June 10, 2026
MODERATOR: Good afternoon and thank you all for joining our USA Sports and Golf Channel media conference call.
Today we are joined by 2003 U.S. Open champion, Senior Open champion, and 2027 U.S. Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk, he will be our lead analyst for our Thursday and weekend coverage on USA Network. We are also joined by Golf Channel's primetime “Live From the U.S. Open” studio team of Rich Lerner, Brandel Chamblee, and Paul McGinley.
Jim Furyk will be alongside Rich to open our 11 hours of U.S. Open championship coverage on Thursday, June 18, on USA Network beginning at 6 a.m. ET. He’ll also be a part of our weekend coverage on USA Network. Earlier this week, we announced that Jim will join us as an analyst at the U.S. Open and Open Championship on USA Network, as well Golf Channel’s coverage the PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship and Tour Championship
Rich, Paul and Brande will lead our comprehensive live studio coverage on Golf Channel next week from Shinnecock Hills, beginning Monday afternoon, wall-to-wall Tuesday and Wednesday, and then primetime on Golf Channel from Thursday to Sunday.
We'll start with some quick comments from each of our speakers. We will begin with our esteemed host, Rich Lerner. Go ahead, Rich.
RICH LERNER: Thanks Jamie. I just want to welcome Jim Furyk to the team. It will be great to sit next to Jim and it's enormous for us at USA Sports to have a guy as accomplished as Jim – the U.S. Open win, three other runner-up finishes at the U.S. Open – so welcome, Jim.
The U.S. Open at Shinnecock may not be the only expression of golf in America, but I think it's probably the ultimate expression of golf in this country, its place in history, origins of the game in the United States, as close to Scotland as you can get. I would say it's the quality of the land, obviously, where it sits, its proximity to wealth and power, and its commitment to upholding the traditions of the game.
That said, we know it's hard to look good at a Shinnecock U.S. Open. In the four that have been played there in the modern era, only three guys have broken par – Floyd, Goosen, and Mickelson, who ran second to Retief in 2004 – and that speaks to the United States Golf Association. I think everybody knows what happened in ‘04 and again in 2018, so there's considerable pressure, not just on the players here, but as well on the USGA.
That said, I think they've learned their lessons. I think there's a different group in place. I don't think they will tempt it and go over the edge. I think they're coming off an exceptional U.S. Women's Open at Riviera in every way, so I would expect that we'll get a great championship at Shinnecock.
And then, the dominant storyline as it relates to the players is Scottie Scheffler and, you know what I would say is, if he does become the seventh to complete the career slam, and you zoom out a little bit, we are in an era where we have two players in McIlroy and potentially Scheffler, who might end up among the top 15 or 20 players in the history of the game. We're excited for it.
MODERATOR: Awesome. Thank you, Rich. We'll move it along to Brandel Chamblee. Go ahead, Brandel.
BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: Yeah, I just agree with Rich that I think Shinnecock is the closest thing that America has to links golf. It almost feels like a piece of Scotland just washed ashore on Long Island and, when you start to compare it to other U.S. Open venues, I would say that its defense is it's not like Oakmont's bunkers, it's not like Winged Foot's rough, it's not like the confinement of Merion. It's the perfect balance of exposure. Its biggest hazard is the sky. Firm turf, crowned greens, timeless architecture, and Mother Nature. That's the number one defense of links golf courses and so, when you combine that with U.S. Open pressure, it's no wonder that the winners have mostly scrambled their way to the top of the leaderboard.
You think about Ray Floyd holding the bunker shot, I believe it was on Saturday of the U.S. Open, at the 13th hole. Then, of course, Corey Pavin only hit 35 greens in regulation. I mean, nobody's ever won a U.S. Open hitting less than half of the greens. He hit 35 greens and went on to win the U.S. Open. Topped maybe only by the scrambling of Retief Goosen on that Sunday. You can’t forget the pitch shot that he hit on the 13th hole on Sunday.
Then, of course, Brooks Koepka made one of the greatest bogeys in the history of U.S. Open golf on the 11th hole on that Sunday, off the back of the green, over the green, in no man's land, smartly hit it in the front of the bunker, and then got it up and down. It was just, perfect U.S. Open golf. It really is the ultimate test.
Scottie Scheffler will come into the U.S. Open with a great chance, I would say, to complete the career Grand Slam but, his game is off so he's provided opportunity to the other best players in the world. He's still the man to beat, but he is no longer the man that can't be beat. So, there's a great opportunity there for Rory McIlroy. There's a great opportunity there for Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, and look, the major championships have always been the ultimate test and the biggest news and the most pressure, but as long as there's this division between the PGA TOUR and LIV Golf, the major championships, I think, are even bigger because it brings all those players together and all those storylines. So, there's a lot to chew on that week, and I can't wait to do it with this team.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Brandel. We'll move it over to Paul McGinley. Paul, please go ahead.
PAUL MCGINLEY: Yeah, hi everybody. It is a links-style golf course, but with elevation. I think that's the big difference from the courses of Scotland, and I'll add in Ireland as well there too, even though Brandel didn't mention Ireland, I'll put it in (laughing).
We don't have links golf courses with that much elevation change. Normally, they're on flat pieces of ground, and there are small elevation changes, but some of the changes are quite substantial in Shinnecock. It's still ground conditions, very, very similar. The fescue grass is very, very similar. And obviously the windy conditions, very similar. So, I'm looking forward to seeing it unfold.
The reports that we're hearing already, the golf course is nice and wide. They have widened some of the fairways from 2018. Other than that, they haven't made any changes in terms of length or anything like that.
The two statistics I'll be looking at for the week will be total driving. I'm a believer in that more so than strokes gained, and that's a combination of accuracy as well as length. And with the generous fairways that range kind of 40 to 60 yards wide - which is huge wide fairways, almost double what many US Opens have been in the past - that gives an opportunity for the guy driving the ball to get a long way down there on these wide fairways, and hit a lot of fairways, and hit up to 75-80% of fairways for the week, and that will give them a huge advantage into these greens, looking in with a short iron, and being able to control the spin on it.
Then, the second thing, of course, is what Brandel just said, the short game. If you look at all the winners around there, they've got two things in common. They've got great short games - Floyd, Pavin, Goosen, Koepka - great short games, but also, they've got a gnarly attitude and I think that's the point they'll finish on. US Open champions, particularly around a test as difficult as Shinnecock, will be.
I'm presuming the wind will blow a little bit. That's so much about mentality and those four people I mentioned there, who have been ex-champions around here, they have a gnarly attitude, and I think that's what's going to be the test more than anything else – to win without your A game, to win hitting perfect shots and not getting the right result.
That's something that, obviously, Scotties's gonna have to change on. From what we saw last week, he's very much a control freak in terms of how he plays the game and you can't be a control freak around this golf course. It's not a game of exact precision, and you've got to manage your misses. So that's going to be the challenge for Scottie.
Other than that, I can chat more about other players, but in general, that's my synopsis.
MODERATOR: Awesome, thank you very much. Paul, you referenced what it takes to win a U.S. Open. Jim certainly does know what that takes as our 2003 US Open champion. So, Jim, we'll hand it over to you.
JIM FURYK: Yeah, thank you, Jamie. I guess first and foremost, thanks to my coworkers. Rich, it'll be a pleasure to work with you. I know we've known each other for a long time. It's interesting for me to kind of step onto the other side of the mic and now be part of the media. I really did enjoy working with Brandel and Paul at the Masters, albeit maybe only an hour a day here and there. I had a great appreciation for y'all as players, but now I have a greater appreciation for what you all have done for golf and behind the mic for all these years. So, it'll be fun working with you and being a rookie, in my rookie campaign here. I've got some great folks to work with.
Looking at the weather, it looks like we're looking at low 70s, pretty good weather, maybe early in the week some possible rain, but not a high percentage of rain. But, I'm seeing winds of 10 to 15, 10 to 20, possibly on Friday. I think that's going to make some things interesting around that golf course, getting the breezes up over 10 miles an hour and, as you said, that place is kind of sitting out there in the open as a links golf course so you’ve got to fight the elements.
You know, there are going to be some wider fairways from what we're hearing. That's an interesting look for the U.S. Open, something we haven't seen that much but trending in the last years, taking certain courses and widening things out.
The greens are the protection at Shinnecock. We’ve looked at two totally different golf courses in the most recent U.S. Opens in ‘04 and ‘18. In ‘04, there was a lot more rough around the greens when (Retief Goosen) won, so the up and downs probably came from a lot more out of the rough, a lot closer proximity to the green. In ‘18, when they kind of did the renovation, they enlarged the greens but a lot of the enlargements weren't really usable space, it was more runoffs to pull the ball away from the green, away from the pin, and so I think, as these guys have talked about, how critical the short game is. You're going to see a lot of short game, though, off of tight lies to elevated greens, pitching runs into hillsides, or skipping balls off of those runoffs with a little spin near the pin. It definitely takes some deft touch.
In ‘18, we saw some guys kind of almost going back and forth, actually missing. You hit a pretty good iron shot, ball ends up in a collection area, and seeing guys miss greens, whether it comes back to their feet, or they hit it over the green on the other side.
History also shows us some very difficult hole locations. In 2004 we had the seventh green, where they had to go out and water it and 3 or 4 times, groups kind of stacked up. I was out early that day. I got to witness the watering, got to witness a car accident there with, I think it was Billy Mayfair and Kevin Stadler, who had a very difficult time getting the ball in. And then, in ‘18 I remember some hole locations, that Saturday on 13, 15, and 18, kind of perched up on high spots, like at 13, and a number of folks, struggling to kind of get it in the hole.
And so, when we look at this golf course, you talked about the weather, the wind, the elements being the protection, but also some hole locations and those greens are very difficult.
I'm a little biased because I won the U.S. Open, but it definitely is probably the major championship that not only tests your physical game, I think it's the biggest test of your patience and your fortitude and your mentality and accepting that not always the greatest things are going to happen.
I never like to use the word fair but, you see folks get frustrated, you see them get upset, and you see them cost themselves strokes in the US .O.pen. There were years, and I say that plural, there were many years where I let that happen to me, all the while knowing that you couldn't win the tournament if that happened. So, it's a great test, both physically and mentally and I look forward to being there and getting to talk about it.
QUESTION: Two-part question, Paul. Bob McIntyre's performance last year, just give me your thoughts on that and his reaction. When he was waiting to see if J.J Spaun was going to beat him and also where Bob is now. Going into the Masters he was riding on the crest of a wave, and it's sort of gone awry for him a little bit since then. Just where do you think he is at the moment, Paul?
MCGINLEY: Last year was terrific. I think he's a dogged competitor. I think he's got a huge heart. There was a reason why he was played down the order in the last day of the singles in the Ryder Cup. We have a lot of belief in him. He loves the fight.
I'm a huge admirer of his game. He's swashbuckling in terms of how he plays, he's a wonderful putter, he's won on links golf courses. Obviously, growing up in Scotland, he's very familiar with the kind of conditions we're going to face here.
Where he is at the moment, I don't think he's got a golf issue going on at the moment, I think he's got life going on...as Nicklaus used to say, life gets in the way and you got to deal with it. He's just had a baby a few months ago, just before the Masters... it's not derailed him, but it's an adjustment in your life.
What happens off the course happens on it, and I think he's going through that at the moment. It’s a huge addition having your first child in particular. When you get to your second, speaking from experience, second and third, it's not as huge a change as the first one is. So, I think there's that kind of life situation going on in the background for Bob at the moment and he'll settle down, he'll figure that out, and he'll come back again. But, his form has not been what we would have expected the last 2 or 3 months, and I think that's the reason why.
QUESTION: Brandel, just your thoughts on Bob. I mean, obviously, he was riding on a crest of a wave, things were going good. Is this one of the things that happens in a career where players have that little bit tough spell where you have to grind it out and come back out the other side?
CHAMBLEE: Yeah, there's obviously ebb and flow to a career and it's just the nature of the game. You can't always be on heading into the four biggest major championships. That's the part that luck plays in winning a major championship. You've got to peak 4 times and it's hard to find out exactly how to do that. You got to be in the right frame of mind, you got to be physically right where you need to be, you have got to be technically right near where you need to be, and then you need a bit of luck.
I mean, it's a rare instance that somebody wins a U.S. Open along the way that doesn't have a bit of luck. Paul's done a great job of just sort of detailing the distractions off of the golf course, but if those affect you in a qualitative way and you start to look at his stroke scan approach numbers, and they're off. While scrambling is a huge part of who wins at Shinnecock, precision into the greens is the most important factor, so that you don't miss the greens and he's a little bit off in that regard. As Paul pointed out, he'll come back into form, and it may well be the U.S. Open. You just never know about these things, but the difference between him and everybody else at the top of the world rankings is pretty significant right now.
Q: Is Shinnecock in 2004 on Sunday the hardest golf course you've ever seen?
Furyk: One of them, absolutely. I was coming off a wrist surgery, so that was my first event back after about a three-and-a-half-month layover. What I remember distinctly on Sunday, I don't know what I shot, it was probably 81 or 79 or something like that, it wasn't good. But I remember distinctly standing over putts, 20, 25 feet uphill, and still kind of lag mentality. I mean, it was so easy to fire one four and five feet by the hole, and I just remember there was no place where I felt like you could be aggressive, and so the rounds that Retief and Phil played that day were absolutely incredible.
I can't really (remember) where I was with my game at that time. And (them) playing that golf course even earlier in the day, right? Because I didn't play late with a two o'clock tee time. I couldn't really fathom the golf they played, and some of the best golf, surely if I'm talking about some of the best rounds that I've seen throughout my career, I would probably have to include the golf they played that year.
Q: To any of you guys, do you worry that the USGA is going to wimp out because of the history at Shinnecock? I mean, are they going to be too kind?
Furyk: I'm not sure the USGA has ever been accused of, what was it? Wimping out? Is that what you said? Now, I think ultimately they always talk about trying to identify the players that are playing the best. They talk about getting the course to the edge. I mean, in a setup, a golf course, it's living and breathing, right? It's not static and so you catch a high blue sky, a little less humidity than they expected. I mean, course setup is really difficult, and when you try to get it on the edge, and you try to identify the very best players, it's going to get overboard at times.
So I think the seventh green in 04, as I mentioned, the greens that I talked about on Saturday on 18, I mean, it definitely got over the edge. I remember not trying to hit the 15th green. I just watched the group in front of me, everyone three-putted and four-putted, and I was in the fairway watching, so I looked at Fluff, and I said, ‘Well, we might as well just knock it over the green.’ And he said, ‘Excuse me?’ And I said, ‘well, we're gonna be there eventually, might as well get there as quick as we can, and shoot the best score we can.’
And so, those are the things that I think you really, we talked about earlier, where patience is so key, and you know, their heart's in the right place, and I just think that when you're trying to make it that tough, and whether even par is a target score or not, when you're trying to make the golf course that tough it's gonna get away from you once in a while. It's just that's part of it.
Lerner: If I could just jump in real quick, will they wimp out? Golf's Longest Day, we had John Bodenhamer on and Jeff Hall. This is a different group than what we had even in 2018. That was led by Mike Davis and 2004 was led by Tom Meeks. In ‘04, they deliberately starved the greens of water, and the poa has such a shallow root system, it just wilted and there was no friction.
And then in ‘18, they got the forecast wrong. They were thinking moderate winds, they got something a little bit more and they were forced to water. But I know Bodenhamer said they're going to run the greens between 11.5 and 12 and they're going to ease into the week in terms of firmness. Previously, they had tried to replicate firmer conditions, beginning with the practice rounds on Monday. They're not going to do that, so get it a little firmer each day before that first round.
I cannot imagine they're going to go over the edge. To your question, will they wimp out? The phrase they're using is, we're going to let Shinnecock be Shinnecock. So, I still think it'll be - if the winds blow and the turf is firm, then I think we get probably even par, 1-under, 2-under, as a winning score.
Furyk: Can I add to that real quick? Yes. I love hearing the 11.5, 12. I mean, green speeds are very dependent on the amount of slope on the surfaces. There aren't too many golf courses that we play on that have more slope than Shinnecock Hills, and I go back to our yardage books on tour. We used to have arrows in our yardage books up to, I think, down to 3%. Now that number is 4.5%. But you can't put hole locations on 3%, so I remember the 18th green had very little white on it. There were three tiny spots where you could put hole locations on the 18th green, as big as that green was at severe green speed. So, the reason you're seeing 11.5 and 12 is because of the severity, and so I love hearing what you said, and I think that's a great plan.
I mean, you go back to ‘04 as well. I think we set records that year for the amount of scores under par on Thursday and Friday, and then they tightened down the screws. I just remember we got some horrific weather Saturday night in ‘04, where the wind blew 30 and 40 miles an hour. It was rattling the house I rented, and I think, again, it's not static, and it's living and breathing, and it just ended up being firm and dry, but at the end of the day, Phil and Retief found a way to play well, and someone always does. You know, these are the most talented players in the world.
Q: As a player, how did you approach iconic major venues like these, where you knew you had some history and you at least hoped to play again as a major in your career?
Furyk: Yeah, I think that history that you could look back on - when they pick a new venue, it doesn't make the U.S. Open or the PGA Championship any less valuable, or a major championship any less valuable, but picking out the Oakmonts and the Shinnecocks and the Winged Foots, it has a special feeling because there is a history. You can talk about the past champions there. I think for the four of us on the panel here, it's also special for us to go and talk about that. I mean, Brandel has a great feel for the history of the game and surely he's going to have some wonderful stories to tell about Shinnecock.
I think just this call today and kind of reliving playing those two events there and what I remember, a lot of it's kind of flooding back to me now, so it's always special, for sure.
Q: Unashamedly Irish question for Paul McGinley. Paul, can you, assess the four Irish lads going next week? Obviously, Rory, not quite on his very best form, but he won the Masters without playing his very best stuff. Shane Lowry, a lot of disappointments on Sunday’s this year, but iron play seems to be pretty good. Graeme McDowell back, and Padraig Harrington, your old pal, showing at the PGA that he's still got a lot of game.
McGinley: I'm in the UK at the moment, Rory's here at the moment, he's practicing here, going over on Saturday to Shinnecock. I saw him yesterday. He's in good form, I mean, I think he hasn't played a whole lot this year. I think he's only played seven events on the PGA TOUR, which is a very, very light schedule. However, he is contending. He's there or thereabouts. I know he's not quite fully on his game. And, you know, the big change in his game so far has been the lack of fairways that he's hitting. I think he was the bottom 10% of the fairways hit at the PGA Championship, and he still finished top 10, and obviously second-last at the Masters and won. So he's finding ways of doing it. The wider fairways may suit him here, less intimidating off the tee. And I'd like to see him play more of those bullet shots, those ones he can hit 30 feet off the ground, like we saw him do at Pinehurst a couple of years ago, those fairway finders. We haven't seen him play a whole lot of those. We might see them next week with the winds that are there as well, too, and making sure he finds the fairways.
As I say, total driving is going to be a big factor around here, which is a combination of distance as well as accuracy. So, very much a factor, and what he has proved over the last few years is he's proved himself better, much, much better than he's ever been in his career, at playing difficult golf courses. He used to not have the patience to be able to do that. I think he's a lot more of a patient player now and we're seeing the consistency at the top-end of major championships in contention, in the conversation, more than he has been in the past. He's not kind of racing into backdoor top tens anymore. He's kind of in the conversation into the last round, maybe a little bit off the pace, maybe on the pace. So he's certainly a factor next week, and the wider fairways may well play into his psyche, give him a little bit more room, and take a bit of the pressure off in terms of straightness with his driver.
Moving on then, Shane’s always a great links player, we know that. He's very good in the wind. But he has not shown much form since he had that finish in the Cognizant when he was going to win that tournament, and then had a really poor finish. And, I think that's affected him psychologically. He hasn't got quite back on the horse yet. I think he will. It's just a question of getting confidence through validation of better results in order for him to do that, but he's certainly going to be a factor in these style of conditions that we're going to have.
Graeme, I don't know a whole lot about Graeme’s game. Obviously, he's playing on LIV. We know the style of player that he is, and he's pre-qualified to be in here. He's going to love it. The golf course will suit him, being from Portrush, again, he's a very good links player, hits the ball good, good chipper and putter, and a great, great competitor. So, who knows what the golfing gods have for him as he comes to the kind of the twilight of his career. And this is certainly a golf course that he'd much prefer to be playing on than Oakmont, for example, last year.
And then the last one is Padraig. I mean, we look at the finish that he had the last three holes, the jump from 25th into a really good finish at 35th I think, into a really good finish at the PGA Championship a few weeks ago. Again, a guy who's well-proven on links golf courses with two Open wins. He'll love the fact that it's probably going to be a windy, firm, fast golf course. He loves to chip and putt around the green, just like Shane does. So the skill sets are there. Can he putt well enough? You know, his putting comes in and out a little bit. Can he putt well enough? Because the rest of his game is good. I walked nine holes with him at the PGA Championship, and I said to him afterwards, I don't think I've ever seen him hit the ball as good, including when he was at his very best in winning majors. And he's still so excited about playing. So all four of them - certainly, you're not going to dismiss any of them, and they all have form and will relish the challenge that Shinnecock has with these firm, fast conditions.
Q: Jim touched on it a little bit, but the challenge of playing in a U.S. Open, where a course is going to dictate that you might very well be over par, the mental challenge of having to deal with that, when on a week-by-week basis, your goal is to be under par.
Chamblee: Sure, I think everybody resets for U.S. Opens. You know, it's not really about the score, it's about playing the best golf you can play with the conditions that you've been given under the circumstances that you're playing in. You know, one year, 16-under, I think, won at Erin Hills, and the next year, Brooks Koepka won at 1-over par. When you're out there, everybody that is playing professional golf at the highest level has sort of an innate sense of what a great round of golf is. Yeah, sure, you can look at the leaderboard and see what people are doing, but for the most part you just take what the golf course gives you, and if one- or two-over par is a good score that day, you just know it. You get out there and you get after it.
Jim's point about playing with patience, that's what a U.S. Open is about. I mean, most weeks it's about how fast you can run. At a U.S. Open, it's just about dealing with adversity, because you're going to face it from the first hole to the 18th hole. You know, your ball's going to land in the fairway, and, under ideal conditions, the fairways are going to be firmer than they are week-in and week-out. The greens are going to be firmer than they are week-in and week-out. It's great to hear from Rich that the green speeds are going to be 11.5 to 12. If I'm not mistaken, that's about a foot to a foot and a half slower than they would have been in 2018 and about a foot and a half to two feet slower than they would be at other major championships under ideal circumstances. So maybe the frustration level won't be pegged as it has been at past Shinnecock’s, but for the most part, you're out there dealing with adversity, and the best players in the world are better at that than pretty much everybody else.
Q: Afternoon, gentlemen, thank you for your time. I'll address this one mainly to Paul, but if anyone else wants to chime in, they can do. It's obviously been a great start in the major season for Europe with Rory McIlroy and Aaron Rai getting the jobs done. I know it's only halfway through, and it's hypothetical, but...
McGinley: Yeah, obviously it's been a great start from the Europeans, and a lot of wins. Look at guys like (Kris) Reitan coming off the European Tour onto the PGA Tour, and winning one of the Signature Events, as well. You know, you've had Matt Fitzpatrick as well playing well. He's one of my favorites next week, by the way. I think he's got a great skill set around there. Patrick Reed would be another one if you go away from the three favorites, who's obviously playing on the European Tour at the moment.
I mean, we've got bashed over the last couple of years, the European Tour, and yet we're still producing these high-quality players that are going and finding a feat fairly quickly on the PGA TOUR. The European Tour is a great breeding ground. We've got great golf courses, we've got big crowds, we've got sellout crowds in a number of tournaments. I'm very proud of where it is, and how they've come through the last two or three years with the addition of LIV onto the golfing scene, and the ferocious money that they were able to throw at World Golf, which was pretty much our market before. So we've done really well, obviously made a strategic decision to hitch our wagon with the PGA TOUR. I think that's proved to be the right decision over time, and it'll only gonna get better going forward.
I think we've got some good stuff coming with the PGA TOUR in the coming years. So Europe's in a great spot, and what's great about all these guys is they come back and play on the European Tour once the PGA TOUR season is over, and we very much welcomed them back. So, we're on a really strong run of form, as you say, and I think the Ryder Cup, it's no coincidence, the Ryder Cup has given everybody a real giddy-up, you know? Since Luke has come in as captain, we've reignited, because we were written off after Whistling Straits, that we weren't going to win for 10 years or whatever the case was going to be. You know, the Americans looked so strong at that stage and we had an old, tired team, but we've replenished very well, and brilliant leadership from Luke. We had a wonderful performance in Italy, and even better in Bethpage. And, you know, two of the best ever performances I've seen from a Ryder Cup team, and I think the confidence that they get, players, and I can speak from experience in that, the confidence you get as a player performing at a high level in a Ryder Cup certainly seeps into your performances, and we've seen that with major championships over the years as well from other players. So, I think that has been an ignition point, for - I'll just give you a small example of that.
If you look at, one of the things that we did in the Ryder Cup behind the scenes, the biggest thing we did going into Bethpage was getting the players ready psychologically to play away from home. That was the biggest challenge. Playing away from home is difficult. This myth that was out there that Europe were great in the Ryder Cup and America were rubbish in the Ryder Cup was a myth. It was not true if you looked at the stats. The bottom line is, both teams were great playing at home, and both teams were poorer when they were on the road.
So that's what we tried to address going into Bethpage, and the biggest thing that we found in that regard was to deal with the crowd and playing in a hostile atmosphere and all the build-up going into Bethpage was built around - this has been well documented by Luke and many people since - it was all built around the psychology of playing in a hostile environment, in a difficult environment, away from home, when the crowd is pulling against you.
And then if you look at what happened a couple of times in the PGA Tour this year, and I kind of like this, I didn't have a problem with it, when the crowd were pulling against Matt Fitzpatrick and shouting, ‘USA, USA,’ going down the stretch in the TPC, and something similar in Hilton Head, and yet he took it, and he relished that situation. He didn't curl up in a ball and kind of hide in the corner. He took it, and he relished it, and he used it to propel him on to coming second and performing really well at TPC, and then willing at Hilton Head. And I've no doubt that the preparation that went into the team, and particularly Matt was very much part of that, in terms of what we did in Bethpage, seeped through into his own career, where he's gone on to have such a brilliant season so far, and he's certainly a guy that I really do kind of fancy next week as well.
So, that's just one example of it. I don't want to talk too much about Europe with Jim on the call, but I do see a correlation and a confidence level boosted because of our performance in the last two Ryder Cups in particular.
Q: Just curious if you had a favorite qualifying story that came out of Monday. Maybe somebody just loved the angle of who they are as a person, or maybe someone you thought, hey, that guy might actually be a sleeper who could be relevant in this tournament.
Lerner: Is J.B. Holmes still playing (laughing)? JB made it. Let's see, JB. You know, I'm thinking about the high school kids, and just how young it seems to be getting. You know, we had Giuseppe Puebla and Miles Russell, No. 1 and 2 in the junior golf rankings, and they both made it through, and Miles had Tiger's kid Charlie Woods on the bag. Don't know if Charlie's gonna be caddying at Shinnecock Hills, but Miles didn't commit to that. Those two stand out. There wasn't that long-shot home run story that we got a year ago when Matt Vogt, the dentist who had grown up caddying at Oakmont, made the field, and then was given the privilege of hitting the opening tee shot back home at Oakmont. We didn't quite get that story, but, you know, there's still some good ones.
Chamblee: Yeah, my first thought was, ‘Is Charlie gonna caddy for miles at Shinnecock?’I think that would be an unbelievable story. I don't quite know why I was so engrossed in the qualifying at Eugene (laughing) I can probably think of a few reasons. But the fact that it went 9 holes in the playoff Andrew Putnam made that 40-footer, I mean, it speaks to what it means to play in the National Open. To Jim's point earlier, every one of the majors, I should say, has sort of their own flavor. But the U.S. Open, at least to me, is the ultimate test. It's intimidating. You know, I qualified, I think, for 6 of them, and my first thought was always, ‘you know, this is really cool, I'm playing in the national championship.’ But my next thought was, ‘I might just embarrass myself,’ because it's… it's such an intimidating, challenge. There were10,000-plus people that tried to qualify for it? That's pretty cool. And they're always great stories and once every two or three decades, a qualifier does something extraordinary and gives us an even better story.
Q: It’s been a strange season so far for Bryson, missing the cut at the first two majors. He's looking on AI to figure out his swing now. What do you think is wrong right now and his chances at a venue like Shinnecock?
Chamblee: His iron play hasn't been good. His short game's been atrocious. You know, we talked about this quite a bit. He's the one exception...every single other player that has gone to LIV their game has fallen off, and that's even true with Jon Rahm. I mean, Jon Rahm has played 13 majors since he went to live, and his average finish is 22nd. If you look at the 13 majors before he went to LIV, his average finish was 15th. That's not a small drop-off in your prime years. You know, trading your prime years for money, to me, is a huge mistake. With Bryson, you know, it's the opposite. It didn't seem to knock him out of his game, he didn't seem to lose any of his competitive edge. You might even argue that he got better with all the time that he could practice, because he's sort of unique in that regard, but I think we've always sort of looked at this experiment of his, even though it's ongoing, with the longer clubs as questionable around the greens. And that's what it's looked like this year. He's just been absolutely atrocious around the greens. Still drives it great. I'm a little concerned about the width of the fairways at Shinnecock. Maybe they'll be so firm that they'll play effectively smaller than that, but the width of the fairways does concern me a little bit.
Furyk: I’ll agree with what Brandel said, in that I think he's done an amazing job as staying as competitive as he stayed. I mean, he's not playing around the world, he's not playing extra events, maybe like Patrick Reed was. He's basically playing his LIV events in the four majors, yet, you know, he shows up with big, long lulls off, and has always been really, really competitive. So, obviously, this year's a little different...He’s been a big supporter of LIV and loves the team golf concept, maybe the fact that it seems like the funding's down, or maybe that's not gonna be in place next year. He's got to answer a lot of questions these days. He seems to be obviously a little bothered by that as well, and, talks about maybe not coming back to the PGA Tour could be affecting his game...then again, he might go and just tear it up at Shinnecock. We don't know. That’s the beauty of live golf, of the tournament itself, is we all want to tune in and watch these stories and see them unfold.
Chamblee: But I think Jim brings up a great point. The distraction of LIV being in flux and Bryson… You know, from what we can all sort of read between the lines, is that he's trying to figure out a way to come back to the PGA Tour, or at least that's what we're hearing through the grapevine. So, just being in flux, I think it's hurt a lot of players' games. Before people when they were considering going to LIV, we saw a number of gains just inexplicably fall off. And maybe that is the larger point of what's going on with Bryson this year, is that he's completely in a state of flux. He'd put so much in to LIV, and now it's up in flames. There’s a lot of doubt as to where he's gonna be next year. So maybe that is the larger part of it, and it's just playing out wit his short game, and his iron play is just completely off.
Lerner: I would just quickly add, you know, Bryson's not a kid anymore. I mean, not old. I think he's, what, 32? These are prime years, and I think he has to make a determination exactly what does he want. I think it's okay to want to be a YouTube giant, to, as he likes to say, to grow the game. But majors in this sport are how legacies are written, and I don't think he can afford to let too many more slip away. We’re halfway through what could be a lost season here for Bryson, so he needs to figure it out. What does he want to be? What does he want to do?
Furyk: If we all had to sit here and name the 5 most talented players in the game of golf, I mean, surely you'd throw Rory in there and Scottie, but I mean, you'd have to throw Bryson's name in there. I realize this year maybe not has been, obviously with the Masters and the PGA, at this point has not been too snappy, but he seems to find a way, and so I wouldn't hold it against him, with his talent level, that, work ethic, for him to have a good week. This could be a good venue for him. The short game around the greens, as Brandel mentioned, that'll be the key…I found it very difficult to get the ball up and down around that place in 2018, I remember that distinctly.
Q: Yeah, Hello gents. I just wonder, of all the guys playing next week without a major, who you think is, the most likely to have a good run at it.
Chamblee: I would go with Ludvig Aberg. There are a number that come to mind, Rick. Cameron Young, certainly, and Ludvig Aberg I would put at the top of that list.
Lerner: I'll throw in Tommy Fleetwood, who granted it was set up a bit easier in reaction to what happened Saturday in 2018. I'm talking about Sunday. He shot 63 in that final round, but Tommy would be another guy to look at.
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