Matt Fitzpatrick takes US Open title over Will Zalatoris

This is the best of the Adam Gold Show Podcast brought to you by Coach Pete at Capital Financial Advisory Group.

Visit us at capitalfinancialusa.com. This is the Adam Gold Show. Why didn't you just go home? Matthew Fitzpatrick is a champion again. That's your home! Are you too good for your home? Answer me!

I feel like you're finishing 18th. Nothing wrong with silver? Nothing wrong with silver at all! I'm just kidding you, man. I don't want to win. This is the Adam Gold Show.

Nothing wrong with silver? Maybe once. The third time it happens, I think Wills Alatorre might start getting a little frustrated. Here's the thing.

It's tough. You finish, I think he's got five top 10s in majors now, three of them second place. The latest coming yesterday at the US Open, this is Wake Forest University product, Wills Alatorre. And so everybody says, oh man, only a matter of time, right? Only a matter of time until he breaks through.

But there's dudes that don't break through. Like go look at Rickie Fowler. I don't know exactly how many seconds he had, but I know he played in some final groups. Rory McIlroy dusted him one time on the final day. And then now all of a sudden he's nowhere near the top 100.

I'm not trying to put more pressure on Wills Alatorre. He's playing great golf, but he's not quite won the major yet. Instead it was Matthew Fitzpatrick winning the US Open. And get ready. It's not next year, but pretty soon we're going to have another US Open here in Pinehurst. And after we have that one, then there's going to be another one pretty soon and then another one and then another one and then another one. So get ready North Carolina. The US Open is going to be your golf major that we get over and over and over again.

And is it 24 or 25? I forget when it comes next, but I know we got like five of them in the next 25 years based on part of the deal that's moving the USGA offices partly to Pinehurst. So that will be cool. We'll start with just the sports in just a second.

It was an interesting weekend yesterday because we had two holidays sort of coinciding, right? Oh, I should mention. I'm Hayes Permar. I'm filling in for Adam Gold.

Who are you? But if you missed the first 20 seconds, it doesn't matter anyway. We're off and running. We're talking sports. But I'm Hayes Permar filling in for Adam Gold. Dennis Cox producing the show.

Full-time executive producer now of the show. I don't know if that happened officially since the last time I've been here. But anyway, I've got a present for you. I know you got a birthday coming up. It could be your official, you know, full-time hire present or it could be your birthday present. Maybe we'll make it both. Actually, you know Hayes Permar, I have a gift for you today too.

Interesting. I have something to give you. I thought of you a couple weeks ago and I say, you know what? I got to get this for Hayes Permar. I come in here just to unload some hot sports takes. I do not expect to get paid the agreed upon fee that we talked about.

But I don't expect it for this type of treatment. So Dennis Cox, I appreciate it. But yeah, yesterday was the coinciding of two holidays. One which many people celebrated for a long time and that is Father's Day.

It was very cool. I think dads in general don't always look to be, this isn't in contrast to moms or anything. I think moms are much the same way. The general sense I get from dads is they are not looking to be celebrated necessarily because they get as much out of being part of a family as they put into it, right? Like they, that's usually the number one thing of being a dad is having your family. But I do think it is a good day to make sure dads are appreciated because so much of the mowing the lawn or the planning of trips or the making sure that you get your oil changed. There are things that dads do, life advice that seeps in even if you don't pretend to listen to it at the time and then you just find yourself doing the same things later. Dads always should be appreciated and I probably didn't always do the best job of making sure my dad knew he was appreciated.

But I hope somehow the message seeped through. I don't know, I might talk a little bit more about my dad later in the show. The other holiday yesterday was Juneteenth and I think, I can't remember if I was guest hosting or if it was back when we were doing the regular radio show with Sports Channel 8. Talking about Juneteenth feels a little bit to me as a white male like celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. holiday that we've come to celebrate as a nation. In that I never want to come across as pandering and as many brands are guilty, many politicians are of because it is Juneteenth day saying yes, I too celebrate this.

Here is the right sentence that I should put out and putting on the cloak of someone who is always thinking about the plight of the black Americans and the rough road that they have had in the history of our country and even before we were officially country. So it feels small for me to just on one day say yes, I'm now ready to celebrate it. I do think, however, it is a great thing that we've made it a holiday for a couple reasons. One, not all holidays have to appeal to everyone. We've got 4th of July, which in theory you're celebrating the nation's independence or the veterans at the memorial days where we remember people. But remember, holidays like Christmas and Easter are not universal to all religions and all cultures, right? But we've decided as a society with a strong Christian drive that it's a good and right thing for us to celebrate these holidays.

And those who aren't Christian, I think the ones who are doing it well take the time to say, hey, this is a great time where many of my neighbors celebrate a holiday, so I will as well. And I think Juneteenth fits in that category where I'm not going to see this holiday the same way a black person was. It's not going to necessarily have the significance. I'm also not going to pretend that I knew five years ago what Juneteenth was, right?

Like many people, I started hearing more people discuss it online on social media in the past few years. Then obviously there was a big wave in 2020 where it became a popular thing and now it is obviously part of the culture and I think it's great. Not to wade into the tearing down of statues and things, I think there are things that we've memorialized and placed on too high of a pedestal in remembering our nation's history and some of the statues from Civil War era I think definitely fit into that category, right? But better than that is adding to our history, broadening history, and celebrating history in a way that includes more than just a certain subset of people, which it has been for many years, right? And so I think the Juneteenth holiday fits into there and because I know a lot of people treat the Martin Luther King Day because of what he meant in his honorable life. They treat it as a day of service, a day to do good for others, sort of in the way that Dr. King would have taught. Juneteenth feels kind of like a celebration, right? It feels like a real time to celebrate. So I look forward to it growing as a holiday.

I'm a little, I'm going to give people a little bit of leeway because I know budgets and plannings and calendars and schedules and things like that get made out here in advance. But it is now officially a federal holiday and I believe I read something like there's only 18 states that gave state workers off and obviously some things still have to function. I was asking my wife, I was like, oh, is court closed tomorrow? It's Juneteenth. Or it's the observance of Juneteenth, the Monday after the 19th in this case.

And she was like, nah, courts aren't closed. So I don't know, maybe we can expand it, grow into it a little bit, continue to embrace it. And so I think it's a wonderful thing. And I say that without trying to be someone who's pandering or putting on the, look at me, I'm celebrating black Americans like I should. Instead, I hope to and when I'm doing my best as a human to learn every day, grow, learn more about other cultures.

And then on days like the holidays, be happy for the folks who this holiday has a maybe even bigger significance than I could realize because of my own culture and upbringing, but celebrate that along with them and learn and grow as well. So those two holidays were cool yesterday. We might hit a little bit more on some of those today. But let's talk a little sports as we get out of the gate. It was a plus golf entertainment yesterday at the U.S. Open. Unfortunately, and some people are going to get mad, like Brenton would probably get mad about this, Gold would probably get mad about this because they're like, I'm a golf fan. They're like golf dorks. Like they they like that's the best way of her to describe their golf dorks.

Right. And I mean that affectionately, like, you know, I'm absolutely going to U.S. Open. I love going to golf tournaments. I watch a lot of golf tournaments. I don't watch every golf tournament and I don't watch, you know, live from the U.S. Open on Golf Channel the three days before. And I don't watch the like the random PGA events that nobody knows unless it's the one that happens to be in our backyard, the Windham Championship.

I'm not calling it random, but you know what I mean? The non-majors and the non big, big, big, big ticket tent items. Just the other everyday PGA events.

I may not watch every one of those. Gold and Brenton, they would. So don't get mad when I say this. It was a plus in terms of the golf, the way it went about. You didn't know who was going to win. Guys looked like they were losing it and they brought it back.

Guys looked like they had it and things, you know, fell apart a little bit. But unfortunately, I can only say it was like B minus golfers. Like if this had been Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson having a day like that, then you're like, this is A plus.

These are the best names, the big names in the world or whatever. And I realized that Wills Elitouris and Matt Fitzpatrick, even though neither one of them had one on the PGA Tour, both of them are very good golfers. Matthew Fitzpatrick, the winner, more of a European tour guy, but he's been creeping up his major finishes.

He was the U.S. amateur champion nine years ago. If you watch the broadcast, you knew that because they pointed out many times right here on the same course in Brookline. But again, early in the day when Scheffler came out hot and Scottie Scheffler just off the Masters win, been hot all year. So when he came in hot, you kind of thought, oh, he might get three or four strokes ahead of these dudes and they might not be ready for the light.

It didn't go down that way. Like, again, Zalatoris made some great shots. Just when it looked like he was going to fall apart, he'd stick one close and have a birdie putt, right? Matthew Fitzpatrick was kind of steadier, not making as many mistakes. And then Scheffler, I mean, he knew the holes were going to give him trouble and they did.

He didn't have as much trouble on Sunday as he did Saturday where he really fell apart on those, what was it, 11 through 14 or whatever. But it even came down to the final hole in the two dudes play. We even got like Rory McIlroy and Hideki Matsuyama like maybe throwing up numbers so we at least had to like watch them.

I felt bad. They teased a little bit. Yeah, but we needed one of them to get in the mix to give us a bigger name. So, again, A plus drama, B minus or maybe even like C plus names. They just, you know, these weren't guys going for their third or fourth major or, you know, just two guys that were super established.

We might see Wills Alatoris and Matt Fitzpatrick going head to head for another major because both of them seem to be like they're going to be good for a while. But it came down to the last hole, a classic dude who only needs a par to probably win the championship and he gets on the tee and he doesn't put it in the fairway. He puts it in the bunker. Commentators are admonishing him for even, you know, hitting the club he did. They're like, just, you know, play it safe, put it in the fairway.

Fortunately, he is not really affected by the island that's in the middle of the bunker. He sort of hits around it and he gets a great shot. But we still have it lined up where he's got a longer putt than the Zalatoris that's trying to make a birdie. And one thing I didn't quite understand, so normally you try to, you want the tournament to finish on the last, on the winner's last putt if you can, right? So like, if a guy's two or three strokes up and he hits it close, maybe he doesn't tap in so the other guy can get out of his way so he can tap in and then the tournament's over. Let him have his moment.

Right. So, Fitzpatrick has the longer putt, so he's away, he putts, Zalatoris gets to look at the line, he misses, but he obviously has a make that he's, a putt that he's going to make. It's a give me any day of the week, you give it to anybody and you don't expect him to miss him, but also with a major championship on the line, you never know what happens, right? So I don't know if he asks Zalatoris, can I tap in? I don't know if, you know, I don't know what it is, but basically he tapped in so then Zalatoris is left out there as the lone guy playing, right? I just, again, I don't know if it was planned competition, gamesmanship in between them to go ahead and tap in and finish it out because maybe Zalatoris, if he doesn't, once that putt is made, Zalatoris knows he has to be the birdie putt, whereas, you know, I don't know how he might have been different if the other putt's there. I just, it was just an interesting moment to me to see, right?

Zalatoris comes very close, I couldn't quite call it a lip out, I don't think he caught any of the lip, but it rolls right by. He's obviously devastated, he knows he loses, and Matthew Fitzpatrick is your U.S. Open champion. See, I will say for me though, I want the drama on the final putt, because here's the thing, if it's just the tap in, it's like, okay, we already know what the result is gonna be, but we all sitting there looking, okay, if Zalatoris wins this, we gotta play, or hits this, we gotta play off.

To me, that puts drama in that situation. Yeah, yeah, I guess, but there is the element of, if Zalatoris hits it, and they're tied, then in theory, it is a little bit of a knee-knocker, you know, a little bit of a Scott Hoke moment, for those who remember the Raleigh native. Missing a seemingly gimme putt to lose, or to send a Masters into a playoff where he eventually lost, so, we'll never know. We do know that Matthew Fitzpatrick is your U.S. champion, he said that he was feeling confident throughout the entire week. Yeah, it was massive, genuinely it was massive, I felt comfortable all week here. I love playing this golf course, and the way it was set up this week just reminded me of 2013 when I won the amateur here, and for me that just put me in such a good frame of mind for the whole week.

I knew that if things were going my way, I could pull it back, and I know everything about the holes, and where to hit it, where not to, and took advantage of that experience, I guess, this week. It does seem to be one of the biggest things about winning the U.S. Open, although I like it when it's right at you, only the winner goes under par. I think Webb won his at one under, or even maybe, but it was still obviously in that very low range, what did he finish at, six under maybe?

Six under. It's not like they were tearing up the course, but I do think, again, they made it part of the storyline, but it was. He won the U.S. amateur there, and he just did a good job of managing his game, taking advantage of good shots when he could, but not making mistakes, or not letting anything snowball into a big mistake. He specifically talked about that bunker shot on 18, where it looked like things could get a little sideways, but he stuck it on the green. Here's Matt Fitzpatrick on basically the big shot that saved the round. I'll be brutally honest, me and Billy spent a couple times, well, quite a while, talking about the 18th tee shot, undecided. I hit three wood today into the bunker, and if there was one shot that I've struggled with this year that I would just do not want, it's a fairway bunker shot. And I don't know, I guess sort of ability just took over, and yeah, it's one of the best shots of all time.

When I saw it leave the sand and I felt the strike, I was, yeah, couldn't be happier. That's what it takes to win a major, to summon the best shot you can, especially when it was the shot that you kind of most feared. Just say buckle down, I can do this, I'm a pro, and now he is a U.S. Open champion. We'll see if he goes on to become, you know, gets on a roll and becomes one of those guys that starts competing for multiple majors in a couple year stretch. Scottie Scheffler obviously seems like a guy who's going to put himself in the mix, most majors, although I don't think he, he didn't play great at the PGA Championship. But anyway, he's back at it, and he looks like another steady dude. I'll give you a couple other storylines from the U.S. Open a little bit later, one that I think Dennis Cox is not that impressed with, but I thought was pretty cool.

And we'll talk some more with Will Brinson. Last thing in this segment on the U.S. Open, noticeably absent from anywhere near the leaderboard, the live golfers. Several of them did not make the cut, including Phil Mickelson, who was bad. It didn't look like he was getting booed or anything, but I do think maybe it was their first taste of, like, what life is going to be like. And I wonder, for all that money, when they see these crowds and they see, you know, people cheering, like, then they go to the next live event, and there's nobody there, if they're like, man, maybe I made a mistake. And I don't know. I don't know if the PGA Tour is giving them options to say, hey, if you decide you want to come back, how they would work that. But I wonder if seeing a live crowd like that for a great event would give some of those guys some remorse. I don't know.

They can drink their tears as they go cash their check. Yeah, exactly. And that's part of it. And that's why, mostly, the first wave of guys we saw are guys that probably think they're on the back end of their career anyway, and they're weighing against, you know. I mean, if you're a Masters champion and you think, I'll be able to go to the Masters every year, you know, I'll get that love.

But, you know, I don't know. It's a factor, and I guess we'll start to see what is the value of playing in front of large crowds and competing for the highest championships versus just flat out cash. Next up, getting out of the gate. Let's do that hockey. The Stanley Cup sits at 2-0. Colorado Avalanche won Saturday night 7-0.

Yeah. Over the Tampa Bay Lightning, but the Tampa Bay Lightning should not be too uncomfortable. They've been down three out of the four series they've won. They swept the Panthers, but they went down to the Leafs. They went down to the Rangers, and now they've gone down to the Avalanche. They went down two games to the Rangers, right? Yeah. So, we will see what happens tonight when they resume play.

Now they're back in Tampa. What was more dominant for Colorado? That they put up seven goals or that they gave up zero? Like, which number was more impressive, the seven or the zero? The seven. The seven. The fact they put up seven is just unreal.

Especially when you've got one of the best goalies in Andrei Vasilevski playing in Tampa. What's the prop bet on Vasilevski pitching a shutout tonight? Because I might take that and place your bets. I'm going to look at it right now. I bet you will.

I will let you know. Yeah. So, we will see. I'm not going to lie to you and pretend like I watched a lot of the game on Saturday night. I didn't. I went to a wedding of our good friend Josh Graham. Oh, you got invited. Who's on the show, sometimes in the round table, and if you're listening in the triad, you'll hear Josh Graham after our show.

Yes, we made sure it got done this weekend. It was a great time. We had a lot of fun up there in South Boston, Virginia. Congratulations to Josh on his nuptials and congratulations. It was a great party. Him and Sarah Bradford have a great group of friends and family.

And it was a beautiful place and a good time. So, congratulations to Josh and Sarah Bradford. Sorry hockey fans who I know came to this show that I need Hayes Permar to break down what happened with the Tampa Bet.

No, I don't know. But I'll be watching tonight. So, I'll give you more takes on Wednesday on hockey. By the way, Vasilevski giving up under two and a half goals today is a plus 105.

Under two and a half? Alright, that might be easy then to shut up. Put that down for me. Don't steal that from me for place your bets. I'm going to take that. I say my bets have been hitting.

I saw you had a couple winners from the weekend. Yes. Next up, UNC picked up a player over the weekend. That's right.

In the transfer portal, you can always grab somebody to do. This guy was listed as one of the best players left in the transfer portal. We'll talk to Brian Geisiger more about Pete Nance. Obviously, the great basketball pedigree. His father and brother, both NBA players. And I believe he averaged about 15 points. Shot about 50 percent from the field.

45 percent from three. Obviously, since UNC is basically returning. UNC basically played five guys and then a couple reserves came on in the tournament. They lost one guy, Brady Manick. The other four starters are all back. So the thought is we just need a guy who could just be exactly like Brady Manick.

Well, it doesn't quite work like that. But Pete Nance looks like he might be pretty close. So we'll ask Brian Geisiger what that does for UNC. Will that put the burden, the pressure of being preseason number one on the heels? I'm sure they'll get some votes. I don't know if they'll be number one.

We'll ask Brian about that. Next up, UNC gained a player. The Charlotte Hornets lost a coach.

I know there are many reasons it's going to happen. I always say in sports, we underestimate the life factor. Like when a team that should be great isn't great, you underestimate that a guy is going out with a guy's old girlfriend.

Stuff that doesn't matter. Or a guy is stressed out about a parent being sick and he's just moody and now he's just a worse teammate. Life affects sports teams more than we give it credit for. So Kenny Atkinson, who was said to be the next Hornets head coach, I thought it was a fine hire. Kenny Atkinson looks like a guy who's going to coach your NBA team for five or six years and then he's going to go somewhere else for five or six years.

But again, he's not bad. There could be worse coaches, but I'm a little more risk-taking for the Charlotte Hornets situation, especially since they have a superstar whose clock is ticking. But Kenny Atkinson, Warriors assistant, agreed in principle to be the Hornets head coach, but nothing was ever official because they were waiting for his season to end with the Warriors. When his season ended with a championship, he said, you know what? I kind of like where I am and he's staying with the Golden State Warriors. Now, I don't know anything inside about the situation.

I'll ask Brian Geister about that a little bit later. It does seem like Kenny Atkinson, who's been head coach, wants to be head coach again. And I know that Charlotte isn't like the number one NBA destination in the world, but they do have LaMelo Ball.

He's young in theory. And I mean, I was reading some places like that say it's a better job than the Sacramento Kings. I feel like the Charlotte Hornets job right now looks better than it did when James Borrego took it.

And better than it has a lot of times that it's been open. So in that sense, maybe it's a little surprising because it seems like Kenny Atkinson, if he wants to be head coach, wants to get in a good situation. And starting with LaMelo Ball right now seems to be a pretty good situation. But for whatever reason, he is opting to stay with Golden State and stay as an assistant coach. Well, I know the draft is in a couple days, right? Yeah, draft is this week, Thursday. And I don't know how much that affects their plan or if Michael Jordan is making the pick on his own. I believe the Hornets have the 13th pick. Again, we'll ask BG about that.

13, 15, I think 45 or 47. Oh yeah, that's right. They picked up an extra first round pick, that's right. So yeah, we'll see what they do.

But obviously the head coach probably won't be having a lot of input on that draft because they don't know who he is yet. And finally, getting out the gate, Mercenaria is your winner at the Big Rock. And by winner, I do mean winner to the tune of $3.4 million.

$3.4 million. That's believed to be the largest amount ever won for a bill fish tournament. And it shows why this is the big tournament in the world. Michael Jordan is not just fishing this because he likes North Carolina and he's supporting like the local rotary club fishing tournament, right?

He's coming because it's the best in the world. It makes it even crazier when you see the boat that, what was it, two years ago, there was an outboard, like a 30-foot boat with a motor thrown on the back that brought home the winning somehow 500-foot fish. It was a 572.6-pound blue marlin, one of eight blue marlins brought in all week.

But here's the other thing. Unlike the golf, which went down to the last hole, Mercenaria picked this blue marlin up on Monday, the first day of the tournament. That's terrible for TV ratings. Mercenaria, you got to do better than that.

Nobody came in. You always want that like late, late catch where somebody's coming into the scales with a marlin and you're like, I don't know. Some other boat saw it. They said it's pretty big. Looks like it's got to be big. They said this one, it's got to be at least 400 pounds and I think 110 inches to catch and bring it in.

Otherwise you're supposed to release it. And they were worried when they first saw it. They didn't think it was going to be big enough.

And then when they got it, they're like, all right, it's going to be big enough. It was 572. Second place was like 556 or something. And you could also enter in different divisions. Basically, Mercenaria was entered in a lot of divisions and they won the whole shebangabang to a total pot again of $3.4 million, all right there in Morehead City, the biggest fishing tournament in the world.

I clearly got into the wrong profession. I know. The problem is you got to have like $3.4 million to put into a boat to win $3.4 million.

But no, actually you don't. Just like we said, there are boats out there, Pelagic Hunter 2. They won some category this year, but a couple of years ago they ended up winning the whole thing for a million bucks. So it's much like the US Open where anybody can get in. The best dudes probably have the best chances, but you're right there. And if you can go find you a blue marlin, bring it in, put it on the scales, you too could win the big rock. Congratulations to Mercenaria. They were out of someone in Virginia. I forget. Cherry something, Virginia. But yes, congratulations to them. Virginia.

Aren't you from Virginia? Exactly. All right. How sad was Will Brinson that Scottie Scheffler, his boy, didn't bring over the US Open. We'll ask him and maybe make up some NFL to talk.

I don't know. Hit me if you have any NFL questions you want me to ask Will Brinson, otherwise we're talking golf next. Adam Golden Studio with my man Coach Pete DeRuder with the Capital Financial Advisory Group. We are talking retirement. Coach, let's say I have more than a million dollar balance in my 401k. Congratulations.

Thank you very much. How can that actually come back and bite me? Well, because, and this is a thing that we, it's a mirage. You see mirages.

I've ridden in the desert before. You see what's water ahead, but it's not there. Well, your financial mirage is thinking that that total balance in your 401k or your IRA is yours. We have two people that want to get ahold of it. Two uncles.

Uncle North Carolina and Uncle Sam. Both of them are going to do some damage to that balance depending on what kind of other income you have. You could lose 40% of your value.

So if you're looking at a million dollar IRA, maybe it's only worth $600,000 to you. So how do we get around this? Well, you don't get around it because you end up in jail if you try to do that. But you can do tax planning to minimize the effect of taxation into the future. The tax train is coming Adam. We need to make sure to minimize the effect of the derailment of our financial accounts. And for the next 10 people, we'll do it at no cost or obligation.

Put together your very own tax and retirement plan. 800-661-7383 or text ADAM to 21000 for coach Pete DeRuta. Joining us now, a proud dad himself, overall good dude and NFL insider who likes to talk off in the summer with me because I don't feel like talking to NFL. It's my good friend, Will Brinson. Brinson, what's going on, dude? What's up, buddy? How we doing?

What? Go ahead. Go ahead.

Sorry, I was on speaker. The insane finish to the U.S. Open. Matthew Fitzpatrick, that shot from the bunker, the fairway bunker on 18, was like the ultimate win or go home sort of situation.

Here's my question. I said it was A plus drama on Sunday. There were times where you thought any of the three guys that were in the lead could have won it. Like, Scheffler, the way he started out hot and the fact that he's already won a Masters, you were like, dude, he's been there, the other two haven't, he's about to tear it up.

Then he backed up in the same spots that gave him trouble before. There were times where Zalatoris looked like he was shaky and might fall apart, but he didn't and he made some huge plays, especially when they had dueling putts on 13. I think Zalatoris was for a par, Fitzpatrick was for a birdie, but both of them were just nails putts and Zalatoris, you know, he didn't win, but it did not feel like he melted down, right? Like all three of them felt like they were just kind of fighting the tough setup at Brookline and for every stroke and it brought it down.

But I said, am I crazy? Again, I said this earlier, I actually referenced, I'm a golf fan, you and Gold are golf dorks. You might be offended if I said it was an A plus for the golf drama, but I can only give it like a B minus, maybe even a C plus as far as like the names. Jeffler, he's one of masters, but he's still not like huge to me yet. And the other two guys, I'm loving Zalatoris, but like neither one of these guys technically had won on the PGA Tour, even though they're not randoms who came out of nowhere. These are two really good golfers.

Am I being too harsh to call it B minus names? No, no, I think, I mean, I think it's, I think it is a B minus name, B minus name value in terms of golf for the average, like golf watchers, like alright, it's father's day and son, you can either watch golf with me or you can, you know, go, you know, go with your mom somewhere else while I watch golf. Hypothetically. Yeah, hypothetically speaking, but I mean, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Will Zalatoris, and Scottie Scheffler are not Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, and Tiger Woods.

Yeah, that, yes. I agree with your point. Now, having said that, I think that like people really need to understand that Scottie Scheffler is not the number one golfer in the world by accident.

No, that's true. He is the number one golfer in the world. He shot there very quickly. He's got an incredible pedigree coming out of Dallas, but he's my favorite golfer on the planet. I mean, now that Phil has gone full Hogan WCW, Scottie is probably my favorite golfer ever. He, like his, and anyway, Scottie, like Scottie, people just don't, they're like why is Scottie Scheffler the number one golfer in the world?

What's going on with that? Like he's that good. He's just very unassuming. And then Zalatoris, who's a weight guy, actually, I think has three top five finishes this year in majors. Like he just shows up in big spots.

He's still young. Like this is the future of golf. It's interesting, Hayes, because like all these guys grew up watching, like this is the generation of golfers spawned by Tiger Woods greatness. Watching Tiger Woods, like it hurts how these guys get to play.

And then, you know, Fitzpatrick, you know, I don't know if you heard, like he stayed with the same family. They played up the, they played up the U.S. amateur parallels a little bit in the final round. Yeah, a little bit of that.

They did it all week, the whole tournament. I'm pretty sure the USDA was like, if you don't mention this 3,000 times this week, we will pull NBC off the broadcast. But like, yeah, I mean, I think A plus drama, I would say B plus name value. I would say A plus name value from my perspective. But anything in the B range is fine from like the average golfer's perspective. Let's talk about those live dudes. Do you think, now the big question, and I saw some people talk about this.

I don't know how it's going to shake out. The U.S. Open sort of punted on a decision on the live golfers for the future by saying, hey, we're not, these guys have qualified this year. They're in, you know, maybe they'll look at rules in the future about who can even begin to qualify for U.S. Open. But let's say majors stay open to the live golfers, right? Which I think would be a blow to the PGA Tour. If the PGA Tour could get the majors to come with them and say, no live golfers, then you're really, really, really taking a leap just for the money. So I heard, I mean, there's some rumblings and I've heard this from like multiple spots.

And then I kind of like heard it from one like the Internet, like, you know, deep dark web, like, you know, like on the dark web. Right. And then like I think somebody locally mentioned as well, but there's some buzz that the masters are planning to try and tell the live golfers they can't come.

Which is also why this week, I don't know if it's happened today, I'm otherwise occupied with some stuff in the house. But by what I heard, yeah, was that Hideki and Brooks and Patrick Reed already announced. Basically what I'm saying is, live is trying to acquire as many former masters champions as possible. So that way Augusta can't say we're banning live golfers because if they do, guys with green jackets, all of a sudden you have a real catch 22 in your hand. But if Augusta can say no live golfers, then that really sets the table for the R&A and the USGA and the PGA of America to also do the same thing. Like, basically Augusta is going to control that decision, from what I understand. And that's why live is trying to snatch up the guys with the green jackets by throwing cash in. Interesting.

I mean, it makes a lot of sense. And so we see Mike Weir and Trevor Immelman joining the live tour. He was the one when you saw him, but at least you're like, I didn't put together that it was because he got the masters.

That is the only reason you know Charles Swartz's name, but yes. Trevor Immelman is going to get like $600 million to lead the CBS broadcast and go play in the live tour. I still hate that guy.

If anybody's ever heard me on the radio, they've heard me say it before. But who do you hate more, Trevor Immelman or Martin Keimer? It's Immelman because I spent four lovely days in Augusta and just watched Trevor Immelman go wire to wire. Tiger Woods finished second and I don't remember a shot of his from the whole tournament because Trevor Immelman freaking won the thing. Chip Patterson and I were down covering the U.S. Open in Pinehurst and I was like, Chip, I'm leaving on Saturday because Keimer had like a 42-step lead. And naturally Chip texted me on Sunday, he's like, oh, they finally gave us the inside the ropes action.

I was like, great, great, cool. After Payne Stewart, we've been getting worked in Pinehurst. I can't even remember the next guy, Chad or Chris or something. Michael, who won in Pinehurst before Martin Keimer?

In between... I think Keimer was the last one, right? No, Keimer was the last one, but there was one in between Payne Stewart and Martin Keimer. And it's the most forgettable... Is it?

Yes. Obviously it's forgettable. It's, well, I can't believe you don't know this, but it's like 2004, 2005, I don't know, we'll see. We're going to catch tweets about this for sure.

Yes, we will. Because I remember going down there, oh God, who was it? Because I went down for a practice round with my good buddy Dave Stroud, and we followed Ernie Els around. I'm looking at Michael Campbell.

Oh, yeah, that's right. I was thinking he was the PGA champion. Another one where Tiger Woods finished second, but it was like totally forgettable because... Michael Campbell and Martin Keimer run away BMW steam train.

Terrible. We're owed one. I don't want to leave Fitzpatrick-Zalatoras. I want Phil, Scottie, Tiger when we come back to Pinehurst in a couple years.

Well, Brent, go ahead. I was going to say, the thing is, we were dangerously close to getting, like, if Fitzpatrick misses the green on 18 from that fairway bunker, which, I mean, I couldn't believe he went for it because of just where the ball was with that grass. Or like the ball was in the grass, he's got to punch out, whatever it is. And he bogeys, or like Scottie and Zalatoras who barely missed their birdie pots.

We could have an insane three-man playoff. That's what we need in Pinehurst. Yes, I needed Rory to be in the mix all day and not just sort of wandering out there. All right, so you started answering the question about the Masters making the decision on whether or not to allow the live guys. Cynically, I just look at that and I say, there's got to be enough of those billionaires that are members of Augusta that do business with Saudi Arabians that are like, nah, that's fine, we don't care.

You know what I mean? That's how I feel like that decision is going to go. But my bigger question, do you think there's any regret of those live guys after now being back at the first major since the live tour started and maybe realizing a little bit of what they're not going to get on the live tour that they would see in the US Open? And maybe, I don't know, I didn't see guys getting booed necessarily, but maybe they didn't feel as much love as they were when they were, you know, Ryder Cup champions and great Americans. And now they're seen as like, whatever we see the live tour golfers as.

I don't know if you saw this, this is a golf tour thing too. But, so there was a, I think it was a, by the time that we got through the cut, there was a one and a half stroke advantage for the early wave on Thursday, as in the guys who tee off on Thursday and then play p.m. Friday, right? Because of crazy winds that were coming in on Thursday evening. And because, in completely unprecedented fashion, that you've never seen in a US Open, that multiple times between a.m. and p.m. on Friday, they watered down. They watered down. Now, if you go back and look at who played in what waves, you will notice, Hayes, a distinct concentration of big name live players who were in the p.m. a.m. wave. In other words, they got all the wind and then they got the non-watered down greens.

Interesting. So basically, they tried to hose the live guys as much as possible without it being against the rules. I think, though, that like, look, Phil Mickelson was shown on television 600 times looking completely lost. You know, shot was 11 over. They were showing all of his miscues.

It felt like they were kind of rubbing it in at one point. But at the same time, he got a $200 million check to sign with live. That is more than before this tournament, the combined career PGA Tour earnings of Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson. Like Tiger Woods has made more money on the golf course than any golfer in history. Dustin Johnson is a multiple major winner. And Phil got 200 million and made more than them combined to balance. I mean, it's like I mean, I understand the ethical concerns of the morality issues of it.

I think our president, the president of the United States is going over Saudi Arabia to meet with the guy who's basically in charge of the live tour. So I would not be disingenuous enough to say that if if if if the live tour is looking for a washed up NFL writer to cover the live tour on television, in writing, and they want to throw me, you know, I don't know, 20 million would probably cover it. I totally understand it. It would it would. Again, it's hard to put yourself in the situations either having the money that those golfers do or being offered the money they're being offered. But like, yeah, no, I'm not righteous enough to say that there's no way I would consider that like that.

I don't think that's true. Will Brinson, I don't know what we would have talked about if we talk NFL, but I'm sure you can catch up. We would follow him on Twitter. Actually, your Twitter's all golf stuff right now. Anyway, you're not even watching NFL. I've been getting criticized.

I mean, I'm not I'm not hawking down freaking minicamps. It's more fun watching Grayson Murray meltdowns, but we'll we'll be talking to NFL soon enough. You'll hear Brinson here on the show. We'll talk to you soon, man.

Appreciate the time. June 19th, 2006. But it all started May 6, 1997, with the announcement that the Hartford Whalers were coming to North Carolina.

It's a story of transition, of heartbreak, of figuring it out on the fly. The Canes Corner look at the 25th anniversary of the move presented by the Aluminum Company of North Carolina. Listen now.

Find Canes 25th anniversary wherever you get your podcast. Shout out best wishes for quick healing to Governor Roy Cooper since we're coming in at you statewide across North Carolina. Oh, the governor's office announced that he has covered.

Oh, no. He is vaxxed, boosted, doing OK, taking Paxilovid, taking all the precautions that you can. But hope it gets better and reminder that the pandemic not over. So still, obviously, we're not doing all the safety precautions, but stay up to date on vaccines, boosts as advised and and do smart things like get tested.

If you're around somebody who's positive and especially taking care of the more vulnerable population. Two stories from the U.S. Open that you may or may not care about. Dennis Cox, I'll tell you the story.

You tell me. Do you care? OK. Do you care that Matthew Fitzpatrick's brother Alex, who they showed, started with like three or four holes to go. They started showing shots of him and his mom as well as talking about they were telling stories of them staying at the same place they stayed nine years ago when Matthew won the U.S. amateur at the same Brookline course. Do you care that Alex Fitzpatrick played golf at Wake Forest, where at one point he was teammates with Wills Alatorre? So he's watching the final group and either his friend Wills Alatorre who he played golf with the Wake Forest or his brother is going to come out U.S. Open champion. But also that means one of the best to lose. Do you care about that extra special tie to the U.S. Open victory yesterday?

Well, yeah, I think that maybe that makes it the sense that. Alex Fitzpatrick and Wills Alatorre and Fitzpatrick on the green on 18 together and say, hey, there's got to be some level of friendship between the two, which I think is actually kind of cool. Now, does that make Matt Fitzpatrick a pack pro because he's related to Wake Forest? Yeah, I'm not sure. We'll have to talk to Goodson about that. But I think I even heard that Alex first went to say congratulations to Wills Alatorre on a great round-facing second before coming back and celebrating with his brother and went to Fitzpatrick's family and said there's nobody I'd rather lose to than your son.

And it did seem like there were times where each of them had sort of nervous faces, but there was a lot of times that they still looked like they looked like they were enjoying the moment even as pressure packed in his tent and as close as the finish was. Another story. Do you care? So you think it's cool story that Alex Fitzpatrick, the brother of Matthew Fitzpatrick, played golf at Wake.

All right. Do you care that not only is Matthew Fitzpatrick the U.S. Open champion, but that his caddy Billy Foster just won his first major after being a caddy for 40 years, including working with Seve Ballesteros, who I know was like still playing in the 80s. But like to me, I feel like he's like a 50s golfer. Seve Ballesteros, Darren Clark, Thomas Bjorn, Sergio Garcia, and at one point even Tiger Woods, but he had never won a major. Do you care that Billy Foster won a major?

This is a big story. No, why not? No one cares about the caddy. I challenge any golf fan out there, casual or not, to name me more than one caddy. I guarantee you, golf dorks, Will Brinson and Adam Goldner, they can name you like five to ten caddies.

I'm sure they could. No, but they're the caddy. You carry the clubs. I could carry clubs.

Caddies are underrated. I think they do more, but can you not at least appreciate the guy that's been working in the sport for 40 years and winning a major for the first time? No, because he didn't do anything.

He carried clubs. I think that's wrong. I think that's wrong. I'm sorry, did he swing? Did he hit the shot out of the bunker?

No. Tennis players are truly out there. Golfers, we make it sound like they're out there on their own. They always got a dude standing next to them whispering in their ear.

Caddies are very important. Congratulations to Billy Foster. This is the Adam Gold show. June 19th, 2006, but it all started May 6th, 1997 with the announcement that the Hartford Whalers were coming to North Carolina. It's a story of transition, of heartbreak, of figuring it out on the fly. The Cane's Corner look at the 25th anniversary of the move presented by the Aluminum Company of North Carolina. Listen now. Find Cane's 25th anniversary wherever you get your podcasts.