Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 2: In a fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg,
Speaker 2: Friday Egg, Frida Egg Egg, Frida Egg, Bride egg.
Speaker 1: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Friday Egg at Golf podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison,
Speaker 3: and today I'm bringing on Shane Ryan of Golf Digest
Speaker 3: to talk about the state of Rory McElroy. As well know,
Speaker 3: Rory just came runner up in the US Open at Pinehurst,
Speaker 3: losing to bryceon de Shambau by one stroke and heartbreaking fashion.
Speaker 3: So I thought it would be a good time to
Speaker 3: assess the broader arc of R's career. And I can't
Speaker 3: think of any media member I'd rather discuss this with
Speaker 3: than Shane Ryan. Shane has been covering Rory in depth
Speaker 3: for the better part of Rory's career in the professional limelight,
Speaker 3: starting with Shane's excellent book Slaying the Tiger, which was
Speaker 3: about the twenty fourteen season of Majors and PGA Tour events,
Speaker 3: and Shane also wrote an outstanding story on Rory's final
Speaker 3: round at Pinehurst, which we'll talk about in depth in
Speaker 3: this episode, in which you can read at golfdigest dot com.
Speaker 3: Shane is always such a delight to talk to one
Speaker 3: of my favorite writers and people in golf journalism. But
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Speaker 3: code egg egg. All right, let's get to Shane. All right,
Speaker 3: I'm here with Shane Ryan, Shane, how are you doing today, Garret?
Speaker 1: I am so good.
Speaker 2: Just to see your face again is lifting my spirits
Speaker 2: on this Thursday morning.
Speaker 3: Absolutely Likewise, the feelings are mutual. You're back home after
Speaker 3: covering the US Open at Pinehurst. This is kind of
Speaker 3: a home game for you, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Pinehurst is about an hour fifteen away, just long enough
Speaker 2: that I came home like one night I wasn't going
Speaker 2: to commute. Stayed with Luke and Joel Luke Virginian Joel Biale,
Speaker 2: my good buddies from Digest. But yeah, it was nice
Speaker 2: and nice and close. And I love Pinehurst. Man. Pinehurst
Speaker 2: is like, you know, the way people feel about Augusta
Speaker 2: is how I feel about Pinehurst. It's sort of magical
Speaker 2: to me. I'm not a very like romantic person around
Speaker 2: golf courses, but Pinehurst, I'll kind of I'll get there.
Speaker 1: I'll get there.
Speaker 3: Do you get out to Pinehurst a fair amount?
Speaker 2: I So it's one of those funny things where I
Speaker 2: know the social the media relations guy Alex is a
Speaker 2: wonderful guy, and so sometimes I go golf there very
Speaker 2: job oh Man insanely good at his job, and I like,
Speaker 2: you know, I said on Twitter and everything, just because
Speaker 2: he was so helpful this week on like four or
Speaker 2: five different projects I did and he was having I
Speaker 2: assume it incredibly busy week, but would always DM me
Speaker 2: back anyway. I try not to take advantage of that
Speaker 2: by going too much, do you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 2: I try to go once in a while, and I
Speaker 2: don't have to play number two because number two kicks
Speaker 2: the kicks my teeth in, so I'm happy. Like once
Speaker 2: a year I'll go down and play number eight or something,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm like, that's great. So no, I
Speaker 2: don't get down there is that much, but when I do,
Speaker 2: it's just I don't know, just kind of like. So
Speaker 2: I grew up in Upstate New York where they used
Speaker 2: to send tuberculosis patients because the mountain air was supposed
Speaker 2: to clear back before they had a cure for tuberculosis.
Speaker 2: They're like, the best thing we can do is send
Speaker 2: you to a place with good air. And that's what
Speaker 2: they did with pineers in the beginning, because there was
Speaker 2: this idea that somehow the pine trees created this atmosphere.
Speaker 2: It ended up not being true, but it feels like
Speaker 2: it's true. It won't cure your consumption like Sarenac Lake,
Speaker 2: New York will if you get consumption. I'm sorry for you.
Speaker 2: Don't go to pinehers, go to Upstate New York. But
Speaker 2: it feels like it would cure your consumption.
Speaker 1: And so that's my.
Speaker 3: Pitch for it ended up not being the best idea
Speaker 3: to build a resort around the idea of come here
Speaker 3: if you have tuberculosis. And so I think they abandoned
Speaker 3: that idea pretty early on, but that is kind of
Speaker 3: a funny origin story for the resort, and you.
Speaker 2: Know, it's nuts. So quickly they pivoted to golf. As
Speaker 2: we pivot to video, they pivoted to golf. But we
Speaker 2: were looking I did a piece on the history of
Speaker 2: putter Boy, the little putter Boy statue, and we were
Speaker 2: looking at the original flyers that they made back in
Speaker 2: like nineteen oh five. Would they call it like the
Speaker 2: golf flat which became putter Boy. But on the flyers
Speaker 2: in the fine print below, it's like the only county
Speaker 2: in the South that doesn't allow consumptives. So they didn't
Speaker 2: just pivot away from it. They went from being a
Speaker 2: resort for people at tuberculosis and consumption to advertising the
Speaker 2: things like if you come here, you don't have to
Speaker 2: worry about those filthy tuberculosis patients. Seriously, it was like
Speaker 2: it was on all other things, like no consumptives, you're
Speaker 2: safe here, because apparently that was a real concern. Then
Speaker 2: you want so it's like a great thing, like, hey,
Speaker 2: if we go here, we don't have to have people
Speaker 2: coughing on our face and killing us.
Speaker 3: That's what we call a hard rebranding there. That's that's interesting.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that part.
Speaker 2: It's the Rory of its time where he was anti
Speaker 2: live and now he wants to merger.
Speaker 1: They were doing that way before.
Speaker 3: Hey, look at that segue. Our topic today is actually
Speaker 3: Rory McElroy. I thought i'd bring you on for this
Speaker 3: kind of later week episode after the US Opened, because
Speaker 3: now we've had a little bit of time to process
Speaker 3: what happened and to kind of get used to the
Speaker 3: idea that what happened on those last several holes at
Speaker 3: Pinehurst actually occurred, and I thought it would be a
Speaker 3: good moment to dive deep into Rory McElroy. Maybe we
Speaker 3: could just start by talking about your Sunday at the
Speaker 3: US Open. As you were going out to cover the tournament,
Speaker 3: you were on site for the week, obviously, what was
Speaker 3: your basic plan for the day.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, basic plan for Sunday. First of all, I
Speaker 2: was healthy for the first time all week. I was
Speaker 2: sick for the first five days, which sucked, but so
Speaker 2: finally I was like feeling good about going out, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, I wasn't going to be tired after twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: I think originally the plan was to walk within the
Speaker 2: entire round, but we sort of didn't have a broader
Speaker 2: plan about who was writing what early on in the day,
Speaker 2: so we walked with them the first seven holes, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, very good, like a perfect appetizer.
Speaker 1: Things were kind of tightening up. It was it was you.
Speaker 1: Rory looked really really good.
Speaker 2: Bryson looked okay, but like there was evidence of the
Speaker 2: shakiness that would kind of emerge later.
Speaker 1: So he came in after seven holes, got some lunch.
Speaker 2: And the way Pineers works, like the seventh hole is
Speaker 2: actually closest to the clubhouse instead of the ninth. So anyway,
Speaker 2: Joel and I, Joel Biel and I were like, well,
Speaker 2: who's gonna write Rory and who's gonna write Bryson?
Speaker 1: Because those are the two big stories today.
Speaker 2: It already looked like Cantley probably wouldn't factor, even though
Speaker 2: he did hang in and Joel it.
Speaker 1: Just so happened.
Speaker 2: Joel had written Rory the day before and he said, okay,
Speaker 2: you write Rory, which was really generous of him because
Speaker 2: it looked at that time talking about ten to eleventh
Speaker 2: hole now like Rory was going to break his major drought,
Speaker 2: and so it was kind of like a benevolent Joel.
Speaker 2: You know, it's been there longer, and he could choose
Speaker 2: whatever he wanted. So he's like, no, you get him,
Speaker 2: You take Rory, which is really nice and I'm glad
Speaker 2: he did because the story that ended up happening was
Speaker 2: even better in some ways than if he had one.
Speaker 2: I mean in terms of like being able to like
Speaker 2: write the story.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So anyways, this, by the way, is the first nice
Speaker 3: thing that Joel Beale has ever done.
Speaker 1: Right. He's not a good guy. He's a mean, mean,
Speaker 1: cruel person.
Speaker 2: Just reach over and slap me randomly. I brought it
Speaker 2: up with HR char I brought it up with HR
Speaker 2: Golf Digest. They say, there's our hands are tied. He's
Speaker 2: too good a writer. If we can't do anything, you're
Speaker 2: just gonna have to accept. You're gonna have to accept
Speaker 2: the physical blows. But yeah, so he did. It was
Speaker 2: a first nice thing. I don't know what he was thinking.
Speaker 2: But we caught up with him again on fourteen, and
Speaker 2: it's kind of funny when I remember it because while
Speaker 2: I was gone, Rory went on a tear right. So
Speaker 2: from eight to thirteen he made five birdies.
Speaker 1: Or something like that.
Speaker 2: Then the minute I caught him on fourteen, I'd literally
Speaker 2: got there right for his drive.
Speaker 1: It was back. It was back to best. It was
Speaker 1: my fault in.
Speaker 2: Other words, that Rory lost any time I was there,
Speaker 2: he didn't play that well. But yeah, so we got
Speaker 2: him on fourteen. You know, he cranked that drive to
Speaker 2: the left. I will shay the mindset. Everybody like has
Speaker 2: a mindset, right, everybody's kind of you. You're making predictions
Speaker 2: and you're trying to read the tea leaves. Very much
Speaker 2: felt like Rory was going to win this tournament to me,
Speaker 2: and that was being fully cognizant of the fact that
Speaker 2: I have been a sucker to that same thought for
Speaker 2: a decade over and over at major championships.
Speaker 3: And Joel.
Speaker 2: Joel would do this thing this is actually true, where
Speaker 2: every time I would be like, you know, I honestly
Speaker 2: think this is as weak I think it's gonna happen,
Speaker 2: he would start casting a casting like a fake fishing
Speaker 2: line as I was, and like reeling it in as
Speaker 2: if I was, you know, biting at the big fish again.
Speaker 2: And so I would but yeah, down fourteen, like he
Speaker 2: drove it left. But he then he made part from
Speaker 2: there I think his Yeah, his approach shot went a
Speaker 2: little bit left of the green, but he went up
Speaker 2: and down. At that point, I believe Bryson was making
Speaker 2: birdie really on the just on the previous hole. Which
Speaker 2: that's another crazy thing about Pinehurst. These holes are right
Speaker 2: next to each other all through the end, so they
Speaker 2: saw each other over and over, which added a certain
Speaker 2: amount of drama and aura to the whole thing. So
Speaker 2: Bryson was one shot back. Rory makes bogie on fifteen.
Speaker 2: Then you're like, oh God, they're tired. I guess, you know,
Speaker 2: it still felt like he was gonna win, but it's like, okay, okay.
Speaker 2: Then the big, the big moment, the last good moment
Speaker 2: for Rory in terms of how everybody was feeling the perception,
Speaker 2: came after that bogie on fifteen. He hits a good
Speaker 2: drive on sixteen, right before he hit his approach. Adam
Speaker 2: Schupack from Golf wereek who I was with. He had
Speaker 2: the head piece where he was listening to the radio feed,
Speaker 2: so I was kind of just begging him for news,
Speaker 2: and that was when Bryson three putted to fifteenth. So
Speaker 2: Bryson goes down one and I'm telling you a split
Speaker 2: second after he told me it was just like boom, boom.
Speaker 2: Rory hits his approach onto the green, a good approach
Speaker 2: on sixteen, So you're like, this is it. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is like he's gonna make par here at worst,
Speaker 2: and you're gonna go this.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Then he's just got to survive these last two holes
Speaker 2: trying to make par. Even if he makes bogie, he's
Speaker 2: got a great chance because Bryson is all over the
Speaker 2: place right now. And then yeah, then things turned. The
Speaker 2: big turn, the dramatic turn that I still think is
Speaker 2: the most confounding thing maybe I've ever seen on a
Speaker 2: golf course came at sixteen when he hit a good
Speaker 2: first putt to two feet six inches.
Speaker 1: And then you're the way I was.
Speaker 2: Thinking of it is like you're kind of plotting out
Speaker 2: the rest, like what are the big moments to come? Well,
Speaker 2: Rory's t shawan sevent is gonna be really big if
Speaker 2: he gets on the green. Bryson's approach on sixteen is
Speaker 2: really big. You're thinking in the future of what the
Speaker 2: big moments are going to be, and you don't realize
Speaker 2: the big moment is just about to happen and he
Speaker 2: misses that putt and you're like, holy shit, are you
Speaker 2: kidding me? Like like genuinely, like are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker 2: Is like the only words that in thoughts that come
Speaker 2: into your head. Everybody's just staring at each other. The
Speaker 2: crowd is gasping. All the media people are looking at
Speaker 2: each other like this can't be real life, because, as
Speaker 2: you allude to earlier, you're like, it's like some Sikkah
Speaker 2: was writing the script, you know what I mean, it's
Speaker 2: like some it's like Joel Bale, the real sicko real
Speaker 2: say this, like Bale is writing the script of this
Speaker 2: of this round, and you're and I knew, I mean,
Speaker 2: I say, I knew. I didn't know anything. But in
Speaker 2: my head, I'm like, he's done. There's no way you
Speaker 2: can win after that, Like you can't win after this,
Speaker 2: it's now a tie ball game. Right after he misses that,
Speaker 2: forget it, he's just not gonna do it. Then he
Speaker 2: goes to seventeen. Of course, you know, and stop stop
Speaker 2: me at any point if I'm being too detailed, But
Speaker 2: it's just like it's so vivid in my head.
Speaker 1: No, no, let's do it. Yeah, this is yes. So
Speaker 1: he goes to seventeen.
Speaker 2: He hits a bad t shot, but he makes an
Speaker 2: incredible up and down, which didn't seem likely at all.
Speaker 2: You know, Bryson's doing his thing, but I think Bryson
Speaker 2: had a good shot on seventeen. So now you're like, boy,
Speaker 2: the moment it was really changed. Rory gets to eighteen,
Speaker 2: hits that drive, has to kind of bump it over
Speaker 2: the wire ground like he couldn't take really, he couldn't
Speaker 2: get a full swing on it, but he did a
Speaker 2: pretty good job from there, and then hits a splendid
Speaker 2: ship from the front of the green and then Bryson
Speaker 2: yanks his his ball so far left where My first
Speaker 2: thought was, he's gonna get relief and people are gonna
Speaker 2: be so pissed. I was like, he's gonna take some
Speaker 2: he's gonna get some weird relief from the stands and
Speaker 2: people are gonna be furious. And he did try and
Speaker 2: to his crib who wouldn't, but that didn't happen. But yeah,
Speaker 2: then Rory misses that putt and you're thinking, this is
Speaker 2: just unbelievable. And because I was on the Rory beat,
Speaker 2: I followed him into the clubhouse, followed him into scoring.
Speaker 2: You know, the door shut behind him, So we're just
Speaker 2: kind of standing there. And at this point it's like,
Speaker 2: as a fan, you're almost there's almost the thought like
Speaker 2: should I just go back and watch suit Bryson does,
Speaker 2: But I'm like, no, I'm gonna sta with Rory.
Speaker 1: That's the job.
Speaker 2: And we're kind of watching on YouTube TV on our phones,
Speaker 2: but everything. Obviously we're right underneath the grandstand, so you
Speaker 2: can hear everything happened ten seconds before it does and Bryson, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Bryson went up and down from that bunker obviously. And
Speaker 2: Rory once he hit it, you could see on the
Speaker 2: TV feed like he leaves the room right away. He
Speaker 2: goes down the hallway to the locker room. The Netflix
Speaker 2: crew is there following him. Mike Wand comes up at
Speaker 2: one point and is like, do we want them there?
Speaker 2: Do we want them there? I think I think talking
Speaker 2: about the Netflix crew, like maybe we should kick them
Speaker 2: out or whatever, or maybe like we're not doing a
Speaker 2: good job protecting Rory from them or something. Then Rory
Speaker 2: comes out after a few minutes. The other funny detail
Speaker 2: that I think people would enjoy is that after that
Speaker 2: point Bryson had finished and come into scoring and someone
Speaker 2: from his team had to bring his bag to the
Speaker 2: locker room.
Speaker 1: And he walked by us and I don't know who
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: It wasn't his cad or anything, but he looked at
Speaker 2: us before he goes in, and he goes is Rory
Speaker 2: in there, like pointing to the locker room, and we're
Speaker 2: like yeah, and the guy his face just felt like,
Speaker 2: you tell, the last thing in the world this guy
Speaker 2: wanted to do is to bring Bryson Toto Shamba's bag
Speaker 2: into the locker room where Rory.
Speaker 1: Was, you know, experiencing the pain of his life.
Speaker 2: Just like the word ashen when you describe somebody's face
Speaker 2: was made for that moment.
Speaker 1: It just fell over him. So he went in.
Speaker 2: Rory comes out eventually the next Netflix cruise following him.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, there's a bunch of people following him,
Speaker 2: one of whom is Sergio Garcia, who I don't even
Speaker 2: think got to him, but was kind of like smiling
Speaker 2: and talking to people. Yeah, and then Rory just from
Speaker 2: a short walk there out into the parking lot loaded
Speaker 2: up the bags. None of us were obviously going to
Speaker 2: go up and talk to him, and we were just
Speaker 2: kind of watching and then yeah, then pulled out and
Speaker 2: was gone and that was the end of the story
Speaker 2: right there.
Speaker 1: That's it, man, that's it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was truly one of them, I think, the most
Speaker 2: acutely painful thing I've ever personally seen on a golf course.
Speaker 1: No, definitely, it definitely was.
Speaker 3: All right, So what is so sick about what happened
Speaker 3: on those last few holes, I think is that there
Speaker 3: was a push in a poll with each shot that
Speaker 3: Rory hit. He hit his approach into sixteen, the thought
Speaker 3: is he has won the tournament. He misses that shorty
Speaker 3: on the sixteenth green and the thought is he can't
Speaker 3: possibly win this tournament. He misses the green on seventeen
Speaker 3: and you think, all right, this is over. And then
Speaker 3: he hits a great recovery from the bunker and your
Speaker 3: thought is, oh, he could actually do this. And then
Speaker 3: he misses the fairway on eighteen and kind of draws
Speaker 3: a funky lie and you think, Okay, nope, this isn't happening.
Speaker 3: And then he hits a pretty good approach from there
Speaker 3: and a pretty good chip and you're like, he could
Speaker 3: get to a playoff. He could win it outright if
Speaker 3: Bryson makes a mistake. Yeah, and then he misses that putt,
Speaker 3: and at that point Bryson just has to make par
Speaker 3: on the last hole, which was by no means a
Speaker 3: foregone conclusion. But there was a kind of cruel, you know,
Speaker 3: back and forth with each of those shots, and I
Speaker 3: think that's part of what made it so painful. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we've seen other meltdowns, other major losses, Jean van Derveld.
Speaker 3: You know Adam Scott at that one open that Ernie
Speaker 3: El's won. There have been obviously Greg Norman at the
Speaker 3: ninety six Masters, but there was something about this sequence
Speaker 3: of events that was specifically agonizing. So that's one theory
Speaker 3: as to why it was so painful. Yeah, what are
Speaker 3: some of your other thoughts as to why this had
Speaker 3: such an impact seeing Rory go through this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the sort of.
Speaker 2: Yo yo of hope that was dangled in front of
Speaker 2: us is you're one hundred percent right. The other thing
Speaker 2: I thought about I didn't see it spoken about as
Speaker 2: much in the app math, but if Rory makes that
Speaker 2: putt on eighteen, that up and down is so much
Speaker 2: harder for Bryson because you're talking about, yeah, okay, he's
Speaker 2: got to make a par to win. That's not easy,
Speaker 2: and he did a wonderful job. But he also had
Speaker 2: the security of knowing if I two Putt were going
Speaker 2: to a playoff, it's not it's not dead. What about
Speaker 2: what about that same situation where if you don't make
Speaker 2: par you lose, you know what I mean? Like, that's
Speaker 2: a completely different can of worms. So yes, I like
Speaker 2: your theory. Certainly, the the idea of and this works
Speaker 2: into the idea of, you know, should he stayed for
Speaker 2: the media, should he not have? The fact that there's
Speaker 2: ten years building up to this is another thing of
Speaker 2: what makes it so painful. John van Develt, you know,
Speaker 2: I watched the Netflix show with him yesterday, which, by
Speaker 2: the way, John Van Develt is awesome, Like he really
Speaker 2: seems like a cool guy. Really, he really liked him
Speaker 2: both at the time the way he spoke and in
Speaker 2: the present the way he spoke about it. I'm like,
Speaker 2: nobody in the world could have handled that better than
Speaker 2: he did.
Speaker 3: He came out really well in that documentary.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And like I guess I didn't the memory
Speaker 2: of what he was like contemporaneously at the time, and
Speaker 2: even then he seemed like very cool, but yeah, so
Speaker 2: I forget who it was. Oh, Jimmy Roberts was saying,
Speaker 2: I covered Golfer a living and I honestly hadn't heard
Speaker 2: of Jean van Devilt before that Open Championship, so that
Speaker 2: like something like that, it's over and done. You don't
Speaker 2: hear this guy like all a sudden. He's a tragic
Speaker 2: figure and then it's over with Rory. We've had ten
Speaker 2: years of build up for this, So then you compare
Speaker 2: him to I don't know Adam Scott or you know,
Speaker 2: Greg Norman or things like that, but he does exist,
Speaker 2: even since Adam Scott does exist in a different media
Speaker 2: world where there's like more discourse around it and just
Speaker 2: more attention all the time, and the fact of the
Speaker 2: Yo Yo of Hope, combined with the expectations of ten
Speaker 2: years and the letdowns before it create this completely novel
Speaker 2: situation that we've never seen before. The Again, the closest
Speaker 2: comparison is Norman, but it doesn't it doesn't really compare
Speaker 2: even still, I think.
Speaker 3: The yo Yo of hope that is the phrase that
Speaker 3: I was searching for as I was describing.
Speaker 1: I needed you.
Speaker 2: I just thought of it now, I needed you to
Speaker 2: kind of likes ham an egg moment.
Speaker 3: So as you were out on the course watching this,
Speaker 3: were you formulating the story that you ended up writing. Obviously,
Speaker 3: you didn't know what the outcome would be and and
Speaker 3: that would determine what the story would be obviously, But
Speaker 3: how did you come up with the idea for that
Speaker 3: story in the end?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was I think I'm a big one for
Speaker 2: always formulating the story no matter.
Speaker 1: What I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's I think there's like people like this you
Speaker 2: might be one two where you're always kind of there's
Speaker 2: the part of you that's experiencing life and then the
Speaker 2: part of you that's narrating that experience.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and it's the anxious mindset, right, the constant future orientation,
Speaker 3: and when your job is to be out there to
Speaker 3: write a story about these events, I think it's almost
Speaker 3: inevitable to think, wow, you're having those experiences, what the
Speaker 3: story might be and how it could be good exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And sometimes like it's a storyteller's mindset too.
Speaker 2: But you're right that it's it's good in some cases
Speaker 2: like this one. In other cases you're like, I will
Speaker 2: show us in doing this, But yeah, I mean, but yeah,
Speaker 2: so I was thinking about it, but I do think
Speaker 2: a lot of you idly think about it. But a
Speaker 2: lot of it is like I've been in enough situations
Speaker 2: where you form narratives and then dispatch them and then
Speaker 2: start to like you know, be based on things changing
Speaker 2: that you almost treat it like a game. It's not
Speaker 2: like you're really playing the story. It's more like you're
Speaker 2: just entertaining. You know, you're like a debutante entertaining quarters
Speaker 2: that are coming out party, and the.
Speaker 1: Quarters are the stories.
Speaker 2: So yeah, no, it's like I'm trying to so I'm
Speaker 2: trying to think of this particular instance when I thought,
Speaker 2: for example, of like the first little scene, probably not
Speaker 2: until I sat down and was like, oh, that's interesting,
Speaker 2: like what happened at sixteen?
Speaker 1: That seems to me.
Speaker 2: That's like my only philosophy as a storyteller now is
Speaker 2: start with the most interesting thing.
Speaker 1: Like that.
Speaker 2: It's all boiled down to that, Like I've read books
Speaker 2: and or people, you know, seen people talk about it.
Speaker 2: To me, it's like, just find the most interesting thing
Speaker 2: and start with it instantly. And like when you're doing
Speaker 2: a podcast or whether you're writing a story, it's like period,
Speaker 2: that's it. That's the only and then everything else will
Speaker 2: kind of follow from that hopefully. So that yeah, that
Speaker 2: I thought was when I boiled it down, it's like,
Speaker 2: that's the most interesting that put on sixteen, because the
Speaker 2: put on eighteen is sort of understandable. That's a difficult,
Speaker 2: like downhill put under pressure, It's one I would never
Speaker 2: make under those circumstances. But the putt on sixteen, it's
Speaker 2: like I hadn't even seen the stat at that point
Speaker 2: until after I with the story. But the thing where
Speaker 2: he was four hundred and ninety six for four hundred
Speaker 2: and ninety six on those it's unthinkable that he would
Speaker 2: miss that putt, And so that to me, you hone
Speaker 2: in and you go, this is the point where if
Speaker 2: you're like, if you think he's a choker, you're gonna
Speaker 2: like really seize on that.
Speaker 1: If you think he's you're gonna seize on that, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, or whatever your thing is.
Speaker 2: If you just think he's unlucky, you're gonna be like,
Speaker 2: how unlucky is it to miss that putt?
Speaker 1: There? How do you do it? It doesn't make sense,
Speaker 1: It doesn't compute right.
Speaker 2: If you're a computer program, you're breaking down at that
Speaker 2: point because he can't miss that putt.
Speaker 1: He can't miss that putt.
Speaker 2: And he did, so that I just decided to start
Speaker 2: from there.
Speaker 1: And then I think with that story.
Speaker 2: A lot of people have said what you said earlier
Speaker 2: is just like like it was written really quickly, and
Speaker 2: I was very happy with it how quickly it came together.
Speaker 2: But what I would say to that is I've always
Speaker 2: been a fast writer, but the emotion of that moment
Speaker 2: kind of carries you when you're writing. The emotion and
Speaker 2: the pain was so strong that.
Speaker 1: It was like fuel for the writing.
Speaker 2: So if you had given me people like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: amazing you wrote that so quickly, if you had given
Speaker 2: me three days to write it, I think it would
Speaker 2: have been worse, you know what I mean. It's like
Speaker 2: it could only be done in ninety minutes or whatever
Speaker 2: it took me. And so again not to pat myself
Speaker 2: on the back, but it's very happy with that story.
Speaker 2: When I wrote it, I was like, fuck, I this
Speaker 2: is really good. And I was like a very like
Speaker 2: very happy when you feel that way, very happy when
Speaker 2: people respond that way, and so it was cool. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it was just it was the emotion of the moment
Speaker 2: really it was just like like you feel like you're
Speaker 2: tapped in almost into some greater thing, and you just
Speaker 2: got all you gotta do. You're like transcribing as quickly
Speaker 2: as you can.
Speaker 3: And part of what you do at the beginning of
Speaker 3: the story to narrate the mist putt is to kind
Speaker 3: of focus on this flower that's right near you and
Speaker 3: figure out what that flower is. And then the mist
Speaker 3: putt happens, and it you know, your your attention obviously
Speaker 3: moves away from the flower, and so there it's you know,
Speaker 3: I'm describing it right now, and people need to read
Speaker 3: it as it's written, because it's not going to come
Speaker 3: across the way it does in the article. But I
Speaker 3: wanted to mention that because there's another moment in the
Speaker 3: article when you look away from Rory as he's passing
Speaker 3: by you and clearly in agony, and it strikes me
Speaker 3: that this article is in a way about looking away
Speaker 3: from pain or keeping a distance from pain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah.
Speaker 3: And the and the pain at the center of it,
Speaker 3: Rory's pain is is kind of like, uh, I don't
Speaker 3: know if politely is the word, but it's at it
Speaker 3: it's at a remove from us. It's something we can't
Speaker 3: quite know, and so is that how you were processing
Speaker 3: it in the moment there's this kind of awkwardness or
Speaker 3: this hesitation to even go to the core of what
Speaker 3: he must be feeling.
Speaker 2: I think so, and I think yeah, and I think
Speaker 2: as I was writing it, the thought with the flower
Speaker 2: especially was the idea that now when I see this flower,
Speaker 2: I'm going to associate it with Rory McElroy because just
Speaker 2: because of the random thing of like, I didn't think
Speaker 2: anything big was happening here, so I just used my
Speaker 2: picture this app to figure out what this flower was.
Speaker 2: But now that thing is forever tied to Rory the
Speaker 2: same way that you know, if you ask, like our parents' generation,
Speaker 2: like where were you when JFK was assassinated, It's like, well,
Speaker 2: I was getting a you know, a hamburger at McDonald's,
Speaker 2: And now every time you get a hamburger McDonald's, you
Speaker 2: think of JFK being shot.
Speaker 1: In doubts or where were you for nine to eleven?
Speaker 2: Right, not comparing what Rory did to nine to eleven,
Speaker 2: but no, the idea of association of something big being
Speaker 2: attached to something like almost ridiculous or something completely different.
Speaker 2: But now they live together forever in your head. But
Speaker 2: I thought of that in the broader thing. You're right,
Speaker 2: the concept of looking away from pain with Rory is
Speaker 2: partly because it's so intense, but also you don't know
Speaker 2: what his associations are. The great question is how is
Speaker 2: Rory going to deal with this? What is he going
Speaker 2: to feel? It's so unknowable. It's the best question and
Speaker 2: it's the one you can't answer. And the idea is like,
Speaker 2: just like I'm associating with a flower or other painful
Speaker 2: moments in my life, you're associating with things that you
Speaker 2: know nobody would understand because you're not me. Same with Rory,
Speaker 2: it's like what it feels to him and what it
Speaker 2: means to him are so tied up in his experience
Speaker 2: as a human and his associations and everything like that
Speaker 2: that we can't know it. And so I wanted that
Speaker 2: level of ambiguity. I think tied into the looking away
Speaker 2: from the pain because that's another human phenomenon of when
Speaker 2: someone's in intense pain. There's a couple of ways to react,
Speaker 2: but kind of a human way to react is to
Speaker 2: sort of like back away from it because it makes
Speaker 2: us think of our own pain, and sometimes people don't
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: Like if you have a friend.
Speaker 2: We've all had this phenomena where a friend who's just like,
Speaker 2: bad things are happening to them, and you kind of
Speaker 2: if you're a good friend, you stick with them, but
Speaker 2: there's part of you that's like, God, I don't want
Speaker 2: to deal with this, you know what I mean? I
Speaker 2: just like cause I'm my things are going fine in
Speaker 2: my own life, and then it's like, and things are
Speaker 2: not going fine in my life. I'm cognizant of not
Speaker 2: wanting to flood my friends with it, right, because who
Speaker 2: wants to hear that all the time? So I guess
Speaker 2: it's all that's a big word salad to say that, yes,
Speaker 2: you're exactly right, look away from the pain, and then
Speaker 2: the bigger unknowability of what it would mean to rory
Speaker 2: and not even worth prognosticating except to say, we can't know,
Speaker 2: but it's got to be pretty intense.
Speaker 3: And I think golfers know the feeling or no aversion
Speaker 3: of that feeling where your body just doesn't do the
Speaker 3: right thing. It's like a glitch. You compared it to
Speaker 3: a computer program malfunctioning earlier. It is like a glitch
Speaker 3: where just there's something weird happening in the matrix and
Speaker 3: you just miss a six inch put or something like that,
Speaker 3: and it's almost unavoidable or something. But even an amateur
Speaker 3: golfer has had this experience of making a mistake like
Speaker 3: that or experiencing a glitch like that, and there's this
Speaker 3: kind of feeling of, you know, like you're everything swirling
Speaker 3: around you and you get this ache in your gut.
Speaker 3: We've all felt that, except that now we've seen Rory
Speaker 3: experience it, and he did it on a massively bigger stage,
Speaker 3: and so I think golfers look at that and think like, well,
Speaker 3: I've gone through that and it was pretty hard. I
Speaker 3: can't even imagine what that was like to do that
Speaker 3: in this kind of context, and that might be part
Speaker 3: of why it's so kind of hard to relate to.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, you are relating to it.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing. It's like when you can kind
Speaker 2: of relate to something and then you can start to
Speaker 2: imagine the scope of it that's different from what you did.
Speaker 2: So earlier this year, we did a thing for Digest
Speaker 2: where it was the concept was we're going to send
Speaker 2: Shane down to Florida to play a round of golf
Speaker 2: with Paul Tasri as his caddy, and the idea is like,
Speaker 2: how does a really great caddy who's won majors and
Speaker 2: everything help an average golfer?
Speaker 1: And I had this like pretty okay start.
Speaker 2: Then they kind of blew up a little on the
Speaker 2: end of the back nine, but then I had a
Speaker 2: really good back nine and we were close to like,
Speaker 2: I'm a very average golfer, but I was going to
Speaker 2: had a chance to break ninety, and leading into seventeen,
Speaker 2: I was just starting to hit a lot of good
Speaker 2: shots and all that stuff. We get to eighteen, which
Speaker 2: is a par five, probably the easiest hole on the course,
Speaker 2: and it was I think I needed a six maybe,
Speaker 2: or maybe I needed a par but very doable, you know,
Speaker 2: like if I long story short, I hit the ball
Speaker 2: like I'd been driving beautifully. I drove it so far
Speaker 2: right that it almost seems absurd. It's like, physically, how
Speaker 2: could I do that? And it went out of bounds
Speaker 2: by about a yard. You know. It went on with
Speaker 2: the stakes and we didn't see it, and we had
Speaker 2: like our film grew up ahead radio and back being
Speaker 2: like a ton of bounds like.
Speaker 1: And it was so devastating. It was so fucking devastating.
Speaker 2: And that's to break an eighty nine on a video
Speaker 2: where nobody's gonna care or judge me because I'm not
Speaker 2: a good golfer, and where actually it makes the story
Speaker 2: kind of better to have that moment, but it did it.
Speaker 2: Like I was like whoa, And I had that thought
Speaker 2: in the moment of am I gonna think about this forever?
Speaker 2: You know, just like you had this like because you're
Speaker 2: on camera and this is the only time I've ever
Speaker 2: played golf on camera. And then you're like quickly because
Speaker 2: the stakes are so low, you're like, yeah, well I
Speaker 2: probably will think about it forever, but it's gonna be fine.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna torture me. But yeah, but that moment
Speaker 2: when you're like in that sense of god, I just
Speaker 2: I just had a lot of pressure on me. I
Speaker 2: had a moment where it was all me and I
Speaker 2: blew it and it's so it's like personally devastating. Then
Speaker 2: you look at Rory like to do that like the
Speaker 2: put On sixteen, I think I wrote this in the piece.
Speaker 2: He immediately like puts his hand out as in like
Speaker 2: a stop like.
Speaker 3: Slow down, slow down that it's sort of like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's kind of a funny gesture because it's the gesture
Speaker 3: that golfers make when a downhill putt is running past
Speaker 3: the hole too far, exactly. And it was an interesting
Speaker 3: gesture at the time because that putt was not running
Speaker 3: past the hole too far. It wasn't that kind of situation.
Speaker 3: It was just a missed shorty and he would have
Speaker 3: a tap in next. But he made that gesture.
Speaker 2: He did, and it almost like I felt like it
Speaker 2: doubled as a calm down, like calm down gesture because
Speaker 2: I think in that moment, I'm mind meeting a little
Speaker 2: bit here, but I probably you would think it would
Speaker 2: be accurate. He's probably running away in his head like
Speaker 2: all of his future thinkers, going this is this is
Speaker 2: the you know, this is devastating what I did, having
Speaker 2: all the thoughts like I not only did I maybe
Speaker 2: blow the US Open, but people are gonna talk about
Speaker 2: this forever. I can't believe I did it. How is
Speaker 2: it possible to miss this putt?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like I almost felt like he was trying to slow
Speaker 2: down his own brain and stay in the moment because
Speaker 2: the tournament wasn't over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all this talk makes me think it's like.
Speaker 2: Everything that we're talking about now, and a lot of
Speaker 2: the coverage is based on the pain of one lonely
Speaker 2: human being out on a golf.
Speaker 1: Course, and.
Speaker 2: It speaks to like he's gonna come back and play
Speaker 2: the Open. I mean, he's got to be a pretty
Speaker 2: You gotta be a pretty resilient person to keep putting
Speaker 2: yourself in those positions, because this was not the first
Speaker 2: time that happened to him, right, It's happened a bunch before,
Speaker 2: and he's gonna keep coming back. Norman kept coming back.
Speaker 2: There's you gotta admire it. You have to say, like
Speaker 2: you admire the strength, because there's always that part of
Speaker 2: you that's like I wonder if I would just quit
Speaker 2: golf after that, just.
Speaker 1: Just go full time into gardening or something.
Speaker 3: That's that's the first thought you have, especially when you
Speaker 3: remember that Roy McElroy is rich and doesn't have to
Speaker 3: do any of this. He could just you know, buy
Speaker 3: an island in the Caribbean and live there for the
Speaker 3: rest of his life if he wanted. But I think
Speaker 3: pretty clearly he's not going to do that. So one
Speaker 3: more question about the story you know, in a way,
Speaker 3: it is a rite around, right. It's like one of
Speaker 3: those stories that a journalist writes when they don't have
Speaker 3: access to the central subject of the story. Frank Sinatra
Speaker 3: has a call by Gaytalise, Right, that's the famous example
Speaker 3: of that kind of story, where Gaytalise wasn't able to
Speaker 3: interview Frank Sinatra, and so he had to write this
Speaker 3: story where he basically talked to everybody around Frank Sinatra
Speaker 3: and ended up with this really rich portrait of who
Speaker 3: he was. This story is kind of like that because
Speaker 3: you didn't get an interview with the main subject of it. Afterwards,
Speaker 3: you didn't get his answers to those questions that we
Speaker 3: have about how it felt to miss the put On sixteen,
Speaker 3: to miss the put On eighteen, and to kick away
Speaker 3: a chance at winning his first major in ten years.
Speaker 3: Those are the questions. Those are the main questions that
Speaker 3: would have been asked and that he would have addressed
Speaker 3: had he spoken to the media. You say in the
Speaker 3: story that you understand why he got out of there.
Speaker 3: Why don't we unpack that a little bit? What did
Speaker 3: you make of Rory leaving without talking to the media.
Speaker 2: It's funny because it's in the moment you're like, I
Speaker 2: understand it because it's so intense and you just want
Speaker 2: to escape.
Speaker 1: I'm sure.
Speaker 2: Then afterward you're a little bit like, well, all the
Speaker 2: other people who did this stuck around, and if it
Speaker 2: were me, you can only judge by yourself. And it's
Speaker 2: very It's almost silly to say if it were me,
Speaker 2: because how can you put yourself in that person's position.
Speaker 2: You no, you're nothing like them. But what I would
Speaker 2: hope is that I would have done it, as painful
Speaker 2: as it was. I would have hoped, especially the biggest
Speaker 2: thing for me was I would have hoped for him
Speaker 2: that he would have congratulated Bryson. It almost makes me
Speaker 2: like old fashion because people will say to that and
Speaker 2: they have said in response, well, what does it matter.
Speaker 2: Bryson doesn't need it, He'll just say it the next day.
Speaker 2: But for something, for me, there's something about the ceremony
Speaker 2: and the ritual of showing sportsmanship in that moment, even
Speaker 2: though it hurts like crazy, that I find valuable. Maybe
Speaker 2: I'm a sentimentalist or something, but it seemed beneath him
Speaker 2: not to do it.
Speaker 1: I'd like That's the thing.
Speaker 2: The media is the secondary thing, not as big a
Speaker 2: deal as that, but still there's again, there's something like
Speaker 2: dignified and noble about understanding what your job is and
Speaker 2: understanding what the rituals are even when you're really hurting
Speaker 2: and stepping up and doing those that. I think, so
Speaker 2: the two things are. I understand why he didn't, but
Speaker 2: I think in a perfect world he would have. But
Speaker 2: I also don't feel like lecturing him over it, do
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like it's yeah, it's like
Speaker 2: he should have done it, probably, and I wish he
Speaker 2: would have, and I wonder if.
Speaker 1: He wishes he would have.
Speaker 2: He didn't, but that's also understandable, and I don't think
Speaker 2: anybody should really judge him too harshly for it.
Speaker 3: I love the way you put that, because if we
Speaker 3: get too self righteous about it, specifically about the media thing,
Speaker 3: you know, greeting and congratulating Bryce, and he ended up
Speaker 3: doing that in a statement later, but obviously it would
Speaker 3: have been nice if he had done it in the
Speaker 3: moment and then skipped out and not talked to the media.
Speaker 3: I think this story probably would have been different after that.
Speaker 3: But if we lecture him about it, then we're sort
Speaker 3: of attributing to ourselves a kind of importance that maybe
Speaker 3: we don't really have anymore in these situations, because we're
Speaker 3: always going to have a lot of venues and a
Speaker 3: lot of opportunities to talk about this experience in the
Speaker 3: future that don't involve a traditional press conference. And I'm
Speaker 3: of two minds about that. As somebody who makes podcasts,
Speaker 3: I'm glad that we have access to players to talk
Speaker 3: to them in this kind of long form format and
Speaker 3: get to know them in that way. At the same time,
Speaker 3: the press conference is a pretty important institution and it's
Speaker 3: there for a reason. And if we let players off
Speaker 3: relatively easy for skipping the press conference, then you know,
Speaker 3: in the future, what does the press conference mean?
Speaker 1: I suppose totally. Yeah, And so a couple thoughts on that.
Speaker 2: The thing you said about it being a rite around,
Speaker 2: I think is a sign of the times a little
Speaker 2: bit in the sense that even if he had done
Speaker 2: a press conference, I don't know how much we were
Speaker 2: going to get he would have been would have been
Speaker 2: like very quick. The thing he probably would have done
Speaker 2: if he stayed for the media was like I'm going
Speaker 2: to talk to TV for two questions that I'm out
Speaker 2: of here, and that would have changed the narrative too,
Speaker 2: would have been that easy, but he wouldn't have done
Speaker 2: much anyway. And so for me the whole time it
Speaker 2: was like, and not just at the uscus open, but broadly,
Speaker 2: it's like, when you're writing, what is the unique way
Speaker 2: that you're going to do it? And the answer not
Speaker 2: just for writing his voice, right. So this is why
Speaker 2: podcasts are thriving, because you can bring your voice to
Speaker 2: it and your personality and people like listening to videos
Speaker 2: or you know, YouTube content or whatever, and with writing
Speaker 2: it's the same thing of how am I going to
Speaker 2: distinguish this? And so even going into that, I didn't
Speaker 2: even have to tell myself it's just on conscious at
Speaker 2: this point, if you're counting on good quotes and the
Speaker 2: presser to write a good story, you're dead.
Speaker 1: You know you're not going to get them.
Speaker 2: Like, so your story has to be good, and in
Speaker 2: this case, like you want it to rise to the
Speaker 2: emotional occasion because the emotions are so strong. And so
Speaker 2: so that's probably like a little bit about the right
Speaker 2: round of why it seems like that, because even with
Speaker 2: the press conference, it was always going to be like
Speaker 2: that a little bit, and maybe it would be different
Speaker 2: with the with the winner with Bryson, where you get
Speaker 2: a bunch of quotes and you can watch him and
Speaker 2: follow him.
Speaker 1: But with a loser like.
Speaker 2: That, it's like you better have something unique to bring
Speaker 2: to the table, and then yeah, oh yeah. So with
Speaker 2: the media thing, the only point I would emphasize because
Speaker 2: this is a common thing where people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: the media is whining because he didn't like, he didn't
Speaker 2: pay his respects. But like, we don't like the media,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean people you know exactly who I'm
Speaker 2: talking about, the kind of people who are like that.
Speaker 3: But oh yeah, yeah, I mean, well they're they're they're
Speaker 3: on they're all on Twitter, right.
Speaker 1: They're all on Twitter, they all blue checks.
Speaker 2: They But no, I think, uh, I think the point
Speaker 2: is it's not for me anyway. It's not about like
Speaker 2: my feelings are hurt as a media member that he
Speaker 2: wouldn't talk to me, right, Like we know who we are,
Speaker 2: Like we're not like that's that's not the issue.
Speaker 1: The issue is.
Speaker 2: It's hard to say this to that sounding high and mighty,
Speaker 2: but the issue is there are ways to conduct yourself
Speaker 2: in these situations that pay respect, not just to the media,
Speaker 2: but to the whole infrastructure of the game as entertainment,
Speaker 2: and these things you go through, and it's almost more
Speaker 2: important to observe these rituals and these and these acts
Speaker 2: of respect when you're when it's hard to do so,
Speaker 2: because if you only observe them when it's easy, then
Speaker 2: it's not really even a thing, right. It's just like
Speaker 2: it's like if you're in a relationship with someone and
Speaker 2: you're like, yeah, ninety percent of the time he's loving
Speaker 2: and kind, but when he's mad, he's horrible, You're like, well,
Speaker 2: then it's he's not really loving.
Speaker 1: And god, you're right.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like I'm speaking in weird metaphors here,
Speaker 2: But the idea is there's something meaningful about doing that
Speaker 2: in that moment and going through it as painful as
Speaker 2: it is, because it shows what kind of human being
Speaker 2: you are. It shows that you have an ability to
Speaker 2: absorb pain and to understand the bigger picture, and and
Speaker 2: it makes you a good role model as well. And
Speaker 2: we go back to van Derveldt. He just like sat
Speaker 2: there talking, you know, and that he just sat there
Speaker 2: talking to the media in intense pain, probably but keeping
Speaker 2: in perspective, and there's just something about it.
Speaker 1: That makes me like people who do that.
Speaker 2: And that doesn't mean I don't like Rory because he's
Speaker 2: done it forever and he just had one bad moment
Speaker 2: that's entirely forgivable.
Speaker 1: I'm just making the point of why I wish he
Speaker 1: had done it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, And you know what do we think of
Speaker 3: when we think of the nineteen ninety six Masters. Greg
Speaker 3: Norman had the advantage of having played with Nick Faldough
Speaker 3: and so he was able to stand there and congratulate
Speaker 3: him in the moment. But when I think of that tournament,
Speaker 3: I think of those two men embracing afterwards and kind
Speaker 3: of starting the healing process.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: There was something really fulfilling about seeing that after what
Speaker 3: was a part hard to watch day of golf.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and we.
Speaker 3: Were kind of missing that this time, but maybe it's
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Speaker 3: In any case, I want to go back ten years
Speaker 3: now to twenty fourteen when you were out on tour
Speaker 3: writing articles and preparing for your books Slaying the Tiger,
Speaker 3: which I go back to all the time and steal
Speaker 3: from all the time. So thank you for writing it,
Speaker 3: because such a great document of the state of men's
Speaker 3: professional golf at that moment in history. Rory was clearly
Speaker 3: a huge part of that book and the story of
Speaker 3: that season. What was your first impression of Rory when
Speaker 3: you started covering the tour in person day to day
Speaker 3: in twenty fourteen. Do you remember how you first kind
Speaker 3: of responded to him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think always like a lot of people respond
Speaker 2: to him, where he is very charming, very smart. It's
Speaker 2: really fun to watch press conferences with him. Always has
Speaker 2: a thoughtful answer. And one thing, as you know, as
Speaker 2: we develop our long long theory of Rory, as we
Speaker 2: as the years pass and we and we get our
Speaker 2: you know, our consummate idea of what this man is.
Speaker 2: One thing I keep going back to recently, but which
Speaker 2: I didn't have in my mind then, is.
Speaker 1: I think he's a very good actor.
Speaker 2: And that that makes it sound like I'm saying he's
Speaker 2: insincere in some way, And I don't mean that. I
Speaker 2: think he's very sincere. But I think he's got a
Speaker 2: face that people like and a voice that people like,
Speaker 2: just naturally gifted with that in the way some people aren't.
Speaker 2: And he is good at projecting sincerity, and he is
Speaker 2: good at sort of seeming like a very nice guy. Uh,
Speaker 2: and that, and again I'm not saying he's not any
Speaker 2: of those things. But let's be real about how much
Speaker 2: the image matters and how much somebody's face matters, right,
Speaker 2: I mean some things that are superficial, that are baked
Speaker 2: into us from years of evolution for some reason. As
Speaker 2: human beings, we look at a face and a voice
Speaker 2: like Rory's and we're like, bumbs up, you pass the
Speaker 2: smell test or whatever. So I think like that when
Speaker 2: I think back now, it's like you fall under Rory's spell.
Speaker 2: As a journalist, I think pretty pretty easily. And it
Speaker 2: didn't mean I didn't cover him fairly or anything like that,
Speaker 2: but it's just that that human impulse of this. I
Speaker 2: really like this guy, and I really like the way
Speaker 2: he carries himself. I like everything about him, and you know,
Speaker 2: that's why he has so much attention on him. That
Speaker 2: and the fact that he's a great golfer, obviously, But
Speaker 2: there's a combination of elements there.
Speaker 3: What's the Rory win in twenty fourteen that you find
Speaker 3: yourself thinking about the most?
Speaker 1: Definitely Valhalla the most.
Speaker 2: It's that was the day where and it paints a
Speaker 2: perfect contrast to to what it is now. That's a
Speaker 2: day where he started in the lead. You know, he
Speaker 2: had won the British Open that year, he had won
Speaker 2: the Firestone WGC in Akron a week before. Comes in
Speaker 2: and he has a bad start to Sunday and it's
Speaker 2: this brutally hot, humid day in the Ohio River Valley
Speaker 2: in Louisville, and he, yeah, has a bad He falls behind.
Speaker 2: Ricky and Phil are a group ahead, high fiving, having
Speaker 2: the time of their lives, like they're both playing well.
Speaker 1: They go in the lead.
Speaker 2: He's with Burn Wisberger who's kind of just frittering it away,
Speaker 2: and Rory is. It gets to a point on the
Speaker 2: sixth tee, I think, where everything's backed up because there
Speaker 2: had been rained earlier in the day, and so backed
Speaker 2: up that he he and burn Visberg get on the
Speaker 2: tee with Ricky and Phil. Ricky and Phil haven't teed
Speaker 2: off either, so they're just standing there and Ricky and
Speaker 2: Phil are attempting this awkward conversation and with Berne Weisberger
Speaker 2: and all that stuff. Rory just goes and sits by
Speaker 2: himself and stares ahead with the most fierce look I've
Speaker 2: ever seen. Doesn't say word one for them, including hello.
Speaker 2: And I wrote about this in the book, and he
Speaker 2: later Paul Kimmaged, the Irish writer later asked him about
Speaker 2: it in an interview and he was like, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: exactly right. So it wasn't just me. It wasn't just
Speaker 2: me mind reading or anything. So we have independent confirmation.
Speaker 2: But it was just such a fierce competitive look and
Speaker 2: you're like, man, this guy is like this guy is intense.
Speaker 2: And so it goes on, and you know, things that
Speaker 2: continue to go. So so he gets to the tenth hole,
Speaker 2: and this is an other thing I think about a lot.
Speaker 2: Tenth hole is a par five that nobody has reached
Speaker 2: in two all day.
Speaker 1: It's very long.
Speaker 2: He has a great drive and he's gonna go for
Speaker 2: it because Ricky Birdie's ahead. So now he's down three
Speaker 2: or something like that, or two, I think down three,
Speaker 2: so he's like, I gotta go for it. Takes out
Speaker 2: a three wood, and what he's trying to do.
Speaker 1: Is draw it.
Speaker 2: But he yanks the ball left, and there's a road
Speaker 2: on the left, and so if you draw the ball
Speaker 2: after you yank it left, obviously that's going right into
Speaker 2: the road. Instead, the ball cuts and it fades and
Speaker 2: it comes to rest whatever ten feet from the hole,
Speaker 2: and he makes.
Speaker 1: The eagle putt.
Speaker 2: And I think about that now because it's like, those
Speaker 2: are the days when the gods were on your side,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And there were.
Speaker 2: You can think of a billion examples, and everybody, unless
Speaker 2: you're Tiger winning by fifteen strokes or Rory, you know,
Speaker 2: winning at his US Open, unless you're that, you need
Speaker 2: luck on your side. But sometimes it seems like that,
Speaker 2: like there's an active decision, like it's actively accruing to
Speaker 2: one person where it's like the gods were on his
Speaker 2: side in that moment, and he made that eagle putt
Speaker 2: and then he did the rest himself, you know, or
Speaker 2: like he had a great back nine and he goes
Speaker 2: and he wills his way into eight, that whole story
Speaker 2: where it's going to be dark, and he forces his
Speaker 2: way and everybody has to bow to his will because
Speaker 2: he's going to hit up and he wins his major
Speaker 2: and he's like the dominant force, like he's just bent
Speaker 2: this place to his will. He's crushed his competitors, He's
Speaker 2: Genghis Khan, He's everything. And then you fast forward to
Speaker 2: yesterday and it's like every time Bryson hit in the
Speaker 2: wiregrass he got a perfect lie. Every time Roy did,
Speaker 2: or at least the last time Roy did, he gets that,
Speaker 2: you know, he misses the two foot pot, which is
Speaker 2: kind of unlucky.
Speaker 1: There has to be a little bit unlucky. It's just
Speaker 1: like it's like something changed in twenty fourteen. Man.
Speaker 2: The gods were with him in Valhalla and then they
Speaker 2: kind of then they abandoned him or something.
Speaker 1: Do you see it.
Speaker 3: As something outside him has changed, or do you think
Speaker 3: that that edge that he had in twenty fourteen mentally
Speaker 3: has not necessarily gone away, but just changed. I'm curious
Speaker 3: about the evolution of Rory's personality, not just you know, luck,
Speaker 3: which is part of it, but ultimately you can't know
Speaker 3: anything about it. Is there something about that that fierceness
Speaker 3: that you saw on the six t at Valhalla and
Speaker 3: that alpha dog mentality to use the horrible cliched term,
Speaker 3: that he demonstrated on the eighteenth hole, playing playing up,
Speaker 3: making sure that he finished that night. Is there something
Speaker 3: in there that's shifted in him in the past ten years.
Speaker 2: You'd have to think so, because while on one hand,
Speaker 2: you can say this guy, you know all winning, Clark
Speaker 2: just had to have one double bogie, Bryson Deshambo just
Speaker 2: had to have one double bogie and he's winning. You know,
Speaker 2: while you could say that, and that's true. So there's
Speaker 2: that luck element involved. We also have seen I feel
Speaker 2: like a ton of classic more classic Roory things that
Speaker 2: so I felt the USO Miners wasn't a classic Roy
Speaker 2: thing that was a brand new thing that we've ever seen.
Speaker 2: The classic Roory thing is you fade on an earlier day,
Speaker 2: or you fade on an earlier day, or you can't
Speaker 2: make a putt all Sunday right like St. Andrew's, or
Speaker 2: you fade and then on Sunday you shoot a sixty three.
Speaker 1: But it's never really like a threat, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: Those are the kind of like the prototypical. These are
Speaker 2: like the patterns that you see, and those, to some
Speaker 2: degree they have to speak of losing your edge a
Speaker 2: little bit. But even then I'm cautious because nobody else
Speaker 2: is winning a ton of majors in a row, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. Like it's it's not easy to
Speaker 2: win a major, and so like we're so hyper focused
Speaker 2: on Rory that we're like, oh, look how many bad
Speaker 2: Saturday rounds he's had. Well, if we're hyper focused on
Speaker 2: anyone else, we probably say the same thing if we
Speaker 2: really drill down. It's just that we notice more about
Speaker 2: Rory because he's such a you know, magnetic kind of figure.
Speaker 2: So it's hard to answer that question. I guess I'm
Speaker 2: being wobbly here, but surely the proof is in the
Speaker 2: pudding to some extent, Like he won a bunch, now
Speaker 2: he hasn't. I mean, you can't find a way to
Speaker 2: win that has to overtime and over the larger and
Speaker 2: larger sample size. That has to mean something, I think.
Speaker 1: Sure you know.
Speaker 3: And there's also a possibly less romantic story to tell
Speaker 3: here about Rory's game, what his edge was in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: just in terms of driving off the tea performance, and
Speaker 3: your colleague Luke Herdnien probably would have some kind of
Speaker 3: smart answer to this. But watching Valhalla in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: or even Hoylake in twenty fourteen where Rory won the
Speaker 3: Open as well, you know, it jumps out how much
Speaker 3: of an advantage he had off the tea. He was
Speaker 3: longer than pretty much everybody else, and anybody that he
Speaker 3: wasn't longer than he was straighter than yep. And it
Speaker 3: seems like that advantage has evaporated over the past ten years,
Speaker 3: probably because of a combination of equipment changes and instruction
Speaker 3: track man stuff. Everybody's being hot to hit their driver
Speaker 3: like Rory was hitting his driver when he came on
Speaker 3: the scene and the early twenty tens, and so obviously
Speaker 3: that advantage isn't there as much anymore. Do you think
Speaker 3: there's something there that has that has changed as well,
Speaker 3: where his competition has caught up a little bit and
Speaker 3: he hasn't found an extra thing to differentiate himself.
Speaker 1: No, I think you're right.
Speaker 2: It's funny about it, though, is that if you look
Speaker 2: at him, if you look at the stats, he is
Speaker 2: still always really high.
Speaker 1: And like strokes gained off the tee. That's really point to.
Speaker 3: The point of that he was still like super dominant
Speaker 3: and super like he's always at the top of the leaderboard.
Speaker 2: But I think your point is right of like you
Speaker 2: can still be number one, but the gap can be
Speaker 2: has has shrunk, right, so the difference I think your
Speaker 2: point is exactly right of like what would be like
Speaker 2: the gap between one and number ten back in twenty
Speaker 2: fourteen would be profound and worth a couple of strokes
Speaker 2: a tournament, where now it's a matter of you know,
Speaker 2: it's a matter of smaller margins and that reduces your advantage.
Speaker 2: We just had a conversation today and I think we
Speaker 2: might do a piece about it where it's like Rory says,
Speaker 2: he's a better player now than he was then, and
Speaker 2: so it's like, let's check it out, like let's look
Speaker 2: at the numbers, and I think the conclusion was he
Speaker 2: was better off the tee then, but he's actually better
Speaker 2: now in close inside one hundred and twenty yards or
Speaker 2: something like that. So it's but again, even then, I
Speaker 2: think the margins are really small and it's hard to
Speaker 2: draw like a definite conclusion.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2: I think there's there's probably stuff about his game, but
Speaker 2: my god, when you look at his Wikipedia right, the
Speaker 2: Wikipedia yellow, he's always there. It's like, it's not like
Speaker 2: the guy has fallen off the map, right, It's not
Speaker 2: like he's Keith and Bradley, where you win a major
Speaker 2: and then you're not quite the same after that. He's
Speaker 2: he's been elite. He's continued to be elite. The only
Speaker 2: comparison point is like Tony Final, except without majors. You
Speaker 2: remember Tony Final. For the longest time, couldn't win, but
Speaker 2: he kept coming back and coming back, and he's always
Speaker 2: finishing top ten and then he broke through. It's like
Speaker 2: that's the only thing you can look at where it's
Speaker 2: like the sheer consistency of continuing to be good despite
Speaker 2: having really traumatic is too strong a word, but really
Speaker 2: tough situations where you can't close.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, maybe one way to put it is
Speaker 3: that he's giving himself just as many chances to win
Speaker 3: as he used to, but those like six seven shot
Speaker 3: victories that he used to get where he would just
Speaker 3: run away and hide, those don't seem to happen as
Speaker 3: much anymore. Those weeks where he's just in totally dominant
Speaker 3: form off the tee, there's usually somebody else or a
Speaker 3: couple of other people who are in kind of similar
Speaker 3: form with their driving. And so, you know, ten years ago,
Speaker 3: some of these majors that he has been close to winning,
Speaker 3: maybe those would have been situations where nobody would have
Speaker 3: been in his area on the leaderboard.
Speaker 1: See.
Speaker 2: But it's so funny because I think it was Friday
Speaker 2: or Saturday night. I was watching the Golf Channel. McGinley
Speaker 2: and Page McKenzie were talking and it was I think
Speaker 2: it might have been Page McKenzie who said, I feel
Speaker 2: like we haven't seen a Rory final round that's felt perfect,
Speaker 2: or a major round that's felt perfect.
Speaker 1: And I mean it's high standard.
Speaker 2: But I took her point and McGinley then said, he's
Speaker 2: you're right, and he's got to do what he did
Speaker 2: at the Wells.
Speaker 1: Fargo this year where he was just perfect, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 2: It was like any blew Sanders Shoffley out of the
Speaker 2: water and what's nuts is that through thirteen holes, that
Speaker 2: was Sunday at Pinehurst, he was making potts, right, he
Speaker 2: remember the puts he couldn't make at lacc or at St.
Speaker 1: Andrews. He was making those potts. He was biden. You know,
Speaker 1: nothing's perfect.
Speaker 2: We know we use that word with quotes around it,
Speaker 2: but he was perfect through thirteen holes and then it unraveled.
Speaker 2: And that the thing is the unraveling, you know, right,
Speaker 2: that's the difference, and that's where you have to say,
Speaker 2: there's something tangible there that didn't used to be there.
Speaker 3: Looking at this historically, obviously, just looking at majors is
Speaker 3: a limited way to look at a player's career and
Speaker 3: to assess their place in the pantheon of golfers. But
Speaker 3: it is interesting to look at other four time major
Speaker 3: winners in the modern era. You've got Raymond Floyd and
Speaker 3: Ernie Els Okay, five time major winners, Sevy Biastero's Brooks Koepka.
Speaker 3: Six time major winners would be Lee Trevino, Nick Faldo,
Speaker 3: Phil Nicholson, yep Is there a group there that feels
Speaker 3: right for Rory Will Will it just kind of feel
Speaker 3: wrong if he finishes out his career with four majors
Speaker 3: in the way that it kind of felt wrong for
Speaker 3: Greg Norman to finish out his career with with two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, doesn't it doesn't the sixth group feel more
Speaker 2: correct to you?
Speaker 3: I mean it does, Nick Faldo, Phil Nicholson, Lee Trevina. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it seems almost almost like he's better than them, but
Speaker 3: not that much better. But but but yeah, I mean no,
Speaker 3: that that's the one that feels right, and it is
Speaker 3: contextually it's important keep in mind a lot of those
Speaker 3: guys want a lot of majors after thirty five, which
Speaker 3: is where Rory is now, so he's not done or
Speaker 3: anything like that. But yeah, yeah, to end up four,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's funny where you're like, you're justin Rose,
Speaker 3: Adam Scott, maybe Sergio.
Speaker 1: You know, it's weird to finish it one.
Speaker 2: It feels like you now four is a It's like,
Speaker 2: it's funny to be like four doesn't feel like enough
Speaker 2: because four is a lot, right, But it doesn't. But
Speaker 2: you're right, it doesn't feel like enough for him and
Speaker 2: it's not enough frankly, and he would agree with that.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, that's so that six group feels he
Speaker 2: definitely feels better than Brooks and who is the other guy?
Speaker 1: Five? Oh Sevy? I mean, yea.
Speaker 3: Sevy maybe didn't win as many as uh yeah and
Speaker 3: such people might recall given his stature.
Speaker 2: Totally and he and he was you know, he had
Speaker 2: a share of heartbreaks as well, a couple of augusta
Speaker 2: but yeah, so yeah, yeah, I think that that sixth
Speaker 2: group makes the most sense. There's time left, but it's
Speaker 2: been It's funny to keep saying it year after year.
Speaker 3: It's been. It's been a while. So is it is
Speaker 3: it over dramatic at this point to to ask how
Speaker 3: he can move forward from here? Like what he what
Speaker 3: he can do? Or is he just going to come
Speaker 3: back and it's going to feel like you know, we
Speaker 3: were we were just being too melodramatic after that loss.
Speaker 3: People come back, people forget, memories fade and we can
Speaker 3: move on. Or is there do you think there's like
Speaker 3: harder work to be done on his part to get
Speaker 3: back into major championship contending form.
Speaker 2: That gets yeah, and that gets into like the boy
Speaker 2: it's so tough to say, right, I mean, it gets
Speaker 2: into where it's very difficult to know because a lot
Speaker 2: depends on him, and you know, I think In his statement,
Speaker 2: he talked about how resilient he is and he's gonna
Speaker 2: he'll probably need some of that.
Speaker 1: The only thing I would.
Speaker 2: Say is that I think I do think as you
Speaker 2: get older and things like this happen among professional golfers,
Speaker 2: I think scar tissue builds up a little bit.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: Just like there would have been Scar's issue for him
Speaker 2: to overcome had he won at Pinehurst and he didn't
Speaker 2: overcome it, there's going to be the same thing at
Speaker 2: the next time he has to do this.
Speaker 1: It's never going to be easy, and he can do it.
Speaker 1: All it takes is a good shot.
Speaker 2: All it takes is some luck, right, Like you know
Speaker 2: the guy, the guy that you're competing with makes a
Speaker 2: quad or something, you know, just just a little break
Speaker 2: from the universe, which he doesn't seem to get anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but he'll there's it's just not it's just never gonna
Speaker 2: be easy after this. He's gonna have to work really
Speaker 2: hard for it. And yeah, but I yeah, it's his willpower, right,
Speaker 2: It's it comes down to Will.
Speaker 1: Shane.
Speaker 3: Thank you for coming on the podcast. It's always fun
Speaker 3: to talk to you, and let's do it again sometime
Speaker 3: maybe in another year or so.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you Garrett, it's been great.
Speaker 3: This episode of the Friday Golf Podcast was produced by
Speaker 3: PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. If you could do something
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