Ep. 109 - PGA Championship preview with Kyle Porter

get on the first tea not in St. Louis. More of a links player, no worries. Tift dot Com by the PGA Tour and it's thousands of courses have you covered? So book your next tea time on tif dot com by PG toward, the official tea time reservation site of the PGA Tour, and you do so without booking fees. That's right, no booking fees every course, every tea time. Plus, as a valued listener to the Clubhouse, you'll get to save an additional on deal times with the single use

promo code t Off Bacon. And yes, it is PJ Championship Week final major of the year, final time that the pjh Hchip will be the final major of the year. So plenty that goes into this week as we not just look ahead to the next four days, but look

ahead to kind of the historics. And so I asked Kyle Porter, a good buddy of mine, to come on and chat about the week, the year, who needs it, who doesn't really need the win, and of course what it's like to to cover Tiger Woods in eighteen Unlike a little bit of what we've seen in the past. You know, covering Tiger four or five years ago was golf related, but the last couple of years before it

was more about, um, the stuff around the golf. It was more about, you know, the injuries and the w d s and the and the the pain he's gone through and all of those things. So it was interested to have him come on and just chat a little bit about that. That's towards the end of the podcast. We of course jumped into some of the p J Champions stuff early. It was a fun list and so hope you enjoy it. And before we get to it, I just wanted to tell you that when it comes

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And also you might not know this, but Kyle helps out with Pistols Firing blog dot com, which focuses on Oklahoma State football. As we fast approached it and Kyle, this might be one of the first times ever that Arizona landed a cover of Sports Illustrated. And maybe Oklahoma State was not involved in that. I mean, Arizona football actually getting a little love. How nervous are you about that? Um?

I texted Joel Klatt yesterday and I told him I thought that his top twenty five videos were great, and all he wrote back was I didn't have Arizona in my top and I was like, well, thanks, just literally the only thing I ever asked. But people came here for some golf talk. Of course, it's PJA Championship week. And let me just say, for the last time, I'm gonna say it, despite everybody hating the fact that we still bring it up. This is truly Glory's last shot.

This is the last time we're gonna have the PGA Championship wrap up the season. It's always been the major, you know, with the identity that at least it's the final one, and that's going to change next year. So I asked you to start, which player do you feel like needs this major the most this year? And which player might not really need it? Which player where if they go through this week and don't win, it's not really going to be that big of a deal. That's

a good question. I think the player that needs it the most is is probably it's probably Ricky Fowler. I know everybody came here for the golf Ocahoma State Crossover takes um, but I think it's I think it's Fouler just from a man. It seems like we talked about him a lot in the fallout from every major. And I do think there's a difference between needing it the most and having the most to gain, because I think the player with the most to gain is Jordan's speek.

And I wrote about this for CBS Sports dot Com and in a piece on I think it's Monday or something. Um, Jordan's speek can go from sort of this narrative about how it's been a down year, even though we add the caveat a down year for Jordan's two one of the most historic seasons ever in that he could win the career Grand Slam, and it's like, there's no there's no leap that's greater for anyone who could who could potentially win this tournament. So those are the two guys

on that side. And then the guy who I think has the least a game by winning is actually somebody like Rory McElroy. Um, he's got four majors. Does it does another p g A really add to the way you feel about him? I? I don't. I mean historically no. Maybe because it's been a while, yes, But from a historical context, I don't think it really does. Well, we didn't play in this, but that is about as good as Segway as we could possibly have. The next question

I was gonna ask was about Rory and Jordan's. Um, these are two guys that were the next big things, right, I mean Rory came on and he was going to be the protegee to to Tiger and he was gonna take over the tour when Tiger got out of here, and Phil and Sergio and Adam Scott they all left, and then of course Jordan's speak burst on the scene. And he doesn't look like the whatever you wanna call it, the dominating figure that is Rory mclrory, but all he has it is between the years and he's able to

close things out. And you mentioned the Open wind last year, and these two guys have had brutal seasons. I mean, Rory had one really hot back nine and he got the wind out in in Florida, and speed has it on since that Open Championship you mentioned a year ago. We talked so much about these two guys, and while we're chatting about them, there's guys out there that are that are getting better and that are winning consistently. And

I'm talking about Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas. I mean, these guys are one A and one B. Why does it feel like when the conversation comes around these big events and the major championships, we all want to ask about Rory, we want to ask about Jordan's and we forget that we're seeing two players. I mean, Justin Thomass has really just turned himself into a world beater, and Dustin continues to do what Dustin does, and he picked

up his nineteenth win a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, I think it's probably because they're so far out in front in in terms of of majors, and so you want to talk about the guy who can get to eight or seven or nine or whatever it is in terms of major championships. And I always got to go back to the fact that it's insane to me. And I know you've talked about this on here before, but it's insane to me the list of players who have one major, right mean, Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Justin. I

mean it, Sergio, it's a joke. And so you start thinking around major championships about the guys, you know, concerns who get to seven. We don't really I think the general public doesn't really care if somebody gets to like two, And so I think that's why there's maybe even more further around JT, because he's, you know, eight or nine years younger than than DJ, and so you're like, oh,

how many? How many could he get to? We're so obsessed with the final number, and I think that because Speech and Rory are are so far out in front of everybody else in terms of total majors. That's why they get brought up so much around the four biggest events of the year. Yeah, but it's it's still, you know, the major talk. And this is major talk. I mean,

it's a major championship week. But you know, when you when you look at a guy like Dustin who goes out there weekend and week out and puts himself in the conversation and wins these events all the time, and and he does it better than anyone else has the last few years on the PGA Tour, and you think to yourself, he's playing similar fields, if not equal fields at some of these events, and he's able to win. Yet again, as you mentioned, he has one major. And

that was the backlash I got. I mean, I wrote after his win, I said, you know, we're watching somebody that's historically great, and I got a whole bunch of people that said, he only has one major. Only as one major championship. He's been in the conversation a lot, it just hasn't worked out those four weeks. Do we discredit these PGA Tour wins because we're so obsessed with, as you mentioned, kind of the final major number. Yeah,

we do. I really struggle with this because to me, and I was talking to Chip Patterson of CBS about this the other day, it's like, what's the difference between I mean, legitimately, what's the difference between the winning bridge

shown and winning this week at Belery right? I mean the field wise that I mean, you have more play, you have more golfers in the field at Bellerive at the PGA, but half of the half of the additional ones that you're adding are are pg A pro They're they're not they're not professionals, like they're not on I mean,

they're not professional golfers. There are these guys that just sort of got into the tournament of the PGA of America, And so you're basically beating the same field at a similar course, and and we're so obsessed with just slapping

the label of PGA Championship on there. And and I think that I think that we underrate UM winning I mean DJ winning nineteen times in this era, is that there needs to be some normalization, like like we do with UM, you know how you always do with so and so I made this much money in nineteen sixty and and you factor in inflation, there has to be some sort of deflation I guess or whatever looking backwards, because to win nineteen times in this era is unbelievable.

But we also, I think we we underrate winning at specific courses. So I was thinking about this. I think that I think that Justin Thomas is gonna win a lot, But what's the what's the best course that he's take him down? And I've gotten into, of course architecture a little bit more over the last year or two, and so you look at Jordan Speed and it's like, Wow, he wants Barkdale, he wont Augusta, he won Colonial, Like those are Yeah, of course, shout out to Fox, Uh

those are those are amazing courses. And I wonder how much like it just doesn't it doesn't feel like we separate guys who won at at certain courses from from others. But yeah, I agree with you that we overrate, we overrate winning majors, and we underrate winning We under rate kind of the level of field, right, because if you I mean Tiger winning eighteen deb g C, say whatever you want about the de w GC that it's an

elite field, and fields make fields make great tournaments. If if all of a sudden everybody stopped going to the Masters, it wouldn't be the Masters. It just wouldn't. And so you have to you have to have great fields to have great tournaments. And um to, I don't know that there there's no like different level of winning these these events other than the difference between Majors and everything else. And and I feel like there should be and and it's it's to me, and I thought about it a

lot more this year than I ever have. Is the PG eight Tour in in the sense of intrigue amongst the players, the guys in the field when it comes to winning or finishing fifth, I think is the lowest it's ever been because there's so much money involved in golf. There's so much money on the p g A Tour that if you win the bridge Stone, that's great, But if you finish third, you know, that's also really great.

I mean you, I think we we were chatting in our little nerdy golf group chat about Ricky's performance in the w g c's over his career, and he has no wins and has made over four million dollars, and that's what the PGA Tour is. And to me, when it comes to majors, that's the four times a year that these players really care about winning because they know, as we've chatted about already, where it puts them historically,

where it puts them amongst their peers. And so I almost feel like the players more than than than the media and more than the fans. The players hype it up themselves, and maybe that's why some of these guys have such a hard time winning them. I mean a Paul case you're a Lee Westwood. These guys were able to win, you know, of course, you know Paul Casey mostly on the other side of the pond, but they were able to win at events when they got themselves

in contention. But for some reason, the major idea of a major championship, you see guys fall apart late way more than you do at any other regular tour event. Yeah. Now, it's totally true. And you mentioned the money there. I do wonder and I don't know if if you've ever

talked to anybody about this off the record. I know that I haven't because it's sort of a weird thing to talk about but when you talk about the money, just what is it's so hard to stay motivated for like twenty years exactly as compared to when like we always joke about how Arnold Palmer or Giant Nicholas only made like one point five mill in their career or whatever.

That that was like they still made good money because they had all these endorsements or whatever, but they were not making this just these egregious amounts to where they didn't ever have to worry about I mean, they were

still like building towards something throughout their career. And you look at somebody like Rory and it's like, wow, I'm twenty five, I have probably a hundred million dollars, have won four majors, and you start looking around and you're like the only thing I have left to do is to win the Masters, right exactly. And that's why it's quote made more sense this year. Yeah, And it's like,

how do you how do you stay motivated? Like, even if you're the most ambitious, driven person on the planet, there has to be some level of of fall off. And I think that's why you start. I mean, we've gotten this run of of one time made our first time major winners over the last two years. The Patrick Reids kept going last year, Sergio, because those guys are still building towards something, They're still working towards something, and I think that falls off after you just naturally after

you win. And I don't I don't know, I don't know. This is not the question you asked. But I was just thinking about that as you were talking about money and when he Majors, Yeah, you you know what it's you. You brought up something that will be very interested to see, is, say, Rory wins the Masters next year, what does he do with his life? I mean, because we we know that there are those those groups of the players that you know, they they seem to always be together, and then there's Rory.

He was a little bit of an outlier in that group. You know, he doesn't he doesn't, you know, stay at the house at Carnousti with the entire group of guys. And he he hasn't been kind of in in any sort of the whatever you'd call it. I mean, I don't want to bring up the spring Break Boys, but you know that wasn't his his thing. That's never been his thing. He's always taken golf as a business and

that's been his business approach. And literally the money he made is what kicked him off of his own Twitter when he when he when he responded you don't remem who was it, Steve Elkington about how much money he'd made and if he wins the Masters, which he has been quoted as saying, is the last check mark in the thing he's focused on every year. What's he gonna do, you know, with the Bell Reeve and what's he gonna

do with these courses coming up? That maybe he's not massively passionate about it, it's gonna be very interesting that. The interesting thing to me was, i know, talking to Rory and talking to some people around Shinnekock headed into that US Open, that he was so pumped about that US Open. He loves that golf course, he'd been out there as much as anybody else, and then he struggled. So you know, maybe it's the motivation can be obviously be a benefit, and we've seen it at times and

then it could be a detriment. And of course we've seen that at the Master's overtime with him, where he's struggled when he's got himself in contention. After two thousand and eleven, he'll probably started, probably started a podcast. He's going to Inney beat all of us out. This thing is going to be done. Now. That's that's what's so impressive about about Phil, I think, and we don't. I mean, it's in it's insane that he's almost fifty years old

and he's just toiling away on the PA. He's going to Memphis and all these places, and you're like, this is crazy, like this, who what what? Nor? I mean seriously, like he's just he's just a lifer. And I don't I think there are some young guys like that. I think I think speeds a little bit like that, But I don't know that all of them are and is like his his Dustin Johnson gonna play the Senior Tour. Like it's just it's a different it's a different era,

it's a different way of of doing things. And I'm really intrigued to see how it's sort of because we always talking about, oh, all these young guys are winning, and it's like, well, maybe it's just the fact that everything skewing younger and we're we're not gonna see players play as much into their early mid to late forties.

Is this fills second year that in when when he passes away in whatever hundred and fifty years from now, it's just gonna be his gonna be the year after oh four that we remember him the most four because he he literally has done from start to finish, from winning too losing his mind to the commercial I feel like the might be the most headlines we've ever had from Phil Nicholson. Yeah, his win in Mexico feels like it was like eight years ago. Honestly, you forget to

be in a playoff. They keep showing that Justin Thomas highlight during that that kind of the recap um you know, it's like the whole out and the Rory fist pump and all those things, and and you're like, oh, that's right, it was Justin Thomas in the playoff with Phil. Yeah. It It's interesting because this is another thing that I've talked about with some people, and I don't like all this stuff is hilarious and like he's obviously just a legend.

But I also feel like the the worst you get at golf, like the more your game falls off, the less funny of that stuff becomes. Because you're like well, how much of this is just trying to stay in the public eye. And I don't really think that's what it is right now, because he's still playing pretty good golf.

He won this year. I mean, he's played you know, I think he I think over the next few years, and in the past few years, we've seen him kind of taper off at the end of the year just because he's almost fifty years old and so, but I still think he's he's competitive, he's good. I just worry that into his fifties and maybe beyond, it's like is this is this still funny? Or what are we doing here?

You know? This this has seemed like, at least for me, and I'd have to actually go back and see, I feel like I did pick Phil Niolson to win the Masters, because I feel like I do that every year, but this has seemed like the first year where headed into the post AUGUSTA Major championship schedule, I didn't ever feel like there was a realistic chance that Phil was gonna win. Yeah, I now he I've seen it some places. This week.

He's like a hundred one at the p g A and that's just as high a number as I've seen for him since I've been covering this, you know, it's it doesn't feel like he has a real shot at

a lot of these places. And then of course you're gonna have the one tournament and you've been big on this and I agree, and probably at Augusta where he's like fifty three and wins and we're like, oh my gosh, Phil is the greatest golfer of all time, and you know whatever, and so as as long as you get that, like I'm all in on all of it, but the end of his the hind of the end of his and Tigers careers, and especially if they're gonna dovetail together

like it seems like they are, it's gonna be super interesting. Let's take a quick break to just remind you the Bell Reef Country Club isn't the only must play in the St. Louis area. Tape Wingo National Golf Club is a Gary player design that features the same tight tree lined fairways and classic park land field. Plus it's a lot easier to get on the first t y because

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with a single use promo code t off bacon. That's a t off dot com. Use t off bacon. You'll save twenty five. All right. Back to Kyle Okay to ask a couple of pg Championship questions, and then we're gonna jump into a little tiger and it's gonna be tiger talk unlike you expect. First things first is and this isn't about the golf course. Is about the p G A. How much better is p G A year when you know the Ryder Cup is is after it? Yeah, it's it's way better because like and I don't know,

I don't know if everybody thinks like this. I know that I do. I know that you probably do. I know that a lot of the people in the golf media. Dude, this is the this is the last week to qualify for the Ryder Cup. And I think that's sort of gone, um just kind of it's fine under the radar. I mean, if if Tony Fine wins this week, he's he's probably on the Ryder Cup team. If Andrew Shoffley wins this week, he's probably on the Ryder Cup team. And so I

don't know, you'd have to do the math. I don't know how it all works out, but it is really interesting because if you get somebody on either team that wins this tournament, they're gonna not only do you win a major, but you get onto a elite stag Writer Cup team. And I think that that makes it. You know, we've already seen the first three winners this year all going to be in the Ryder Cup. It would be pretty cool if if all four of them are for for somebody who wins the p G A. Yeah, it's

a little bit of a different Writer Cup approach. I feel like this year everybody's like it's it's we can't wait to see what the teams are. So then if we can spend too much debating two months debating on which team is gonna be better. It's gonna be unbelievable.

But I just always think to myself, normally this week is a little depressing because you're like, Okay, great, you know it's p g A. It's gonna be fun, it's intriguing, and then that kind of drops off after, you know, until we get into the FedEx Cup playoffs, which I mean, you know, for what they are, they're still somewhat interesting for people that that are interested in golf because you want to see what people do in those four weeks. But normally, when it's not a Writer Cup year, you're

a little bummed out after the p GA. So it's always nice to have that second is this, think about Think about next year. You're gonna have the Open at the end of July and then you don't have anything until another major until April. Well, you have the President's Cup. Come on, just to see how the President's come It's where is the Presidents Cup next year? Australia. It's a rule Melbourne. At least you get past that. Yeah, I mean it might be like who knows what time it'll be,

but yeah, it'll be great. I can't wait to see on Robanla here he get just waxed by Brooks. Go one, go one in five. Career wise, it was I did. I did the President's Cup last year and um, I did it with with with for the World feed, which is basically if you're in any country that's not the UK or the United States, you sadly have to hear my voice talk through the the President's Cup for five hours and um, you know, going into it on paper, you were like, man, this is gonna be really really rough.

And then it was really rough. And we had to do the Curtis Cup this year and the same exact thing went down. And I had the Walker Cup last year and it was like three team events in a row. I did. We're headed in. I was like, there's no chance the Americans are gonna win this, Like that's how good these teams are and it'll be interested if if the Americans win this Ryder Cup team you're gonna have,

you know, really across the board dominance. And you know, the Solheim Cup, of course, is is lacking, you know, some of the best players in the world because they don't have anybody from the from the you know, South Korea is and from Japan and China. But you know, I mean the Americans holding all those titles for this many years in a row. Uh, it's really flipped in the sense of how team events have felt, because it always felt like we were the underdogs going into almost

all of them. Yeah, and especially because this was supposed to be the era in which golf exploded all over the world and and you see you see basketball and all these things going more global, and it's like, well, wait, is the US actually like securing their stranglehold on these on these big time team events. I don't know. It remains to be seen, but I do think that that's pretty interesting. Okay, I want to ask about this golf course because I feel like not a lot of people

know about it. Um, we've seen the if you if you haven't seen them yet, I'm sure you will. I mean, the weather has been brutal there. I know, they had an awful winner and then a really hot summer and

the greens aren't what they want them to be. And you're gonna see him get worse and worse in my opinion, throughout the week, which only brings up one thing, and that's that's patients and ball striking, so or those the types of players that you're looking at this week to have success, considering these greens are going to make people

miss four and five footers. Yeah, I looked at I looked at struction strokes gained off the tea and strokes gaining on approach shots, which obviously isn't those are two categories that you normally look at. But I think I thought Andy over at the Friday brought up a good point. This is a course where the rough is going to be pretty thick, and so if you're everybody's gonna miss fairways.

But if you're long, if you're really long, you're gonna have a nine iron out of the rough instead of if you're you know, the Zack Johnson type where you have like a four iron out of the rough. And I think that disparity. The difference between having a wedge out of the rough out of thick ruff versus having a four or five or six iron is it's pretty stark.

I mean, it's it's it's big, and so I think that just like we said, I mean, you could take the Firestone leaderboard and just apply, like just slap all the names on this one. I'd be like, yeah, pen now okay, kepka, yeah, can'tle Rory j oh yeah, DJ yeah, and uh so I wouldn't be surprised to see pretty

much the exact same leader boarder. It is interesting because I was watching sort of the flyover whatever video of all these holes, and there's a lot of elevated greens and there's a lot of these big drop offs around the green. So if you miss some of these greens, you're dead. Like it's double it might be out of bounds.

And in addition to that, there's a lot of these huge bunkers in in kind of the surrounding the green, so you might you might miss a green and it rolls to the center of this bunker and all of a sudden, you've got a I don't know, a fifty foot shot out of the sand. It's gonna be I think a little bit different than you see on on a normal PGA Tour event in terms of the sand. I wanted to bring something up. You mentioned Zach Johnson

and this guy has two majors. Is his legacy going to be a pg Tour staple like major winner it's in Andrew's and Augusta or is his legacy going to be the guy that anytime we in the media needed to mention a short hitter for twenty years, we mentioned Zach Johnson's name. I feel like he's the the all. What other go too is there? His legacy might be eating corn out of the cart jock. That was not good. I don't need that. But like it's so hard to reconcile, right,

Like he want Augusta and St. Andrew's. I mean, what am I supposed to do. It's one thing, Okay, if you win St. Andrew's and you don't want anything else whatever, that's that's fine. If you want Augusta and you don't want anything else. But if you win both of those over a long period, like it was the difference in like six years. I mean, that's a that's a career

and he's one, I don't know, twelve times. I don't really know what to do with him, honestly, because I think that he gets he sort of gets made fun of by people, but he's he's got twelve one anyone a gust and st Andrews. It's I mean, it's funny we we always seem to It's like when you're grasping for the short hitter to compare to the guys that bomb it. It's always like, well, you've got Dustin and you got Zack, and you're like, man, poor Zack Johnson.

This guy is like the best wedge player in twenty years that he's got this great short game and it's like, but he can't hit he can't hit the two seventy five, so we gotta throw him in there. That's I mean, Speed Speed has in a way fallen into that category a little bit where it's like the player that's not the new player, even though Speed hits it, you know obviously plenty far and is one of the best ball strikers in the world. He's he's become that kind of

new age player. No wonder they're they're good buddies and to actually share the corner out of the clearer jug. I do want to get into Tiger for a minute, and uh, and it's about Tiger. It's about your year with Tiger Woods. That that makes sense. You know. I used to write online and I know that that that you chase headlines and you chase storylines, and your editors want you to do stuff sometimes that you don't get

to do. And I'm sure over the past four and five years writing about Tiger Woods was a little bit of a slog and I'm sure you had times where it was a bummer to have to write another Tiger story. This year has had to feel different. This is a kind that's competing, and he's making this comeback, and he's putting himself in an opportunities to win big, big events. I mean, of course the Open Championship was really the

culmination of all that. So what's it been like this year covering Tiger compared to maybe the last four and five years, where it hasn't really been about the golf it's been more about the name. Yeah, I think. I think in a micro sense it's been really hard and

not that fun because you are writing note. I mean we see every shot, right, we see it on whatever that work is covering the event, they show every single Tiger shot, and they should like I I there's no I mean, that's a that's a good business decision to

do that. But because of that, you know, I'm I'm having to take notes on that live blog that right about every round and you're just like, oh my gosh, like we can you go back to like the nine events schedule instead of the seventeen events schedule, and so from that, From from that sense, it's been it really hasn't honestly been that fun, but from a macro since,

it's been fascinating. And so I love the midweek or the preweek, you know, like the Monday Tuesday piece for I get to sort of pull back thirty feet and say, Okay, how does this fit into the bigger context of golf historically, Tiger Woods historically, and and the way that Tiger sort of interacts with golf historically. That's the stuff that I love writing. And I think it's been so fascinating to see. I mean, he's he's so much more multidimensional now as

a dad, as a golfer. Before he was he was he was superman, and so you you sort of were inn awe, but you never related. And now when he when he leads the open and goes double and then bogey to lose the opening, hugs his kids, You're like, wow,

I actually sort of relate to that. I mean, I'm not leading the open, but there's disappointment in life and then your kids are there and and all these different things that I don't know how much he personally has changed but I think the way that we relate to him as a human being has changed quite a bit over the last ten years. And what is it like, Um, you know, readership wise, is the interest and intrigues still there? I mean, is it still a boom when you write

a Tiger story versus any other player in golf? Yeah. I went back and looked, Um, you know, we we do these these live bogs for each Tiger round, and the numbers are a joke, and you sort of get stuff into Google and and and people start just searching Tiger. Honestly, like people are just like, I wonder what tigers doing. He's that much on sort of the the minds of

people who are falling golf. But the two pieces that I wanted to compare, I went back and looked at I wrote this thing after Rory, so I kind of wanted to pick the next biggest name. I guess it's Rory. I don't know, maybe Phil, But I picked Rory because he won Arnold Palmer sort of dramatically. And I wrote a long thing about him the day after on Monday, and it got I think it got like ten thousand page views, and I spent I spent a ton of

time on it. I was I was deep at it and I thought it was pretty good, and you know, I threw it out there on Twitter and everything. And then a couple of days before bridgtone, I wrote this piece on Tiger that was just it just popped in my head and I banged it out in like twenty minutes. It was like five stats that show why Tiger has actually been a little bit better than you probably think

this year. And I did a mild amount of research on it, and he got uh far, I think he got like it was up to twelve or thirteen thousand page hees so so far more than the Rory piece did, even though I spent you know, like a quarter of the amount of time. And and that's that's hard because part of you is like, well, maybe I should just write eight Tiger things exactly. But that's that's not fun

because you're just sort of becoming a robot. You're becoming this like computer program that just spits out uh mad libs of Tiger Woods playing golf and it and it's absurd, but uh, you know it, it's tough because, like I said, with TV, the same with the internet. It's business decisions and you want to attract readership and viewers and page views and all that stuff, and and Tiger certainly still does that. Yeah, we we, uh you know amongst kind

of the golf media and the golf fans. You know, the first two days at the US Open, you know, people are asking us on Friday and of course the lling at me on Twitter, you know, why are you showing Tiger? Why are you showing Tiger? Why are you showing Tiger? And you're going, well, but you control the camera. Hey, yes, yeah, I don't think Mark Loomis is gonna let me produce it.

But you know it's it's uh Tiger. You know, Tiger transcends the sport that we are loving, you know, I mean, Tiger is a bigger thing than then you know, everyone else in the field combined, and for better or worse, when he's playing, there's intrigue. If it's great, awesome, If it's bad, that's also a story, and so there's something to follow along on that end. And um, you know knew that we we of course, I mean that we

actually plan. I don't know if people knew that in TV, but we plan ahead of of what's going on and of course, you know, as as the weekend approach, you know, we were preparing for, you know, the last few groups, and it looked like Tiger was gonna miss the cut

and all that stuff. But you know, people are going to tune in on a Friday afternoon and they probably want to see this guy that they know by one name, unlike you know, a Molinari or somebody like that that you and I follow and pay a lot of attention to. So it is interesting you you do. As you said,

it can feel exhausting at times to follow along. I know there's been times where this podcast has been posted and uh and my grade editor has has written Tiger in the headline, and at times you kind of go, oh, well, it's not really that much about Tiger, But then you think to yourself, you know, when people are on the podcast search and Tiger pops up, that's good. I mean, that's good for business. So it's a little bit of

a balance. But I was very interested in kind of your side of it because I know, and I can imagine the last three or four years without Tiger really being involved, You've had to be creative, You've had to find ways to to get stories out there. That people clicked on and read as actually, in this new age of of not really going to a website, we're finding

the news to via social media. So um, I'm sure, as you said it, it's interesting to hear that it's been both positive and negative at times, because it's felt, you know, a little exhausting, but at the same time,

you know there's gonna be a lot of eyes on it. Yeah, and that's the thing, Like, you get to the end of the year, and I'm sure you guys have experienced this a little bit too, that you did end of a year and it's like, oh wow, your numbers were up nine and it's like, well, I don't know if I was that much better of a writer this year or people were just google in Tiger Woods, you know.

So I it's it's tough, and it feels like nobody wants to hear either of us complain about covering professional golf for a living, and that's certainly not what I'm not complaining about it. I think it's amazing. I love getting to do it. But I think that people I think there's a misperception that people in the media just worship Tiger Woods and that's all we want to do is cover Tiger and think about him and write about him, and uh, he's really interesting. But that I don't think

that viewpoint is necessarily true of most people. Yeah, and I think this has been the most interesting year of Tiger's career. I mean personally, I mean, even if he doesn't win, which it really is starting to look like he's not gonna win this year. I mean maybe he snapped a FedEx Cup title or something. I don't think

he's gonna win this week. But even without that, I think this has been, as you've said it, the person, the human the the ups and downs that they're actually missing big puts on the eighteenth toll when he used to make the big puts. You know, those types of things have made this very interesting to watch. And I do not apologize for eighteen Tiger coverage because it's needed

to be what it is. It's needed to be fun because it should have been fun, and it should be fun for people to see a legend, one of the best ever try to come back. That's that's intriguing and that's awesome. And that's why eight six is the best golf story ever. Because there's been a lot of times where Tom Watson had a chance to win a fifty eight, or Greg Norman was in the hunt at the Open in his fifties, or Phil Nicholson, for goodness sakes, gets in the hunt at late forties, and and it's cool

to see these guys with one last gasp. And in eight six we finally got to see the guy pull it off, which rarely, if ever, happens. And if Tiger does it this week or at Augustine next year, or you know, we'll take it at the US Open, for goodness sakes, if he does it finally, it probably will be the biggest golf story ever. Yeah, and you get to watch a guy who is in his four days

with kids sort of wrestle with his own mortality. And we don't, uh, we don't see that a lot because the the I don't know, guys don't usually don't reach the heights that Tiger did. And so he feels in two thousand or two thousand and five even like he's

just immortal and infinite. And then all of a sudden he's talking about what losing the Open meant for the for what he taught his kids, and you're like, wow, that is that's like the most human thing that's like a very immortal, uh finite thing that I can identify with. And I just think that that outside of the golf, like that's sort of narrative is um is endlessly intriguing

to me, and so with you. I just I think Tiger at forty two and hopefully at forty six and forty nine, uh is is way more fascinating as a as a person. And I think that translated translates into the golf as he plays than he was when he was thirty one or twenty six or whatever. It's crazy to me that I think Rory earlier this season kind of complained about the star studded pairings and groupings and um.

And there's been plenty of the young players that have talked about being in the Tiger bubble, and they threw Rory and JT and with Tiger for the first two days the p G A It's like, here you go, guys, here's here's what you wanted. Yeah, it was j T at Rivereia that said I think, or maybe it was Rory that said, I think he loses like a quarter of a stroke around or whatever. And then and then you're like, oh, well, Okay, great, I'm gonna lose a quarter of a strung around as well. Uh yeah, that's

I don't. Man. I loved the way they opened to the pairings. Um. I saw some people talking about that on Twitter and stuff, but it was just and part of this is going off the first tea all day and you're spreading everything out throughout the day. It just feels like the p G A Okay, we've got this four hour window of you know, everybody that's awesome on the course, and then the other ten hours or whatever you're like, okay, like Charles how Is at three under,

that's that's great, that's good. Good for me going a couple of ways. But yeah, I don't. I'm not a

huge fan of the the big time feature groups. Um. I'm just gonna be refreshing Marty Jerdson's page um all over and over and over again because I just want to see, you know, as you said, like there's a pretty decent amount of the field that's made up of these PGA professionals, and I always just root for the two or three that I know to make the cut because you can only imagine what that must feel like. I mean, I know that's their battle. They're going in

to try to make it to the weekend. Um and uh and so you know you just go, well, you know you might go out there and compete for a little bit. Um. Are you excited about anything in particular this week when comes to either the golf course, the field, the pairings, the players, um, the hopes of seeing something. Is there anything that's kind of sticking out to you or is it just kind of a a look at it from a wide angle and see what happens. I don't know. I mean, you know, I'm super biased and

you probably are in some ways as well. I think I think Rory winning again would be pretty cool to see. Um, I don't he. I picked him like immediately after he finished the Open. I picked him to win this week because I felt like he I feel like he's not playing that well, but he's still scoring, which is is really impressive because that's the thing that Spith has always

done so well. Um, So I think to be that I've never I've never covered a Rory winn or a Rory Major win in person, So I think that would be pretty cool. There's just there's so many I'm always fascinated by these major championships. There's so many different legacies that sort of hinge on a Sunday afternoon and you're in You know, it's probably less so at the p g A than at than at a Shinnecocker in Augusta. But you know, like we've been talking about, it's so a big deal to win a major, and I just

I hope that we continue to get these. I don't know that I necessarily care who ends up on top. Like at the Open I did. It didn't bother me at all that Molinari one, as long as we got just a thrill in Sunday afternoon. And I hope, and we've gotten a lot of those in recent memory. I hope we got another one at Belle reve Yeah. And and it's there is a lot of for grabs in the sense of if you do win this week, what does it mean? I mean, d J and j T.

You know we've had great seasons already with three wins each. Um. You know you've mentioned robbery. Of course, you know Speik would would be it would, as you said, make the season and complete the crewery and slam and then you keep going down the list. I mean at Jason Day has had a great season, you know, and would love to add this to it. A Tommy Fleetwood is still kind of looking for the first one and looks more

and more comfortable doing it. But you can look down the list and I do feel like the storylines, if nothing else, have burst out because we have had an interesting,

if you will, major championship year. I mean, Patrick Read winning was was great for Patrick Read and and for golf fans that either love him or hate him and kept go winning back back US Opens was great for the historics of that, and then of course you get Millinary who maybe he's not going to translate a ton in the US, but it was great for Italian golf.

But it hasn't been like a year where it's you know, Speed winning and and and then j T and then Dustin and then you come here and you're like, who's gonna claim this one. It's been a little bit more of kind of a random ish major title line. So yeah, it'll be interesting. I I I'm looking forward to it. We of course if Fox have um the Women's ambitor this week, so I'll be covering that and then keeping kind of a second eye on the p G A

as the weekend comes around. But um, yeah, I mean I just hope the Greens hold up for goodness sakes. And as you said, I wouldn't mind if we got a leaderboard a little bit like what we just saw

last week at the bridge Stone. Yeah. We we've gotten, like you said, we've gotten winners that have been top ten players probably statistically but maybe not necessarily unpopularity, and so it would be I didn't be cool to get one that is just I don't not more well known, but the people get more like I don't know how fired up people were about Princesco Mollinari winning in the Open. I thought the whole day was amazing, but I'm not sure that the sort of general golf public or world

or whatever was as excited about that. Indian is as everybody you know, as as those of us in the media, where yeah, Kyle Stanley's winning this week, that'll be fun. Kyle. I appreciate you coming on. Always, always a good chat. You can always check out Kyle at CBS. You can check out the entire website, which I know people don't

do anymore, but do it. There's a great stuff. They're always articles flowing through and uh, and then when this when the season raps will be focus in Oklahoma State football. How many articles are you write in a week about Oklahoma State right now as football starts, I'll probably do I did like two or three yesterday, so I'll probably end up doing I don't know ten or so. Jeez, you did two or three yesterday. Yeah, but some of them are short. They're they're not you know, they're not

like a thousand words. It's it's like three words on the new defensive coordinator, you know whatever. I just understand how you're skinny. I don't get how you're skinny. You've got kids and a wife and you write like fifty golf articles a day and you're doing all this stuff. It's unbelievable. Um, Hey, congrats on congrats on having some good genes, Kyle. I will we'll chat. Let's chat after the Rider Cup because I know you get so pumped about it. Yeah, I probably won't sleep that whole week,

So I'm excited about that. You enjoy the women's am and uh, we'll talk soon. It looks like I'm a wreck. Well that we'll do it for this week's clubhouse. Just a reminder when it comes to golf equipment. We always want the newest driver, period with the ball that flies five yards further. The one thing that never gets enough attention is the thing that holds and protects your golf clubs, and it's an essential part of your on course fashion. That's your bag. Treat yourself to an upgrade the day

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at o gio dot com. I will have my PGA Championship pick on Wednesday on Twitter if you care, and then we'll be covering the US Women's Amateur this week for Nashville. We start on Wednesday on FS one and then we roll through the weekend. So when you're done watching the p g A, if you get sick of the p g A, if you want to DVR something Wednesday, we get going at four to seven pm Eastern an FS one. Thursday, same time, Friday, same time, four to seven and then Sunday the finals ten am to twelve

pm on U s g A dot Org. And then two to five pm Eastern. That's on FS one. That will be the finals of the US Women's Amateur in the next week boom right under the US Amateur pebble beach. It'll be a fun couple of weeks. Hope you guys fall along with us, and we'll check back with you next week.