Subpar - Subpar Special Edition: 2019-2020 FedEx Cup Playoffs Recap

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

On a special Labor Day edition of GOLF's Subpar, former PGA Tour pro Colt Knost and his close friend and on course rival Drew Stoltz break down the Tour Championship and take a look back at the rest of the 2019-2020 FedEx Cup Playoffs.

Hello world. Welcome to another week of golf subpar, Colt Nost and Drew Stoltz. Slees, we just finished the FedEx Cup playoffs, and Dustin Johnson is king, kind of like he's been for the last month on the PGA tour. Yeah, it feels like the season just restarted now. It's over already, and DJ just hit a different gear in the last month, and it's been weird. It's like we've seen little clips from this before. I think it was 2017 where he had like three wins leading up to the Masters and then fell down the stairs or something weird. Something happened to him lifting a jet.

jet ski, whatever, and hurt his backs. We've seen him go through stretches like this, but dude, I mean, you rewind like five, six months ago before people, he dropped to like 115th at one point on the FedEx Cup rankings. And then in the last month, it's just been like, bam. And it's been an absolute beatdown. Yeah, I mean, like you said, he's gone second first, second first. He's had the 54-hole lead in all four of his last four events, which is just nuts, sleeping on the lead, going to the final round every time.

And he just continues to show up and perform. I mean, the only two he didn't win. He loses in a playoff at the BMW championship. to a crazy put from John Rom, and then Colommercowah shoot 64 on him in the final round of a major when he went out and shot 68 with the lead. Yeah, dude, he's inches away from winning four straight leading up to this thing, and I don't think at the end of this week, like, you can say whatever you want about the format, which we'll talk about here in a minute, but the whole deal of this FedEx Cup playoffs, let's identify

the guy that's playing the best at the end of the year in the playoffs, and without question, you got the guy. I mean, for the first time and a long time with all the juggling, it's been going around from world number ones, right? It's been kind of like a game of hot potato. like JT has it, ROM has it, DJ has it, whatever. For the first time in a long time, like this guy should be here for a little while

because he is clear cut playing the best golf in the world right now. There's no doubt. And how about this stat? He took a five-shot lead into the final round of the Tour championship. That was his 12th, 54-hole lead of three shots or more in his career on the PJ Tour. Yeah, that's a gris of 54-hole leads of three-bar. This is a little different since I guess he started off with a lead,

but the 11 other ones. Yeah, I've had three-shot leads. And that's the thing, dude. You start with the lead. It's different. You know, no one ever starts off on Thursday with a two-shot lead. But just sleeping on the lead is a different deal altogether than just, you know, getting a lead on a Saturday and sleeping on it one night. When you're sleeping on it four nights in a row, that's a grind.

But my man, DJ did not look too disturbed by pretty much anything out there. I want to get the data on his whoop and see what his actual heart rate gets up to because it looks like it's like my sleeping rate. I think he's a little more nervous than he shows, but that's what's so great about him. Because I think the other people look at him and they're like, oh, this guy's not panicky. and he's trying to win 15 million. I've got to do something really special to catch him. But I think we need to talk about what he does on the last toll of these tournaments off the T. Like, it is so impressive.

If you go back to even when he lost the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay because of the three putt, the T shot he hit off the par five there into this 10-yard neck. And it was like 340 yards long. It was unbelievable when he won the U.S. Open at Oakmont. That's the one I mean, just a 360 missile. And you even go back to the Travelers and the Hartford just a few weeks ago. Same thing. Steps up 354 right down the point.

pipe when you got to hit the fairway and then same thing with this week. Steps up on 18, two shot lead over Sanford. Could it easily hit an iron, three wood, whatever, been like, I'll make par, you go make eagle and you see if you can get a plow. Yeah, I mean, so the tournament's definitely not over. A lot of people I feel like kind of thought it was, but he steps up there with driver, absolutely blisters it and ends up having an iron into the green and makes an easy birdie to go ahead and win by three.

Yeah, it's one of those guys that I feel like when he's under the gun, he wants driver more than anything else. You know what I mean? That's probably the club that he's got the most confidence with. You mentioned like four or five different times. The one at Chambers Bay where he hit the drive down there and he had like 15 feet to win the golf tournament, two puts to win and ends up three whacking it. But dude, he got down there and I saw where his ball was. I was like, how is driver even in your thought process right there?

There's literally 15 yards maybe of space for you to hit it and he just grabbed it and hit it. And that's why when he's doing that, and he didn't even drive it really all that well this week, especially the first couple days, man, he's hitting no fairways and was still able to hold on to that lead and hold it throughout the week. He's an absolute beast right now. But what do you, there's a lot of conversation about the format. Do you like the format of this thing? I know they've juggled it a few times. It's our second year with staggered scoring.

Do you like the way that it's structured right now? And if you're going to change something, what would you change? So I do like it compared to the years past. You know, when you didn't know where you stood and if a guy made a putt to finish eighth, he could take the FedEx Cup trophy away, stuff like that. I like knowing that the winner of the Tour championship wins it. Now, do I exactly like the difference of 10 shots between 30th? Right.

Is 10 too much? I don't know. And is giving a game? guy two-shot lead too much. I don't know. I just know that whoever plays the best should be the number one seed going in. You know, match play is too dangerous for TV. Yeah, let's get to that because match play is what a lot of people propose.

Like, dude, just put 32 guys in and run a match play and a winner takes all. But then it's like, all right, let's take this year, for example. Let's say there was three events like there typically is before East Lake, right? What if DJ goes first, first, second? And he's just steamrolling everybody. He gets in there day one. Dude, you could easily catch the 32 suit who goes out and has a day and bam. There goes Dustin Johnson out of the tournament.

He's clearly been the best player. He got beaten one round and now he's not in the field anymore. Yeah, and that's why I don't think that format works. I think a lot of people at home think that. But then obviously, if you're making it to the Tour Championship, you're a great player and got a name that most people know. But still, it's no disrespect to some of the guys. If it ends up with those two at the end, two lesser-named guys.

If you get Lanto Griffin versus McKinsey Hughes. Brendan Todd or McKin, like, no disrespect those guys. You make these like you're a beast. But like TV-wise, does that move the needle for you versus like, Oh, final round, we got DJ, Rom, Rory, and JT, all right there. Yeah, in the last two groups, it was the number one rank player, two, three, and seven. I mean, what are you, in the final standings for the FedEx. Number one wins, number three finishes tied for second, and then John Rom finishes fourth,

and he's number two player in the world. Like, you got all the guys up there. Like, this is what you want your leaderboard to look like. So I don't understand why people are so frustrated with it. Yeah, I agree. It's supposed to reward the best. But if you want to just say, hey, the whole goal is just to get the Eastlake and then it's a free-for-all, you can do it. And I think in theory, it's pretty cool to have like a 18-hole match for $15 million.

I think a lot of people would like to see that. But the risk, TV-wise, is you run into one of those deals. And there's going to be upsets. Look at the matchplay every year at WGC. Nick O'Hern beat Tiger Woods for Christ, you know what I mean? Like, that wasn't good for TV. You run into that at Eastlake. It's like, all right, this is not exactly the finale we want.

If you have the tour championship and it's just, you know, everybody starts at zero and and winner takes all, like kind of what's the point of having the other rounds? What's the point of win in the first three? Let's say you win the first three. Now I started it even with these guys. and it's just win or take all on this thing. So I think they're doing it right. I don't know what I would change.

Like, is it perfect? I don't know. I think maybe starting 10 shots back, those guys that are in 30th. I don't think you can really win it. Rory came back, I think, from seven, right? And Roy's a special beast. And Zander came back from seven and almost did it.

Oh, I'm sorry, he came back from five. Zander was seven back this year and made a run. I mean, but... So maybe do you tighten it? But then, so what? You give Dustin Johnson a one stroke lead over John Rom? It's like he just finished first and second, playing the best of everyone.

He gets one shot over Rom. Rom goes and birdies one and DJ bogeys it and now it just flip-flops. It's a lot of work to not get much of a lead. So I don't know how you do it. It's not like a sport, a team sport where you're playing one team and then you advance and play another team in advance.

It's different. You know, I had the idea because people didn't like Dustin starting two shots ahead. But I was like, okay, well, what's the deal? If he wins the first two legs of the FedEx Cup playoffs, like he still, he could have, if it was a points game, this thing would be over because he's so far ahead.

And they changed it out of that because Vijay did that. Yeah. So why not each win? win, let's get to take a stroke off the score going into Eastlake. So if Dustin would have won those first two playoffs, instead of starting to 10, he starts at 12. Now he's got a four-shot lead because he's obviously dominated this. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting ways to think. Yeah, it's, I don't know if like, the only thing I would think I would change right now would be like the guys that start 10 back. Is that too much? Like in theory, you know, could they win it? Yeah, I guess.

If lightning strikes and all the guys at the top play terrible and some guy gets on fire back there, but I mean, how many guys can win tournaments by 10? We saw DJ do it just recently. I think there's maybe two guys on tour that can do it. Like, I don't really feel like those guys that starting at two under, one under, and even are really even like a consideration. I mean, it would have to be a freaking like a lining of the stars for any of those guys to play their way in and win it. But that's what I think should happen.

There's a reason they're coming in 30th and Dustin's coming in one. So I like that. You should have to play the best tournament in your life to catch a guy and win $15 million. Right. Just in team sports, we're going to draw that comparison again. Like what happens in the NFL? You go undefeating the regular season. You're the number one seed.

Guess what you get? A buy. Then what do you get? Home field advantage, the rest of the way through. all the way to Super Bowl. That's a pretty damn big home field advantage is pretty damn big. I'd argue one game home field advantage is bigger than a two shot lead in a 72 whole golf tournament.

I totally agree. Well, let me ask you this, though. $15 million is on the line. Sleez is in the final group. How many shot lead do you need it? Who's chasing me? Who's chasing me? D.J. is my nearest guy. How many shot lead do I need?

Am I playing tomorrow? Do I get a little bit of time to tighten up? I did just come back from a golf trip, so I am fairly tight. No, it's tomorrow. Tomorrow, DJ. is hunting me down. I'm going to need I'm going to pencil DJ in chasing me for 66 to 5. Pinsils of Slees in

at East Lake. Trickey. I'm not great at Bermudical as you know. I'll have to go with the give me 7 and I've got a chance with 7. So you just said he shot 66. You're going to shoot 73. You're going to shoot 72 to win. I might, dude. You know, I've done some crazy things in my day, bro. What would you take? Seriously.

What do I think you need? There's only one guy chasing me. It's DJ basically. I don't got a, Rory sitting there at 8back? I don't know. It's just a hypothetical. I know. I like to dig into these things pretty deep, though. With seven, I take the bet, I think. Okay. I got to stare them in the eye, though. I don't want him playing in the group behind me.

I want to look him in the face when I take that. Send them a DMC. See, if y'all can settle up for that 15 million. You saw Kisner said, how much would a 12 handicap? How many strokes would you need this week going into? What did Kisner say? 68. 68 pops on 12.

A 12 handicap. That would be a fun way to add a little juice to this thing. Just let some random. Let the East Lake Sea Flight winner of the club championship show up and play and see where they go. Let the club champion play. Yeah, good point. Let him play. I mean, it's still a totally different deal. It'd be awesome to watch. But congratulations to Dustin Johnson. This year's FedEx Cup champion. And guess what, guys, you get to take a quick nap and you tee it right up again now for the 2020, 2021 season. Yeah, that's going to get annoying to say. We're going to call this the 2021 season. I totally agree. We cannot do that all season long. That'll be disastrous. We have enough tough time as it is. That is true. But I cannot believe the season's already starting. And look, we just got a little break. And then the U.S. Open is right around the corner at Wingfoot. Dude, we're coming in hot right now, golf white. Like, we talked about this on our radio show.

radio show today. If you get hot right now in golf, which there's a guy doing it, you got a chance to do some weird stuff because you got more big tournaments crammed into a short period of time than there's ever been in the world of golf. I mean, DJ's going to be the huge odds-on favorite at Wingfoot as he should be, but then you turn around and then you start trotting out all the other you got the Masters right after that, then you got, you know, run it back with the Masters again and they just start coming, man. Yeah. Do you think he can continue this run? Yeah. I mean, look at him. What do you look at him and say like, nah, that'll probably go away. I mean, when he gets like this, dude, we've seen it in little stretches before.

It's hard to play this well for this long. You know, stretch that out for, he's been doing it for about a month now. Stretch it out for another month or two to get to the Masters. Like, it's tough, but damn, how are you about against the guy right now? Yeah, he's looking great, but I tell you what, I cannot wait for the U.S. Open at Wingfoot. I mean, with just all the top guys playing well. I mean, you got J.T. They are like Broms right there.

He's playing great. J.T. made a push. Didn't put it great the first couple days, or he would have been right there. He would have been right there. but I mean, Rory showed a little bit of form for a couple days last week. It's going to be really fun to watch. I can't wait to get another major going. It's going to be fantastic.

But speaking of major, you had one of your majors. Took a little trip to Bandon Dunez. We've touched on. And I heard you got a little story for Funny Money for it this week. Yeah, a little funny money story. All right, so Coltsey. Took a little golf trip up there to Bandon, wanted to work on my trash, flighting it down.

First couple days we get normal Bandon weather. It's blowing 30, dude. It's the real deal. It's tough. We got a couple loopers out there. Shout out to these guys. Jason Castles and Nick the Stick up there at Band and taking care of us. So we're having a good time. We're having some pops. We're cruising around.

I think it's the second day I've been playing. We're on the, we're at Sheep Ranch, okay? And it's a super foggy day. Wind wasn't crazy that day, but we get up to this hole. It's not a hard hole. 425, 30 yards, typically plays into the wind, but no win. There's like a hundred yard gorse, right, in front of you that you got to carry. It's no stress. But our caddy takes one of my boys' clubs out. Our boy, Drew Kittleson, takes his driver out, flips it upside down and starts swinging it left-handed. He's got a nice action left-handed. I'm like, obviously, he's a lefty. I was like, oh man, you got a nice move. Do you play and all this stuff? You actually know the guy.

I used to loop with the rock, Nick. I don't know his last name. Just call him Nick the stick. Anyway, so he's flipping the club upside down. I was like, man, nice move. I was like, can you play like, ah, not really? I was like, come on, T1 up, let's play. And he's down playing.

Like, no, dude, I probably can't do it. I was like, all right, I give you a prop. You make better than double you win. You make double or worse, I win. So over and under five and a half. And he's like, okay. Then the other caddy, Jason Castle, Shams. and he's like, all right, I'll take Nick.

And I was like, okay, this feels like, maybe you've seen this before. They've done this before. I was like, all $100, let's go. Get up there. I put this all on Instagram, so I was following it. You could watch it. He gets up there, takes a practice swing. This first drive he hits with the upside-down club.

Dude, it's this 260-yard seed, baby fade. Looked like what DJ was hitting yesterday with it, like, it's two iron. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm in deep shit. And then the hole that we picked, you could bounce the ball all the way. You could put it from 100 yards if you wanted. He flips this two-iron upside-down, chips it up there, rolls right. It rolls right by the flag over the green, chips it up, two-putt, easiest hundred bucks this dude ever made. And immediately, I was like, you son of a bitch.

And right after I was like, y'all done this before, honey, he's like, yeah, this ain't the first time. I'm like, you, sons of bitches. You can't spot the sucker. It was me. You're the sucker. It was me. Then we ran it back the next thing. I was like, all right, same bet tomorrow, but I get to pick the hole.

And we picked a harder. It was like 470, slight wind in. And he had like an eight-footer to win back-to-back days and thank God he missed. I couldn't handle a double fleece. All right. Well, I'm glad you made it back, you know, safe, sound, and not totally. Barely. Barely.

You had a little trip, too, a little shy town. Yeah, I played some golf up there, beautiful place. Beverly Country Club. How good is that joint? As long as you get there safely. Don't make a wrong turn. Not a wrong turn. Joint, bro.

It's a lot of fun. And then I went over to Conway before realizing that I have no future as a travel agent, Sleece. Yeah, I heard you had a little mix up. Tell me about it. Yeah, so I was coming home. I decided to change my flight a little early because I had a friend coming in town and didn't want them to be left alone all day because I was coming home that night.

Being the friend that you are. So I was hanging out, you know, having a good time in Chicago, you know, getting amongst it, as we say. Good for you. And decided to book my flight while I was. What time of night was this would you say when you're swapping flights out? 1030, 11-ish. Yeah, good time to switch it. All right.

Keep going. Like the right idea. So, you know, wake up 1150 flight from Chicago the next day. Come home. Everything's good. Get in the Uber, 10-20, plenty of time. Perfect. Yep.

Head in there. And I'm like, man, this is kind of weird. I've gotten like a notification to check in anything. So I pull up my American Airlines out and, well, just leaves my flight. was booked for October 5th. And it was September 5th. The old one month off routine. I just missed it by a month.

Had to call American Airlines. The lady had a laugh at me. I told her the whole story. And they were able to get me on a flight a couple hours later. It was all good. Good news for you. If you're in Chicago a month from now,

you're already booked home. You don't have to sweat it. And also, if I ever offered a bookie a flight, just say no. Yeah, I would never allow you to do that. I'm having enough issues with myself. I don't need to hand it off to another guy. But they old 1030 at night after 12 go-to-go flight changes.

Those are nice. It didn't go very well. Well, we had a little session. That's why we had no guests for this week. Colton, now we're both out of town, getting amongst it. We're going to be back soon with our normal routine here with some great interviews coming to you.

But first, we got to get some questions from producer Mark. What do we got? Got three questions for you guys this week. First one coming in from James Walker on Instagram is a bit of a gear question. He doesn't care what brands you're playing, but he wants to know what the composition of your bag is when you're going into a tournament style play.

Oh, like how the 14. clubs like wedges and all that what do you got well um mine are all calloway shout out calloway um i have a driver a three wood a five wood smart yeah what else a four hybrid which is my baby that's the one i hate more that's like most people's lob wedge yeah all right and then i go five through pitching wedge okay and then i go my wedge lofts are weird because i just go straight off numbers and for some reason when you have the equal gaping my numbers don't go right so i have a 50 degree gap wedge 54 sand wedge 60 lob wedge so six degrees instead of in the four i'd rather see you hitting your eight iron into a green than that fucking four hybrid i hate that thing like oh is it two 15 well this is a

that's a problem that's gary that is gary you got a little ape head cover i hate that little bass he's the best but uh yeah that's how i do that's a good setup going here a little secret i got right now about to reveal to the world when i'm not playing a term i'm going to play with 15 shocker yeah that's how i didn't even realize it until just recently i was like oh dude i've never taken this club back does that disqualify you for Probably for all my winning. No, dude, when I play for real with ROM, that's 14. At least we'll call it that.

My normal setup, I got driver three wood hybrid. The hybrid's like a two iron hybrid. Then I go, this is where it gets interesting. I go three iron all the way down, but I got four wedges. I got 60, 56, 52 and wedge. So when I'm playing a tournament, I take the four iron out. Because if I take the three out, there's too big of a gap between my four and hybrid. There's a massive, if I have like 230, I got nothing for it.

But that way I can just kind of open the face of a three iron or smoke a five. You're more of a member guest player nowadays. Of course. Do you take the club out during a member game? I do. I do. I'm a man of my, but by the way,

if I go through one of those, there's somebody at a member guest, it's like some rules die hard that'll, you're like, oh, you got 15, and you're disqualified from every match. So yeah, I take the, but it's the 4-iron every time I take out.

I suck with the 4-on anyways. I don't even know what I have it. But it's nice to have 15 in there. It's a good punch-out club. It's true. All right. What do we got next? Next question comes from Connor Gartner on Instagram.

Now, Connor was our 7,000 follower, and I like to interact with the fans a little bit, so I said, hey, number 7,000. Whatever question you want, I guarantee I will ask on the next episode. Okay. Congratulations, Connor. Shout out to Connor.

Appreciate you. He wants to know the next golfer to win the career grand slam in your eyes. I thought he was going to ask. So did I. So did I. I thought I was getting ready to make up a lie that didn't incriminate myself. I don't think I'm going out on a limb here or anything, but I'm going to go with.

Rory McElroy to win the Masters. He or Spieth are the only guys like close right now. I mean, Phil can win the U.S. Open. Phil could too. He's a betting favorite this week at Safeway too, which is shocking. But, yeah, I mean, I go Rory right off the jump. I mean, you've got to get Augusta. I mean, the place should be perfect for him, although it hasn't happened.

Yeah, but yeah, got to go Rory. One more for you guys. This was addressed to sleeves, but I think you should both answer it. It comes from Casey Young again on Instagram. Who is your trash talking mentor? Oh, God. I got one that's good. All right.

Go for it. And he doesn't play golf. But he does play golf, but he does not like, he's not like a tour player or pro golf or anything. And that is a man that resides in the great city of Denver, Colorado. Shout out to the Mahal City. Brandon Stokely. He's good. Former NFL wide receiver, a man that without Peyton Manning would probably be shoveling piss off the floor at a gas station.

But Peyton just fed him footballs right into between the numbers for his entire career. And he's actually responsible for getting Peyton to Denver. So God bless him for that. But Stokely, he's a Louisiana guy, right? He's got this little Cajun draw. Sometimes when he gets going, he gets a few drinks in him. Sometimes you need, like, Rosetta Stone. I'm like, dude, I don't even know what you're saying.

But he can go. He keeps going. He shoots about 95, but somehow he's always in every single bet. And he's got some really, really good rap. So I'll give it to my man, Brandon Stokely. I'm best smack talker out there. That's good. I mean, hard to go wrong.

I've talked to Stoke. He's very, very good. I don't know if I really have a mentor. Mine's just, I appreciate good trash talking, though. So I'll give you a couple great trash talkers on tour. How about that? Obviously, Phil Mickelson. no surprise. Very, very good. The sneaky one, I don't think the guy's get enough credit. Matt Coocher.

Yeah, I've heard he's super dry, super funny. He's got some good one-liners that he's hit Phil with in the past, too, when Phil was giving him good. Honorary mentioned Jason Duffner as well with the dry sense of humor. He can give it to him. Yeah, Duff's good. Duff's good. What's Kutcher's line when they were playing a pratis on at Augusta and Phil had this, like, hideous green belt on and Matt, you know, all green. He had this one, he had this one when he had the green gaiters and all that. And Phil said something like, Matt made a comment about his belt. And he was like, yeah, dude, you win. How many jackets does he have? Three or four?

this one. Well, he said it, when he said, yeah, you can get one of these when you win three green jackets. And Matt, yeah, I hope I only win one. Yeah. Yeah, I hope I only went two or something like that. So nice one. Yeah, I've heard Cooch is sneaky, sneaky funny. Well, Sleys, we do have to talk about our gambling picks for the year. They ended this week at the Tour Championship. We had a lot on the line. And with the Tour Championship format, it makes it kind of difficult. Yes, we had to get creative. Yes, because obviously, if you got the guy that wins the FedExup, you're going to win the whole thing. So that makes a little tough. So we kind of tried to figure out how to do it. in just a regular format if it was a regular tournament. And producer Mark and I sat down.

We did the numbers as close as we could. And it came out that you just barely won by less than $100,000. Yes. So congratulations. Thank you, Col. You're not sure if the numbers were correct. It feels right. Close enough.

But we're not going to do any picks this week for the Safeway because we're going to try to figure this format out. If you have any suggestions, send us some note on Instagram. And wagers, whatever should be on the line. Send that too. Yeah. So we're going to definitely try to figure that out this week. So we don't have this problem again next year.

Yeah, exactly. So I'll give you congratulations. Thank you very much. It was a hell of a battle. I was dead in the water a few weeks ago. The stars aligned for you. Well, then you change the rules in the middle of the season. But I mean, whatever.

Well, yeah, dude, you got to do something. You got to do something. You got to do something. Excuse me, New England Patriots. Y'all have won 16 games in a row. Y'all have to play with 10 players on the field for now. You get no quarterback. Figure it out.

I mean, come on. Let's get the rules. And we'll just set it all up and we'll have a real winner at the end of next season. Do you want me to give you the good news? What's that? You got a loop for me for 18? I'm super dialed right now. This is going to be the easiest loop of your life.

It's just point and aim lasers right there. I don't even want numbers half the time, dude. I'm just feeling it. So this is going to be an easy 18 for you. All right. Well, congratulations. Everybody enjoy the new PGA tour season. We'll be back on next week's golf subpar.