We start, as always, with the winner.
Brooks Koepka is an all-time great.
Likes baseball more than golf.
Goes over to Europe and cuts his teeth on the famously gritty Challenge Tour.
The Masters proved that these guys can still play.
Heck, thats why LIV paid them so much money.
Today is about Brooks Koepka’s comeback.
The guy is a terminator on the golf course.
The strongest player mentally since Tiger Woods.
Brooks Koepka got a horrible break on the 9th hole on Sunday of the Masters.
Instead it hung up and left a devilish putt off the side of a mountain.
He really let that shot bother him.
This time, one went his way.
It came on the par 312th to a front left pin that he had no business firing at.
It couldve easily plugged in the front left bunker, leaving him short sided.
Instead it caught the front edge and left an uphill putt, which he drained.
You need those breaks to win majors.
It was the right decision.
I dont doubt him for stepping on the gas on the 70th hole.
Keep knocking on that door, as they say.
Michael Block, man, what a story.
Like, he deals with members and gives lessons.
I would say its Hollywood stuff but its even too cheesy for Hollywood.
Hard to believe this actually happened.
He got to second stage, failed to move further and gave up the dream.
It didnt take me 10 years to figure that out, Block told Quinn.
It took me one year and I was happy with it.
You have to wonder if hes feeling differently now.
His confidence all week suggests he does.
I can compete against these guys, to be honest, he said after a third-straight 70 on Saturday.
I can post a 3- or 4-under tomorrow.
Lets hope he gives it a go just like Labritz did.
Yes, most of the guys out there were PGA Tour players.
But not all of them.
Tanigawa won the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship in 2019.
Whos to say Block cant do the same?
This was the best golf week of his life, sure, but it wasnt a fluke.
Hes been the Southern California PGA section player of the year 9 out of the last 10 years.
He plays often with Patrick Cantlay and Beau Hossler, and they speak wonders of his game.
A truly life-changing week.
Now, how will he process it?
We like to highlight aprostheyre just like us!moment for every major.
A nervy chip from there left a good six feet up the hill, which he buried.
You know, vibes.
And so Collin tossed one to the side and grabbed a fresh nugget from his bag.
His caddie, J.J. Jakovac, reached for a marker but couldnt find the one he wanted.
Hey, Colwheres the blue marker?
In the tee pocket.
Jakovac rummaged through the pocket.
There are three black ones in there.
He marked the ball with a black marker.
One more from the relatability department.
But once in a while something transpires thats so clearly a high-leverage situation even in that moment.
Which brings us to that same Collin-JT-Rory group just one hole later.
McIlroy came into the week in a rather despondent mood.
He gave a bunch of one-word answers in his pre-tournament presser.
He said hes done talking about LIV.
He missed the cut at the Masters and the Players.
He didnt look nor sound like the No.
3 golfer in the world.
He didnt say as much explicitly, but he didnt seem to have much belief that he could contend.
He put his head in his hands and looked like hed rather be anywhere besides a major championship.
He looked around, he looked down, he looked dejected.
Weve all been there.
The round feels like its getting away from you.
Youre in some terrible position hitting your fourth shot on a par 4.
Youre pissed, and maybe you go through your pre-shot routine a bit quicker than you normally would.
And then…it goes in.
Rory holed that putt, up a ridge and right into the center, for a most unlikely par.
Thats golf, isnt it?
Just when youve resigned to anger, it teases you with a stroke of good fortune.
McIlroy hit his next shot to two feet on the par-3 3rd.
The following hole, a par 5, another birdie.
It was massive, McIlroy said of the save.
So, yeah, it was massive.
Two straight 69s on the weekend gave him a T7.
He looked nowhere near capable of a top 10 before that hole-out.
Brooks Koepka went on Pardon My Take this week for the first time since his move to LIV Golf.
He shows his personality and answers questions honestly.
I found this exchange to be pretty revealing.
Its a lot of fun, Koepka said.
The musics going the whole time.
Sounds like fun for the players, sure.
Less golf, more money, no missed cuts, all that jazz.
But do we think thats what LIV is going for?
Because their broadcasts do have a pretty flippant feel to them.
But on the other end of the spectrum, theres just not a ton of grinding going on.
There are two types of pressure: opportunity pressure, when youre nervous because you want something.
Avoidance pressure is a lot gnarlier than opportunity pressure, which is really more like excitement.
Just ask a guy in Q-School.
And therein lies the problem with LIV.
Their best asset is their players, who continue to prove theyre world class.
They offered them a ton of money guaranteed, and so they came.
Call me skeptical, call me a hater, but I dont think it will.
Even Rory, arguably the face of the entire conflict, is done talking about it.
Its product against product at this point.
Which, of course, isnt a fair fight.
So has Dustin Johnson.
They showed well in the Masters.
And it still isnt generating any buzz at all, let alone dollars.
The question is how long the Saudis will want to keep funding this if they dont see progress soon.
Old-school, East Coast golf courses have a certain mystique to them.
Theyre almost always designed by one of the legends of golf course architecture.
They tend to have super charming clubhouses.
Then theres the quirks of the club itself.
The Country Club, host venue for last years U.S. Open, has a bowling alley in the clubhouse.
Oak Hill does, too.
The ball closest to the tee is first, a true first-come, first-serve system.
(That method has been retired, a casualty of COVID).
Baltusrol has its iconic water bottles.
And Oak Hill has some really cooky plaques stamped onto trees to commemorate its members.
I love East Coast-golf.
Jason Day didnt play a single hole at Oak Hill before Thursdays opening tee shot.
I haven’t played the course.
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the course, Day said.
I most likely probably won’t see the course today.
It’s not the first time I’ve come into the major championship not playing a practice round.
Sounds crazy, right?
Surely you want to know how the balls coming out of the rough?
How far downhill or uphill a certain shot is?
How a putt breaks?
Gives you all the yardages that you need there, as well.
Scottie Schefflers still as confused as you are by that Tiger interaction.
Tiger responds by asking why Scottie does take divots, and Scotties brain immediately becomes a pretzel.
Keep in mind he was literally the No.
1 golfer in the world at the time.
He said he hadnt seen it…but suggested that he thinks Tiger was trolling.
So the look on my face probably said it all.
Maybe he really doesn’t take divots.
There was a tiny bit of edge in that answer.
The younger guys definitely view JT as Tigers guy and its possible theres a touch of jealousy there.
So you might need to ask Justin Thomas because I’m not," he said.
Ive asked him before.
Or this and that.
He turned around and said, ‘It’s all about feel’, and just kept going.
I was like cool, thanks.
Yeah, I asked him at Albany once about chipping into the grain.
[He told me] You just got to be shallow.
Meanwhile I turn around and J.T.
’s there with him, and he’s getting a whole dissertation on what to do.
(They even got the thumbs up from Phil Mickelson, which isnt easy to do).
Starting on the par-5 4th hole, which doglegs right.
That hole used to be surrounded by water.
If that wasnt there, theyd all put it.
Its extremely difficult to get that shot both high and not have it carry too far.
That context makes this full-flop from Phil that much more impressive.
to fields o 75ish players with no cuts.
I also believe the cut adds significant juice and makes for better content!
As discussed above, theres nothing in golf quite like avoidance pressure.
Take Justin Thomas week, for example.
He needed to make three from there to avoid missing the cut for the second straight major.
These guys, especially the big ones, hate missing cuts.
So he grinded his tail off to make an excellent bogey.
Thats never a good strategy.
Theyre part of golfs mental challenge.
Getting rid of them is such a miss.
The mics…they were hot.
Very, very, scoring hot.
Hotter than theyve ever been before one might say.
The reason so many F-bombs made their way onto live air?
Thats why none make it onto CBS on a weekly basis.
One of golfs main charms is its relatability.
Literally every golfer has had an outburst directly after impact.
So hearing Jon Rahm complaint about a hole setupnice fucking hole, PGA!
Something to monitor moving forward.
An unreal accomplishment for Phil Mickelson to make his 100th cut in a major championship.
Why he keeps stepping into the mud by calling people out on twitter?
Instead he keeps on tweeting.
“I guess its because I know some things that others dont, Lefty said after his round Sunday.
So much of chipping is about technique.
Coming off a bogey at 7 he had missed the green just long of 8.
With Brooks safely on, he really needed a momentum-preserving up and down.
But the ball was nestled down pretty deep and he didnt have much green to work with.
To produce that shot he went with a technique Im seeing often these days on weeks with juicy rough.
He took the club back super steeply, dropped it behind the ball and actually recoiled backward after impact.
Very, very sick.
He did the exact same on the ninth for another par from long of the green.
See you all at LACC.
Fun nerding out as always.
