you going to call a football game? You get to have a Boston icon in the booth with you.

Would you rather have Wahlberg, Damon, or Affleck? Maybe I'd remove Damon from that since you're close friends with him. Who would you rather have as your color guy? I had Affleck. once as a color guy. Really? Yes. I know Ben pretty well through Matt,

and we were in Toronto, and I think we were doing a Red Sox game. They're obviously huge Red Sox fans. And that is 100% legit. Like people say, oh, you know, sometimes these celebrities are fake sports fans. They are huge Boston sports fans. Both Matt and Ben and the Wahlbergs for that.

Yeah, they're real, too. Yeah. So Ben came on the air with us. He's making a movie in Toronto. We talked during the day. coming to the game. I said, why don't you come up and, you know, come on with us. And he ripped every Red Sox player like you can't believe. I can't believe this guy's not in Patucket. But we had a pitcher named Rolando Aroho. Spot starter relief pitcher, you know, kind of

borderline. He was fine. But he was pitching well in this particular game. And Ben's quote was, yeah, you know, he seems to have his erohoness under control tonight. That's a good line. He buried Lou Merlone, who I actually now do the Red Sox games with on the radio. And, you know, Lou grabbed me in the clubhouse the next day. Like, tell your boy Ben Affleck to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, I used to get that with my dad too. My dad would rip somebody in the paper and I walk in the clubhouse the next day.

Tell your father, he kissed my rear end. I'm like, what does that have to do with me? You know, it's what you call him. You know, I'll give you his number. You can tell him. Nothing to do with me. Ben has a color guy. Ben was a good color guy.

You know who would be a great color guy is Donnie Wahlberg. Another guy who loves golf, really good guy, has played in my charity thing a few times. I figure if I mention people who play in the charity thing, they might come back. Yeah, because I know this will have a wide viewership. Tons. Tons.

Yeah. Can I get the clip and send it to Donny Wallberg? You can have whatever you want. Charge admission. Yeah. A couple of years ago, he had to. He tried to have his shooting schedule for Blue Bloods changed so that he could come for the tournament. His name is on the championship trophy at our tournament is the Will Macdon Memorial Cup.

And Donnie's name is on it. His group won it one year. Oh, that's nice. Really good guy. And Mark Wahlberg, Mark, is a member of Boston Golf Club, which, as you both know, I am passionate about and think is the greatest golf course in the history of creation. Gil Hans. You got to see it. Yes, we got to get up there and see.

I've heard it. Not just from you. Maybe someone will invite you. Yeah. I've invited you many times. We had a group from what's Barack come out last summer and I made the mistake. I was out of town. I made the mistake of telling the BGC people, just put them on the scholarship.

Whatever they want. Well, yeah. Apparently they had the number for the halfway house or the airstrikes because I'm still paying down my bill in installments for, uh, wrong guys. Wrong guys. That is awesome. All right. Number three.

If you had one more game or event to call in your career, you can pick anything. It's your last one. What's it going to be? Well, if you had asked me this a couple weeks ago, I would have said the Super Bowl, because that's the biggest event in American sports, right? But I'm hoping to be involved with ESPN's upcoming coverage of the NHL. So I would say the Stanley Cup final. That would be a heck of a way to go out.

There's nothing better than playoff hockey. So good. There's nothing better. I would not have guessed that, but that's awesome. I mean, the Super Bowl, anybody would want to do the Super Bowl, right? I mean, I had the pleasure of doing the World Series already. And a lot of them, the Masters and all the golf majors. So, yeah, the Super Bowl.

But the Stanley Cup final would be great. Hopefully all the brass of ESPN is watching this and thinking that that's a great idea. I like that idea. As I'm becoming more passionate about hockey, I can appreciate that. It is, there's nothing better. Okay, fair enough. All right.

Next one. Which movie broadcaster do you, identify with more Bob Euker as Harry Doyle and Major League or Jason Bateman as cotton in Dog Ball. They were both fantastic. I mean, like it's and from what I'm told, you know, I probably lean toward Euker just because I know them through, you know, the baseball connection. He's been doing the Milwaukee Brewers games for all these years. And I don't know if either one of you ever met him. I've never met Jason Baker.

I'm a huge fan, you know, not just that movie, but his other work too. but uh yuc is he's every you know people told me and i've never asked yuker and i should that a lot of his scenes and that those movies um he kind of said to them let me roll with the script a little bit you know kind of let me add lib and do his own lingo so uh from what i've told he kind of made it funnier than it might have been anyway it's unbelievable it's he's unbelievably funny but he's he's he's really funny in person too and a great guy. You know what?

We talked about when I started doing the Red Sox games when I was 25. The Brewers used to play in Milwaukee County Stadium before their beautiful new Miller Park. And the visiting TV booth was really small enough that you couldn't do the on-camera open in the booth because it was too small to put the camera. So there was a little catwalk that hung down below the broadcast boots. And you'd have to go out there and take it. tape it, you know, 15 minutes before the game. So, and Euker's booth was literally right here.

And Euker's almost this far away. So, you know, you can imagine, you know, you're doing it to tape. I was working with a guy named Bob Montgomery. I think Monty was the color man in Major League. And I don't know if that came from my partner, Monty or not. I always want to ask you for that, too. I don't think so. My Monty was a lot sharper than the Monty in the movie.

But so you'd be sitting there, you know, welcome the county's name tonight. the Red Sox Milwaukee Brewers, game one of a three-game series. Tonight's games brought to you by Budweiser and by Pepsi and by blah, blah, blah. And you could be, he used to work at Pat Hughes then, who's now the great voice of the Chicago Cubs on radio. He'd be like, hey, Pat, does Monty do anything on that telecast down there? Is he just stand there and stare at Sean the whole time? You know, we've allowed enough for us to hear him,

and a lot of stuff like that. I went into the booth one time to ask him about what a pitcher who was pitching that night from Milwaukee had. you know what's he have and then he's well he's got a you know average fastball sinks it a little bit he's got an okay curveball he's a gorgeous wife you know it's spectacular

yeah it's good to do something nice yeah it's uh so it's what a legend yeah he's the he's the best and such a nice guy too killed that role oh is there already you know you could debate if that's the greatest sports movie of all time without question yeah he was

in the discussion he made the movie right I mean the rest of it was pretty good too but His role was a standoff for sure. Ten. All right. Number five. Have you ever needed medical attention during a game? Yes.

You cheated. How do I cheat? Because you first of all, you smirked when you asked me the question. More than once. Oh, okay. Well, I know about that. When I first started out in Boston at Nesson, as I said, I really started doing college hockey. And then other college sports, college soccer, some local college college.

basketball. But they had me start doing the Red Sox pregame show. When Nesson was first on the air, it was on in 3,000 homes in all of New England. You think about how few that is. So you don't know if anybody's watching. But I hosted the pregame show. It's called Red Sox Digest. And the studio was in Fenway Park. It wasn't outside in the park. It was in a building basically attached to Fenway Park kind of out and behind left field. So I would go over, you know, when you're not, you're young and you're not making any money, I would go over and have the lunch in the press room and then I'd come back, you know, I'd already written the script for the show. And so I shaved right before we went on the air and apparently I cut myself on my chin. So I get up on the set, I've got the script,

there's no teleprompter. I mean, there's the most primitive, we had nicer TV cameras in the communication school at Syracuse and this camera I'm looking into and you know put the ear thing in the stage manager's there and so okay 30 seconds Sean you know blah blah blah and uh looking through the script and there's a red dot on the table and I said uh somebody having lunch on the set there's like ketchup or something and uh or blood and Amy Rosenfeld is now a huge executive at ESPN she was our stage man she like oh my god it's you who's bleeding Right. So I look at the corner of my eye at the monitor, and it wasn't just like, you know, sometimes you cut yourself just that little. It was a stream that went from here all the way down

to my white shirt collar and was, you know, traveling down my collar. It looked like someone had taken a hatchet to me 30 seconds before from the air. Right. So now eight, seven. So I am reading super fast and I am skipping things and they're yelling in my ears. The person, You're going, what are you doing? What are you doing? And you can't answer them on the air. I don't want to say, well, if you look in the monitor, I'm bleeding. Gushing blood. Like, not just a little dab that nobody was. So, yeah, that. And then one time during the NCAA tournament, I had the flu for a couple days.

And we were in Minneapolis, was with Bill Raftery and Michelle Tofoya, who was at CBS at the time, was our sideline reporter. And we're doing the elite eight. and it's a big game and I feel like death I mean literally and one of the guys on our crew you know it's horse and dehydrated

I've been sick and one of the guys in the crew said I used to work with Pat Somerall the late great Pat Somerall let me make you what I used to make for him when he was a little dehydrated for a different reason and it had all this

lemons and stuff in it I think that exacerbated you know, sometimes you start burping something that you ingested. And you're like, this might have been worse. And we got to the under four media timeout, you know, I kept looking at the clock, like, I just want to make it to halftime so I can run somewhere and get sick. And it's still 350 to go, whatever.

And I said to our producer, like, I either need to, someone needs to bring me a bucket. I'm just going to stick my head under this table or I need to get up. And they had warned Michelle, like Sean if he goes down for the count you need to be ready so they said no just run go so I get up here comes Michelle

I think she's still mad at me to this day in matter of fact I just talked about this because there was a she lives in Minnesota and the writer up there did an article about Michelle was really like the first woman to ever do the NCAA tournament because she filled in on play by play for the and I one of the team trainers came in at the half and gave me some medicine, said, you'll, you'll be able to finish

the game. He said, you might feel like crap on the flight home tonight, but this will help you at least get to the end of the game. So yeah. And then of course, Pat O'Brien, I think it was in the studio, Sean McDonough had to leave. He's taken ill. And now, you know, my friends and family all think, you know, did he have a heart attack? What happened? But, uh, well, no more of that. No, it's not as glamorous as it looks. Nope, but yeah, that was, it's a terrible feeling. You're doing the elite eight and you're all fired up to do it and all you can think about, you know, we've all been that sick where all you can think about is how sick you are. And I probably shouldn't have done the game in the first place. But, uh, Michelle did a great job. Yeah. Don't puke on the mic. That's a good thought to have as you go out there. All right. Next one. Your Syracuse grad, which is the major sports broadcasting school. As you as you clarified earlier, between the two other of the big ones. You know, ones Northwestern and Maryland. Which one brings you... What's that?

Is this the Drew Stoltz rankings? Yeah, this is pretty... They're both really good. Yeah, Northwestern, I mean, there's a million... They're quick to tell you on every broadcast, but Northwestern and Maryland. Mike Greenberg, Brent Musburger, Michael Wilbonne. Tons of them.

I mean, they're everywhere. All right, between Northwestern and Maryland, which one brings you more joy when they lose a big game? You know what? I just don't have that emotion at all. I knew you're going to say it. Yeah, I don't care. He's a nice guy.

Yeah. No, I don't. Deep down. It's probably Northwestern. I am more, like when Syracuse's rivals lose, maybe I get some joy out of that. When your colleague's school that you work with all the time, they lose a big one and don't get to play in the Big Ten championship or whatever it might be. That isn't like, oh, that's nice. Yeah.

Forget those. See, like Chris Collins is a friend who the basketball coach at Northwestern. I like Fitz, too. He's a good guy. He's done a fantastic job. They just gave him like a 92-year contract to keep being the coach because the NFL teams. we're going to start coming there. And yeah, same thing about Maryland.

I don't harbor any ill will. Yeah. It's a nice guy. You know, what's that? You're just a nice guy. You don't wish bad on anyone. I really don't. I wish bad on a lot of schools.

He hates everyone. Yeah, really much everyone. Do you have some more than the other? See, I would like to interview you guys and ask you tough questions. Oh, we can do that. We can say that. No problem. What school do you hate the most?

Which school do you hate the most? Yeah. I love seeing Texas, Liz. why? Because they run where everyone goes. They get all the recruits. They get all the best stuff. They got the most money. I know, which is great. Abolene Christian the other night. Exactly.

It blew up my bracket. Yeah. Yeah. You were the only one. Do you have a school that you hate? I mean, I grew up. I was a Texas fan, so I hated Oklahoma in Texas A&M. Yeah. And everyone else in the state. So that's natural. Like when I was in school, the big rivalry

was Syracuse Georgetown. And that was in basketball. And that was as heated as it could possibly be. Literally, you just waited until when's the first fight. And not like today where they hold me back, hold me back. I mean, this was guys really trying to get at each other and throw some haymakers, including the coach. See, I love that.

That's great. Yeah. Yeah, that's fun. Although I'm glad that Coach Beheim never got close enough to John Thompson because as much as I love Coach Beheim, I don't think that would have ended well. That's a tough matchup. But coach would not go down without a fight. I'll tell you that.

They're in different weight classes. Yes. All right, number seven. Was Monday Night Football with John Gruen the first time you had the best hair on the broadcast? It would have to be, right? You're probably the only time. Yeah, I mean, I looked at someone sent me a clip the other day of an old Red Sox thing. I had like the worst comb over.

Actually, it was not a Red Sox game. It was Raftery and I doing the 1992 NIT final. And Corey Alexander sent it to me who I just did the ACC Termin. It was a great player, Virginia. He was in the game. and he was watching on TV and he took a screenshot of the on camera and I mean it's like everything look if there was a gust of wind it would have just been strands of hair going this way and um when gruden

gruden's got to be tough when grudin went to the raiders um somebody sent me again i'm such a non-social media person but i don't know the difference between like a meme or a gif or whatever those things are i don't either but it was a yeah it was a picture of of John and Mark Davis. And the caption said, yeah, the caption said, the $100 million contract that John Gruden signed with the Raiders is believed to be the largest deal ever between two people who cut their own hair. Yeah, Mr. Davis, he's got, it's not good.

Yeah. With John, I got to feel like the hair and makeup people come in. There's like, all right, yeah, that's good. That's the good as we don't have, we did not have hair. That's as close as we're going to get. We had makeup people, but we did not have hair people. All right. Next one.

More intoxicating moment for you. The first time you saw Finway Park or the first time you met J.Lo. Well, I don't remember the first time I saw Fenway Park because I was really, really young. Jay Low for sure. Yeah. Well, there's actually two. The first time I met her was, I believe, at Matt Damon's. 30th birthday party in New York.

And Matt had just made Legend of Bagger Vance. And yeah, I mean, she came in with a few other really famous people. And she's spectacular. Have you seen her in person? No, but I have it pretty well locked into my brain. So what does she smell like?

They hang out a lot. Yeah. We're familiar. So now, obviously, fast forward. She's with Ben Affleck. and do you remember the Red Sox Yankee playoff game when they had the fight in Pedro Martinez threw Don Zimmer on the ground?

And I loved Zim. You know, when I was a kid, Zim was the manager of the Red Sox. My dad and he were friends. Zim was a really, really nice man. So anyway, it was like a four o'clock in the afternoon start, you know, in the fall, with kind of the gray sky and the sun low in the sky. And I remember.

a couple friends of mine at the baseball tavern down the street. There's four of us and we're getting close to game time. So let's walk up the street. So it's only a block or two to Fenway. And there's a Lincoln navigator or something that's crawling along in the traffic. And we're on the sidewalk, walk, walk. And I hear out of the window fake Boston exit, Sean McDonough, you're a wicked haughty.

And I look over and it's Affleck. So I walk over and kind of, you know, give them the bro hug through the glass. And Jennifer is sitting next to him. And it looked like Hollywood had spent 24 hours lighting this. You know, it was like the sunroof, the sun perfectly through. Like, me and she just, so I say to my three buddies, hey, come over here. And they're like, we've met, we're good.

We've met Ben before. You know, I'm like, no, come over here. So they came over and I said, and this is Ben, this is Jennifer. Well, for six innings, I don't think any of the three of them said one word. You know, it was like they were in a trance. That is awesome. Yeah. And I think she's, I've met her a few times since.

You know, obviously with Alex Rodriguez doing the Sunday night games, she's traveled around to some of the games that he's done around Major League Baseball. And she seems to be a very nice person. I certainly don't know her well, but seems to be. be a nice person. She seems to be very nice. I say everybody's nice. I would agree. But I'm an easy grader. I like you two. I envision her as a very nice human. All right. Last one. You're good buddies. Is this the longest it's ever taking people to answer nine questions? No. No. I love it. That's why you're here. Your good buddies, Jay Billis and Bill Raftery are both hanging from the side of a building as you

arrive. Oh God. Okay. I love where this is going already. They both fall. Rafftery. They both fall at the same time. Who am I saving? Who? Who is. What are you trying the hardest to catch? Oh, that is so mean, cult. It's a no-win situation. No, it's a no-win situation. It would be easier to catch Raftery. You'd be on Billis is a big guy.

Gosh, that's like which one of your children would you say? I mean, they're really true. We like to put you in tough spots here. Yes, you do. I don't know. It'd be tough. You know, Raftery's probably a little closer to the end than Jay. I thought you would let him drop because I watched...

But he would survive it. God would not... God would say Phil Raftery, no matter how slim the odds were of him surviving. I watched a 10-minute video on YouTube where Raftery absolutely abused you. Oh, you did? Yes. When he spoke at my induction into the... It was incredible. It was a roast.

I was laughing so hard. It was great. You know, it's the student radio station Hall of Fame, which is a historic station in Syrac, W-W-A-E-R. So they have a Hall of Fame. So they are putting in here. So I asked, Raff's not even a Syracuse person, right? It's very nice to him.

I think it was in the summer to come up and, you know, take a day to present me. And I really regretted that I invited him. I love it when you get in the Hall of Fame at Syracuse radio, it's a roast. It's not like, hey, come up and say something nice. It's like destroy this guy.

And what peeved me was that he used some jokes that I think I had given him in the past. Oh, he stole. turn them on me, which is, there's nothing worse than that. Using your own material on you. But I love Raff. I mean, I just, I love Raff. He's the best. Tough break.

When my phone rings at midnight, I know it's him. You know, usually you stop, I don't want to say drunk dialing people, but when you're like 22 or whatever, you get out of college, maybe that's not a thing anymore. But a couple years ago, my phone rang, it was really, really late. But not as late here because we're an errand. Arizona. So it's a basketball coach. So when I answered, I said, well, I don't want to accriminate. I said, hey, Jay Wright, at this hour of the night, I said, at this hour of the night, I thought it was going to be raftery. And he said, who the hell do you think I'm with?

Exactly. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, Sean, thank you so much, my man, for sitting down. Thank you, guys. Always a pleasure. I'm so happy for your success, surprised by it. But happy for it. You're not alone. No, not surprised. You guys have quite a following now. You know, when I, we're out here in Arizona, and I think I told you before, you know, when I was on with your radio show one time,

some buddies from my from Boston, like, you know those guys? That's awesome. Yeah. No, you got a great following. Unfortunately. So you're fun and you're great at what you do, and you know what you're talking about.

Thank you so much. And we appreciate that, man. And good luck. Not possible. Thanks for having me. My pleasure, guys. All right. Well, that was Sean McBee,

Dunna on golf subpar. I mean, what a career he has had. And obviously, it's not, it's far from over. But he's been some of the coolest places in sports called some of the biggest games there is. Really cool to sit down and talk with him. Yeah, I got into Monday Night Football there for a little bit, but it's called everything under the sun. The most impressive thing I think, and kind of, you know, we do some broadcasting on radio for golf. You do it on television, things like that.

Baseball has so much dead time. And you don't really think about it until you're the guy that's got to fill all that airtime with talking and doing baseball coming right out the gates and start with baseball. like that's got to be the toughest given there's like a minute in between pitches and you're just like, oh, what a beautiful day. We got, you know, you just got to make shit up on the spot just to keep the thing going. And he does it as well as anybody. It's impressive. I mean, some of the places he's been, Cameron Indoor, you know, calling games at Notre Dame everywhere all around. I mean, he's obviously diehard Syracuse, which he bleeds orange. Yeah, and he's another one of those guys, you play around to golf them. You're going to get three or four stories that you never heard before that are

awesome. Also, these guys that call so many different sports like he does, they're brains and how many stats and just different things they can remember going back. You can, you cannot give like a sports trivia question that Sean doesn't have the answer for. It's crazy like the way they compartmentalize all those different sports. And I love the fact that he didn't really say it, but I know he believes it. He does have better hair than John Gruden. Yeah, without quite. If you got, yeah, you don't need, I think, just by default. If you're a breathing human being, bald, flow, whatever, you probably above him on the standing. Awesome. Well, that was a blast. Slays, let's get to the gambling part. You actually had a good week this week. I'm

very impressed. Don't say it like that. This was coming. I said I had a feeling. This was the week. And thank God, money's so stacked towards the top, so, so heavily weighted. I was like, if they lose this playoff and I get whatever the second place money was, I was going to lose it. This got me right back in the discussion. Well, let's tell the listeners what you were trying to pull before, because we were discussing, you know, coming down the stretch, if your team won of Cam Smith and Mark Leashman, producer Mark asked us, he goes, do we add up both guys totals? Correct. You said, yes, of course you do. This is a huge week, which would have valued over $2.1 million.

So basically what you're saying is the Zirk Classic is more valuable than the Masters. No, it was like 1.067 or whatever for the win and then like 400 and so. Wouldn't have been a 1.5 split? No, no. 1.3 for first place in a purse as large as the Zirk and then 800,000 for second place. 2.1. So all of a sudden, now the Zirk is the biggest thing. You're using two guys up.

You're getting a lot ahead of yourself. You're getting a little crazy. That's not how you do it. You made just under $1.1 million for the win. Congratulations to you. But stop trying to cheat the system. What am I supposed to do? argue against myself. Like, no, give me whatever the least amount of money it is I can possibly win.

That's what I want this week. We used two picks. I was trying to get two dollar amounts. Add them up. Well, if that's logic. If that was how it was, then this would be the most important term of the year. I would argue that it should be. It takes a lot of skill to analyze two players and then pick the right team. All right. Well, congratulations on picking one of the top picks. Thank you. All right. Producer Mark, did he cut into that lead a little bit? Yeah, as Sleeves mentioned, it was a very top heavy payout. So he brought home a $1,069,000. $300. And you had that T4 with two other teams, but was only good for $209,667, trimming the lead to $800,346.

Jesus, I was getting my ass. I thought it was closer than that going into the week. It wasn't. God, where did I go wrong? I finished T4, guys. It's not like I picked the bum out there. But it's still $800,000 difference and I'm still down $800. I was down $1.6.

That match play killed me. All right. still chipping away. We'll get back to the cliches in a minute. All right. Here we go. We're on to the Valspar championship. Innesbrook.

My golf course. One of the toughest golf courses on the PGA tour. Paul Casey is the two-time defending champion. This place always used to bitch slap me around. I think I made the cut one year and finished like 70th. It is a hard, great golf course. Yep. This is a hard golf course.

Big boy golf course. You don't see the minus 24s and things win in here. So you got to go with the big name. Paul Kate, this is one of those ones is like, all right, it's slapping you in the face. You've got to pick Paul Casey. He's back-to-back champion. and he plays great here.

He's coming on our show and said he plays great here. You got to pick him. I go against the grain type of a fella. I'm going to go with a guy that plays well on really hard golf courses. Patrick Reed, okay? Good course history here. Lost playoff in 2015, not there. T2 and 2018.

You go back to his last five events. Top 25 and four of those, including an eighth at the Masters, which is the last time we saw him playing, putts it and chips it pretty much like Camp Smith, one of the best on the planet. I'm going to go with Patrick Reed at the Valspar. Well, it's going to be hard for you to cut into my lead. I know you're not going to like this,

but I do my research the night before. I figure out who I want, and I'm going to commit to it. This guy, he's lost in a playoff to Jordan Speath here. He's finished second to Paul Casey a couple years ago. He had a very poor 2019 here. That's all right. He forgets about those things. Patrick Reed's my guy.

I have several different pools. I'm not changing for you. Listen, I'm not going to mix it up and I'm not going to do this one. I have four one and done pools. I can't change up my lineup and have a different one here and there. I'll get all confused. Patrick Reed's my guy. Sorry, Slais. This is what happens when you get hot, dude?

People want to ride the wave. They want to just draft behind you, like the fucking tour to France. I'm actually worried that Patrick Reed now is going to miss the cut because as cold as you've been all year. I don't want to come down. Not feeling too cold right now. Patrick Reed. All right, this is the strategy. I knew this would happen.

Once I get hot, you can pick the same and then it gets jammed up. Well, just think you should be happy because now you get the honor again next week. Are you going to pick my same guy next week? I don't know. I did my research in the car on the way over. You don't do any. Well thought out. Yeah, as you were late getting here.

And we came with the same guy. Just a little. All right. Well, we both got Patrick Reed this week. So probably fade Patrick Reed. Probably still going to be. I feel like I'm going to be down about 800,000 going in the next week. All right.

Yeah, exactly. I'm okay with it. All right. Well, that's going to do it for us. Next week, another huge guest in a beautiful human being. Tell them who we got. Adam, Thielen. If you don't know, now you know.

And you all know he's a star wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings. We got to play some golf with him. Got to sit down and talk with him. Dude, a 10. We always give Mark Moller shit for being the perfect human being. Like, what do you suck at? Why are you not good? I think Mark maybe taking a little slip down the totem pole.

I'm feeling might be bumping up because it's hard to find a flaw in this. He's good at golf. He's good at football. He's nice. He's well-spoken. He's all the shit. Great interview. Good looking football.

Rich. He does it all. He was fun to talk to, too. We have a really cool interview. We get into some of his early, you know, how he got to NFL, which has been told a bunch of times. But then some golf and some other stories, too, that I don't think a lot of people know. Yep. Check it out.

on next week's Golfs Upar. Everybody have a great day.