John Swantek visits with ESPN.COM senior writer Jason Sobel to talk about the bizarre twists of final round fate at The Masters.
Talk of the TOUR Golf Podcast
Jason Sobel from ESPN.COM discusses The Masters
[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to the Talk of the Tour podcast for Monday, April 11. I'm John Swontak, Jason Sobel of ESPN.com. Our guests, coming along shortly to try to make sense of what transpired at Augusta National on Sunday of the Masters. It was nuts. Remember, you can now hear the Talk of the Tour podcast three days a week, most weeks, along with lots of our other audio content by visiting, gtour.com/podcasts, you could access, and download it via iTunes, tune in, and stitcher. Just head to pghtour.com/podcasts and subscribe today. And my guest on the Postmaster's podcast is-- I just cannot get enough of Augusta National. Seniorwriter, ESPN.com, Jason Sobel, played a round of golf today as we record this on Monday afternoon. But alas, it was not Augusta National, was it? It was not Augusta National, that's OK, though, right? I played Augusta National back in 2005. And look, for anyone who's played it, it's a treat. It's fantastic. They have a medial lottery. And in fact, they let some media guys go out on a Monday and play with the Sunday pins. And it's fantastic. All I'm going to say is that on a Monday after the Masters, I'm going to play like a guy who's been sitting in front of my computer for seven straight days, not moving at all. So I was able to go a little bit down the road to Champions Retreat as they fall out starting for us. And once again, I play like a guy who hasn't moved in some days. What was your reaction during that horrific 30-minute stretch for Jordan's beef on Sunday, starting at 12? I'm not sure I can use the words on there right now. But look, I don't know that Jordan's beef was ever comfortable for the entire week. And really, we can go back three months. I don't think it was comfortable with the golf swing. It was cappolula. And all of a sudden, it just manifested itself in one huge epic blow-up. And I didn't see that coming. Jordan's beef, unlike so many other players, it's sort of the old cliche when the go and get tough, the tough get going. When he faces adversity, when the pressure is the highest, he tends to play his best golf. I always go back to last year's U.S. Open. He double bogeyed the 71st hole. And he was seeming mad coming off of there. And then pumped to drive at his second shot on, two-pilot's for birdie. And that eventually won him the golf tournament. And that's, I think, encapsulates Jordan's beef mentality when things start going sideways for him. And yet yesterday, he just couldn't stop the bleeding. Bogey on 10 and 11, then we all know what happened on 12 to the two balls in the water. I really couldn't believe what I was seeing from him. But maybe it just all caught up to him. Because he never looked comfortable during the week. And even in the opening round, he shot 66, the low score of the entire week. But that was a 66 with no bogeys. Only hitting 12 of the greens. I don't know how you missed six greens of the gusta and still fail to make a bogey. It's remarkable. I tell you, he's kind of walking the tight world the entire time and finally fell off on the 12th hole. That's a great description because he was fighting a swing all week long. He called his coach Cameron McCormigan from Texas for a pre-final round workout to work through some issues. That's never a call you want to get as an instructor. Believe me. And if you step back and look at this, and I think this goes to your point, Jason, I don't know how he managed to stay in contention as much as he was fighting a swing. That's a testament to how good he is between the years, typically, until we got to 12. And how tight a short game was. I think so, John. I think that he's going to look at that over the next week. Once he gets over this a little bit. But once the spin of everything that happened on Sunday, he just first dissipated a little bit. He's going to say, you know what? I didn't have my best stuff all week. I wasn't playing my best golf. I wasn't comfortable with my swing. And yet, I almost still won the master with something less than my A game. And I think that if he looks at it from that perspective, he's going to be OK. He's going to be just fine going forward. And if he needs a little more motivation, I would compare it. I know people right now want to compare this to what happened at Greg Norman 20 years ago. And I can see that comparison. I like the comparison to Rory McElroy five years ago. He's better. Rory, of course, blew up on the 10th hole instead of the 12th. And wound up taking a back nine lead and parlaying that into a share of 15th place five years ago. But two months later, he won the US Open. He showed resiliency. He showed dental stackability, whatever you want to call it. And I think Jordan's people do the same thing. That's not necessarily to say that he's definitely going to win the US Open. But anyone who thinks that Jordan Steep is going to be down and not play good golf for an awfully long time because of this, I don't think they understand what Jordan Steep is all about. Yeah, I'm with you there. And the comparisons to what happened between Norman and Faldo in 1996 are easy to arrive at because of all the similarities and how everything went down on Sunday, including, by the way, the '67s shot by the Englishman Faldo and Danny Willett. But at that stage of Norman's career, Jason, that was like the final chapter of what was the Greek tragedy that was Greg Norman's career. This is different. Jordan Steep has played what? 12 major championships. He's 22 years of age. He's full of resolve, I think. And yeah, I think the bounce back is going to come. And it's going to come soon. The other difference, too, is that Greg Norman lost. And still had never won a green jacket. Jordan Steep has to go back to the champions that are next year on Tuesday. Jordan Steep will have a green jacket at Augusta National, despite what happened yesterday. The only thing I'm going to say, though, to counteract that is that how many more masters is Jordan going to play? 35, 40 more masters in his career, which means, possibly 160 more times, playing that 12th hole. And every time he steps to that D-box, he's going to think about what happened yesterday. Can you imagine that for the next 40 years? Jordan Steep will be playing the masters. And every single time he stands on that D-box, he's going to think about that. And he's also going to think about all the water. I mean, he's going to be 58 years old, and just playing as a ceremonial-type golfer at that point. And he's going to hit one to eight feet and make the putt. But boy, that was a common handicap in 2016. Yeah, it's funny because we were beginning to think he was incapable of making miscalculations mentally. He seemed to be immune to that, which was so rare for such a young player. But you go back a couple years, this is when it all sort of unraveled for him on Sunday, the year he was pushing Bubba Watson, Jason. That was at the 12th also when he rinsed one. Yeah, you're right. And you're going to think about that. And it also goes to show what a cratehold is. It's about 155 yards. We're not talking about a 245 yard par-3, where you've got all this danger lurking around there. This is a 155 yard golf hole. You think Aleister McKenzie and Bobby Jones knew what they were doing? Greg Norman, 20 years ago. Norman Rinskwin there, Tom Wieskoff. Remember made a 13 there back in 1980? I do. I do remember that. So he hung in there and made birdies at 13 and 15. The one at 16 was monumental. I have a feeling if he had somehow rolled that in, it was a lightning fast putt. It was a wonderful tee shot, but above the hole. And it was so slick. If he makes the one at 16, then he needs one out of two over the final two holes. I don't doubt that he gets one out of two, you. Maybe. I had heard that notion of a bunch of golf riders work practice this morning. We were all kind of rehashing what happened. And someone else mentioned that. It's not like he wasn't trying on 17 and 18. Maybe 18. Maybe at that point, he knew he couldn't win. So it's like, let me just get in the house and not make any more major mistakes. But look, on 17, he's still thinking, if I can make a birdie here and birdie the last, I had a chance to still do it. And he hit a bad shot, but wound up in the bunker and made bogey from there. But it's not as if he's not trying there. He's still trying to win the golf tournament. It's very, very difficult, especially with that thin place. And so I don't know. I don't know if we can kind of Monday morning quarterback this thing to death, but I don't know that there was anything he was going to do down the stretch. Even if he made that putt on 16, it was going to change the outcome. You know, I got some texts from some friends on Sunday evening after the jacket ceremony. And they thought that Spieth was less than gracious. I defended him. I said, you know, first of all, he didn't have to do the Bill Mackett's interview. He did it. He stood up there and he did it. And he didn't mail it in. I thought his answers were very thoughtful and very candid. Secondly, at the jacket ceremony, he didn't say anything because, hey, he wasn't asked anything by Jim Nance. And also because I think he recognized, as hurt as he was, that was the champion's moment. And it was his job to sort of blend into the background. Did you guys see it that way? Yeah, here's the problem with everything being televised. When things are televised, and not everything is televised. So at one point, you know, I tweeted out, classy move by Jordan Speed, you know, congratulate Danny Willett. And I had all these people on Twitter firing back, saying, no, he didn't. He just stood there and didn't say anything like a little cry baby. And I, well, no, just because that's what you saw on TV, and I wouldn't use the cry baby term myself whatsoever. But just because that's what you saw on TV, doesn't mean that's the entirety of what happened. And the fact that people can't separate this, that there are things happening that you don't actually see on television, has ever scoundled me. People don't quite get that. The fact that Jordan Speed afterwards said, you know, yeah, hey, you know, all credit to Danny. He played great 67 in the final round without a bogey. That's terrific. Danny said, yeah, he came up to me and said really well played. And, you know, I told him, hey, you're a great champion. Look, these guys said all the right things to each other. I don't know if they know each other very well at all. But they said all the right things to each other. They were both very classy, both in winning and losing. And for anyone to just take those couple of minutes on television and try to extrapolate that into something that it is, and I think it's just ridiculous. Yeah, and there has to be a historical context to this too, Jason, because I'm trying to recall the last time a defending champion went into that jacket ceremony in Butler cabin, having just been gutted the way Speed had been gutted. I mean, you've had guys who were not really a factor that were in there slipping on the green jacket on the champion. You've had guys who missed the gut, who had to hang around for that ceremony. I can't recall anybody in recent memory who had just experienced what that kid had within 30 minutes of that happening in Butler cabin. No, it's not amazing. I wonder if-- and I don't know exactly when this tradition started, but I wonder if the folks who run Augusta National have ever thought about this possibility that the guy is the defending champion, and yet he might blow it down the stretch and have to give it to another guy. It's the first thing I thought of when Jordan made the 7 on 12 is that not only does this hurt because he can't win the Masters now or probably isn't going to win the Masters, but he's going to have to give the jacket to somebody else. He's going to have to flip somebody else's arms into that jacket. He thought he was going to have this now or earlier. Man, it's that brutal, and it's brutal, it's awkward. I'm not saying they should change it, but it's certainly tough to deal with a guy like that. What did you think of the coverage? It's always interesting for folks to sort of Monday morning quarterback about television coverage, especially at the first major championship of the year. CBS has been doing it forever. Certainly they have a blueprint as to how they produce the telecast every year. I don't know how closely you were monitoring it while you were on the golf course and working in the media center, but did you get a sense for how the overall presentation was? Well, Swaney is a guy who works for the company that produced the first two days of the telecast, and it is a lot of the CBS crew behind the scene, who's producing it for ESPN, and then of course, CBS doing it on the weekend. I try to stay away from television commentary, because if I say they did a great job, it looks like they were just picking up for our buddies, and if I say they do a terrible job, then it's like, hey, well, you think you could do better? I will say this much. For anyone sitting at home saying, they didn't show enough golf shots, but they didn't do this, or they didn't do that. First of all, it's really, really difficult to televised a golf tournament. I'm telling you, it's not a football game, where the entirety of what's going on is in front of you. It's an entire golf course with 70-something players, however many made the cut, or 50-something. All playing at the exact same time, you can't show everything, you can't get everything right. You've got to do a lot of guessing. Secondly, look, you've been doing it for a while, and it does the national puts their fingerprints all over the snake. And so if you think, hey, why are they showing the honorary starter ceremony on Sunday afternoon when they showed it on Thursday, they showed it on Friday, they showed it on Saturday, guess what? The Gust National has probably told the CVS, we need you to show this again, this shows off the great tradition of our club, and what we do here at the Masters, and they can't say no. They can't just say, no, we're not doing that. Gust National has a big part in how this is produced, so if you just want to dang on CVS for their coverage, if you didn't like it, think about there are some other factors at play as well. Let's talk about the champion with ESPN.com, a senior writer, Jason Sobel again. Here's another comparison to 1996, because much like the Greg Norman meltdown, that's how people historically will remember that Masters, Jason, and that's how they'll remember this one, I think, at least in the short term here. And that was the tone of your article on ESPN.com on Monday morning. History's gonna remember what happened to Jordan Speed, but they really should remember how Danny Will had conducted himself and played with that flawless '67 on Sunday. - Smarty, it's one of my biggest pet peeves, is that history, I get it. We'll remember the brilliant defeat. It will remember the guys who had victory in their grasp and just lost it in horrendous fashion. I get that. We all remember that. We all understand the agony of defeat. But the fact that when these things happen, the guy who won, the guy who played 72 holes in fewer strokes than anybody else, doesn't get enough credit. That's such a pet peeve of mine. I remember the 2006 US Open at Wingfoot, everybody was writing their Phil Mickelson's score. You didn't grant it, I was with ESPN, and we had a few other writers, and they were all doing Phil Mickelson's stories. I said, "I wanna write Jeff Ogilvy. "I wanna write about the guy "who actually won the golf tournament." There's nothing so wrong about that. This guy, look, he might not have been the most dramatic player in there, he might not have been the guy that everyone's gonna be talking about around the water cooler on Monday morning, but he did win the golf tournament, and I think too often we lose sight of that when something like this happens, down in the stretch on a Sunday afternoon in a major, and I think Danny Willett deserves as much credit as he should get, and I think that he probably won't over the years. This isn't going to be the Masters that Danny Willett won. This is going to be the Masters that Jordan speed lost, and to an extent, I realized that, I understand it, but let's give the guy a little credit. He shot 67 with no bogeys in the final round of the Masters, and after never really being in serious contention of the major championship before. I thought it was brilliant stuff by him, and I hope that history, at least remembers what he did as opposed to just what happened to Jordan speed. - When did he see the seven that speed made a 12 go up on the board, Willett? Was it when he was walking off 13 green, I'm guessing? - I think so, but I'm not completely positive. I know that Jordan saw the four pop on the board as he was walking to the 12th tee, knowing that he was now only one stroke ahead of Willett, Kevin van Volkin, who was out there for ESPN for us, was actually walking with the off course at the time. And as he wrote in his piece, he wrote a terrific piece of a TikTok piece on what happened on that 12th hole. And as he wrote, he thought it really affected Jordan. Jordan was walking, he said, "Okay, I just want bogey bogey." That's still got a two-shot lead, and as he's getting to the tee box, he goes up to the scoreboard, and there's losing odds from the entire gallery, because Danny Willett's birdie just went up on the board, and all of a sudden now he's going, "Okay, I just went from a three-shot lead to a one-shot lead." Now, everything's tightened up just a little bit. I think that really affected him. - And I think people who see Willett as having the benefit of playing a few groups ahead and coming off the pace and playing relatively stress-free, I think they're mistaken as well, because I think he still had a good chunk of his round to go when he realized, "Okay, this is a ball game now, and I've got a chance to win the Masters." And the shots that he hit down the stretch into 16, where he made birdie. 17, the pitch shot from off the green was remarkable. 18, he just throttled three-wood up the shoot and through the trees and made par. He hit the necessary shots down the stretch when the heat was on. Yes, he finished ahead of speed, but he had to hit golf shots coming down the stretch, and he did. - Swami, for years, I've insisted that playing partners don't matter. You know, so many times we've hit into these majors. And even a couple days ago, Jordan speaking, Rory McElroy, playing in the final parry together, what did it mean for them? And I was doing interviews, I was like, "I don't need anything. They're gonna go out and play their own games. They might talk a little bit, but at a major, no one's joking around walking out in the fairways anyway. So it's not really going to affect them all a lot, whether they shoot 65 or 85, the guy they're playing with, they're gonna play their own game. And I've started coming around in the last couple of years to thinking, "You know what? It does affect these guys." And I had a longtime PGA tour caddy text me last night and say, "As soon as I saw that Danny Willett was playing with Lee Westwood in the final round." I threw a couple of bucks on him, because I knew that was a great pairing for him. They're both Englishmen, they're friends, they both have chubby channelers and agent. They spend a lot of time together. And I think that when things started to tighten up down the stretch, if Danny Willett was playing with a Jordan speed or a Jason Day or a Dustin Johnson, or somebody that he wasn't as comfortable with, maybe he doesn't play play as well. But he was able to lean on, serve that anchor. He was able to lean on a guy that he knows really well. And I think that factored in to him playing really well down the stretch of the fact that he was comfortable all day, because Lee Westwood was in the pairing with him. - And I think as American golf fans were sometimes a little myopic in our view of who the impactful players around the globe are, and just because we don't know much about Danny Willett relatively speaking, does not mean he's not a world-class player. He's a hell of a player. He's now inside the top 10 in the world. He almost wanted Miami at the row this year. He pushed Rory to the brink at the match play last year. He pushed Rory to the brink of the race to Dubai on the European tour last season as well. And by the way, I discovered this when I read your column this morning. He suffered a debilitating back injury just a couple of years ago. That I was not aware of, Jason. That's an incredible comeback. - Yeah, he talked about that 'cause it was during that time that he met his wife, Nicole. And he talked about how she thought, hey there's great a marriage to a professional golfer or I guess dating at the time of a professional golfer and he's home all the time and I get to see him all the time 'cause now this isn't really what life is like. I actually work a whole lot and I spend most of my life in hotels around the world. But to get into his family life just a little bit, the MVP of the Masters might've been little Zachariah James Willett who came 12 days early. They had a C-section but Danny Willett had maintained for months leading up to the Masters but his due date was on Sunday and it came if he didn't come before the week had started that he was going to skip the Masters. And the fact that the baby was born and Danny Willett basically came to Augusta playing house money. And he had nothing to lose. If he doesn't play well with the Masters he goes back home to England and he's got a baby boy and he goes to enjoy some and I think that freed him up to play some really good golf. He was the 89th and final player to register at Augusta last week which meant that his caddy, a guy named Jonathan Smart, wore the number 89 on his boy coveralls as people probably saw that happens, oh by the way, to be the same number worn by Jack Nicholas Jr when he caddy for Jack back in '86. That was a nice little slice of serendipity wasn't it? - It really was, I thought that was pretty cool and I know that it probably doesn't mean a whole lot but guess what, Danny Willett knew it. - Yeah, he was well aware when he showed up or at least somebody told him not long afterwards but 89, now it's such a jack out exactly 30 years ago. Yeah, serendipity is a good way to put it because I thought that was a pretty neat little correlation between two. - What do we make of Rory's continued and still unfulfilled quest for the career grand slam, Jason? Does he just seem like he wants it too much? Is that holding him back at Augusta? - I still think he's raised the bar for expectations for himself, maybe a little too high. Rory was asking, it was a very simple question in his pre-tournament press conference. He was asked, do you think you're going to win the master someday? Which, you know, we always try to find these questions like, you know, finding these hidden meanings, these, you know, hey, what are you doing differently in your practice routine? What kind of three would are you using this week? You know, these really like detailed, minute kind of things and there was a writer, a reporter in the room who doesn't cover golf that often, doesn't get to talk to Rory McElroy that open and ask the plainest question it could be and said, do you think you'll win the master someday? And I thought it was brilliant because Rory just looked without hesitating and said, yes, absolutely, definitely. And to me, the fact that he's got this in his head that yes, I'm going to win the master's play, that's a lot to fulfill, that every year, he's going to come to Augusta, not just with the weight of trying to win this golf tournament on his mind, not just with the weight of trying to become the sixth player to ever win the career grand slam, but now he's already said that he's going to win this golf tournament. And yeah, sure, it seems inevitable, but it seems inevitable for Davis' love at some point. It seems inevitable for Ernie Els at one point, that these guys were all, hey, a prototypical master's type player, and they were going to win, but can you see a point? 10 years from now, where all of a sudden now, Rory McElroy is 36, 37 years old, and he still doesn't have a green jacket, and now he's kind of in the back nine of his career, and yeah, it's very possible, you know, I think that he will win one at some point, but boy, those expectations he placed upon himself, those are pretty hefty. - Yeah, Rory in full flight is something to behold, he's something to marvel at, he's so good, he's a brilliant player. I'm not fully convinced yet, I don't know if we have quite enough evidence yet to confirm that he's got the gear to grind out a score when he doesn't have his best stuff. That's not a knock, Jason, that's just an observation. I don't know if he has the ability in big moments to turn 76 into 71, like some other guys, speed normally, do. - Yes, but he tends to play really well when he's in, let's say, 14th place, going into Sunday, and doesn't think he has a chance to win, that's when he goes 65. A lot of backdoor top 10 finishes for Rory McElroy over the last few years. What does that mean? I don't know, I don't know if it means that he doesn't want to face the pressure, I don't know if it means that, oh look, maybe he says, hey, I can go make a run on Sunday, and he does it, I have a hard time criticizing guys for backdoor top 10 finishes, and playing well when they're out of the mix, because what's the alternative, not playing well? Are you gonna not criticize them for not playing well, but criticize them for playing well, this doesn't make any sense, so I have a hard time criticizing them for doing that, but yeah, there's a little bit of a pattern there, and I don't know, this guy was one off-term all over the world, one four major championships already, I don't question his motivation whatsoever, I don't question his physical gifts whatsoever, you start checking down the list, I don't know, is the mental toughness there? It's hard to say that a guy was one four major championships at such a young age, isn't mentally tough enough, who will we just say that? So I don't know what he's missing really, but hey, we may be having the same conversation a year from now, where he's got a master's win and one other, it's a British Open let's say, and we're saying, boy, he's got six major championships, maybe Jack, that's just, things change in such a hurry in the golf world when it comes to these major championships 'cause the narrative's gonna shift 20 different times over the next few years for Rory. - Yeah, hard to be critical 'cause he's such a great player and we forget how young he is and how much he has accomplished in such a short time in his career, but it was really surprising to me how a radicky looked alongside speed on Saturday because that felt to me like that was Rory's moment, and then when he shot 77, there was a tone of resignation in his voice almost afterward and his body language and the way he kinda carried himself as if he felt like he had shot himself out of it and it was only Saturday, Jason. He was only four shots back going into the final round. - Yeah, now it's a great point. He was and he just, I don't know. I don't know enough about what's going through his mind at these times. I don't know if he's putting too much pressure on himself, I don't know if he's working too hard, I don't know if he's thinking too much. I'm sure if Rory Macroy knew he'd try to change it. - Yeah, I brought up, I was doing another interview earlier that we were talking about Dustin Johnson and really ever went a major and the interviewer kinda mentioned it looks like Dustin Johnson doesn't care that much and he's not that bothered by it and it's sort of the opposite. I think that Dustin Johnson cares so much, maybe he doesn't show it outwardly, but he cares so much every time he gets into contention now, he's overthinking things too much and he's thinking about the last time and the time before that, the time before that one and I don't know if that's what's going on with Rory Macroy as well that he gets into these situations instead of digging into his mental reserve of, hey, I've been there, I've done that, I've won these major championships, maybe thinking about the times that he has and the times that he's failed, I don't know. - How many interviews have you done today? Is this all repurposed material you're giving us here? - No, no, no, I give the good stuff to you. - Okay, Jason Day looked like he was ready to make a statement, he's finished second there, he's finished third there, he just won back-to-back events, he was number one in the world, his front nine on Thursday was incredible, then he goes out and shoots 41 on the back and never really gathered whatever it was he lost on that second nine back on Thursday, Jason, 'cause he seemed like he just didn't have it, he was hanging around on the fringe of contention but it never felt like he was a serious threat, did it? - Excuse me, no, it really didn't, I had breakfast morning with Ben Everold who writes for the Australian AP and is sort of chasing day beat writer on the PTA tour, spends a lot of time around him and he said that afterwards, Jason seemed like he was sort of in a daze, but he just never, we were talking about Jordan Speeth not really feeling comfortable, he said, Jason Day looked like he was never really comfortable with being in Augusta, that it just never kind of clicked for him, that everything was kind of moving too fast, we hear about, let's say, a rookie linebacker in the NFL, a guy who's a first round pick from college and was an all American in college, gets the NFL and they always talk about the game was moving too fast for me and maybe it takes a couple of years for some guys to slow the game down in their mind where they can sort of read and react and I feel like that happens with golfers sometimes that the game was moving too quick for them and I know there's a slow play, a joke in there somewhere but I wonder if the game was moving too quick for Jason Day over the past four days that he just never quite sort of grasped it, you never quite saw it, it's almost as if a golfer standing on a tee-box saying, hey, this really suits my eye, sometimes a tournament, an entire tournament just can't suit a player's eye and there's nothing they can pinpoint, there's nothing they can say, hey, if I just done this better, I would have won, it's just they never quite got into it and I kind of felt like that was the case with Jason Day this weekend. - We were so spoiled by Tiger, weren't we, and by Jack Douglas and his historical record because I won't say they made it look easy because both of them are phenomenal competitors, the two greatest that we've ever seen in this game and they earned every achievement that they were able to a master in their careers but it is so hard to do what those two guys did and I think we see that from week to week and especially in the major championships. - If we're waiting for the next Jack Nick, Douglas, we're waiting for the next Tiger Woods, we're gonna be waiting for a long time. - First of all, the fields are really deep, there are a lot of really good players, even if it's not Rory or Jordan or Jason or Ricky, it might be Danny Willett and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with having a guy who's an up-and-comer that maybe isn't the biggest superstar in the world winning a major championship. That's okay, these things happen. I think people treat it almost as if golf has failed if one of the biggest names doesn't win the golf tournament and that's not how this works. Just because one guy dominated the previous generation of golf doesn't mean that in the next generation another player is going to dominate. And quite frankly, I don't know that that would help the game. I think what's a big problem, the women's game, I know I'm taking sort of a left turn here but Monica dominated for so long. And when Monica retired, Lorena Ochoa dominated and when she retired or when she retired, Yani Sen was dominating and then all of a sudden in B Park was dominating. Now we see Lydia Coe who's just fantastic. She's amazing, she's 18 years old and she's completely dominating the women's game and people are yawning watching her because they feel like they've seen it already. They've already seen dominance. There's nothing new here. And I think that if whether it was Rory or Jordan or Jason or any of these players came out in one, a whole bunch of majors and started dominating the game, they were the best player. You know what, we'd still say that, but they're not Tiger. And it still would feel like they'd been there to done that kind of thing, which of course would be care to them. But it just goes to show that, look, if we're waiting for another Tiger Woods, be careful what you wish for, I guess. Because the game is in a really good place right now. Having some parody at the top of the game where all these really good young players are playing really good golf, it's not such a bad thing. We don't have to have the biggest name with the biggest golf tournament every single time. - This Masters, for me, at about five o'clock on Sunday was kind of devoid of drama. It was a little, I hate to use the word dull because it's such a great sporting event. But then everything just turned on a dime and it just was a bizarre twist. In the end, was this a satisfying Masters or a disappointing one? How will you view it? - If you're a Jordan speech fan, you're viewing it through that prism, it's extremely disappointing. No, but I thought drama-wise, the last two hours of that golf tournament were compelling the golf tournament as we've seen in an awfully long time. It's not only the guy making a whole bunch of birdies down the stretch to win, it counts as compelling. Sometimes it's that meltdown. Sometimes it's that burnout down the stretch that makes a golf tournament compelling. Sometimes the ball goes through bill buckner's legs and as opposed to a walk-off on run. And still with as much drama, it's just a different kind of drama. And I thought it was a very good day. And like you said, until that point, and look, I was guilty. A lot of people brought it up to me last night wanting to remind me, but I was guilty of tweeting out after Jordan birdied the ninth hole for to move to seven on there and lead by five. But they say the master's doesn't start in a little back nine on Sunday. Well, this one feels like it's over. And two hours later, of course, everyone was reminding me of that tweet because it certainly wasn't over. It wasn't even close to being over at that point. I think that's okay. That's why we watch sports. That's why these things are being played because you never know what's going to happen. - As a Mets fan, I appreciate the bill buckner reference. You just made my day a little bit, a little bit, right? - A little bit, Ben, too, sure. They're going to bring back the 1986 jerseys in here. Did you see that? - They're doing it on Sundays at home, I think, with the old blue and orange piping on the pin stripes. - Oh, how beautiful are those? How beautiful are those jerseys? - I'm thinking Kevin Mitchell. I'm thinking Strawberry. I'm thinking of that great rotation of Gooden and Elsid and Darling, and who's the fourth? Why am I blanking on the fourth? - Oh, Hada. - Oh, Bobby, oh, hey. - It's Brandon, yeah. - That's right. So good. We're off to a little bit of a scruffy start though. Lost two or three to the Phillies. That can't happen. - I know, that's not good. I honestly couldn't pay much attention to anything. I tried. And the baseball season, they really need to move back until after the Masters, because it's really tough for me. For me personally, I'm sure sitting at home, it's a great week for it to start out with the NPA tournament. You've got opening day for baseball the first week, and then you've got the Masters, and you should throw them a couch the entire week and watch a whole lot of sports. For me personally, they need to move it back a week because I like baseball, a big baseball fan. I can't watch a minute of it during the Masters. - How about Jim Nance's Fortnite every year going from the final four to Augusta? That's not bad, is it? - It is unbelievable what some of these guys are able to do. And you know, look, you can say what you will about Nance, you get to put in this position, and you know, it's a great job. Anyone would want that for a dream job. Yeah, but you've got to be really good at it too. Not just Nance, that's on Mike Turico. Going from the Masters to, it was a bold, I'm gonna get the wrong, both Rockets came maybe? - Okay. - Both Havocaine. It was a bold Havocaine on Saturday, I think. But day after the guys had been doing the Masters and he said, I went from one king, Arnold Bomber, to another king, Lebron James. I went from Justin Rose to Derek Rose. It was fantastic. I love the fact that he put it that way. The fact that these guys are so versatile and can do this stuff, right? We were talking about the CBS coverage before, and I know a lot of people were critical of it. People don't understand how difficult it is, just be good at one of these things. The fact that a guy like Nance or a guy like Turico can bounce around to sport the sport and still be that good at their jobs and still carry over their style. I mean, that's a big part of it too. It's not as if Turico is yelling during basketball games and whispering during the golf. He continues and means a certain style. It's just fantastic. I wish people would appreciate it more as opposed to just criticizing, hey, we missed so and so on number 13 and hitting a shot. Speaking of chasing history, how about Golden State winning back-to-back road games at Memphis and at San Antonio to get to 72 and nine? Now just one home game against Memphis on Wednesday for the all-time NBA best record. I can't imagine they're going to lose that game at home Wednesday, right? No, no, they're not going to lose that one and I assume they'll all play and they're not going to rest anybody. The fact that you look at their lineup top to bottom, I'm an NBA guy. It's probably a lot more hockey during the winter months than NBA, but I'm an NBA guy, and the fact that you look at their roster up now, okay, Steph Curry is fantastic. He's one of the best players we've seen a long time. We know that. Draymond Green is an excellent player in the middle. Clay Thompson is a terrific sort of, I don't want to call him like the third star on that team because he's probably a little bit better than that. But he's very good. Then you start looking at it after that and you say, "Oh, it's not as if the rest of the team "is a whole bunch of superstars." Not as if those guys were on other teams, they would be the top banana on those teams. They're throwing Andrew Bogot and Festus and Vili and all these other guys out there that aren't great players and yet the fact that they just don't lose. It's a testament to Steve Kerr. It's a testament to their entire team that works together. I think it's fantastic. I think it's really cool. Steph is a hell of a golfer, by the way. He's a legit scratch player right here. He is. I heard some great stories because he was at Augusta just before Jordan's beef when he took one of his agents and Michael Greller. It's a little thank you trip about a couple days before Doral this year, just a month ago. And Steph Curry had been there just before them. So they told me some stories about Steph Curry at Augusta. I know he enjoyed his time there. How about did you see his reaction yesterday? He was on the court walking out pregame. He knows Jordan very well through their under armor connection and he was told that Jordan, I don't know what point that was. I think it was after the quadruple bogey. I don't know if it was after the end of the tournament but he was told that Jordan went from in control to he's not going to win. - Crush. - And Steph Curry literally fell to the ground. - I know, man. - On the court just crushed from the, that's cool. I don't know. He's a sport fan, he's a dog fan, that's neat. - You heading back home today? - Yeah, yeah, at some point. - You just can't tell yourself away from this stuff. - The cool thing about living in Orlando now is there, I used to book flights and I lived up North. I'd have to book a flight and hey, whenever the flight is, I got to hop on the plane and then I go home. Now I drive up from Orlando. I still have a six hour drive or so. I pack a bunch of gummy bears in the car and crank up the music and I can kind of hang out and take my time and then when it's over, I can place some golf and go take my time, get home eventually. - You got Sirius XM in the car? What are your go-to stations? - Yeah, I'm usually like anywhere from winning the 35. - Oh my gosh. - I start with Bruce and I'll work my way up to Pearl Jam the Dead. - Right. - I've got some classic and then I get into the jam stuff and then there's like the bridge in there, 32, where I'm not think I'm that. I go right past that. Then there's like all the alt rock from, you know, Hashmodes stuff from 33, 34. - Oh man. - It's all the Nirvana and Chili Peppers. - Lithium. - I get the 35, that's, again, lithium, 35. It's like all the solid stuff that's a little too young for me so I usually turn back when I get there. - Oh, that's so funny. That's right in my wheelhouse. What year were you born? I think you're younger than me. What year were you born? - 75. - Okay. It's 465, I'm 50, but we have the same 15 channel radius for the most part, it's here. - Oh, okay. I like that. - That's cool. - At Jason Sobel, ESPN, follow him on Twitter and check out his terrific writing for ESPN.com. Thank you, sir. It was fun. We'll do it again soon. - It's funny anytime I appreciate you having me on. Nobody knows who's listening right now. I was supposed to come on at a certain time and text you back in answer to call an hour later because I'm a complete idiot and I totally just didn't look at my phone for a while and I was doing smaller stuff. So I apologize publicly for that and I won't do it again, maybe. - No sweat. We're glad we were able to work it out. Thanks, Jason. - Thanks, Lonnie. - So Sobel and I, kindred spirits with the New York Mets and channels 20 to 35 on the SiriusXM dial. Who knew? Hope you enjoyed the interview. Remember, you can now hear the talk of the tour podcast three times a week, most weeks, along with plenty of other audio content by visiting PGA2R.com/podcasts. You can download our shows, access them via iTunes, TuneIn and Stitcher. Just head to PGA2R.com/podcasts and subscribe today. Next pod this week's scheduled for Wednesday. Look for them. I'm John Swanson. Remember, chaos often breeds life when order breeds habit. Think about it, people. Talk to you soon. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)