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Kyle Porter, CBS Sports, author of A Normal Sport. Absolutely one of my favorite people to talk, you know, the larger ecosystem of pro golf. This is the guy that humors me and engages me when talking about golf history and my crazy golf pyramid. So I bring him on once a year to record one of these episodes.
wide ranging conversations that we like to have off air about a number of topics. And, um, I, I think you guys will hopefully enjoy as well. We touch on a million different things. John Rom's place in history. Uh, how good would Scotty be in a different era? What's, what do we make a Rory going forward? Uh, so we talk Rom, Scotty, Rory Keegan, a lot of Bryson too, is Bryson the most employer important player in golf right now? We,
We kind of make the case for that. Keegan, obviously, is Sergio, the best one major golfer ever, is the Open Championship the best major? Just a wide-ranging conversation on a number of super fun topics. This is a really good one, and I hope you enjoy it just as much as we do. So without further ado, let's bring on Kyle.
All right, Cal Porter's here, CBS Sports. One of my favorite people to talk to when it comes to the general state of pro golf, and we've certainly got a grab bag of issues to get to today. Thanks for joining me, man. How was your 4th of July weekend? It was great. A ton of youth baseball, a ton of pool time, a ton of...
I'm apparently now ruminating on Keegan Bradley as Ryder Cup captain. I apologize for being late today. I was finishing up like a 1200 word column on something that I didn't even know was going to be the case a day ago. I know we'll probably talk about it some, but yeah, I always love talking golf with you. I love just
I love thinking and talking about professional golf, bigger picture. And I know that that's what you like to do as well. So it's always a ton of fun. Well, let's start there. That was kind of the... I gave you a list of like five topics and then I sent you an email a couple hours later. Hey, we got a new lead. So your overarching big picture takeaways from the Keegan Bradley Ryder Cup news yesterday that we got. Yeah, it was shocking. One, just because of the people that I had talked to throughout the last...
you know six months of this process the indication that i got was like okay if it's not tiger then it's going to be chalk it's going to be stew sink it's going to be you know somebody in that kind of furik stricker zj davis love yeah yeah that mold and then it was it was almost like the the june 6th stuff where it was like yo nobody even said a word about this
You know, the degree to which it was kept. And I don't know if that means it was because it happened a week ago or what, but I kind of love it. I don't know that that's going to be, you know, I always go to like my dad is kind of the average golf fan, professional golf fan. I don't know that somebody like my dad loves it, but I think just knowing that
Some of the ways the U S team has operated over the years. This is a risk for the PGA of America. I think it's a risk because they've been good at home and they don't need the, if they pick Stusink, they probably went at Beth page anyway. It wouldn't really matter a ton, but I think this really is transformative for the future of, of writer cups. And I, and I love that they did it. I think, I think it could really work because I think Keegan is,
cares a lot. I think he has good relationships with a lot of the guys that are going to be on the team. And I think he's going to, I think he's going to be a good leader and I'm fascinated to see how that unfolds. The first thing that my mind went to when I heard the news was,
How much of a role did Keegan, and I think this was the obvious question on many people's minds when they first heard the news, how much of a role did the fact that Keegan did not get picked to last Ryder Cup team and the result that occurred at Marco Simone, the sort of justifiably so public backlash to Zach Johnson's captaincy?
And then kind of the elephant in the room, the whole Netflix of it all as well. Do you subscribe to the belief whatsoever that one of the major reasons why Keegan was selected had a lot to do with that Netflix scene and the fact that Keegan was not on that team last year? Because I...
I was immediately thinking about the alternate universe of how this plays out if Keegan is just on the team last year. Yeah. Well, I don't think they picked him because they felt bad for him. I agree with that as well. I see the argument for it, though. From a bird's eye view, it does kind of look that way. Yes. And I think especially so because...
two guys on the, on the committee of picking these things are Gordon Spieth and Justin Thomas, right? Bob Herrick pointed this out on Tuesday or on Monday. And I went back and looked it up and it's like, Oh yeah, JT and, and, and Spieth are on this. I think this is sort of the remnants of the, the task force rumor that from, from 2014. So there's, there's these, these PGA executives and then also current players like JT and Spieth that are on this committee that picked the captain and
And I think my takeaway from that, I haven't talked to JT or Spieth about this, but I think my takeaway from that is Keegan is somebody that because of the Netflix stuff, because of what happened last year is easy to rally around. Yeah. Right. And so,
I don't, I don't think it's like a make good for, Hey, you should have been on this team and all that. But I do think it's like, Hey, you're a little bit of a figure that everybody that can galvanize everybody because you do love the writer cup. And because you do like your story is your story. And you've experienced a lot of emotions from the writer cup. And, and,
That's somebody that's pretty easy. The fans will get behind anybody. They get behind you and me if we were the captain. But I think for the players and the people that are close to it, I do think he has become somebody that's pretty easy to rally around, which I do think matters as they go into this. Yeah. And I do think that.
Listen, I think the status quo wasn't that much of an option for them, right? I think they, I think there was some self-awareness coming out of Marco Simone that, you know, the sort of AI generated sea Island golf pro, you know, Davis love Matt Kuchar, uh,
uh, Lucas Glover, Stu sink, Jim Furyk. I do think that there was some sort of call for a switch up of culture. Now, how much of a change in culture is Keegan Bradley really compared to a Stu sink or a Zach Johnson type? Well, you know, he plays a lot of his golf with Michael Jordan at the growth. Okay. He's not, he's not one of those sea Island guys. He's not, uh,
In the Zach Johnson, JT, Jordan Spieth-Kleck, he's not rooming with those guys when they go on the road to open championships. And I do think that Michael Jordan, I wouldn't be surprised if he's a little bit more involved in this Ryder Cup. I think that there's a bit of a feeling that I have with Keegan where he is very willing to...
shake some things up a little bit and not necessarily go with a lot of the partnerships maybe that the U.S. has leaned in on the past. I still don't know if the U.S. has the... And I still don't know if I trust the U.S. analytics team as much as I potentially trust the Europeans analytics team. But I do get the sense that Keegan is...
maybe a little bit less willing to say, Hey, Sam Burns, Scotty Scheffler, I know that you guys are boys. We're going to put you out together. Jordan Speed, Justin Thomas, I know you guys have this great track record together. Neither of you guys are necessarily in the best form. We're just going to play the hits and roll with what works. It does feel a little bit like
Keegan would be maybe a little bit less willing to go in that direction and approach it from a different standpoint. And, and I think also just like the, you know, if,
if that Netflix show came out before the Ryder cup, right. And, and you got to see Zach Johnson's preparation and the way he talked about things and how stressed out he seemed and how ill prepared he seemed for that job. I think we all would have laid every set that we had even more so on the European team. And, and,
I do think that Keegan, just because he's coming from such a low bar, feels like a little bit more of a galvanizing spirit, a little bit more of a leader of men. I think about that moment, I think, coming up to the 15th tee, the drivable par four, where Zach's standing there and Ricky's walking up to the tee. I forgot what American player it was. And Zach's like, hey, do you need a second opinion here? Do you need a...
Do you need some thoughts here? And I think Ricky walked right by it. No, no, I'm good. I don't know. I don't know if Keegan Keegan feels like a little bit more of a safer bet to hopefully have a little bit more of a galvanizing effect on his players. I agree. And I think you said it's a you don't know if it's a huge culture shift. I actually think it is. Yeah. Or that it could be.
We'll see how it plays out. Usually things kind of move toward the mean. So, you know, I think that that means probably the organization will pull Keegan closer to it than he will pull the organization to him. But I do think it represents a, hey, this is not... This is a different era. Because it is. Like, it... Like, Keegan Bradley being picked is the representation that this is a different era for the PGA of America. My only...
I guess, calm with it is that I wish they would have, because obviously Tiger's going to be 2027 for Ireland. I mean, it would be shocking if he wasn't. I think flipping those two is the play. And while I'm glad there's a shift now and we didn't have to wait two more years for that shift, because Tiger would have kind of fit in with what's been going on. I just, I think that
Keegan bring the thing that lacked Andy on Friday in Rome being there was there was no energy generated from the US side. You got to you have to it's it's the Dabo thing. You got to bring your own not bring your own guts, but bring your own energy and the US doesn't do that on the road and Keegan will do that anywhere in the world. Yeah, right. And I think Tiger is less willing to do that. And that's why I wish they I wish they would have flipped them. But
I think this, this choice of Keegan has a chance to pay dividends for a long time for, for the PGA of America, because now you can, you open it up to say like, Hey, we could pick JT is playing captain. Like you can do anything now because you take step to pick Keegan. Yeah. And I kind of made the joke a little bit about how we've become incredibly liberal with like adopting Northeastern sons, right? Like,
Cam Young playing in his backyard at Oak Hill because he grew up at Sleepy Hollow. Like St. John's where Keegan went.
did play every single monday at beth page right like he is you know there is at least some sort of you know winner of the travelers i made the boston common ball frog joke but keegan at least for better or worse like you know the way that he's embraced an event like the travelers there is there it's not nothing right like i i do think that there's something there in terms of um
the affinity that Keegan has felt and shown for the Northeast, you know, he contended, he contended at the country club. And I think, you know, for better or worse, I think that the fans at Beth page are, are going to be a major storyline, right? Like I think a lot of that stuff often becomes potentially a self-fulfilling prophecy where, you know,
the more talk about these, the, the, the fans at, at Beth page being as crazy as possible, the more that that is really just going to start to play out for us this year at, at, at Beth page. I think we've already been talking in the, in the years leading up to it about how this is going to be like that wild Ryder cup on the American side that we've been waiting for, for so many years because of the New York fans. Um,
Why not lean in, right? Like why, why not lean in and take a Northeastern guy that, you know, maybe is going to bring along Michael Jordan and create a pretty infectious and galvanizing spirit. The last thing that I wanted to touch on was the tiger piece, which it seems like for my indication, tiger said, tiger said no to this is, is that what you were hearing as well? Yeah, it is. The people that I've talked to, it was like, this is,
This was never said, but it was sort of implied like, hey, this is on the table for Tiger. It's up to him if he wants it. And he clearly didn't. The speculation is that he wants Ireland. He wants the whole J.P. McManus, Adair Manor, all that. And I think the other piece is like he's got a ton going on right now. He launched a clothing company. He's part of the...
PGA Tour public investment fund negotiation. He's just doing a lot of things. And I think to throw a Ryder Cup captaincy on top of that is just too much for him right now.
I was never as high on Tiger or Phil as like the answer for American Ryder because particularly the Tiger piece. I don't know how many more examples we need of this in pro sports that great athletes don't necessarily translate to pro
great GMs and great coaches. Like you go down through the history of the NBA and the NFL and in hockey and MLB, and you just have even in golf a little bit with Ryder cup captains as well, right? Like you just have this tremendous sample size in history of the best players, not necessarily being able to translate their talents on the field into being great coaches or great GMs or great leaders or great decision makers, but,
And I think part of the reason I was a little bit, um,
less excited about the potential tiger pick is that i think once you bring tiger into the mix everything becomes about tiger right like he's such a he's such a larger than life superhero figure um that sort of elevates above everyone else and that's why i think you know maybe his rider cup record does kind of leave a little bit to be desired because tiger is not necessarily best in that setting and when i think about why the europeans have had so much success over the year like
It's the ultimate check your ego at the door. This is not about the individual. This is about understanding the greater of the team, right? We are the guys that will play with anybody and follow the data, even if we don't speak the same language, even if we have nothing in common, because the common goal is, you know, the cliche of name on the front, not name on the back.
And I worry sometimes with Tiger that Tiger becomes such a shot sideshow that he doesn't necessarily represent the sort of humility ethos that I think the European side has captured so well. I 100% agree. And I have felt pretty tepid about Tiger as a cat. Look, it's like fun to talk about, right? The earpiece and the call of duty stuff and, you know, like all of that. And I, and I think, but I think,
I don't know, like his tiger to me, tiger is not the most inspiring figurehead in that position. Now, I think the two pushbacks on that are one, but the guys that are actually playing the shuffler, the JT, the speed, the more account like they're his guy. Yeah, they worship him and they'll do anything for him. And so, yeah,
He does have like a ton of leverage there, which I think is, is not nothing. And you saw that at the president's cup in 2019 at Melbourne. And then I think too, I think I honestly, like, I think like tiger is not, and, and he never really has been the, like the leader from out in front or the speaker or whatever that somebody like Phil is. And I think tiger is like an amazing, um,
assistant captain because he does I think he does really care and he wants to do the the parents and he wants to think about the strategy and he wants to consider the course setup and all those different things so I almost feel like like a like somebody like a Keegan in the captain role with Tiger as an assistant I'm not saying that Tiger will be an assistant captain but I love Tiger as an assistant captain honestly like Phil in the leading role and Tiger as assistant captain would have been amazing that's never going to happen now but
I love that idea because tiger doesn't want to deal with all the media and just all that nonsense. Like he doesn't have time for that. And I think that there are other guys that do. And, and I think Keegan, hopefully, and I think he, he will be one of them. All right. Let's let's shift gears here to sort of the gimmick that I emailed you about. This is a little bit of a, I kind of took this a little bit from it's an old Simmons gimmick. And I put a little bit of my own spin on it, but I,
There are a couple major topics swirling around pro golf. We're recording this about 10 days before the start of the Open Championship. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a take. And this take is something that I generally like.
Maybe 75% believe, maybe 50% believe, but it also might be an overreaction. So what we're going to do is I'm going to give you a couple of takes and we're going to play proper reaction or overreaction where we say, yeah, I think that's fair. I think that's fair to say at this point, or you say, can I pump the brakes? I'm not there yet. So there are a couple and you threw out some quick hitters at the end too. But the one that I want to go with first is,
And I've been dying to talk to you about this because now the... Do you think I'm going Scott or do you think I'm going Rory? For sure, Rory. Yeah, we're going Rory first. But you wrote a great piece on this. You're one of my favorite people to engage in one of my favorite pastimes, which is psychoanalyze Rory. But the first topic that I have for you is that
Something I think is a very fair question to ask, which many people are asking, which is Rory McIlroy's crushing defeat at Pinehurst is going to have an immediate short-term effect in his ability to compete in major championships. So, um,
I suppose the way I would phrase that is how much stock are you putting into what happened to what happened at Pinehurst as another massive bit of scar tissue in terms of Rory being able to get over the hump in the near future? Yeah. I mean, this is literally all I think about. Not all I think about, but I do think about this a lot. I think that...
There was so many reactions that night, the night of, and everybody's super emotional and just firing off takes and saying insane things, myself included. And I think Porath actually had the right take on this, and it was...
In the long term, longer term, in the medium term for Rory, who's 35, like the next six or seven years, I don't know that it affects him a ton because he's just continues to play great golf and honestly, like play great major championship golf. Yeah. But in the short term, like when he's and I wrote this, I think for maybe normal sport newsletter, when he's two up on Hatton and Spieth charging at him at Royal Troon on the back nine on Sunday,
I think that it affects him. Yeah. You know, and I think he is uniquely affected by Rory is more online than he probably would admit, I think. And I think he cares a lot about, you know,
His legacy, not just long-term legacy, but his in the moment legacy, like what people say and think about him, I think, and in good ways, like I think that really motivates him to be
Better at golf. I think it motivates him to be a good leader to do all these things. But that's a lot of noise to have in your head during these major weeks. And I think it's one sort of advantage that somebody like Scotty has over him is he all these everybody cares about what other people say about him. But I think somebody like Scotty cares less.
And so, yeah, I think that some of that stuff is going to reverberate in his head, in his heart, as he's trying to close out whatever next major championship he's in. One of the reasons why I was thinking so much about the short term for him, and one of the reasons why I really liked Pinehurst for him, not just from a course fit standpoint, but just in terms of a major that felt like a good spot for him to
break the drought was that there was no emotional connection to Rory with Pinehurst, right? He, he was not remotely the storyline heading into the week at, at Pinehurst. The storyline that week was Sheffler, Sheffler, Sheffler, um,
And you think about some of the other majors that he's had some great chances at in the last couple of years, like there wasn't really any emotional resonant connection to LACC. And I actually, I actually kind of liked those spots for him almost better as a drought breaker than your St. Andrews, your Valhalla is your Royal Liverpools. And I think what's so fascinating with Rory is like,
Next year, we're firing up the narrative machine again, man. We've got a PGA championship at Quail Hollow, which is historically the best golf course that Rory has ever played in his entire career. I mean, you think about Rory's marriage at Quail Hollow. It's hard to find...
a better connection between a player and a golf course from a statistical standpoint over the last decade than what Rory has done at quail hollow. And, and all of these golf courses, right? Like you think about your, your Valhalla is your, your Oak Hill is your, your Royal Liverpool is obviously the masters is its own can of worms, right? But all of these golf courses, they feel like this should be,
be the spot where Rory breaks the drought? Like, wouldn't it be so serendipitous if this was the place where Rory breaks the breaks the drought, right? And then, oh, by the way, the open championship next year, a little golf course called Royal Port Rush, right? The lone open championship venue in Rory's home country in Northern Ireland. A lot of unfinished business there from a disappointment standpoint. Last time you can crank the narrative machine up to 100 on that one too. So,
Rory has this big kind of giant elephant in the room at a lot of these major championships coming up where it just feels like the weight gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And I, I'm so curious over the next couple of years, uh, like,
I'm not going to make an argument that Oakmont is a better golf course fit for Rory than Quail Hall. I mean, you know, Quail Hall was absolutely built for Rory's skill set, but purely from a narrative standpoint, I feel more and more with each increasing blow that it's just going to happen when we don't expect it to happen. Yeah. I think I wrote down like three notes there while you're talking about
It's a great point because if you just played, this is the thing that I always run to. If you play 10,000 holes in a vacuum of major championship golf, Roy would probably win by a lot, right? Like if you just simulated 10,000 holes, he might not win by a lot. He would, him and Sheffer would be, you know, like it would just be very obvious. He's very obviously like one of the two, three best guys.
And the way he hit it at Pinehurst, I mean, I didn't walk with him a ton, but I walked with him some. He just was hitting it so good. Same thing at LACC. But it's the emotional entanglement that gets to... And he said this. I asked him this at the Masters, I think it was last year, 2023. Like, hey, is it more physical or mental and emotional for you here? And he was kind of like...
I mean, he kind of laughed like, obviously it's more mental and emotional, you know? And, and so that's where he gets just caught up, you know? And, and that's the hard part. It's, it's, and it's also the frustrating part for fans. Cause it's like, yo, the, the gifts are still there and you've been so good for 16 years and to watch him fail to, or whatever, to not win because of the emotional and mental side. It's like,
it's so frustrating but it's also so relatable i thought his missed putt on 16 was like the most relatable thing because you're like yo like i've missed that putt when it's a stupid match against my buddies at this 6200 yard course where i live you know yeah and uh i do wonder i was gonna ask you this do you think the only way he can win a major is just the kiowa six shot eight shot blowout
No, I don't necessarily think so, but I do think that
The, the, I'm gonna get, I'm kind of getting closer to the point where I don't think he's ever gonna win another Masters. A Masters or a Major? A Masters. Okay. I think he's absolutely gonna win another Major. I actually think he might, and the next question I was gonna ask you is which is, which one is he most likely in the next, of the next five of Troon, Oakmont, Augusta, Quail Hollow, and Portrush? That's a great question. Right? Yeah.
But no, I do to go back to your original question.
I don't think that it necessarily needs to be a runaway. It might need to be like he's neck and neck with somebody heading into Sunday and maybe over the first couple of holes. And then he does a little bit what he did on the back nine at Quail Hollow this year against Sander, where he just has that back nine that we've been waiting for for Rory and basically a decade. And that's the funny thing about Pinehurst this year, Kyle, is that
Listen, over the first 12 holes of Pinehurst, and this is going to be completely lost to history because of what happened over the next six, Rory made four putts over 15 feet. Over the first 12 holes of Pinehurst on Sunday...
Kyle, Rory made more putts over 15 feet than he made all weekend at LACC. And I was sitting there saying, okay, this is the final round in a major that I've been waiting for from Rory for literally a decade, right? Where those putts finally just go in. And even with two missed putts inside four feet on Sunday, he still finished the day as a top 10 putter in the entire field. And I think that's kind of the demoralizing aspect of it.
Totally. And it's, you know, if you say, okay, well, he doesn't make the one on, I can't remember the whole, let's say, was it 10 he made a long one or 9, 12? I think he made a long one on two out of the three for 9, 10, 11. Yeah. Or 8, 10, 11, 9. Yeah. And let's say he misses those, but he makes 16 and 18. Like, how differently do we and he...
think about things, but also like that's not the way majors work. You do kind of have to hit the long ones unless you're just destroying the field from tee to green to give yourself an opportunity to make the short ones to win the tournament, you know? And so I don't know. I've thought about this from every different direction. I think, I mean, Bryson being in it and all the live stuff and the weight of 10 years, like, can you imagine, like,
Being Rory, this is what I was thinking about in the immediate aftermath. And like, you're just like not allowed to miss a three foot putt. Like you just you're like I the amount of people that I that are affected by me missing this three. Like that's just a weight that is unbearable. And I think he carries it pretty well.
It's not a weight that... Patrick Cantlieb doesn't have that weight. Nobody cares. But Rory knows that a lot of people care. And I think that weight that he carries around is part of the reason that...
like these majors are difficult to win. And he can, he, he, he says this all the time. He says, nobody wants to win a major more than me. And that's, uh, nobody wants me to win a major more than me. And that's, that's true. But also there's a lot of people that want him to win a major. And also he's aware of that. And so I think there's just a weight there that he carries at majors that nobody else in the world is carrying around right now. And this is, I, I,
I've told this on the podcast before, so I'll be very brief in my summary of the next point that I'm about to make, and then I want to move forward to Bryson. But this is really hard for me to admit and talk about and discuss because I'm
my career is so based on data. I'm so heavily focused on the data, but I went to the masters for the first time this year, Kyle. And I went to the practice rounds on a Tuesday and Wednesday, and I spent a lot of time watching Rory, you know, on Wednesday afternoon, when everybody was playing the par three contest, Rory played the back nine alone. And it was like
like me and Sean Martin out there walking the back nine with Rory, where everyone else was watching the part three contest. Um, and prior to that on Tuesday afternoon, he played a practice round with Ludwig and like,
I kid you not, no hyperbole. Rory looked like the best player on the property. I think him and Ludwig shot a best ball 27 on the front nine at Augusta. I believe that. And he was showing Ludwig every single shot. He had that
Rory strutting his step. I watched, I watched Brooks play practice rounds. I play, I watch Ron play practice rounds. I watched Xander play practice rounds. Like nobody, it was different the way that Rory was hitting the ball. And then I woke up on Thursday morning. I walked over to that first two with my dad and I said to him like,
I'm telling you, I've been going to golf tournaments for the last decade. Like this is that man. Like I, I, I watched a man possessed. He is so ready to go. And he hit, he poofed out that first three wood into the bunker on one and slumped his shoulders a little bit. And I said, huh? I haven't, that's not who you've been for the last two days. And ever since that moment, I said to myself, I,
What is it that I don't know how to quantify this, but there's something that happens between that Wednesday night sleep and when you step up to the first tee on Thursday morning that you are just a completely different guy in your body language, in your movement, in your facial expressions and everything.
It's so difficult for me to understand. I don't believe in curses or, you know, like there's this, again, some sort of unquantifiable force that comes over him preventing him from getting it done. But after I saw that this year at the Masters, Kyle, I will always now have in my mind like, oh, okay, you...
You just cannot be surprised if something wild happens. And I don't, I don't know how to rectify that in my head. Well, I think it's, I think that is exactly what I'm saying about him in terms of the relatability. It's it, what you're seeing is humans, humanity, humanity. Exactly.
And, you know, we think of these guys as robots and, you know, just able to sort of block out every single thing. And he to me is the most I've written this somewhere, like the most relatable or the most human thing.
like superstar of sport that I can remember. Maybe I don't know about ever, but just in, in like modern me following sports, he's, he's the most human and he's not, and never has wanted to be tiger, uh, in, in like, I think a lot of good ways. Like he's wanted to maintain his preserve his humanity, I think is the way that I've phrased it.
And he's done that, but the result is exactly what you described. And that is the most relatable thing, man. Like if you and I were playing in the Masters, we would probably have great practice rounds and we'd probably get to the first tee on Thursday and hit a poofy three-wood into the bunker, right? It would...
It would just overwhelm you. And I think that it's like the most honestly, like it sucks as a as somebody who wants him to win a major. But it's also the most endearing thing about him, I believe. And so that's like what you described is impossible to reconcile, but it's fascinating to talk about.
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Just to quickly put a bell on the Rory to answer that, to go back to that question of the next five questions.
A, do you think he's going to win one in the next five? And B, what do you think is the most likely of him to win in the next five between Troon, Augusta, Quail Hollow, Oakmont, and Portrush? I have not put a lot of thought into when I think he's going to win another major or if. It's not Portrush. It's not the Masters for reasons that we've talked about.
I mean, the obvious answer is Quail Hollow, but like you said, it's almost too obvious. He's going to be like 4-1 there, and it's going to be like this sucker bet thing. Honestly, I would say Oakmont. Yeah, the US Open's been his best major. He's been great. He's been very, very, very good, and that's not what I would have thought
uh, last time he played Oakmont where he missed the cut, you know, he missed, uh, what was it? Oakmont. And then, uh, Aaron Hills, Aaron Hills. He missed too. And yeah, Shinnecock. Yeah. Yeah. All three in a row. So yeah, I, I would say Oakmont, but I think you could type me into quail hollow being just behind that. Yeah. Okay. This is a fun one. Is Bryson the most, uh,
important player in golf right now. Now you can define important, however you like, right? But I think just in terms of his impact, what he's doing for the game at a, at a larger scale, is that an overreaction in terms of the figure that Bryson has become in golf right now, or a proper reaction to say, no, he is, uh,
For this wide range of this rides modicum of reasons of, of, you know, his YouTube influence with the younger generation, him being on live and, and maybe the PGA tour saying to themselves, well, we, we need this guy back in a way that maybe we thought John Rom would be that guy. And he didn't end up being that guy is Bryson, the most important player in golf right now. I don't know.
I think yes, right? I don't know. The only other two that you could probably talk me into would be Scotty and Rory. Yeah. And I don't know that... Non-Tiger division, right? Sure, yes. Yeah, of course. Scotty is weird because he... And I know we're going to talk about him in a minute. He's winning at a historic pace, but he feels...
broadly unimportant to like the general golf fan yeah and and i don't that's not that's not a slight i just don't know like the scottish open this weekend scotty's not playing uh would it be better for the scottish open if bryson or scotty was in the field i would say bryson that's a good way to look at it yeah and i just think that he bryson is such a
And he's the greatest showman. He is great, great, great theater for whether he plays good or bad or somewhere in between. People at Pinehurst were like, oh, this is such an act. It's such an act. Of course it's an act, but it's not some nefarious plot by Bryson to get the world to fall in love with him. I just think he loves being...
the center of attention. You know, he loves putting on a show. He loves it. It's like, it's like part of who he is, which we have very little of in professional sports and specifically professional golf. And so whether you like him, love him, hate him, whatever, I do think he's incredibly important to the game right now. And you think of any athletes that
have changed their public perception more in terms of negative to positive. Because I think a lot of guys...
That were pretty universally beloved. And then the pendulum swung in the other direction, right? Like I think of some of the MLB guys in the steroid era, certain NBA players like Kyrie Irving and James Hart and where they were, they were thought of as these unbelievable talents. And then, you know, it,
We start to change our opinion on them and the negative a little bit because of their off-the-court stuff and their lack of playoff success. I'm rocking my brain to think of a comp to Bryson that
where the public perception has swung so dramatic dramatically in the positive section and done so in such an unconventional way, right? Like he took the Saudi money. He went on CNN and said some weird things about nine 11. And then he started making YouTube videos on the U S open. And now is one of the more beloved players universally in the sport. I would say that for kids under the age of 15, um,
He's probably the most beloved golfer and professional golfer in the world for conservative golf fans, for lift fans, for, for MAGA. He's kind of their superhero. You know, he's drinking out of the U S open trophy with Eric Trump. And I, you know, I think folks that don't fall into either of those categories, you know, your lift fans or your kids at the very least are
you're kind of like, yeah, at a bare minimum, it's awesome when he's playing well. And I can't think of another athlete that has gone through such a fascinating transformation in such an unconventional way. Yeah. The first name that comes to mind is Kobe. Obviously there were different circumstances there. The strange thing about Bryson is there wasn't like one moment like there was with Kobe where it was like everybody turned on him. It was just kind of
Things built up over time and you're like, this guy's a lot to deal with. And it was like a thousand little moments between the news he's had and the weight gain and just the cameraman thing in Detroit. There's just a thousand little things like that that come to mind. But you're right. He hits...
And this is like the commonality that him and Kobe have is they're both a little sociopathic about their craft, about the game. And I think because he's such an entertainer, for all the reasons that you mentioned, he hits so many different demographics that in an increasingly politicized world is very difficult to do because you sort of have your...
you know, for better or worse, like you have your tribe and those are your people and whatever. And Bryson somehow like straight, like very strangely galvanizes a bunch of these people. I don't know if he galvanizes them to like one another, but he galvanizes them around him because again, he, we all love entertainment. That's sort of one of our common threads as humans, whether we're part of this political party or that political party or this demographic or this income bracket, like we all love to be entertained and to, uh,
to, um, to, to be made to feel something. And Bryson will make you feel things. I don't know if they're good or bad, but, uh, he certainly will make you feel things. And I think he's, uh,
I mean, I'm stunned. Like I was rooting for him at the PGA. And I know that a lot of other people felt like that as well. And it was shocking to kind of find myself in that position. Yeah. To put a bow on why I think it's not an overreaction. It's like my mom, my mom works for Snapchat and
And I'm sure you have kids on Snapchat, right? It's a little bit. Not yet. Not yet. Okay. Well, it's a little bit past my generation, but Snapchat is still massively huge from as soon as kids get a phone around 9, 10, 11, 12 years old up into high school. And I don't think this is public information, but I also don't think that my mom would mind me sharing it.
Bryson is one of Snapchat's most important creators. Like he is getting...
Bryson is getting invited to the Snapchat creator summit in a couple of weeks, which is like basically when they bring all of the most influential creators. Bryson is going to be speaking on a panel for Snapchat, right? Like that's insane. That's insane. Right. And he's like the fourth best golfer in the world right now. Right. And for better or worse,
There's not a golfer out there right now that is tapped into that demographic in the way that he is. That cares about that demographic in the way that Bryson does. And yeah, it does feel a little bit like... Neil Schuster made this point on no laying up, and I think it was a great one. It does feel a little bit like his actions are based on...
understanding YouTube, right? Like it does feel like this is a guy that really understands what like and subscribe means. So like he, so when he wins the U S open and he says, I want all of you guys to touch this U S open trophy, that is somebody that like very much understands
understands engagement and what works from an engagement standpoint talking right and again your mileage may vary on how authentic and genuine that is but at the end of the day like
You kind of got to tip your cap to the fact that, hey, there's somebody out there that recognizes that a massive part of what it actually means to grow the game. And I'm not a good, good consumer. I'm not a barstool consumer. I enjoy no laying up Taurus sauce is kind of the farthest I'll go in terms of watching other people play golf on YouTube. But that is massive. Yeah.
For kids under 20. Totally. And regardless of whether it's authentic to him, it's authentic to them.
Right. So a hundred percent again, I think he is putting on a show and, and, and, and I don't, and again, I don't mean that negatively. I think that is like, people are like, oh, he's faking it. Of course. Like he's an entertainer. Like everybody's faking it, you know, but it's not like the negative thing that everybody wants to make it out to be. And the other thing I'll say about this actually ran into Bryson the other day here in Dallas, seven lunch with a friend. I haven't told this story, but
was having lunch with a friend and he was there and they had a connection and we got, we got to talking for a little bit and his personal engagement with people in private was way beyond what I thought it would be. And so I think there is some level of genuineness there of like, he's a very gregarious, like he's just a huge personality and he's,
it's not like, it's not like you, it's not like the, the can't, the red light turns on and he becomes somebody different. I think it's a lot of who he is. And it was cool to see it privately of like, was he like bouncing around and doing stuff? No, but he was like, Hey, uh,
asking about people's kids and like, like he, he just, there was a, there was a level of personal engagement there that kind of took me aback a little bit from how I think a lot of people have viewed him over the last five or six years.
Okay. I have a, we'll go a little bit quicker on these last two. Gosh, I could do this podcast could be eight hours based on the stuff that we're getting to. Cause, cause the next topic, like I could literally do a, an eight hour narrative podcast series on, but I, I actually want to do this one.
before we finish with Scheffler, because I think it is a very fascinating juxtaposition with Bryson in terms of a decision that both of them made that are seeming to play out in very different ways. And the take is,
John Rahm's decision to go to live was one of the more egregious career mistakes in terms of his viability to go down as one of the greatest European golfers of all time. And I can explain later with some context about why he actually was on pace to like catch savvy. I have a bunch of numbers on that.
But proper reaction or overreaction, where are you at on like John Rahm as a concept right now? Well, it's... People forget how good he was. Yeah, I know. Well, people never realized how good he was, I think is part of it. And so...
Uh, I've been yelling about John Rom for a long time. Just like, it's basically him and Rory and kind of DJ over the last eight years. Yeah. In terms of like the most consistently great golfers. I think short, like in the moment catching me July of 2024, I would agree. I do think generational talent has a way of sort of resurfacing over a long period of time. And I think he's generationally talented, but yeah,
I think legacy-wise, I do think I agree. I guess my... It's not a rebuttal, but my question to you within that is who's your top three Europeans right now? Like of all time. Of all time? I have the list up for you. Seve, Seve, Faldo, Seve, Faldo, Rory. Yeah, that's mine too. Yeah, Seve, Faldo, Rory. I think that's a... It's a pretty clear top three. Bernard Longer, you could...
throw some of that in there. I'm trying to think of even who else, I mean, we're talking post-World War II, right? Yeah, Bernard Langer's fourth on my list, so I'm right there with you. But then you get into Patrick Harrington, Jose Murillo Othoble. Montgomery. Montgomery, Sergio. Yeah, I mean, I wrote this, Kyle, in...
in December, I wrote an article about John Rahm's decision to go to live and just
how great of a player he is historically and what those reverberations mean. But Jon Rahm has 19 worldwide wins and two majors before the age of 30. So he's entirely on pace to finish his career as a top 20 player of all time. Let's take Seve, for example, who's a very worthy comparison to Rahm from both a national and a competitive standpoint. I have...
savvy as 12th on my period. Like savvy is the 12th most accomplished golfer ever. He won 54 times worldwide, played in 87 majors, recorded 20 major top tens, three runner ups and five majors. Okay. So he played at a highly competitive level for 20 years across the PGA tour and DP world tour at 29 years old. Let's assume that ROM has conservatively 12 more years of highly competitive golf left in the tank. Um,
Over a 12-year stretch, would it be possible for Rahm to win 35 times in three majors? It's actually more reasonable than it sounds. On his current pace, Rahm is averaging 2.7 wins per year and a major every 15 starts. So if you extrapolate, I know we're getting inside baseball, but you're one of the few people that will appreciate this. So if we extrapolate his career trajectory for the next 12 years, he'll win 32 times and secure three more majors overall.
ironically, that would put him nearly exactly where Seve finished his career, which I think is fascinating. And in a different era, I'm curious about when you do your pyramid stuff and make your list, what is the terminology that you use for that? Is it best golfer, most accomplished, best resume? How do you define what you're measuring?
I've settled on most accomplished because, and this may transition us a little into Scheffler, but listen, I think at the end of the day, this is the same case with every single other sport. If you want to have conversations about who's better at basketball, Kevin Durant or Bob Cousy, Peyton Manning or Johnny Unitas, like it's impossible, right? Equipment changes, the game changes, technology changes, right?
But I kind of do my best and try and provide as much useful context as ever. I think what's interesting about the ROM situation is that, for example...
If you want to knock Ben Hogan and Walter Hagan for playing against dentists and firemen, I understand that case. If you actually go back and do a historical deep dive, a lot of the PGA Tour players that played on the PGA Tour in the 40s and 50s and 60s, some of them were part-time insurance agents. It was just a different game.
That's not Walter Hagan or Ben Hogan or Sam Snead's fault. Like they can only play against the people that they want to play with, that they are up against in that era. The fascinating thing about Rahm is he kind of did have a choice and he actually maybe chose the path of least resistance. And that's where it gets interesting. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I think that...
I think greatest year, I started thinking about greatest European of all time, probably seven years ago when Rory started to, to flash some signs of like, Hey, if he wins the masters, he's kind of like in the real conversation for, is he already the best Euro of all time? I, I would still probably have Faldo and Seve ahead of him, which I think you do as well. But I,
If he wins another... Certainly if he wins the Masters now, it's... I think it will eventually just become him, depending on how you... What you think about Scottish Opens and Irish Opens and all that. But Rahm is the only other one that you're like, hey, this is... He's always playing right now that...
that you would say, hey, this is the trajectory. This is what it is. And he did, like, whether you...
like live, don't like live, whatever it, you have to, you have to say like, Hey, this is a difficult thing to, and maybe in 30 years, it won't be a difficult thing to measure. We'll look at live wins. Like we look at Asian tour wins or European tour wins or contrary wins or whatever. But it is it, it, because you traded playing in all these different events that we can measure that, that are part of the legacy of professional golf for a bunch of money.
It does solely, not only does it,
Has it hurt you as a golfer? Clearly his emotional mental state is not good and he's playing bad golf at major championships, but it also lessens your opportunities just to play globally, which lessens your opportunities to win globally, which is what moves you up the, the, the sort of ladder in terms of greatest Euro ever. And I think the crazy part, Andy, I think most of these guys, Richard Bland does not care about being the greatest Euro ever. No, John Rom. I think he does. Yeah.
And that's the part that I don't, that I don't totally understand. Yeah. And I have struggled and continue to struggle about what winning on the web tour means. I've kind of settled on the conclusion that it's certainly not nothing, right? Like Rom hasn't won on live guys like Brooks and DJ have, and I've, I've included those as wins on the pyramid, the, the,
The question is like, how close are they to like winning the wild world of golf in 1972 versus winning, you know, the John Deere classic in 2018 versus winning the Sue doll open. Like that is a unanswerable question to me still at this point. And, and I, I,
I feel like I am about as close as you could get in terms of like a nerd to hopefully being equipped to answer that question. And I, I still rack my brain trying to figure that one out to go back to the original point. I'm somewhere in between proper reaction and overreaction. I think that if ROM does not play well at the open championship, then,
That is a year of majors in the prime of his career that is gone. And where he was not injured, it seems like for the major part of it, it seemed like he had something preventing him from the U.S. Open. They wasn't 100% at the U.S. Open. That one is still so odd to me because I can't think of another –
player that has gone to North Carolina, played in practice rounds, done a media conference, and then withdrew. A lot of really weird stuff going on, not to diminish the legitimacy of his injury, but the larger point that I'm trying to make is, again, this can transition us into the Sheffler conversation, like,
These guys are coming, man. Ludwig, Thorpe, Johnson, Luke Clanton, like these guys are coming in and Ram is Ram was 29 years old this year. And that is your prime. Like that, that is your, your golfing prime. And if he is uncompetitive in four majors, doesn't even win on the lift tour. I think it's fair to say, okay, what's going on here? Yeah, no, totally. And, um,
Again, it would be one thing if I thought he just cared about money and didn't care about all this other stuff, but I think he's so thoughtful and does care about all the other stuff. And I think that's what's killing him right now. I think that's what's really got him all twisted up and he's trying to convince himself otherwise. And you can see it play out in press conferences. It becomes very obvious. Yeah. Okay. Last one. So
What Scotty Scheffler, here's the take, what Scotty Scheffler is doing right now is actually more impressive. Now, I've heard the argument for less impressive based on the fact that some of the live players are playing on a different tour. My take is it's actually more impressive than other eras, given both the depth of current talent on the PGA Tour and
and the optimization of technology, making it harder than ever for truly great players to yield an advantage over very good players. So proper reaction or overreaction. I know this is a fascinating one that both of us have thought about a ton over the last couple of months in terms of how to properly contextualize just what Scheffler is doing at this current moment.
Yeah, it's hard. I, I, I, we could do a narrative pot. It's like, I feel bad dropping. Hey, let's do 10 minutes on this. Well, it's, it's, it's undeniably true that golf is getting more competitive. Uh, data golf did a really good, uh,
sort of research blog post piece on just showing like how the variable scores, the variables in scores is getting narrower and not wider. When you have wide variables, that means you, you don't have a depth of talent and, or it could mean like you have a golf course that's creating those, but that the golf course sort of levels out. Cause you're playing similar schedules over a long period of time, regardless of,
Golf is getting more competitive. You wouldn't look at another industry and say you tripled or quadrupled or 10x the amount of money that's in it and say, well, and it probably also got less competitive. That would be an insane. Those two things don't do not coexist, especially in that like over a long arc. So.
I don't think it's, I don't think it's crazy. I still struggle with like tiger was so dominant in some of those years that like to a level that, I mean, tigers, uh, true strokes gained in 2000, according to data golf was a 4.3 per round, which is a joke. Like Scotty is at 3.5.
uh, three one or 3.35 or something like that, which is exceptional. It's so good. It's against Rory and Xander and can't lay and Morikawa. And I mean, Rory is like a top 15 or 20 golfer ever. And Scotty's making him look like pretty pedestrian, which is crazy. Yeah. But tiger was so far ahead of that, that I, I would, I would,
It's not a, it's not, what are my options here? Overreaction or proper reaction. Yeah. To just basically the take that what Scotty's doing right now is actually more impressive than if he was doing it in another era, which is like the classic sports bar argument that there's no right answer to, but it's just really fun to talk about. I think that's a proper reaction. Yeah, I do. And I think one thing that people have pointed out that I agree with is, um,
Look at the different styles of
Of courses that he's done it on. Yeah, that's crazy. I would say that's a proper reaction to Scotty's year. And I still think it's don't, it's not, I tweeted this about this time of year. Guy said, I think Scotty is about to go on a sick, sick, insane run because the numbers were like, Hey, he hasn't really putted that well, but look like these T degree numbers are like historically good. I was like eight months early on that, but it did eventually happen. And yeah,
I think that is a proper reaction and people haven't totally internalized how historic it's been. I'm right there with you. And I understand the argument that
Bryson is not playing on the PGA tour that, that Brooks is not playing on the PGA tour. Not that, you know, Brooks was some prolific PGA tour winner, but Cam Smith, Dustin Johnson, like I understand that argument that some of the best players are playing week to week on another tour. In my opinion, that at worst becomes a net neutral with what is happening with technology right now. And like,
I don't know if you've ever done this. You probably have because you're crazy like me, but they have all the Masters final rounds on YouTube. And if you just go back and click, this is a fun... Sometimes I fall asleep to this stuff. Go back and click on the final round of the 1979 Masters or the 1983 Masters.
When these guys do not find the center of the club face, like it's bad. Like it looks like me and you, the ball goes low. It goes completely offline. There is a tremendous penalty for not finding the center of the club face with a driver. And now, you know, you have guys like Bryson has given this quote a million times. Spieth recently talked about this.
where the drivers are so forgiving. Now the pendulum is slung so far that you don't even know if a player's the best at hitting the center of the club face anymore, because watching on television or even often being there up close in person, the technology is so great. You didn't even tell if it was a good one or a bad one, right? You can't, you can't even tell because the miss it's yeah. The miss it's go just as far as the, uh, as the long ones. And so, or as the good ones. And so, uh,
I think the fact that you have guys coming up now and yeah, I played in a golf event with, um, Joseph Omania the other week and, and he's been harping on this for such a long time. I, our mutual friend and, you know, the fact that I was a junior golfer and the fact that
What teachers are teaching players in junior golf right now based on technology is just swing out of your shoes and figure it out. Like speed, speed, speed, speed, speed. That is all that decade is doing. That is all that guys that are coaching PGA tour players are doing. It's not about skill and, and finding the center of the club face anymore. Um,
To me that if you are just talented at golf, like if you are just Scotty Sheffler, which is amazing, long arm player, amazing hands, like has this innate ability to be long and straight and find the center of the club face. You are just inherently, it is harder for you to separate in 2024 than it would have been if you were playing golf in the 1980s. It just is.
Yeah. And I think, but I think where you, where it shows up is if you look at his, it, you can still most for the most part, tell the difference in the approach play, right? That's where it's, it's, I think you can, you can, the, the,
shrinking of the gap isn't as much in a pro in iron play as it is with driver. I don't, but he, even he gets disadvantaged there because there used to be so much more long iron approach shots on PGA tour. And now, and that's where chef or separates is that skill of being able to hit starter to rock. But I think he gets dinged a little, a little bit there too, because good.
Go back and look at past PGA Tour courses dispersion, and you're just hitting more long irons than you do in 2024. Totally. But even then, even with all that, he's still leading...
I've got approach play right here. He's still, I mean, the last two years, he's number one at 1.4 strokes gain per round on approach play and Xander's number two at 1.0 and nobody else is over one. That's crazy. Like he, again, you, you almost have to, I think some of this stuff, Andy doesn't show up in results as much as it used to.
But if you combine results, you do have to have results. If you combine results with some of the data, like I wish people would just get on DataGolf and look at some of Scotty's numbers compared to everybody else. And it's like, holy crap. Yeah. Like this is even crazier than winning six times. Like if you combine it with winning six times, it makes it
It makes it even crazier. And I think the argument of the live guys not being there, okay, guess what happened in 2000? Not everybody was required to show up to these signature events. I think some of that kind of evens out over time. So yeah, I'm with you that I think it's a proper reaction. And I think I'm fascinated to see how long it can go for Scotty because when you become...
when it goes from being like, Hey, this is a crazy generational thing to being, Hey, is this guy one of the top 15 golfers that's ever lived is when you can do it for five, six, seven, eight years. That's what tiger did. And if you can do it like that, if you're Scotty, then that pyramid of yours is going to change a little bit over the next few years. Do you think he's going to win the open? No, I don't either. I think the final shoe to drop with Scheffler is, um,
I think it's fair to ask the question of quirkiness, right? Like adversity. I think Scotty Scheffler plays even Augusto. Like Ina is a counter argument to what I'm about to say, because that's a very odd golf course where you have to hit a whole bunch of different shots. But I think like the final shoe to drop with Scheffler is like,
Kind of my response to what he said about Pinehurst, where he kind of for paraphrasing here, but he,
He didn't really love that he didn't know what he was going to get. He didn't really love that extra variable where he couldn't control what happened if he missed the fairway. And I think that surmises to me Link's golf, right? Like playing in the wind, Gus, pop bunkers, different lies, stuff like that. That's kind of the final shoe to drop that I'm most...
most fascinated about with Scheffler. Yeah, and it takes away one of his advantages, which I always think of TPC Sawgrass to win the players twice in a row is crazy. Like that's a crazy accomplishment. And I think that that place is emblematic of like he's so smart about where he misses there. Yeah. And...
He's so disciplined and I think it takes away that that's one of his great advantages, I think. And when that advantage gets mitigated, I think he gets frustrated because he knows it's one of his great advantages. And so that frustration, I think, trickles into I mean, he's basically said that it trickles into his game a little bit. So yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it's again, it's it's acceptance. It's acceptance of the lie that you get the break that you get the draw that you get and all these different things at open championships. And I think he's pretty good at acceptance. I would be surprised if he didn't sort of acclimate to the Pinehurst and the trunes and places like that over the next five or six years.
Okay, dude, I feel bad. You threw out some great ones at the end too. We could have gone for another. Let's just give proper or over. Okay, so the first one you threw out was, is Sergio the best? Or I don't know if this is the exact order. I'll pull up the email in a second. But is Sergio the best one major player ever? And my answer is that's a proper reaction. So I did a tiny bit of digging on who the other candidates would be.
Adam Scott, Jim Furyk, Brad Couples. Now, the one to monitor over the next 10 years is Xander. Xander is...
very much on pace to have just as good of a career of Sergio, if not better. But as it stands now, Sergio, 24 prime years, 26 worldwide wins, one major, 99 major starts, four runner-ups, 23 major top tens. That's just a little bit better than Adam Scott, Jim Furyk, Fred Koppel. So my answer is proper reaction. Yeah, I think so too. 99, the thing that people don't value, they just, I don't know. Like, I hate to be an old man, but like,
Our society today only values winning. And I think 99 major starts is just 25 years of majors. That's crazy. Yeah. So I think, okay, proper reaction. We're in agreement there. Nobody will ever again have the 30 year career that Phil had. You're giving me one so that I could like write a book about thinking about Dunlap and Clanton.
I'll give a strange answer to this. I'm going to say proper reaction that nobody will do what Phil did just because Phil's like the 10th greatest golfer of all time. So the odds are not in the favor of somebody being better than that. I think the reason why when you give me Phil's career, what I think about is longevity. I think about the delta between longevity
how good he was at 19 and then winning a major at 51. And I worry a little bit about a golfer's prime moving forward. Right. So like Phil was maybe the best. Uh, there's some other good candidates here, but like Phil played insane golf in his forties. Okay. Like Phil didn't win his, you know, Phil Phil's prime was like 34 to 42. Like he won a lot of his majors in his late forties. Um,
And I think that's going to be a little bit harder to do going forward because I think that, do you get what I'm saying? Totally. I think injuries and money, like you mentioned earlier, swing out of your shoes. And I mentioned how much money there is will preclude guys from being great at 45. I think that those two things will, I think it's a proper reaction because I think those two things will, I'm not saying nobody will like get close, but I think it'll just make it a lot less likely that you're great for 30 years. So I would say proper reaction.
The open is by far the best major. I'm going to be a prisoner of the moment here. I've, I've never been to the open. It's a, it's a one major. I've not been to, I've been to multiple us up. It's multiple PGA championships. I went, I went to the masters for the first time this year and like didn't cover it for media. I went, went with my dad. It was something we've been talking about doing for 20 years. Probably we were supposed to go last year. He got COVID. We, we finally made it happen. Um,
it would take a pretty spiritual experience in Scotland, which I'm not saying is out of the realm of possibility. I've never played golf in Scotland. I've played a bunch of golf in Ireland, and that was one of the more spiritual experiences I've been on in a golf course. So I'm not privy to understanding that there's something special that happens there. But
After going to the Masters this year, and I think what you consistently get from Augusta year after year after year in terms of the conditions versus what can potentially happen overseas at the Open if you don't get weather, I'm still going with the Masters. I know it's chalk. Okay.
No, it's great. That's why I asked it. I'm going to say proper reaction. Obviously, I asked it. It's my favorite. I've only been to one. I went to St. Andrews.
We don't do a ton of international travel with CBS Sports, but I just love everything about it. I think it's the most natural, obviously. There's very little manipulation. It's just golf, man. It's just golf. I got to play a place here in Dallas that...
It's pretty somewhat exclusive, but it's the type of club where there's no swimming, there's no tennis, there's no socializing. It's just like pure golf and it's amazing. And that to me, that is how I feel about
The open. And that's why, that's why I think it's the best. Yeah. Yeah. I can't, you're not going this year. Are you now? No. Yeah. Okay. Last one. Proper over under for combined speed. The JT majors, the rest of the way is 0.5.
that's proper that, that I agree with you that, that I think is what a reaction, proper reaction. And yet I'm taking the over. I think I would take the over to, uh, but it's crazy to, if you would have said five years ago that this would be a proper reaction to kind of a stretch that they had, that wasn't great. You would have said, man, JT and speed just 0.5 majors from 2024 on or 20, whatever 2025 on that feels like an overreaction, but I, I don't,
I don't think it is just because a lot of the, I mean, one, I always take the under on guys majors almost always. Yeah. Two, there's so many guys coming up and it's just, I would have said Spieth was built for the longterm because his swing is not violent. Um, he seems a little sociopathic, um,
But man, this last year and a half has been tough. And I don't know if it's injury. I don't know what it is. But I do think 0.5 is a proper reaction. I would probably go over because I think one of them will win another one. But it's pretty crazy that we're having that conversation in 2024. Yeah. I mean, I think that Spieth has potentially pigeonholed himself into...
Two majors, right? Like I think that it's masters are open for him and JT is kind of the quintessential. Everything in my brain tells me he should be good on links golf courses and it just hasn't come to fruition yet. I know. I know. So I think that's kind of the tricky one with them is that there's, there's just certain venues that aren't going to totally work for them. And, and you don't feel that way with Zayn.
Right. You don't, you don't feel that way with, with Scotty or Bryson. So, all right, Kyle, this was a blast. We could have done this for, for six more hours. Uh, anything to plug what you got going on this week? Normal sport. I love your newsletter. Anything you got cooking up over these next 10 days before we head over to Trun? Yeah, just some, some normal sport newsletters. Normal sport.com is where you can check that out. Uh, did a piece today for CBS sports.com about, uh,
just six thoughts on Keegan Bradley's captaincy. People can go check that out. Um, but yeah, I always, always love coming on to talk golf. Could, could, uh,
Could always go longer, but always happy to do it, Andy. Awesome. Thanks, Kyle. Talk soon, my friend. All right. That's it for the podcast. Special thanks to Kyle. Special thanks to Run Pure Sports. Special thanks to The Rabbit Hole. And we'll be back on this podcast later this week, breaking down the Open Championship at Royal Troon. The regular podcast with Steve Bamford should be up around Friday afternoon. So look out for that later.
in the week. Until then, best of luck with your bets this weekend, and we will see you next time. Cheers!
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