Ep72: Metropolitan & Huntingdale Propose Merger, 'Scottie Scheffler is a Dork' & 'Playing With Steve Elkington was a Nightmare'

Another big week in golf and Nick O'Hern and Mark Allen are all over it.

We start by discussing Keegan Bradley's appointment as the captain of the US Ryder Cup team, an appointment which took us all by surprise. But we quickly move on to Steph Kyriacou's performance in the Evian, she did so well and nearly won her first major but just fell a little short to a fast finishing Ayaka Furue.

Mark loves Ludvig Åberg but wasn't over the moon with his performance at the weekend. On the positive side, Mark feels his Ludvig betting strategy is in good shape. And what a win for Bobby MacIntyre in the Scottish Open at the weekend, beating our own Adam Scott by one. Nick and Mark chat about the 16th hole. So good.

Mark asks Nick why metal spikes are still allowed. He has a theory.

Huge news out of Melbourne with Metropolitan and Huntingdale looking at a merger proposal. Nick and Mark both rate the move, which has been a long time coming, and decide on the fly to arrange a bonus pod with the respective club captains. Mark gets straight on the phone at the turn and fires off texts everywhere to arrange it....which results in SMS replies coming in throughout the second half of the pod! We didn't think that one through.

Massive weekend in Spain, the Euros win over England in the soccer (football!), Wimbledon with Alcaraz, and LIV. Good week to be a Spaniard. Olé!!!

We play a voicemail from Tim in Sorrento, Western Australia, who has a question for Nick and Mark about cleaning your equipment - and he reckons No Laying Up might have been listening to Talk Birdie To Me. Why wouldn't they.

A fun Top 5 today, Nick counts down his Top 5 'duels' at the Open Championship, Mark comes up with an idea to do a Top 5 'plaquable bogeys'. You read that correctly. We're hoping he forgets. He's asked us to remind him, but we won't.

Lots of feedback on the bonus pod last week with James Sutherland last week, too much to read out, so we read about 5 or 6. Mixed feedback on Marks joke last week. Some of you liked it. Poor form. Plenty of other feedback as well, keep it coming.

A massive PING global results this week, Nick takes us through it - but we get interrupted mid PING global when pod listener Tim from Canberra calls the hotline to ask a question about Aaron Baddeley...Nick hooks back into the results without missing a bit after Tim calls.

And a ripper masterclass thanks to the gang at the watchMynumbers app, on putting on slower greens.

A big thanks to our Talk Birdie partners, who we hope will forgive Marks joke:

• PING, they'll help you play your best, you can see your local golf shop or professional for a PING club fitting;
• the new watchMynumbers app, the most powerful data based golf app in the world, download from the App Store ;
• and the Golf Clearance Outlet, great prices on the best gear. See them in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane or Perth, or online here.

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