Friday at the Open: Rory’s emotions, illegal drivers, Fore fights, and Westy’s rise

It’s Friday! Brendan and Andy offer up some quick reactions to the first ever staggered start on the PGA Tour. There is a three-way tie already atop the leaderboard -- was the format a success or was this always how it was going to go? Rory McIlroy’s comments on the “legacy” impacts of a staggered start are reviewed, and Andy offers the take that the history of the Tour Championship is being killed off in the same way as the Western Open. Matt Kuchar gets confused about Brooksy’s nudes, and it cost Tiger. Then some Champions Tour intel is also relayed via a source, who is an Uber Driver. For the second half of the pod, Sean Martin of PGATour.com joins us to provide his early impressions from on the ground as well as some lightning round takes on who we are surprised to see in Atlanta and who we are surprised did not make it. Flashback Friday gets into what Andy terms the greatest FedExCup ever and the best FedExCup performer ever, with the beautiful mind memory of Sean weaving in all the random obscure facts stuck in his brain.

23 Aug 20191h 9min

It’s finally here: the season-ending Tour Championship with its net and gross leaderboards at East Lake. Andy, fresh off a maddening day at Mid Am qualifying (which he describes as well), feistily lays out his issues with the staggered start. Brendan attempts to make the case for why this new change is a curiosity worth lauding and watching, at least at the start. We lay out some dream and nightmare scenarios for how this could go for Jay Monahan and the PGA Tour. Then we move to the European Tour taking on slow play, running through its four-point attack and the parts we think are best for improving the problem. The PGA Tour’s response and comments on it coming out of Atlanta are also discussed. In news, we hit on a troop deployment to the Military Tribute as well as the incredible Steph Curry announcement at Howard. We close with some picks for Atlanta for both the low gross and net portions of the proceedings.

21 Aug 201953min

Andy and Brendan return from the weekend with much to discuss and begin with results -- from JT’s win on the dartboard in Chicago, to Pieters’ return to the winner’s circle, to some cards secured at the first KFT finals event, and finally to Doug Barron, the longshot monday qualifier who won on the Champions Tour. In the not-playing-for-cash department, they review the finals of the U.S. Amateur at Pinehurst, comparing the conditions and style of that championship to the FedExCup event at Medinah. Is the core golf fan tuning out the FEC in favor of something like the two amateurs the last two weeks and if so, does that even matter? The comments from Adam Scott and Tiger Woods on distance and the one club that’s become most important while also easier to hit than ever are given full review. A painful “dump in the cup” segment does not play favorites, but on the KFT, they reconnect with an old friend and prepare for a full year of #ToddWatch. They wrap by discussing the auto-qualifiers for the Presidents Cup teams and the USA Walker Cup roster.

19 Aug 201953min

We head into the weekend with a lively discussion on some of the early action from Chicago, Prague, Columbus, and Pinehurst. At the BMW, we lament the modern game overpowering what is a beast of a course in Medinah. We also discuss BMW’s stunning decision to reverse course and stay on as title sponsor. At the Czech Masters, we praise leader Gavin Green’s pre-tournament prep of “eating and sleeping a lot.” With the U.S. Amateur down to the quarterfinals, we go over some of the match play results and the junior presence in the final eight. The decision to also hold the finals on two courses -- Pinehurst No. 4 and No. 2 -- is given critical review. Flashback Friday is a gripping journey from the last days of the “dick sponsored” Western Open to some of its earliest  blue-blood origins and eventually to a Chicago event that had the irate loser in an Allenby-esque fit of rage wandering aimlessly around the Chicagoland area.

16 Aug 201947min

This recording was done with Andy somewhere in the middle of the woods of the Upper Peninsula, so apologies for the choppy wifi. We run through the schedule for the week, which leads to a critique over the trimmed-down KFT Finals. Three weeks seems like a small snapshot for 25 cards when the first 25 cards were awarded after 7-plus months of play. The U.S. Amateur earns event of the week and we relay some early details from on the ground at Pinehurst, where conditions sound crispy. Then we move to the BMW Championship and make the argument that this week features the most compelling stakes of any of the three postseason events. We spotlight some names on the top 30 bubble that we’d like to see crash the party in Atlanta and also earn all the perks that come with it. We wrap with some Bryson follow-up with Andy providing the results of his speedwalking/sauntering research.

14 Aug 201953min

The content gods smiled down on us all again in the golf world. Before we get to the slow play drama, we begin with some reflections on the final round of The Northern Trust and how different, inorganic, and frankly, boring it felt compared to the drama of other pros playing for their jobs at the Korn Ferry event in Portland. Is this a reaction you had as well? In addition to the FedExCup and Korn Ferry shuffle, we also cover the wild fluctuation in weather at the Women’s Scottish Open that had one player questioning the integrity of the event. The amazing Gabi Ruffels and the U.S. Women’s Amateur is also given just due. Then we move to the main event -- the viral video of Bryson DeChambeau’s slow play, his reaction, others’ reactions, and the putting green confrontation with Brooks Koepka. We review and give the many statements around it a “bunk rating,” from Bryson saying he was attacked and that “carts would be nice,” to Brooksy calling for more confrontations, to Brandel saying the fastest players are the rude ones, and the PGA Tour frantically tweeting they’re addressing it.

12 Aug 20191h

We begin this Friday episode with a discussion on what Andy calls a glimpse into the future: golf tournaments with no fans. The Northern Trust went fan-less to start the first round but the lack of distractions outside the ropes did Tiger’s game no favors. We get into Tiger’s decision to play this week and the statement “Tiger should retire” is even uttered at one point. Flashback Friday re-acquaints us with a former winner of this Playoffs event that has fallen off a cliff. Then we get to a delightful interview with Harry Higgs, who earned his PGA Tour card this season on the Korn Ferry Tour after a recent win in Missouri. Higgs is a great personality worth rooting for in the KFT Finals the next month and on the PGA Tour next year. He is candid about self-doubts coming up through college and the self-belief to eventually get to the Tour. We go into the wild nights on the Latinoamerica Tour, where he was order of merit winner last year, his college teammate Bryson DeChambeau’s chocolate milk habit, and money games with Jordan Spieth. Harry was incredibly forthright and entertaining and we appreciate him taking the time.

9 Aug 20191h 34min

At long last, the postseason arrives and we begin this Wednesday episode trying to talk ourselves into being excited for it. Does the new format work? What are the things, or single thing, we’re looking forward to watching throughout the FedExCup? Andy proffers a take that the Wyndham Rewards might have ruined the FedExCup. Brendan uses the occasion of the entire field auto-tweeting graphics of their tee times to rant a little bit on the inauthentic nature of players taking ownership of their own platforms, including the latest subjects of conversation from the Rory-Carson podcast. We give a quick preview of the KFT event, which gets some primetime love this week with players battling for Tour cards and Finals status. On that front, it will be a nervous week for the Methheads. Then Brendan quizzes Andy with some basic FedExCup trivia to re-orient ourselves with the PGA Tour postseason as it starts its 13th edition. In news, we have praise for the USGA listening and implementing the new Hovland Rule, although it leaves us with a few new questions. We wrap a fun Bryson story and some of his quotes on the schedule squeeze and his push for a Presidents Cup spot.

7 Aug 20191h 2min