Speaker 1: The Morris Gravesite is on the right wall of the cemetery.
Speaker 1: My guess is there will be a few people, perhaps
Speaker 1: a dozen, that are they're doing the same thing. Your
Speaker 1: flashlight APP will come in Handy and Taylor wrote. Well,
Speaker 1: we're at ruse x right now. Cooper wrote. I'm wearing camouflage.
Speaker 1: Peyton said, Jim do we have to wear a turtleneck?
Speaker 1: I said required at the door, proferably tweet jacket also.
Speaker 1: Peyton then said hello, dead friends. Put another log on
Speaker 1: the fire. Here is give the time. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: fire pit. With Matt Chanella. It was a Thursday afternoon
Speaker 1: and I was getting a call from Jim Nance. I
Speaker 1: forced myself to take a second before answering. It felt
Speaker 1: like high school, purposely pausing so as do not appear
Speaker 1: desperate or too excited. Jim Nance, I asked, I have
Speaker 1: something for you. He said. I'm all ears. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: manning brothers, Eric Church, Taylor Zarza and some of their
Speaker 1: friends have just returned from an ultimate buddies trip to
Speaker 1: Scotland and Northern Ireland, and apparently it was something special.
Speaker 1: I wondered if you'd be interested in telling their story
Speaker 1: in obviously well, fourteen interviews in almost eight hours of
Speaker 1: recordings later, we've assembled a two part podcast reflecting on
Speaker 1: and rehashing the best buddies trip that was happening in
Speaker 1: and around the playing of the open championship at St Drews.
Speaker 1: There are course reviews and insider info. A man named
Speaker 1: church breaks into a cemetery and gets inspired to write
Speaker 1: an original song. There are traditional drinks and magnums of wine.
Speaker 1: A tall boy of tenants was used as a t
Speaker 1: there's a proper lunch, special guests robes red socks and
Speaker 1: you get the details of a new drinking game that's
Speaker 1: already sweeping the country. They play a variety of formats
Speaker 1: in great weather. There was a spirit of competition and
Speaker 1: a specific spirit that will, as Cooper manning put it,
Speaker 1: make you forget your middle name. But one thing was
Speaker 1: made more clear than the Kumo. Nothing was more important
Speaker 1: than the Camaraderie. Before I go any further, I want
Speaker 1: to thank some of the sponsors of the fire pit.
Speaker 1: We couldn't do this without the support of link soul,
Speaker 1: the lifestyle brand that was started by my friends John
Speaker 1: Ashworth and Jeff Cunningham. It's all I wear on and
Speaker 1: off the course. Use Promo Code Fire Pit off your
Speaker 1: next purchase at links soul DOT com. I'd like to
Speaker 1: also think part points, the innovative APP that alters the
Speaker 1: way you can score the game of golf. I especially
Speaker 1: like it for beginners. Family Golf were buddy strips, looking
Speaker 1: for a way to change things up. Download part points
Speaker 1: now and go make part and then there's dormy workshop,
Speaker 1: who we've collaborated with on all of our leather goods.
Speaker 1: Head to the pitch shop at fire pit collective dot
Speaker 1: com to see our latest line of CO branded merchandise.
Speaker 1: All right, in this podcast you'll hear from Peyton Eli
Speaker 1: and Cooper Manny. Country Music Star Eric Church is here.
Speaker 1: There's Taylor's oars of Sirius X M, who by day
Speaker 1: was playing golf. In the afternoons in St Andrew's he
Speaker 1: was calling the golf. We hear from Nance Tiger's caddy,
Speaker 1: Joe Lacava, and more. The trip included Marshall Alexander, who
Speaker 1: works with Eric Church, Ben Wepbron and Eric Hasberger of
Speaker 1: a j capital who, along with Cooper Manning and a
Speaker 1: long list of their friends, bought and transformed the Russex
Speaker 1: hotel which overlooks the eighteenth green of the old course.
Speaker 1: And they didn't stop at the RUSEX. Cooper Manning explains.
Speaker 1: We're in the hotel business. Me a couple of members
Speaker 1: of the trip are all in the partners and we
Speaker 1: have a college hotel platform called graduate hotels, and so
Speaker 1: we have great, cool hotels and all these great towns
Speaker 1: from Ann Arbor to Charlottesville to Oxford Berkeley. Anyway, we
Speaker 1: have thirty five of them and going to do it more.
Speaker 1: And we were in the middle of that Um we
Speaker 1: said look, if we're gonna be a college hotel platform,
Speaker 1: we gotta have hotels and the two of the greatest
Speaker 1: college channels of all time, which are Oxford, England and Cambridge.
Speaker 1: So we wound up meeting a gentleman over there kind
Speaker 1: of through acquiring them, and I got named Donald McDonald,
Speaker 1: and he said look, he kind of liked us and
Speaker 1: likely to get things and he admitted he said, look,
Speaker 1: I've had this hotel kind of in my hip pocket
Speaker 1: for a long time. Personal Account. The RUSSACKS y'all would
Speaker 1: be probably the right group to come in and bring
Speaker 1: it back. He had not put it very much money
Speaker 1: into it and it kind of fall on hard times.
Speaker 1: But and so we were like, let's take a look,
Speaker 1: you know. You know, we had no business thoughts or
Speaker 1: future about going into the golf hotel related business, and
Speaker 1: so we said, look these things. Wow, this is one
Speaker 1: of the most iconic assets there is. These things don't ever,
Speaker 1: you know, they don't trade. We're gonna look into it.
Speaker 1: And then so we, UM, being weapon who's WHO's the
Speaker 1: boss and the visionary here, said this is, you know,
Speaker 1: this is unbelievable and we, you know, normal. We were
Speaker 1: private at refirm. We raised money from bigger institutions stuff,
Speaker 1: and we said let's do this and let's raise this
Speaker 1: money just by friends and lovers of Golf. Meet Ben Wet,
Speaker 1: CEO of a capital. The whole idea was, you know,
Speaker 1: there was an opportunity to sort of impact and set
Speaker 1: ourselves apart from anybody else in the space by creating
Speaker 1: an hospitality experience that matched the uniqueness in history and
Speaker 1: charm and sophistication of the golf experience. And there was
Speaker 1: a white space in the market and then to connect
Speaker 1: it with multiple markets and create the ultimate you know, guys, girls,
Speaker 1: trip journey venue. Um, you know, our goal as a
Speaker 1: company used to create backdrop for life's most meaningful moments.
Speaker 1: And like we started with, you know, university based hotels,
Speaker 1: and it's the same idea or thesis and that sort
Speaker 1: of Disceral, limbrick connection you have in those marketplaces and
Speaker 1: how your passion and your nostalgia and your connection to
Speaker 1: these places. We wanted to create a hospitality experience matches
Speaker 1: that and that's all through history and storytelling and really,
Speaker 1: you know, creating a mirror that when you you look
Speaker 1: at our hotel, it feels like you're looking out into
Speaker 1: the community, into the market in who you know, St Andrews,
Speaker 1: into you Truan or Royal County Down or Berwick. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's all an idea to be a reflection of
Speaker 1: those places how especially unique they are. And you know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the fifty investors. There's actually more than that.
Speaker 1: And then they're all so critical and important part of
Speaker 1: the journey and they're all partners. You asked me. They
Speaker 1: all own it. We all I don't even think we
Speaker 1: are stewards of the asset. Having stayed at the rue
Speaker 1: six the week of the open I wish I could
Speaker 1: say I own it. We're pretty good at taking old
Speaker 1: dogs and bringing it back to life. And so, anyway,
Speaker 1: past the hat, I mean we got, I don't want
Speaker 1: to get into who all, but you know, the Jim
Speaker 1: Nances of the world, and got a couple of golfers
Speaker 1: and just a lot of the west coast crowd and
Speaker 1: some a lot of green jackets and a lot of just,
Speaker 1: you know, really cool people who love golf who, I
Speaker 1: thought this would be fun and the idea was to
Speaker 1: say we said get going. I had more fun. It's fun.
Speaker 1: Raising money is not hard, I mean it's hard. This
Speaker 1: was fun because if someone didn't want to do it,
Speaker 1: no problem, because I knew there was a laundry list
Speaker 1: of guys behind them who wanted to be a part
Speaker 1: of this. And you know, I didn't know if we'd
Speaker 1: had tournaments. I didn't know what we'd do. And we know,
Speaker 1: everything got it got delayed with the open we knew
Speaker 1: we were on the clock to get it done. There
Speaker 1: was a parking lot next door. We were gonna build
Speaker 1: more rooms and had this unbelievable rooftop bar, a panoramic,
Speaker 1: I mean of the of the you know, the most
Speaker 1: story story of Golf. And so Um covid kind of
Speaker 1: delayed us a little bit and they pushed back to
Speaker 1: win and we knew that was a clock. So that
Speaker 1: that kind of had been brewing. Boy, it would be
Speaker 1: fun to get a big trip around the open and
Speaker 1: and that's kind of how it got. But the concept
Speaker 1: I started the rebuilding and rebranding of the rusicks hotel
Speaker 1: to build up to open and the birth of a
Speaker 1: buddy's trip back to web brin. Originally it wasn't about,
Speaker 1: you know, bringing our friends together and going on this journey.
Speaker 1: It was for me. It was like the tell and
Speaker 1: you know I've been going over there, obviously since we
Speaker 1: acquired the hotel, you know, whether this one or buck
Speaker 1: or troon or Royal County Down, but I've never played
Speaker 1: over there. I was saving it for this. As you'll
Speaker 1: hear in both parts of these podcasts, it was all
Speaker 1: well worth the wait. You know, it's Eli pay was
Speaker 1: like Eli. I was like, you know, let's see if
Speaker 1: let's see there's really something there with Cooper just got
Speaker 1: us into you know, he's like ship, let's go check
Speaker 1: it out. So there was a lot of curiosity but
Speaker 1: at the same time the idea of being able to
Speaker 1: play golf and then watch golf and have the best
Speaker 1: view in the in the whole world and then do
Speaker 1: it with, you know, we have. You know, the trip
Speaker 1: was made up of kind of it was. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: We're all at all this close, close friends, summer close.
Speaker 1: Some don't really know each other's some no, it was
Speaker 1: kind of pepping around. But yeah, I think it was
Speaker 1: kind of a little I'm curious. And we wound up
Speaker 1: going to see three of the four assets. We stayed
Speaker 1: at Bruce as, we stayed at North Barrack and we
Speaker 1: stayed at the sleeve donner to Brokaw. We didn't get
Speaker 1: to turn this time, but you know, it was kind
Speaker 1: of a yeah, and investors, uh, let's check on these assets. Also,
Speaker 1: let's play some of the best golf in the world
Speaker 1: and have more fun than we can, you know, have
Speaker 1: in a long time. Before we get to the fun,
Speaker 1: Cooper Manning, my main narrator of this adventure, introduces the
Speaker 1: cast of characters involved and then each person explains their
Speaker 1: role on this ultimate buddy strip. I'll give you a
Speaker 1: breakdown of everybody. That's okay. So Ben Wepburn is the
Speaker 1: is the founder of a J Capitol and he's the
Speaker 1: mastermind behind Um he's the boss and but but reluctant.
Speaker 1: He didn't. He doesn't act like it, and I think
Speaker 1: he had more fun than anybody and he's uh, he's
Speaker 1: the one that but he was the guys that we
Speaker 1: got to get a good perfect eightiesome and let's go,
Speaker 1: let's go figure out, let's go see these assets and
Speaker 1: go have some fun. All these things in life, right,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if you're not sharing it with somebody right there.
Speaker 1: Just minutes, then they become moments and then you have memories.
Speaker 1: That lasts forever and that's the whole reason we all
Speaker 1: do and everything that we do is to have those
Speaker 1: moments and those memories and those shared experiences. They just
Speaker 1: you know, when you get older in your our age,
Speaker 1: you're working, your families, you have kids. I mean that's
Speaker 1: why people are so nostalgic about college, just you and
Speaker 1: your buddies hanging out all the time. You don't get
Speaker 1: to do that as much anymore. Right. We all have
Speaker 1: responsibilities and the things change and life changes and they
Speaker 1: go on a journey for a week with your best
Speaker 1: friends in these places, Dude. I mean, I mean I
Speaker 1: just you know, I could make it up Eric Church.
Speaker 1: There's a country music rock star and UH, and he
Speaker 1: lives there in Nashville, and you gotta have a rock
Speaker 1: star on your trip. And I think there's just you
Speaker 1: know whether this guy is, whether he's a real one
Speaker 1: or whether he thinks he's a real one. That's kind
Speaker 1: of I've been on plenty of trips where I think
Speaker 1: I thought he was, but you know, and and Eric's
Speaker 1: so what's so cool about him is he is a
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not sure he can walk down. He
Speaker 1: can walk down and he can't walk down in the street.
Speaker 1: You know, when he looks like he's on stage, but
Speaker 1: when he puts on a pair of accounting Goggle, accounting
Speaker 1: glasses and has just a good old you know golf
Speaker 1: had on, he can he can be anonymous, which is
Speaker 1: pretty neat for him, I think, especially in Scotland, you know,
Speaker 1: doing all they don't hound him, which I think he
Speaker 1: loves the anonymity. I was the best drinker of all
Speaker 1: of us. Um, yeah, I had to. I had to,
Speaker 1: I had to, had to hold down, you know, the
Speaker 1: drinking part. We were in Scotland and Ireland, for God's sake. Um,
Speaker 1: I had to, had to hold up my musician heritage
Speaker 1: the rock and roll lifestyle. But I know I hoped
Speaker 1: that with some of the travel and you know, transfernace
Speaker 1: across the pond and stuff like that. So we each
Speaker 1: had kind of a role, you know, the things that
Speaker 1: we did, you know, and that was no other than
Speaker 1: just being a kind of fun. That was that was mine.
Speaker 1: And then uh Eli, Um is. Uh Eli and Ben
Speaker 1: are old friends, really kind of introduced. UH, they're really
Speaker 1: good friends, family friends, kids the same age. I love
Speaker 1: to have a good time. What is mine? What is
Speaker 1: my role? Well, I did. I did bring the wine.
Speaker 1: So that was that was, you know, as he said,
Speaker 1: you know, I had to had, you know, I had
Speaker 1: to do something. You know, he kind of had. The
Speaker 1: plane was going on. Someone had the hotels, coops, always
Speaker 1: entertainment and storytelling, Um, and so it was kind of
Speaker 1: I was kind of searching. It's like what can I
Speaker 1: do to to help, you know, chip in on this?
Speaker 1: And and so, Um, you know, asked, asked. WEAPURN feed
Speaker 1: mind if I brought, you brought some wine for some
Speaker 1: of these dinners where I have at the rus sacks
Speaker 1: or other places, and so he said that would be fine. So,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, brought, you know, eight magnums of of some
Speaker 1: good red wine that I've been been saving, and so
Speaker 1: it was. It was happy to include that on the
Speaker 1: trip and get to have those in some special places.
Speaker 1: There's nothing better than having a friend that not only
Speaker 1: has good, good wine, but is willing to share it
Speaker 1: right like the worst cases having someone, Oh, I got
Speaker 1: a great wine cellar, but he never busts out the wine.
Speaker 1: At least you're you're selfless and willing to actually share.
Speaker 1: That's the key I needed to drinking. I gotta, I gotta,
Speaker 1: I gotta make up for some lots time. So I gotta.
Speaker 1: You know, I gotta Start Consuming. I've done good job
Speaker 1: of buying, not as good at consuming, but it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not been because of a lack of effort. I'll
Speaker 1: play that. So, uh, I just gotta go on more, more, more,
Speaker 1: golf trip. So you can bring bring a bunch. Then
Speaker 1: we had I got in Marshall, Alexander Marshall runs point
Speaker 1: for all of the Churches UH tours and it just
Speaker 1: does everything for the church. He's a he's a logistics guy,
Speaker 1: gets things done behind the scenes, making making it happen.
Speaker 1: He's a short guy, got a lot of grief being
Speaker 1: the shortest guy. Is a pretty tall group of this trip.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, you know everybody. I always tell him.
Speaker 1: You know, he he's not even tall as his driver,
Speaker 1: but he kills it. He hits it a long way.
Speaker 1: So Uh, you know, he's got a he doesn't get
Speaker 1: offended easily. I helped with the transportation, just the logistics.
Speaker 1: You know, that's kind of my role in Eric's world,
Speaker 1: is is the day to day like getting him from
Speaker 1: point a to point B. So me and him kind
Speaker 1: of tag team that side of it. So everybody else, uh,
Speaker 1: I didn't have to worry about you know where, you
Speaker 1: know when to be. H Taylor has all these golf connections,
Speaker 1: so he had been working throughout the years and tea
Speaker 1: times and the connections with the golf courses. So it
Speaker 1: was really a team effort. And Uh, Cooper brought the humor, obviously,
Speaker 1: as he always does. He probably quickly learned he's uh,
Speaker 1: he's the Jokester of the group. And you know, it
Speaker 1: was funny because, you know, the mannings them setting their
Speaker 1: pro athletes very tall. Eric's tall, ben is tall. You know,
Speaker 1: you banks is tall and we did all these group
Speaker 1: photos and I'm pretty short and UH. So, you know, me,
Speaker 1: five foot and nothing, standing up to a bunch of
Speaker 1: you know, six ft five inches. You know, that was
Speaker 1: a running joke through the whole thing. Is like, you
Speaker 1: know who's the short who's the guy that brought their
Speaker 1: kid on the trip? Peyton is loves golf and it
Speaker 1: really loves golf and and loves boys trips. Um can
Speaker 1: be typically pretty anal on like where we're supposed to be,
Speaker 1: what time we're getting there, who's going? He's kind of
Speaker 1: a detailed guy and typically likes to be in charge,
Speaker 1: but had no and no to say so on anything
Speaker 1: this trip. So he's relaxed because he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't doing about it anyway. So it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of takes the edge off Paike. You know, what are
Speaker 1: we wearing? What time we're gonna BE THERE? What? What's
Speaker 1: the dinner? What? You know, like just relaxing and just
Speaker 1: you can kind of go along for the ride. It's
Speaker 1: fun and also, I think you know he's he's known,
Speaker 1: not as known you know, as you know golf, sure,
Speaker 1: but you also it's I think it's also fun for
Speaker 1: him a little bit to be in uh, when you're
Speaker 1: in Europe. He's, you know, he's not the best soccer
Speaker 1: player in a world right now, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: like he can kind of he can kind of blend
Speaker 1: to which is which is fun for him. I was
Speaker 1: part of the Logistics Transportation Committee. Uh, me and Eric
Speaker 1: Church were kind of on that committee together. I'm a
Speaker 1: big logistics guy and this was a great trip because
Speaker 1: mark you banks, who was on the trip, who works
Speaker 1: with Bookbra and bend, he is like Mr Logistics. I
Speaker 1: mean that is his job to help organize golf trips
Speaker 1: where people can say at these hotels and play at
Speaker 1: these courses. So this was right up his alley. It
Speaker 1: was kind of Nice not to have to organize every
Speaker 1: piece of the itinerary. So I enjoyed that part of it. But, uh,
Speaker 1: I did my part on certain parts of the transportation
Speaker 1: and logistics and uh kind of help the trip go smoothly.
Speaker 1: No problems since. So, Um, I feel like I did
Speaker 1: my job. And we have a guy named mark EU banks,
Speaker 1: and mark is was formally he was he was the
Speaker 1: head of of of a golf course called the old farm.
Speaker 1: For a while. The GM there and we're all we
Speaker 1: all played golf there and mark came to work for us,
Speaker 1: just thinking this guy is just such a he is
Speaker 1: just built to be in hospitality. He loves taking care
Speaker 1: of things, of problems, of like if it's chaos and
Speaker 1: people are coming and going a hundred miles an hour,
Speaker 1: he's looking at my door now. He is the best.
Speaker 1: Talking about you, mark. I'm sending your praises, a ton
Speaker 1: about it anyway. And so like, I mean high profile
Speaker 1: people who demand a certain level of excellence and Um,
Speaker 1: anything he gets it. I mean he gets done. I
Speaker 1: saw an interview where they had Jordan's speed was talking
Speaker 1: about how he gets ice. Bass. You know, how do
Speaker 1: you get an ice? You call it mark eubanks. Mark
Speaker 1: Eubanks and delivered nights. Everybody kind of just took on a,
Speaker 1: you know, their own role. Um. You know, I started
Speaker 1: working on Tea Times with Taylor. We got the tea
Speaker 1: times together. Transportation came together with with Eric and of
Speaker 1: course Peyton helped with the transportation. Ben, you know, is
Speaker 1: he's the founder of a J and Marina Lawn. So
Speaker 1: you know, we had the hotels covered, Um, and then
Speaker 1: it came to you know, where are we gonna eat?
Speaker 1: And after being at the Russ the eighteen rough top bar.
Speaker 1: We decided we're gonna be there as often as we can.
Speaker 1: We had some courtyard settings over marine north berry. So
Speaker 1: it was it was pretty easy. It was a collaboration
Speaker 1: with everyone, but Marshall and I kind of made sure
Speaker 1: that everyone got what they wanted. Another guy, Eric Hasberger,
Speaker 1: who's President Aj capital, was over. He was over there
Speaker 1: earlier with some people who played Presswick, kind of medicine
Speaker 1: the middle and didn't catch the tail. In my prime,
Speaker 1: Mary roll would be, Um, taking as many pictures and
Speaker 1: videos as I can. So the ones you know, the
Speaker 1: pictures you saw, Um, that kind of got posted by
Speaker 1: John or by Peyton. The video of John Hitting the
Speaker 1: beer off the beer can, I that was that was
Speaker 1: me on the other side laughing. Um. So you know,
Speaker 1: I was and I was happy to serve that role
Speaker 1: and just just be a part of it because, you know,
Speaker 1: those guys have known each other forever and I've worked
Speaker 1: with Bennekoper for a long time and I've gotten to
Speaker 1: know them through Bennekop Um. But being, you know, being
Speaker 1: a part of that trip with them was pretty it
Speaker 1: was pretty special for me for sure. And we also
Speaker 1: had Taylor. Taylor obviously you know serious x him es
Speaker 1: Ben Golf Guy. And so Taylor set up his coverage
Speaker 1: of the open championship in his on a on a
Speaker 1: outdoor porch. Outdoor, I would call it kind of a porch,
Speaker 1: I don't know that's the right word, an outdoor of
Speaker 1: of one of the rooms the Russex. So he had
Speaker 1: all he was on the headphones sitting out there and
Speaker 1: his room kind of turned into a makeshift bar and UH, hangouts.
Speaker 1: Everybody's winning there, had drinks, we had tunes and you
Speaker 1: walked out and right there on eight team and he
Speaker 1: was doing his broadcast from there and he helped line
Speaker 1: up a lot of the golf because we were on
Speaker 1: a little bit of a you know, we were not
Speaker 1: we didn't have this plan to early sort of play
Speaker 1: some of these golf courses. He was really crucial to
Speaker 1: lining us up playing with different members where we could
Speaker 1: get on as opposed to just a bunch of Americans
Speaker 1: coming over there and have it lined up. We played.
Speaker 1: We played with either a pro or a member or
Speaker 1: even a captain of the club at both at North Barrack,
Speaker 1: at Mirfield and at Royal County Down, which to me
Speaker 1: was one of the coolest things I've ever done. It's
Speaker 1: one thing to go and play with your buddies, nothing
Speaker 1: even played with your buddies and some locals and members
Speaker 1: and then have drinks with him after and have lunch
Speaker 1: and hang out and, you know, shooting your friends like
Speaker 1: lifelong friendships. First of all, this is, as you know,
Speaker 1: as special backdrop as you can have, like just there's
Speaker 1: no other place in golf where you can watch a
Speaker 1: sporting event from the russacks patio and overlook this historical moment,
Speaker 1: and I think that they were so impressed that that
Speaker 1: you could have that backdrop, number one, and then, number two,
Speaker 1: to to see what was happening in front of them,
Speaker 1: which we didn't know exactly that it was going to
Speaker 1: happen like that. For that to transpire was was impressive
Speaker 1: and that was always a part of the deal, Maddie,
Speaker 1: is that we were going to watch the open championship,
Speaker 1: you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Let them totally live that experience,
Speaker 1: potentially play some golf in the morning, Um, if everybody
Speaker 1: wanted to, which everybody did, and then we go watch,
Speaker 1: you know, the final, Um, the last pairings go off
Speaker 1: on Saturday, and then watch the conclusion of the open
Speaker 1: on Sunday. was was really the plan from the beginning,
Speaker 1: and then we would go full golf trip starting on Monday.
Speaker 1: And Me, I'm I I'm in charge of the music.
Speaker 1: I bring the mutic, I bring up, I bring the
Speaker 1: tunes everywhere, I bring him everywhere and we always have
Speaker 1: them just in case you don't need them. And UH
Speaker 1: and Um, I like to keep everybody laughing and having fun.
Speaker 1: And Yeah, it's just I enjoy everybody's company. I'm easy. Wait.
Speaker 1: So when you when you're in charge of the music
Speaker 1: on a buddies trip that includes Eric Church, do you
Speaker 1: just play Eric, Eric Church Music All day? No, that's
Speaker 1: kind of part of another deal. Rarely, rarely, we played
Speaker 1: church and church is that's funny. He's kind of my
Speaker 1: only guy. I gotta kind of check because every now
Speaker 1: and then he's critical and he has some taste. So
Speaker 1: I kind of know and I'll know. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: always introduce him to something new, but all of a
Speaker 1: sudden make sure he knows I have a great appreciation
Speaker 1: for the old good stuff. So it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I know his I know his touch points. I mean
Speaker 1: like you know, if you want to get on his
Speaker 1: good side. You just you're playing singer, you're playing whaling,
Speaker 1: you're playing you know, Willie, uh just, I know where
Speaker 1: he is, and then you trying to interroucing something new
Speaker 1: and he'll kind of give you one of these like
Speaker 1: kind of a it's kind of a like a disappointing uncle,
Speaker 1: like look, don't, don't, don't, don't say that, don't say that,
Speaker 1: don't do that. So yeah, it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: a pressure cooker. So you gotta I was, I was,
Speaker 1: I was on my my a game most of the trip.
Speaker 1: I asked Eric Church if he was inspired to play
Speaker 1: any music while on this trip and his answer was no. Apparently,
Speaker 1: when he's on a golf trip it's all about the
Speaker 1: golf and the group. I mean there's always exceptions that
Speaker 1: depend on the trip, but I mean I've really never
Speaker 1: I mean and and the use of the guys I
Speaker 1: go with. No that I mean when I go I'm
Speaker 1: there to hang. I don't make you know, Peyton Eli
Speaker 1: told me a football either. So I'm there to I'm
Speaker 1: there to hang and just and just hang out, you know.
Speaker 1: So we're trying to just get to know each other
Speaker 1: and Um, I did write a pretty, pretty good song
Speaker 1: Um at Royal County down. That I was we got there,
Speaker 1: which is gonna probably work out in the future, but
Speaker 1: it's just kind of this spooky, you know, kind of deal.
Speaker 1: So it did have a that was an interesting thing. Musically,
Speaker 1: I couldn't shut that part off. You know. I didn't
Speaker 1: have a guitar, so I ended up just writing it
Speaker 1: with just vocal and but my my phone, you know.
Speaker 1: I took me like twenty minutes and just fell out.
Speaker 1: So there's some juice and there's some juice in Royal
Speaker 1: County down at least a sleep sleeve doddard. It's a
Speaker 1: good place. More on the Song Eric Church wrote. Later
Speaker 1: in the story you might even get to hear a
Speaker 1: little bit of it, but for now we get this
Speaker 1: trip started. And where they begin is where Tigers Week
Speaker 1: is coming to an end. It's Friday afternoon in St
Speaker 1: Andrews and it's the playing of the open championship. First
Speaker 1: on the MIC, appropriately, is Taylor Peyton and his wife
Speaker 1: Ashley were coming over from Paris Um. So they weren't
Speaker 1: that he was not there yet. He got there Saturday morning,
Speaker 1: but everybody else, uh, that was arriving arrived on Friday afternoon.
Speaker 1: In fact, the live broadcast shows this plane coming into
Speaker 1: lucers and I thought that has to be them and
Speaker 1: and I text them immediately and Eric text back confirmed
Speaker 1: and but the I don't know if they showed it
Speaker 1: on NBC, but I know they showed it on our USA,
Speaker 1: but they showed it on sky and here's this plane
Speaker 1: coming in. Oh, this must be some Americans coming in
Speaker 1: for the weekend at the Open Championship. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you gotta be kidding me. Next, Marshall Alexander, when we
Speaker 1: landed in Scotland, you know, we just went directly from
Speaker 1: point a to point B. There was no like let's
Speaker 1: drop our bags in the room, there was no hey,
Speaker 1: let's go check this out. We went right to that
Speaker 1: balcony overlooking the eighteenth green and it felt like we
Speaker 1: were just in a time. I mean that's the greatest
Speaker 1: view in golf arguably, and uh, to be surrounded by,
Speaker 1: you know, great friends and and to how that scenario
Speaker 1: was unreal. You just kind of blink and you're like
Speaker 1: how did I get here? Eli Manning on following Friday's action.
Speaker 1: You know, it tiged up well with that Friday arriving
Speaker 1: and you know, it was like a full full sprint
Speaker 1: to the hotel. You know, we're kind of getting updates
Speaker 1: on our phone. Eight Tigers on sixteen, like we gotta
Speaker 1: we gotta go, we gotta go. Um. And so, I
Speaker 1: mean get to the hotel, you know, don't even wait
Speaker 1: for bags or anything, and go straight up to the
Speaker 1: to the little balcony. The immediately come out the patio.
Speaker 1: While I'm on the air, they're like high five thing,
Speaker 1: you know. You know, we're here, here, here we go.
Speaker 1: And then, yeah, tigers coming up to last and it's
Speaker 1: pretty power off a moment. He's, you know, filled with
Speaker 1: the motion. And that's the that's kind of how we
Speaker 1: pressed play on the our our five day adventure. Eric Church.
Speaker 1: We had landed within the hour, you know, before that,
Speaker 1: and we come we we were we knew, you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't plan to do it, but it was very
Speaker 1: serendipitous that we got there at the same time that,
Speaker 1: you know, that was happening, I mean and Roy was
Speaker 1: teeing off and tiger was coming up, and you know
Speaker 1: what it was. It was a really great foreshadowing for
Speaker 1: an incredible memorable trip, because when you you see something
Speaker 1: like that, it just kind of it sets everything up.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the first thing we didn't we didn't
Speaker 1: take our bags to the room. We left the bags.
Speaker 1: We weren't running up to the rooftop there at Roo
Speaker 1: sex and at that time tiger was putting out on
Speaker 1: seventeen and then he teed off on eighteen and we
Speaker 1: got to you know, got to watch that and a
Speaker 1: little bit of a I don't know what Tiger's future
Speaker 1: will be, but to watch him, Paul's there on the
Speaker 1: bridge and, you know, the nod De Rory. It was
Speaker 1: just a little bit of a passing of the torch
Speaker 1: and I was very, very glad that we made it
Speaker 1: for that and got to see that and Eli Manning
Speaker 1: again on witnessing a snippet of golf history. Eighteen at
Speaker 1: the old course, Um, you know, maybe his last last
Speaker 1: British Open. You know, as you know, assumed his last,
Speaker 1: you know, open at St Andrews. It's you know, it's
Speaker 1: a while to you know a little bit. Do they
Speaker 1: have another one? So to see him Um, you know,
Speaker 1: walk walk through the eighteenth you know, took a couple
Speaker 1: of pictures. I've gotten to know his caddy Joe Lacava, uh,
Speaker 1: fairly well, you know, kind of send him a text
Speaker 1: afterwards to a picture of him and tiger on on
Speaker 1: the on the green at eighteen and send him a
Speaker 1: picture and here's Joe Lacava, Tiger's legendary caddy. If you
Speaker 1: could just give me your perspective on kind of again that,
Speaker 1: that that moment in which you're you're in in the colosseum,
Speaker 1: is they're watching the scene. Do you do you need you?
Speaker 1: Can you give me kind of reflections of what that
Speaker 1: meant to you to kind of be in the middle
Speaker 1: of all of that? Yeah, no, I first thought is,
Speaker 1: you know, Steve Won with him twice here, so he
Speaker 1: deserves and should have the recognition. You know, I'm on
Speaker 1: the back half of the career but I'm still enjoying
Speaker 1: every minute of it and I as a golf Storian,
Speaker 1: being in the business seven, obviously I get it what's
Speaker 1: going on coming up eighteen and the fact that you
Speaker 1: had a great parent and you've got two young kids
Speaker 1: who idolized tiger. Um You got rory in the mix
Speaker 1: going down wanting at jt ting off on one. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of cool in that respect. If you have
Speaker 1: four young kids that all love tiger, respect the game,
Speaker 1: respect what he's done. So to steal those guys take
Speaker 1: it all in from me was neat because I was
Speaker 1: kind of to the side. So it's neat to see
Speaker 1: tiger across the bridge waved the hat. But again seeing
Speaker 1: the young kids almost like, Oh my God, this is
Speaker 1: his history for them too, being a kids and name
Speaker 1: accomplished a lot in the game too, but they still
Speaker 1: respect everything the tiger's done and then trying to chase
Speaker 1: him down with his records. So that was kind of neat.
Speaker 1: And obviously seeing all the bleachers fall. You know, the
Speaker 1: whole Roos sex thing is full people that you can
Speaker 1: just hear the noise and the buzz and everything about it.
Speaker 1: You know, I try to stay off to the side
Speaker 1: and let enjoy his moment and obviously hit a couple
Speaker 1: of good shots in there. Didn't make the pot and
Speaker 1: still hit two good shots in there, so that was
Speaker 1: fun to end up that way. I think they've sold,
Speaker 1: you know, three D thousand tickets. I mean seeing it
Speaker 1: is always gonna be a great thing in regardless of
Speaker 1: what's going on. But yeah, definitely an extra buzz. Not
Speaker 1: so much knowing it could be tiger's last go around,
Speaker 1: but knowing that he's forty six years old and we
Speaker 1: all go with to Tom Watson's competing at fifty nine. Yes,
Speaker 1: it could happen, but realistically maybe that's the last time
Speaker 1: he's got a chance to compete and be somewhat healthy.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that's not the case, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: in case it did, you want to be there and
Speaker 1: you want to be a part of it and I think,
Speaker 1: like you said, having bones there and the other players there,
Speaker 1: in the place packed and the buzz, it was incredible.
Speaker 1: Back to Ben Weppron such a big event and everybody
Speaker 1: knew it, you know, with the good of the evil
Speaker 1: and live and all this stuff going on, and like
Speaker 1: something special was happening even on, you know, Monday, and
Speaker 1: you knew that before, and then when you saw that
Speaker 1: and tiger, I mean I just that was that was
Speaker 1: really impactful and he's such a hero to everybody there.
Speaker 1: That was really cool. And to watch it for the balcony. Yeah,
Speaker 1: big time. And then we had a fun dinner that night.
Speaker 1: Um Joe Lacava, uh, you know, Tiger's Catty, had dinner
Speaker 1: list on on the rooftop of the rust acts, which
Speaker 1: is called eighteen, as they're starting their trip. You're kind
Speaker 1: of decompressing. What do you remember about getting in the
Speaker 1: mix of this? Well, I fortunate enough to get asked
Speaker 1: to come over and have a beer two with the guys.
Speaker 1: You know, Ben, who's running the show there, and skinner
Speaker 1: and you know the rest of the guys. They're all
Speaker 1: having a blast and you know I'm people that know
Speaker 1: a little bit about me know that I'm a huge
Speaker 1: Shians fan and I've come across many he as a
Speaker 1: potential stalker. I don't know. You know. So of course
Speaker 1: I got the giants lid eyes and I'm all in.
Speaker 1: I'm hanging out with the guys and I actually texted
Speaker 1: my door I guess what, I'm hanging out with him,
Speaker 1: hanging out with Eli and the giants had too much.
Speaker 1: You know, you're legit. You've been a real giants fan
Speaker 1: for whatever fifty years now. You can. You can go
Speaker 1: ahead and with the giants. They know you. So I'm
Speaker 1: just having a good time and actually forgot that I
Speaker 1: hit it off with was cooper because I didn't really
Speaker 1: know him now well, and he was hilarious. I mean
Speaker 1: you could see the manning's habit, the drive, sense of
Speaker 1: human whole nine yards. I get it. But I think
Speaker 1: Cooper might be the funniest of them all. I had
Speaker 1: an absolute blast with him, Um, but just just sit
Speaker 1: there and have dinner. Like you said, the sun setting
Speaker 1: at that place. You know, we're talking a lot of golf. Yeah, Mike,
Speaker 1: bummed out that. You know, we didn't make the cut.
Speaker 1: Of course I am, but at the same time you
Speaker 1: gotta try to make the most to be not gonna
Speaker 1: sit your bedroom and I feel sorry for yourself. So so
Speaker 1: so I gotta get out of the hotel room. Having
Speaker 1: a good time with these guys and we have an
Speaker 1: absolute blast. I was told Lakaba knows so much about
Speaker 1: the giants and the franchise. He was actually coaching Eli
Speaker 1: up on the team's past. In turn, Eli was sharing
Speaker 1: what he knows about the future. See, he really never
Speaker 1: saw the dark days that we saw growing up as
Speaker 1: kids in the seventies and early eighties. I mean they
Speaker 1: were off of the worst team in the sport. So
Speaker 1: he can't appreciate that. He came in. You know, the
Speaker 1: first couple of seasons weren't great, but he had a
Speaker 1: lot of success throughout his entire career. Obviously there. So
Speaker 1: he doesn't know anything about the dark days. You know,
Speaker 1: we hear about it, but then to hear a fan,
Speaker 1: like a passionate fan, go after him a little bit
Speaker 1: and tell him about it. The other stage you're thinking,
Speaker 1: I never thought as a kid growing up they ever
Speaker 1: actually get to the playoffs, let alone win one and
Speaker 1: then win four super bowls. So you know, as a
Speaker 1: as a gnarly giants fan, that's just all you had
Speaker 1: growing up. They were just bad. He knew they were
Speaker 1: gonna be bad. Um, thank God they turned around with
Speaker 1: Sims and then Eli and stuff like that. But we
Speaker 1: had a lot of fun and actually Eli is one
Speaker 1: of those guys where you know he's gonna he knows
Speaker 1: he's gonna get bombarded with giants questions. So I'M NOT
Speaker 1: gonna kill him on that because I get it. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm around these guys that don't want to talk golf
Speaker 1: when you're with tigers, so on and so forth, but
Speaker 1: he's kind enough to engage the conversation. We talked little
Speaker 1: Daniel Jones, a little Barkley and he gave me some
Speaker 1: insight on those guys too. So we had little. We
Speaker 1: had a great back and forth and I know he's
Speaker 1: a he's a giant, you know, giant Nutt and and
Speaker 1: you know, put him in touch with kind of the
Speaker 1: equipment guys with the giants and say hey, we gotta
Speaker 1: send him like the most updated gear, like he's gonna
Speaker 1: wear it at the masters, like he's got to wear
Speaker 1: it at the British Open. You'RE gonna see it underneath.
Speaker 1: You know, the kind of the caddy bid like, you know,
Speaker 1: let's get him, get him the hat, get him the stuff,
Speaker 1: like make sure he's got the new stuff going here.
Speaker 1: You know he's representing the giants like this is. You know,
Speaker 1: he's gonna get a lot of air time. You know,
Speaker 1: no one's getting more airtime. And if tigers number one,
Speaker 1: it's like, but is like number two, then it's rory.
Speaker 1: You know, no one's he's gonna be on there. It's
Speaker 1: make sure he's got the right gear. I got a
Speaker 1: box just big at home of all sorts of golf stuff,
Speaker 1: t shirts, workout stuff, the whole nine yeards. I think
Speaker 1: part of the problem is, you know, I'm I'm old
Speaker 1: school dinosaurs, so I think the stuff that I show
Speaker 1: up with the giant stuff in Augusta is the same
Speaker 1: stuff year after, year after year, because I just get
Speaker 1: comfortable with and I like it. That's my giant stuff.
Speaker 1: So some of the stuff is probably eight years old.
Speaker 1: They're like, Oh my God, that's like vintage, like nineties.
Speaker 1: Get this guy something news. I'm decent here. So he
Speaker 1: was kind enough to send me a big box, more
Speaker 1: than I need. Obviously my kid got two thirds of it,
Speaker 1: so I don't have much of it left anyways. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: back at the rooftop restaurant, Eli's jet lag is kicking
Speaker 1: in and we're having dinner, you know, and I was
Speaker 1: sitting next to the Kava and it's I don't know
Speaker 1: what the time it is. It's eleven o'clock or eleven thirty,
Speaker 1: and like I am, I'm crashing, like I'm getting very tired,
Speaker 1: but I had, you know, the food hadn't come yet,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, I'm so tired, yet I need
Speaker 1: some I know I need some food in my system
Speaker 1: right now. I kind of skipped, skipped, you know, it
Speaker 1: didn't really have breakfast, we didn't have lunch, so like
Speaker 1: I needed my one meal of the day and I've
Speaker 1: just gotta fighting through it. The thing I remember most
Speaker 1: is I guess they got that big seafood pladder or
Speaker 1: whatever it was. I'm just engaged in conversation a couple
Speaker 1: of years. I'm not paying attention. The next thing I
Speaker 1: know they kind of put it down to my right
Speaker 1: and Eli was to my left and all I got
Speaker 1: was for I think twenty straight minutes, all I had
Speaker 1: was his hand and elbow coming across, grabbing seafood after
Speaker 1: seafood after seafood, and I'm like, what is going on here?
Speaker 1: How is this guy in such great shape? He ate
Speaker 1: probably four, I'M NOT gonna at four or fifty oysters,
Speaker 1: those lobster the whole night yards and he was kind
Speaker 1: of he was so hungry, like you said, so tered
Speaker 1: he was kind of leaning over, grabbing and putting his mouth,
Speaker 1: spitting on me and just ship with twine everywhere. It
Speaker 1: was incredible. He was so hungry and I think finally
Speaker 1: after he ate a little bit and got a big belly,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden now he's tired. He's going like this.
Speaker 1: Now here's the deal. Everyone was insisting you go to
Speaker 1: bed like you're tired. You're seeing. I'm like, I know
Speaker 1: you're firing. You're firing. You hang in there, because I
Speaker 1: want to talk to more giants football. So I was
Speaker 1: the only guy trying to keep him up. Everyone else
Speaker 1: to tell him I go to bed. And so we
Speaker 1: watched that night with dinner with Joe. We were all
Speaker 1: kind of at one point Eli has got up from
Speaker 1: dinner at you know, jet lag. He goes, I got
Speaker 1: I'm going to bed. I'm like, can you do that?
Speaker 1: Can you just leave in the middle of dinner? Apparently
Speaker 1: you can. On the first night. I guess you get
Speaker 1: a pass. You just the body. The body just breaks down.
Speaker 1: So Um and so the next day we started off
Speaker 1: and went to King's bards now, apparently, and that night
Speaker 1: at dinner, Um John Daily Texted Church dinner and said
Speaker 1: where are Y'alls? That we're up top. Was I'm coming up.
Speaker 1: Church like, Oh God, here, you know, no telling what's coming.
Speaker 1: So they started talking and he tells him we're playing
Speaker 1: at kingsbarns tomorrow and then he goes I'm gonna come
Speaker 1: out there. So I rumped into John. We were at
Speaker 1: the we're at a restaurant. uh, that night ethnics was
Speaker 1: called at at at Russacks and Um John was around
Speaker 1: and we started talking and I knew John a little
Speaker 1: bit from from Nashville and just being around him and Um,
Speaker 1: he just you know, he asked, Um, what do you
Speaker 1: guys do tomorrow and said we'll playing. I told him
Speaker 1: the whole trip this is what we're doing. What time
Speaker 1: you play in Kingsbarr and I was like, well, I
Speaker 1: won't player on ten, you know, in the morning. He
Speaker 1: said you mind if I joined and I thought it
Speaker 1: was you know, we're late at night with drinking. You know,
Speaker 1: I thought this will never happen and about five minutes
Speaker 1: still tea time, John Daily Rolls Up and POPs out
Speaker 1: on an SUV and proceeds to grab my beer and
Speaker 1: put up golf ball on it and tee off from
Speaker 1: the first team. Destroyed my beer, by the way, but
Speaker 1: he hit a damn good drive down the down the fairway.
Speaker 1: If Daley was in on the golf it meant s
Speaker 1: Burger was out, but he didn't mind. He pulls up
Speaker 1: as I don't even remember what he was driving, but
Speaker 1: as I picture it, it's like it's like this giant
Speaker 1: bus right. I mean, I don't think that's even right,
Speaker 1: but he rolls out and he's got St Louis Cardinals
Speaker 1: shorts on me. You know, he's just just loud everything,
Speaker 1: big beard. I mean it's just it's so clearly John Daly.
Speaker 1: And he steps out and the first thing I think
Speaker 1: it's like this guy wanted this guy wanted open and
Speaker 1: and he's one of the most talented golfers maybe ever. Um,
Speaker 1: and just a legend. And he almost made the almost
Speaker 1: made the cut the day before, which is incredibly think
Speaker 1: about me and shoot, tiger was I don't know how
Speaker 1: many strokes behind him. Um. So always you roll. He
Speaker 1: steps out and announces that you know it has been
Speaker 1: a big night. He's still feeling it a little bit.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly when he went to bed. Like John.
Speaker 1: You want to go to the range, like John Dayley
Speaker 1: doesn't go to the range right. So he gets he
Speaker 1: gets all the stuff. It's in a cart which he's
Speaker 1: driving with a speaker blaring Eric Church music, none of
Speaker 1: which is allowed at kings barns. Marshall Alexander's Perspective, the
Speaker 1: guy is a legend, uh, obviously for what he does
Speaker 1: and what he's done. Um, you know, he goes up
Speaker 1: to Eric and says hey, Co'm bar t yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: here you go, you know, because he grabs his tall
Speaker 1: boy beer instead of tenants beer. Is What we were drinking,
Speaker 1: Scottish lager, and I was like, okay, I guess it.
Speaker 1: Once beer takes that, plops it on the floor or
Speaker 1: on the tea box, teas his ball up, nails a
Speaker 1: three hundred yard drive and goes best drive I've had
Speaker 1: in three days. And the fact that, you know, he
Speaker 1: showed up three minutes before his tea time. He drove
Speaker 1: a golf cart on of course they don't allow golf carts.
Speaker 1: He was listening to music louder than anyone there. You know,
Speaker 1: it was just you couldn't have painted a better description
Speaker 1: of what what what came to be. It was pretty
Speaker 1: hilarious my talking it all mine three days back to
Speaker 1: Ben Weppron. That was a serious that was a serious
Speaker 1: and it was like that was the beer we drinking
Speaker 1: the whole time. I mean, I don't know, Eric was
Speaker 1: mad about the beer. Like Dude, it cares about the beer.
Speaker 1: That was amazing. Did you just see what a what
Speaker 1: a Jeb took a cart. No one's allowed a cart.
Speaker 1: He just comes up in a cart playing country music.
Speaker 1: The legend that was hilarious. It happened and he was
Speaker 1: John was sweet man. We had a great time with him. Um,
Speaker 1: we had to kind of foursome going on that day.
Speaker 1: We broke it up a little different, but he played
Speaker 1: eleven or twelve with us and then he had to
Speaker 1: he had to head back, you know, to the to
Speaker 1: the old course. But Um, it was, it was. It
Speaker 1: was just a fun memory, you know. But you know again,
Speaker 1: I mean you're kicking off your your trip as far
Speaker 1: as spectating with tiger and you're kicking off you're playing
Speaker 1: with John Daly and I just uh set up a
Speaker 1: pretty good, pretty special, pretty Starchi trip Taylor. But I
Speaker 1: think he made history that day by driving his own
Speaker 1: cart with his speaker blaring Eric Church and Hank Williams
Speaker 1: jr another country music out on the course and uh,
Speaker 1: he puts his golf ball on a tenants beer on
Speaker 1: the first tea as his tea and stripes one down
Speaker 1: the middle and and here we go. I I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe that that that's how we were starting our golf trip.
Speaker 1: But Um, Peyton and J D put that out on
Speaker 1: their social media and Um, my boss at Sirius Xm
Speaker 1: said are you working the open championship this week and
Speaker 1: I said yes, I am, but I'm doing some research
Speaker 1: right now. Uh. At kingsbarns before the third round we
Speaker 1: took a group picture. John posted that on instagram so
Speaker 1: everybody was made aware that we were in Scotland right
Speaker 1: after that. But I missed the tee off the UH,
Speaker 1: off the beer cap. I've seen John do that before
Speaker 1: on social media, but it sounds like I was a
Speaker 1: pretty cool view up close to personal. But that was
Speaker 1: our first round at kings barns. Uh. kind of like
Speaker 1: my last trip. I feel like I peaked too early.
Speaker 1: I shot seventy seven at kings barns. I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is it, I got it, I got the rhythm. I'm
Speaker 1: going low at you know, North Berrick and I yourr field.
Speaker 1: I just seemed to kind of go a little higher
Speaker 1: from that before and on. So Zarz gets back to
Speaker 1: cover the Saturday afternoon at the open. The rest of
Speaker 1: the crew takes it in from the various Rusix texs
Speaker 1: and bars that overlooked. To finish, it's like a super
Speaker 1: bowl at Lambeau or or or world series at Wrigley Field,
Speaker 1: or or or you know or fenway it's it's like
Speaker 1: for us it's the greatest venue with a longstanding history
Speaker 1: that goes back to the beginning of the game. You know,
Speaker 1: it's an NBA finals at at at I don't know,
Speaker 1: like you know, at the old garden right, like, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just, it's just different. We were trying
Speaker 1: to do, you know, you see, there's a Jimmy Roberts
Speaker 1: is there, Mike Tarko is there, UM, and it was
Speaker 1: fun to kind of Bait them and like how do
Speaker 1: you compare this, especially just setting right there, with where
Speaker 1: the russas is, and they were like it'd be like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not, it's not. It's like, Um, if
Speaker 1: you're being at Riggley, but but being on top of
Speaker 1: the pictures man or. I mean you can't even like
Speaker 1: there's no better spot to watch something like that. Ever,
Speaker 1: I was trying to search for some sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: hypothetic comparison, and I'm not sure Youboy, came up with
Speaker 1: something this perfect. Here's Eric Hasberger on the vantage point
Speaker 1: that the rustix hotel provided. I think we said like
Speaker 1: maybe if you could build a hotel on the on
Speaker 1: the Te box, on a Ben Corner you know, like
Speaker 1: have you purged up there? And I you know, have
Speaker 1: access to this amazing like hospitality suite and then your
Speaker 1: room right around the corner if you want to go,
Speaker 1: laid out and if you want a pizza, you just
Speaker 1: say hey, mark, we get some pizza, and he was
Speaker 1: of course, we can get some pizza and it's just there.
Speaker 1: It was. It was unbelievable. Kick I try to explain
Speaker 1: to my buddies Um got back home. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't even know how to tell you about this because
Speaker 1: you're not even gonna believe it. That night, on the
Speaker 1: eve of the final round, having already had a few
Speaker 1: unexpected guests on the trip, they get their first call
Speaker 1: to action. Back to Hasburger. Tell me about the cemetery.
Speaker 1: So how, how? How? How did that all come about?
Speaker 1: And what? What do you remember about it? Yeah, so, Um,
Speaker 1: so we've gotten to know Um Jim, Jim nance since
Speaker 1: he moved to Nashville. Ben In particular, that wasn't doesn't
Speaker 1: really well. And and so I guess Jim has a
Speaker 1: tradition where he goes and pays tribute to old Tom
Speaker 1: and young Tom um the night before the Sunday of
Speaker 1: the open on the cemetery. We hear from Church and
Speaker 1: then that night Jim Nances, like you guys got to
Speaker 1: go to the cemetery. Yeah, okay, this one now Jim
Speaker 1: has never I know Jim pretty good. We have never
Speaker 1: really talked about this. This is something that he he
Speaker 1: sprung on this kind of last minute. Said if you
Speaker 1: guys are game, you have to go there at midnight,
Speaker 1: and we're just sitting there, you know, all going and
Speaker 1: finally we decided, you know what, we're here. It's that
Speaker 1: kind of trip. Let's go, not knowing where it was,
Speaker 1: not knowing how far, you know, we just we just all,
Speaker 1: you know, jumped out and here we go. And then
Speaker 1: I didn't realize. I thought you could just go see it.
Speaker 1: Now you gotta break in the place. You actually have.
Speaker 1: You can't just they don't let you in. You actually
Speaker 1: have to break in. On that Saturday it started. There's
Speaker 1: several different streams. I got a picture of Taylor and Marshall.
Speaker 1: You just booked to Marshall Right too, and then we
Speaker 1: were toasting you, my man. I love you, my man
Speaker 1: so Bo. That was from Ben I said. Has To
Speaker 1: be incredible being there on the eve of great history.
Speaker 1: We just saw your pal trevor. He's at Rusex with
Speaker 1: everyone else, you know. And then I said my tradition
Speaker 1: at midnight on Saturday night since two thousand is to
Speaker 1: climb the law at the Old Town cemetery and go
Speaker 1: pay my respects at the grave side of old and
Speaker 1: young Tom Morris. Any takers tonight? It's a four block
Speaker 1: walk from the hotel. So I seated the idea and uh,
Speaker 1: they had shifted over to another stream. So I seated
Speaker 1: the idea. So the first guy to right, two minutes
Speaker 1: behind me, was Eli. He says I'm in. So I
Speaker 1: had to have somebody step up. Belies such a good dude.
Speaker 1: Nan said. You gotta ask him about the cemetery. I
Speaker 1: guess you were on this trip. I was on it.
Speaker 1: You know, I've definitely on any on any Um guy's trip.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely on the no man left behind, and so
Speaker 1: someone's someone's you know, hopping a fence or jumping on
Speaker 1: something like. I gotta be included. I gotta I can't
Speaker 1: miss out on these opportunities, on these adventures that you
Speaker 1: never know what what might happen, but usually a great story. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is where the great stories come from. So they're
Speaker 1: kind of telling me about, you know, about man's and
Speaker 1: then hopping the fence and the tradition and you had
Speaker 1: to keep going and go see old old Tom Morris's grave,
Speaker 1: and and and. So I was like yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm in involved a graveyard and popping a fence like
Speaker 1: it sounds right at my speed and much to my amazement,
Speaker 1: later on I started to realize this had taken hold
Speaker 1: and the great majority of the group decided this was
Speaker 1: a good idea. So I said to them I it
Speaker 1: at the last four opens at St Andrew's. The wall
Speaker 1: can easily be climbed by you athletes, which is not
Speaker 1: that easy. We know that. Maybe I oversold that. Here's
Speaker 1: Taylor's ours, Ben Eric, Marshall, Eli and I ended up
Speaker 1: going and Marshall got in. Marshall Um was rather fearless
Speaker 1: and he jumped over very quickly, jumped over the trash
Speaker 1: Canon over the wall and immediately cut his finger wide
Speaker 1: open as he did it. The rest of us were
Speaker 1: a little bit more thoughtful of how we got over
Speaker 1: the wall. This was, I guess, midnight, at one am,
Speaker 1: and uh, full of excitement, said all right, we've got
Speaker 1: to go to old Tom's grave. You know, that's part
Speaker 1: of the tradition. And and and uh, let's go. So
Speaker 1: we stalked up, you know, back full of beer and
Speaker 1: walked down the streets and we get to the cemetery
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, the they had built a temporary
Speaker 1: chain length fence. Obviously you probably want to keep people out,
Speaker 1: which Um was. You know, I didn't keep us out,
Speaker 1: you know, but we uh called the fence and I
Speaker 1: didn't even kind of look. I was at that point
Speaker 1: where I just kind of hopped over and landed on
Speaker 1: the on the ground. Said, man, I looked at my
Speaker 1: finger and it was bleeding pretty good and grabbed a
Speaker 1: beer and washed off the blood and uh, and then
Speaker 1: it kind of kicked and I go we're at the
Speaker 1: beginning of a five day golf trip and the best
Speaker 1: golf courses of the world. What the Hell Am I
Speaker 1: gonna do? So Uh got through the night, I got
Speaker 1: a band aid and I was, like I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't feel a thing at that point. Obviously the
Speaker 1: Morris Gravesite is on the right wall of the cemetery.
Speaker 1: My guess is there will be a few people, perhaps
Speaker 1: a dozen, that are they're doing the same thing. Your
Speaker 1: flashlight APP will come in Handy and Taylor wrote. Well,
Speaker 1: we're at ruse x right now. Cooper wrote, I'm wearing camouflage.
Speaker 1: Peyton said, Jim, do we have to wear a turtleneck?
Speaker 1: I said required at the door, preferably tweet jacket also.
Speaker 1: Peyton then said Hello, dead friends, Web said, hysterical and
Speaker 1: had been said grave jump, a tradition unlike any other.
Speaker 1: The good news is they're in. The bad news they
Speaker 1: don't know where to go. Here's Eli Manning, you know,
Speaker 1: typical morons, like we hopped the fence or in the
Speaker 1: graveyard and it's kind of like, Oh, where is it?
Speaker 1: You know, we do anybody taught the Nancy tell us
Speaker 1: any direction? Like we're just like looking at random, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, stones. They're trying to like, you know, have
Speaker 1: a flat, got the iphone, you know, flashlight, trying to
Speaker 1: say this it, no, this is it. I mean we
Speaker 1: would have been there for, you know, two hours until,
Speaker 1: you know, we found the way. We should call Nan's
Speaker 1: and he give us a little directions. So got got
Speaker 1: him on the on the phone and then it turned
Speaker 1: into a facetime call, which I did not expect. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think of where I was when I received
Speaker 1: that facetime call because I was outside somewhere, back to
Speaker 1: Ben Weapron. I totally felt like he was there. We
Speaker 1: facetimed him, Um uh, when we got to the grave
Speaker 1: and he was you know, we couldn't find it and so,
Speaker 1: you know, let's call Jim's called him up, you know,
Speaker 1: and he told us to where to go and we
Speaker 1: had no clue we were going. We just walked over there.
Speaker 1: He got to go there and we didn't know. We've
Speaker 1: never done it before, and he guided us through the
Speaker 1: whole thing. And is Jim man's voice. Yeah, even I
Speaker 1: got on the facetime and said, Hey, Jim, where is
Speaker 1: this thing? I'm looking at it like a Batman looking structure,
Speaker 1: Batman building. It is part of the old ruins that
Speaker 1: are there. And I said, Oh, I know exactly where
Speaker 1: you are. Make a right turn. It's up against the
Speaker 1: wall on the right side. It's about equal distance with
Speaker 1: that one structure. You're in the neighborhood and I could
Speaker 1: hear a voice up ahead. I think I found it.
Speaker 1: I think I found it, and you know that we
Speaker 1: would have never found this without the help of Jim
Speaker 1: man's because we're going through. It's a massive cemetery and
Speaker 1: we said, Hey, does it tell me what? You know what?
Speaker 1: Here's what I'm looking at. I see this big thing
Speaker 1: that looks like Lord of the Rings, you know, it
Speaker 1: looks like a Batman building. He's that perfect. Go to
Speaker 1: that and take a right. And then we did that
Speaker 1: and we keep walking. He said, you can't miss it's
Speaker 1: along the East Wall. There's this ivory tombstone that's implanted
Speaker 1: in the wall. You can't miss it. So it was
Speaker 1: gonna show up a little bit, even under darkness, with
Speaker 1: a Moonlit Skuy. It just it popped a little bit
Speaker 1: and someone I could just tell, was running towards it
Speaker 1: and discovered it. They were like just a bunch of
Speaker 1: kids on a treasure hunt. So we keep walking, keep walking,
Speaker 1: and finally see, you know, the the old Tom Morris,
Speaker 1: young Tom Moors, great and then we um Taylor's ours are.
Speaker 1: He was with us. Gave a little speech and well,
Speaker 1: commemorative thing that we that we we facetime Jim on
Speaker 1: and sent him. The signal broke up and so he
Speaker 1: did fall off, but we sent we did a video
Speaker 1: while we were there. We sent it to Jim. He
Speaker 1: he was incredibly appreciative of that and you know, as
Speaker 1: as you know, he's just Um, in my opinion, the
Speaker 1: voice of Golf, and for for him too to ask
Speaker 1: us to do that was was a real honor and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really glad we did, because I think all
Speaker 1: of us were pretty moved by it. Here's the recording
Speaker 1: of Taylor's speech that night. Old Tom Morris and young
Speaker 1: Tom Morris started major championship golf. Jim Nance is one
Speaker 1: of the greatest voices in American sports history and we're
Speaker 1: here to pay tribute to our friend Jim Tonight by
Speaker 1: seeing two of the greatest golfers of all time that
Speaker 1: gave us major championship golf. And here we are at
Speaker 1: the edition of the Open Championship, the most historic major ever,
Speaker 1: paying tribute to the guys that started all of this.
Speaker 1: We pay tribute to them and we're thankful for all
Speaker 1: the people that came after them and whatever happens tomorrow
Speaker 1: will certainly be significant, but it all happens because of
Speaker 1: what these guys created. Okay, I'll be in the lobby.
Speaker 1: I think it was just powerful to to be standing there,
Speaker 1: you know, in that moment, and it was funny because
Speaker 1: Eric always waffles about early morning golf and we were
Speaker 1: playing Don Barney the next morning at eight thirty, and
Speaker 1: so I gave this little speech and, uh, everybody was
Speaker 1: kind of taking in the moment and Eric said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll be in the lobby at eight thirty tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1: A really good tradition. He does it every year and
Speaker 1: it was it was really cool to keep it going,
Speaker 1: you know, and he couldn't be there to do it. So, Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what we were participating in, but I
Speaker 1: was all in for breaking into own it's very poeted.
Speaker 1: It was almost psychot of dead poet society where we,
Speaker 1: you know, demeanor shifted to this more Shakespearean like let's
Speaker 1: pay homage and read some you know. You had Taylor,
Speaker 1: whose commentary has got a voice of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was really kind of stoic how it all
Speaker 1: happened and meaningful and it was great. It was awesome.
Speaker 1: At twelve fifty two their time, they sent me the
Speaker 1: video of of their escapades and when I saw the
Speaker 1: video I said indescribably poignant. Brought tears to my eyes.
Speaker 1: It did. Thanks, guys, thanks to all of you. The
Speaker 1: tradition continues, I said, at the hundred and fifty open
Speaker 1: at the stroke of midnight. FREAKING FAN astick. So for
Speaker 1: this old soul who's into these kind of connections with
Speaker 1: the past and bringing it all together, to have some
Speaker 1: buddies on the ultimate buddy trip go and actually stand
Speaker 1: in for you and allow you to experience it vicariously,
Speaker 1: connect me live via facetime, worlds apart, eight time zones removed,
Speaker 1: had me there live and in person. Very nice gift,
Speaker 1: gift of friendship. Golf does that to you. You get
Speaker 1: to understand it through this game more than any other thing.
Speaker 1: You can think of, any other endeavor that brings people together. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Mark Eubanks was back tending to the duties of running
Speaker 1: the Russis hotel. Were you involved in the cemetery trip?
Speaker 1: Now you could. You didn't go to the cemetery. I
Speaker 1: was the q rf for that one. That's the quick
Speaker 1: reactionary force in the event that there was any issues
Speaker 1: with them jumping the fence and going to the grave
Speaker 1: side of old Tom Morris. I said you just sent
Speaker 1: me a text and there will be a group of
Speaker 1: people show up that will extract you from the situation.
Speaker 1: Safely and get you back to the hotel. So No,
Speaker 1: I was not a part. I saw the picture and
Speaker 1: I said what is this and they said don't you remember?
Speaker 1: And I'm like no, I wasn't a part of that.
Speaker 1: Woke up in the morning. Yeah, I couldn't move my
Speaker 1: finger very well get to the driving range of Dumb
Speaker 1: Barney and uh, I was just like, I can't, I
Speaker 1: don't know. So I changed my grip and I was
Speaker 1: able to do it on the fly and ended up
Speaker 1: shooting seventy seven that day and it was fine, but
Speaker 1: it's still bleeding a week later. And but yeah, that
Speaker 1: was that was, you know, one of those moments where
Speaker 1: you're with your best buds. It felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: college or high school getting into something fun, Tom Fleury
Speaker 1: and and uh so, yeah, Tom Tom Morris's spirit was
Speaker 1: with us for the whole trip after that. As for
Speaker 1: a course review, here's on Dum Barney. I can see
Speaker 1: why there's some chatter about them potentially hosting the Scottish
Speaker 1: open at some point. It's got very similar vibes to
Speaker 1: renaissance and Kings Barnes. And you're right, uh, the Greens.
Speaker 1: You can tell they've had some issues but you can
Speaker 1: tell they're also coming back. They were slow, but there
Speaker 1: they were in much better shape than I thought that
Speaker 1: they would be in Um and I just have to
Speaker 1: let layout was beautiful and so different than the old
Speaker 1: course or any of the St Andrew's courses. And there
Speaker 1: it's fifteen minutes away. It's just it's neat to be
Speaker 1: right on the water and have such a different experience
Speaker 1: than what you would have at at the at the
Speaker 1: old course. Um and so yeah, I'm absolutely glad we played.
Speaker 1: We had a we had a great time there and UM,
Speaker 1: a couple of great group back to coopermanning. Some guys
Speaker 1: took caddies and some guys even carry their own bag. Um.
Speaker 1: I had a great caddy who I literally he had
Speaker 1: the thickest accident I could. I understood about every sixth word.
Speaker 1: That's why I played so badly. I've been blame it
Speaker 1: on him the whole time. You know. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: it's an unbelievable track of land and gorgeous. They had
Speaker 1: green trouble. So the Greens were really slow and but
Speaker 1: you can tell that's got the you know, the makings
Speaker 1: of Scottish open you know, in the next few years
Speaker 1: or whatever. I mean, it's just it could get really
Speaker 1: hard and we had the best weather. I mean everybody
Speaker 1: we wore. I never, I don't think I ever put
Speaker 1: on a rang jack the whole trip. I mean we
Speaker 1: just I didn't know you can wear shorts. Back Times,
Speaker 1: when I've been a long time ago, they were long pants.
Speaker 1: It's little more funny wear shorts and a little more.
Speaker 1: I mean some people didn't. Church didn't breathe shorts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he looked like he was bested as a a polar bear.
Speaker 1: I mean he was sweating his you know, sweating his
Speaker 1: tail up. Yeah, Dun Barney, I don't remember very much
Speaker 1: of done Barney, if I'm being a hundred percent honest
Speaker 1: with you, but I I remember Saturday was a really
Speaker 1: long day for me. So Dun Barney I got part of.
Speaker 1: I don't I think I I'm not sure. I may
Speaker 1: have lost money that day too, but I remember getting
Speaker 1: back and then getting there for, you know, the final round,
Speaker 1: and that was something we had looked at, you know,
Speaker 1: all day. We were following along as we played. You know,
Speaker 1: are they making noise? What's happening here? You know, we
Speaker 1: were kind of doing that thing. But it was really interesting.
Speaker 1: I was certain that rory was gonna win. I mean
Speaker 1: I certain. I would have bet any amount of money.
Speaker 1: I'd have bet any amount of money on two things,
Speaker 1: that tiger would have made the Putt at eight team
Speaker 1: and he didn't, and Rory would have won, because he
Speaker 1: just felt like it was one of those things. And
Speaker 1: when we got back, you know, Um to the to
Speaker 1: the for the open to watch the final round. The
Speaker 1: leaders were on the front night. So they had not
Speaker 1: cam had not made that that launch. Yet you know
Speaker 1: that all of a sudden everything changed in five holes.
Speaker 1: Golf is the hardest spectator sport to watch. You know
Speaker 1: you you're only seeing the action in front of you
Speaker 1: and you don't really know what else is happening. So
Speaker 1: I have a monitor that our engineers had wired into
Speaker 1: the truck and Um, Tommy Roy, who I'm sure you
Speaker 1: saw at some point last week, is also staying in
Speaker 1: the same hotel and he's just mind blown how we
Speaker 1: created this and he's like this is how did you
Speaker 1: do this? He's like this is the greatest spot. But
Speaker 1: we had we had a program feed out there. Um
Speaker 1: that Jeremy Davis and Darryl doss are our producers and
Speaker 1: engineers had had wired for us and so the entire
Speaker 1: patio was hovering over my shoulder and Carl Paulson's shoulder
Speaker 1: as there as we're watching the action. You know what
Speaker 1: is already doing and what is Cam Smith doing and Um.
Speaker 1: So they're just watching all of this transpire and that
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. We've got Um, we've got peyton Manning,
Speaker 1: who was literally stationed between Carl and me. He was
Speaker 1: hovering in just trying to watch what was happening. was
Speaker 1: was awesome. Yeah, Taylor's Golf was not very good on
Speaker 1: Saturday or Sunday because, hey, I don't think he was
Speaker 1: supposed to be playing golf. Uh. A matter of fact,
Speaker 1: when daily posted the picture, that sort of you know,
Speaker 1: uh made everybody a where, you know, who was playing golf.
Speaker 1: I think Taylor's boss calling and said, Oh, you know,
Speaker 1: hanging out playing eight team with John David Day. You know. So,
Speaker 1: so much for your pre tournament preparation. But his golf
Speaker 1: was terrible because he was thinking about am I gonna
Speaker 1: be back on time? He was checking his watch. So
Speaker 1: he was a good opponent to uh those first couple
Speaker 1: of days, let's say that. But yeah, you have to
Speaker 1: get back and to be able to watch that. And
Speaker 1: you know, when you when you know some of the
Speaker 1: golfers vs some of the proms and I played in
Speaker 1: through the years at Pebble Beach Or, you know, the
Speaker 1: memorial sponsored by Work Day. Now I've gotten to know,
Speaker 1: you know, Rory and and George Speed and Justin Thomas,
Speaker 1: and so when you see him play, you certainly pulling
Speaker 1: for him. And look, it was very obvious that so
Speaker 1: many people were pulling for Roy Matheil Roy at that time,
Speaker 1: as he had to lead. I was no different. He
Speaker 1: was staying there at the hotel uh, as was Speith
Speaker 1: and Thomas, so that was pretty cool and uh, but
Speaker 1: it was exciting to watch both those rounds. Are Golf between,
Speaker 1: you know, watching it alive on eighteen and having a
Speaker 1: TV and watching the broadcast at the same time. It's funny.
Speaker 1: We're watching, we have a TV on inside, inside and
Speaker 1: we also are watching listen to Taylor actually broadcast what's
Speaker 1: going on. He's got a TV, so we're all kind
Speaker 1: of looking at his TV and then, you know, looking
Speaker 1: down watching, you know, what's going on a team and
Speaker 1: the leaderboard. It was it was Finomal, it was it
Speaker 1: was it was so fun. Coop decided to come out
Speaker 1: in his bathrobe. Everybody else was was out there and
Speaker 1: you know, Sunday Golf Attire and cook comes out in
Speaker 1: his russacks bathrobe and he's great looking robes and Brussacks.
Speaker 1: He's Great White Terry cloth rose with a with a
Speaker 1: great bad RUSSEC, and I said, shot, I'm gonna wear
Speaker 1: that down to the I got dressed and just put
Speaker 1: that on real tight and you can see, and I
Speaker 1: went down, you know, out there, everybody on the deck.
Speaker 1: This is, you know, for four to thirty in the
Speaker 1: afternoon and you know, Y'all obviously have a different I
Speaker 1: thought on how you're gonna Watch Golf, and I do.
Speaker 1: I like to be very comfortable, and everybody want to
Speaker 1: take pictures out. You were drinking and uh, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, Cooper coming out in a road that's the
Speaker 1: least surprising thing that happened on the whole trip. Just say,
Speaker 1: you know. Then all of a sudden you kind of
Speaker 1: hear a little buzz about Cam Cam Smith, you know.
Speaker 1: You know, hey, he's had three birdies in a row. Hey,
Speaker 1: he's had four, break five birdies in a row. You know,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden he's you know, he's one, he's
Speaker 1: one back and uh so this thing is getting this
Speaker 1: thing is getting pipe. Taylor is doing his broadcast on
Speaker 1: the balcony. So we had really we could hear, you know,
Speaker 1: what was going on on. You know, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,
Speaker 1: seventeen coming up and cam on a Birdie parade. Um
Speaker 1: It was you know, you just knew. I mean you
Speaker 1: were just part of something really special. I used to
Speaker 1: do some NASCAR work and in the last few years
Speaker 1: of daylor and Har Junior's career it felt like he
Speaker 1: was playing a home game every time he was in
Speaker 1: a race, that everybody in the entire everyone at the
Speaker 1: racetrack was cheering for him. It felt like you were playing.
Speaker 1: It was like on the Ohio State or Alabama or
Speaker 1: Georgia home game in a way, and that's exactly what
Speaker 1: it felt like at the open. Rory's popularity has grown
Speaker 1: so much even this year that now people are chanting
Speaker 1: his name every time that something good happens on the
Speaker 1: golf course for him. When he hold that bunker shot
Speaker 1: on ten on to day to make Eagle, immediately you
Speaker 1: have all these chants of Rory, Rory, and that carried
Speaker 1: him around the golf course. No one was upset that
Speaker 1: Cam Smith won or has anything against him, and everybody
Speaker 1: said well played, but you're right, everybody was cheering Ferrari
Speaker 1: and it was kind of the icebreaker. Conversation that we
Speaker 1: had with the head pro or anybody on site at
Speaker 1: the golf courses the next couple of days or the
Speaker 1: caddies was I can't believe Rory didn't get it done,
Speaker 1: or I thought he was going to get it done.
Speaker 1: Everybody wanted to see it Um. So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that to a degree it was a bit of a
Speaker 1: bummer that the last nine holes didn't go the way
Speaker 1: everybody thought that they would, but to see Cam Smith
Speaker 1: play that well and and go out and win the
Speaker 1: Claret Jug like that still was very enjoyable. It was
Speaker 1: a remarkable setting. You know, four or five days removed
Speaker 1: from it, I still got flashbacks going through my mind
Speaker 1: to be able to be there with those special people,
Speaker 1: to see Taylor do his craft, to hear the crowd
Speaker 1: honor Cameron as well as rory. Um, it was. It
Speaker 1: was epic. And also rory was staying at the Russacks,
Speaker 1: so we, you know, behind the scenes, were hoping, you know,
Speaker 1: if rory one, you know, the party comes back there
Speaker 1: and we, you know, we'd already rehearsed drinking out of
Speaker 1: Clara Judd. We had like big you know, I was
Speaker 1: saving up. I was like this is gonna be the
Speaker 1: greatest night of my life. You know, upstairs in the room,
Speaker 1: everybody saw it. So we were, uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: would say, secretly pulling hard for him. And and you know,
Speaker 1: I know Ky. I heard Cam had a really fun,
Speaker 1: good party at the Old Corps Hotel, which we didn't
Speaker 1: get invited to. So but when you're Russix guys, you
Speaker 1: don't get to the saying you you good, loyal ru
Speaker 1: six year old course hotel. It's it's not Tiger Phil,
Speaker 1: it's Cama Rory. I mean that's the way it gets.
Speaker 1: It is thousand percent, thousand per cent. So that being said,
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure Cooper was cheated out of a
Speaker 1: party back to Eric Church on that robe. And what
Speaker 1: came of the night? Were you a part of this?
Speaker 1: Cooper coming out in the robe? I wasn't a part
Speaker 1: of it, but Cooper came out in the road. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I when I got there, I didn't know what
Speaker 1: I missed. You know, Cooper was in a robe and,
Speaker 1: you know, debauchery had ensued. A lot of players and
Speaker 1: other people were on the balcony and he turned into
Speaker 1: a it turned into a hell of an event and
Speaker 1: it turned into a decently late night we had that
Speaker 1: we had to get up pretty early the next morning
Speaker 1: head to North Barrick and so we didn't have as
Speaker 1: long of a night as we did, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: the night before. So, but it was just a lot
Speaker 1: of celebration, a lot of you know and again, uh,
Speaker 1: to be there for an event that's that's that historic
Speaker 1: and your buddy happens to you know on the hotel
Speaker 1: and you're with your it just was it's just not
Speaker 1: something you can ever make up. None of our lives
Speaker 1: would ever collide like that. Like we're all people that
Speaker 1: do different things and incredible things and we're all busy
Speaker 1: and just to get everybody in that spot was just
Speaker 1: not something that would that ever happens. And then I
Speaker 1: got in the road and we have underneath in the
Speaker 1: bottom of the Rusex. I don't know if you went
Speaker 1: that bar of a bar down there called one under
Speaker 1: and I went down there and it was had a
Speaker 1: girl playing tunes and everybody was in there. Just I
Speaker 1: went down there and got it. I got behind the
Speaker 1: bar and started bartending and got into a drinking game
Speaker 1: where these people. I'M gonna cut coop off here. We'll
Speaker 1: get to the drinking game in a minute, but we
Speaker 1: don't get there without more time with him behind the
Speaker 1: bar pouring pints. Here's Hasburger on the events that led
Speaker 1: up to one under. You know that the story was
Speaker 1: he ended up down to one under curfain drinks right
Speaker 1: and playing, playing the beer game or drinking games. But
Speaker 1: the initial intent was there was some guys. So everything
Speaker 1: was over right, done the trophy ceremony and the crowds
Speaker 1: and the crowd just swarmed the eighteenth and then they
Speaker 1: slowly kind of you know, dribble away and there was
Speaker 1: some guy who was clearly having his own nostalgic moment,
Speaker 1: who was just lying down on the eighteenth fairway and
Speaker 1: he had like a pose where he had his knee up,
Speaker 1: you know, and his elbow up and he's kind of
Speaker 1: he's sort of posing and sort of his weird his
Speaker 1: weird position and goes I think I'm gonna go lay
Speaker 1: next to that guy in my bathroom. So he's down
Speaker 1: there trying to you know, the only way in was
Speaker 1: to climb the fence and there was no way he
Speaker 1: was climbing the fence on the bathroom, but I don't
Speaker 1: think he realized that. So he had to bail on
Speaker 1: that plan, originally for the original plan, but to get
Speaker 1: down there, I think he went through the one under
Speaker 1: and that that's where, you know, that's where it clicked.
Speaker 1: And so next thing you know he's he's down there
Speaker 1: and he was down there before anybody else. Was it
Speaker 1: just him? You know, the staff at the Russ sex
Speaker 1: contact me and they're like, Mr you, thanks, we have
Speaker 1: a problem downstairs in the one under, and I'm like what,
Speaker 1: what's the problem? Peyton manning is wearing a robe and
Speaker 1: pouring Biz for free. And I said, well, that's not Peyton,
Speaker 1: that's cooper and it's okay. How are you gonna Stop Cooper?
Speaker 1: That was Cooper Manning, who has, uh, unfortunately, favors me
Speaker 1: and sometimes doesn't always correct the person when they call
Speaker 1: him Peyton. You know he will, he will run with
Speaker 1: that for a little while. He's used to do that
Speaker 1: back when I was in college. You know, I'm asleep
Speaker 1: the night before a game he's out at a bar
Speaker 1: in Knoxville. He's visiting, like Peyton, what are you doing out?
Speaker 1: He's yeah, you know, we're just playing banderbilt tomorrow. What's
Speaker 1: the big deal? You know, and he takes the puff
Speaker 1: of his cigar. So, you know, not helpful to me.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, twenty something years later he's still doing it.
Speaker 1: I would never wear a robe probably anywhere, much less, uh,
Speaker 1: in a bar at the open championship. But coope was
Speaker 1: in his element. He was bartending, he was writing the mix.
Speaker 1: I was down there, I was, I was taking lots
Speaker 1: of pictures. There are a lot of fans down there, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of Americans, and so I was.
Speaker 1: I was in the mix, doing my part, you know, socializing,
Speaker 1: but I was. I was dressed in golf clothes like
Speaker 1: most normal people. Back to Ben Weppn, you know, one
Speaker 1: under the bar on the road, on the on the road.
Speaker 1: I went down there one night with I was I
Speaker 1: don't know, Eli and I don't know who else. I
Speaker 1: think it was just Eli, and we walked down there
Speaker 1: and couples behind the bar and bartending. No one's surprised.
Speaker 1: We were just like Ye, take a Tenet over to
Speaker 1: Eli for his thoughts. Couch ROB is this? I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: let's it's saying it's it's not the first time I've
Speaker 1: seen coople go into a public setting in a row.
Speaker 1: So I'm not shocked by it. You know, uh, kind
Speaker 1: of come to expect it. Just went. When's it coming?
Speaker 1: The best is the best is I'm sitting there with
Speaker 1: you know, Weaburn, you know, a guy, you know when
Speaker 1: the GM old Shamus I think, kind of comes up
Speaker 1: and it's like hey, we we have, we have an issue.
Speaker 1: We have a major issue. was that he's like peyton
Speaker 1: manning is in a row down at one under and
Speaker 1: he's handing out three beers to everybody. He's handing out
Speaker 1: pre beers to everybody and like I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't think that's Peyton, that's that's debbely, not Peyton, and
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think you'll be okay. It's
Speaker 1: definitely that's definitely coops move. He likes to get behind
Speaker 1: bar and just, you don't know how to make any
Speaker 1: drinks and you don't know how to take any money.
Speaker 1: Maybe some tips, but you know, just, you know, handing
Speaker 1: out beer, as anybody once one. Yeah, I guess Peyton
Speaker 1: says he's been pretending to be Peyton. You know his
Speaker 1: whole line. Yeah, yeah, he did it at Tennessee, he
Speaker 1: did it. You know, did it to be at old mess.
Speaker 1: Just got out out on a Friday night before a
Speaker 1: game and, you know, smoking a cigarette, drinking a scotch,
Speaker 1: and people like Eli, what do you know, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? And Coops, we just got Kentucky tomorrow. No,
Speaker 1: no big deal, you know. So you know, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Hey, you gotta calm down on this. It's
Speaker 1: it's funny for a little bit. I think image I'm
Speaker 1: to get in trouble. Coaches think I'm out in the
Speaker 1: town on a Friday night. We do an interview with
Speaker 1: the winner of each major. So I had to go
Speaker 1: as the as the Brits say, get in the queue
Speaker 1: for for Cam Smith over there near the first tee
Speaker 1: on the practice putting green and my phone was blowing
Speaker 1: up saying you're you're missing uh cooper pouring drinks in
Speaker 1: his robe at the down. What is it? The Down Underbar?
Speaker 1: The ONE UNDERBAR? Yeah, and so I hate that I
Speaker 1: missed that. We we we tried to hustle back after
Speaker 1: the interview to see it, but we had missed it.
Speaker 1: At that point he was playing drinking games, I believe. Um,
Speaker 1: we missed his turn, as as the bartender, but that
Speaker 1: does not surprise me. Cooper is the life of the party.
Speaker 1: My group left me. I hung on there. Played a
Speaker 1: game called Essen P with a bunch of people, a
Speaker 1: bunch of uh, you know, Scotland, Americans and Europeans, where
Speaker 1: you go rounding around and you gotta think of a
Speaker 1: word that starts that doesn't. You can't say a word
Speaker 1: it starts with SNP, but it's got to be related
Speaker 1: to the next word. So, in other words, this guy
Speaker 1: starts off, he goes uh, donkey, and I say, if
Speaker 1: I say Dorito, I gotta drink, but if I say,
Speaker 1: you know, horse, I'm good. I keep going. But if
Speaker 1: you say word and so exact when you're sober, exact,
Speaker 1: like one of the easiest games in the world. But
Speaker 1: if you say a word it starts SMP and to drink.
Speaker 1: People could not put say words and started with s.
Speaker 1: They would say pony, like moron, drink. You know. It
Speaker 1: was like and so I'm in a road down there,
Speaker 1: you and this people leave like who the hell is
Speaker 1: this guy, I think. Think the spot. You take a
Speaker 1: wrong turn in the spot and wound up in the bars.
Speaker 1: What the Hell is going on? But that was a blast.
Speaker 1: It was a total pivot. I had to do a
Speaker 1: little I was tired of my group at that point.
Speaker 1: I was laughing out loud to myself for like an
Speaker 1: hour and a half yesterday the because I was down
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole on cooper wearing a robe, going going
Speaker 1: down to one under porn pines, playing drinking games with
Speaker 1: the locals. Yea, and he brought that. He brought a
Speaker 1: great drinking game. I think everybody's everybody's used it since
Speaker 1: the SMP, right, SMP. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So funny. So fine.
Speaker 1: They went to Um. They go to this fair every
Speaker 1: year um down in Mississippi, and I think he brought
Speaker 1: it down there too. So it's already it's spreading. He
Speaker 1: sent me, he sent me pictures of like his yeah,
Speaker 1: he's brought it to his family together. Yeah, he's UH,
Speaker 1: he's he's a character, isn't they? Oh my God, I
Speaker 1: had no idea. Oh Yeah, unbelievable talent. So this is
Speaker 1: where the trip takes a turn. They're leaving the home
Speaker 1: of golf. And now they start the part of the
Speaker 1: trip that is golf centric. But before they leave St
Speaker 1: Andrew's and before we segue to part two of this podcast,
Speaker 1: final thought from weapon. My thought the whole time we
Speaker 1: were doing this. This is the home of golf. We
Speaker 1: want this to be the living room. That was it,
Speaker 1: where everybody comes and they gather and they tell stories
Speaker 1: and they have a beer and they, you know, talk
Speaker 1: about history and meaning and like purpose, and that was it.
Speaker 1: This was, you know, you said, like my dream when
Speaker 1: we concepted this and whatever, was like this is going
Speaker 1: to be the epicenter of the open and it came true.
Speaker 1: Like this was all manifested through all of these things
Speaker 1: and I think the idea were like this fell up
Speaker 1: great and good and connect everybody cared. It was the
Speaker 1: headspace everybody was in. They were so grateful, they were
Speaker 1: so glad, they were so appreciative to be there celebrating
Speaker 1: this monumental occasion in this backdrop, which was really special.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, what we tried to do is,
Speaker 1: you know, you talk about you know something that felt
Speaker 1: good to you. It feels good to us to write.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like, you know, Eric doesn't write or
Speaker 1: make a song. You know what he thinks people want
Speaker 1: to hear. He does something that feels true and real
Speaker 1: to him. It's the same idea, you know, in our
Speaker 1: businesses we build stuff that we really connect to and
Speaker 1: hoping that it connects to the broader market. And you know,
Speaker 1: like you saying that in the seven of set, like
Speaker 1: that's why we do. You know what we do and
Speaker 1: you know and the culture that you mean the general
Speaker 1: manager and mark and everybody, and Philip like they just,
Speaker 1: you know, they all bought in right. This was a
Speaker 1: shared mission to bring these any of these hotels, you know, skin,
Speaker 1: our investors, everybody. This was a shared, you know, idea
Speaker 1: that is now living out in real life. and to
Speaker 1: see an idea from you know, to execution to fruition
Speaker 1: is super meaningful to all of us, everybody involved. And
Speaker 1: you're right, by the way, CBS, ESPN, ABC, it didn't matter.
Speaker 1: Rory Justin Thomas George's speak, like I was just holy ship.
Speaker 1: I can't, I mean, you couldn't write this, Dude. I
Speaker 1: mean you can't see. You couldn't write the script. And
Speaker 1: here we are, like I swear I thought rory was
Speaker 1: gonna you know, hit his drive on a teen and
Speaker 1: make it like I thought I was gonna go in,
Speaker 1: because like that's how all of these things dude, I'm
Speaker 1: sitting here like this, this is real. I'm sitting here
Speaker 1: on the balcony one sixteen with my best friend and
Speaker 1: this like kind of just, you know, so blown away and,
Speaker 1: you know, and grateful. At this point, mark eubanks goes
Speaker 1: off the clock at rue six and he joins the
Speaker 1: golf component of the trip. Hassburger is headed home. His
Speaker 1: final thoughts. Like I said, I left Monday morning and
Speaker 1: they carried on for another couple of days and at
Speaker 1: the end of dinner, that's Sunday and eyes exactly what
Speaker 1: I said. Just thanks for having me. You know, this
Speaker 1: is and that meant like on all of it right
Speaker 1: like seven years ago, Ben when you decided that it
Speaker 1: might be cool for us to partner together. You know,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. You know, Peyton and Eli, some
Speaker 1: kid that you kind of know. You know, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me, Eric, like let's like, it's just, it's it's
Speaker 1: just the appreciate. That's I think that's the coolest part
Speaker 1: of the whole thing is everyone was having an amazing
Speaker 1: time and it was fun. It was everyone was so appreciative,
Speaker 1: you know, and not not necessarily appreciative of of you know, yes,
Speaker 1: the hospitality and the access and all those things, but
Speaker 1: just being able to be a part of the whole thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's all one the package together, is
Speaker 1: just something that you never never put together again. In
Speaker 1: part two of this manning brothers ultimate buddies trip podcast,
Speaker 1: they play over the stone walls of North Barrick. Only
Speaker 1: a few of them go for it to go in.
Speaker 1: They have the Perfect Mirror Field Day, which is to
Speaker 1: say they washed down that famous lunch within infamous drink
Speaker 1: and they busted up to Royal County Down, which is where,
Speaker 1: at the base of the mountains of Morn, Eric Church
Speaker 1: gets inspired to write a song. He's currently recording a
Speaker 1: bit of that song that I'll be able to end
Speaker 1: the whole podcast with Church's version of a song that
Speaker 1: he wrote about this trip. You know he could do that.
Speaker 1: His mind is genius and Eric Starts, starts getting an
Speaker 1: idea and it just the dots get connected really quickly.
Speaker 1: Put another log on the fire and hears give the
Speaker 1: time