00:00Something there, it's funny, right, with Rory, where he's had these near misses at places where, as cathedrals of golf, you want him to win so bad.
00:07You want him to win the Open Championship at St. Andrews in 22, last year at Royal County down.
00:13And then he still comes up with it down the road, but it would have been so cool to see him win there last year.
00:18Oh, 100%. And I guess what I was getting at is that his experiences last year getting into contention,
00:25and just how he's able to manage his game and his mind late on Sundays.
00:31Just give himself an opportunity to win golf tournaments so often just with how well he plays.
00:38And this event in particular just gave himself a chance on the back nine.
00:44He was two shots back. The guy in front of him, Jakim, just birdies 18.
00:47So going up to the 18th hole, he had to make an eagle.
00:50I mean, he had to make an eagle, and then he makes that putt.
00:53And if you haven't gone and watched all of the highlights and all of the videos yet, do yourself a favor.
00:58Go on Twitter. Search DP World to Raya Chopin. Search Roy McRoy.
01:02And just find every single video angle that you possibly can because it is awesome.
01:07It's probably one of the best crowd pops of the entire year.
01:11Just every single person in that place wanted that putt to go in.
01:14He was able to do it with authority, too.
01:17That ball was just whirling in with some speed right in the back of the hole.
01:20Did you see the video that Kyle posted with the father and the son?
01:24Oh, it was awesome, man.
01:25I've seen all the angles.
01:26It was incredible.
01:28It's so good.
01:28It's so good.
01:29You know, one of the other cool things he talked about was how he's kind of started to embrace the crowds.
01:38You know, for example, Port Rush.
01:40You know, how he showed up there at Port Rush and just – oh, sorry.
01:46I thought you were –
01:47No, no.
01:48Yeah.
01:48If you're watching this on YouTube or you're listening on audio and you're trying to –
01:52I thought you were giving me a big stop sign.
01:53I was like, oh.
01:54No, this is – I'm adjusting my lighting.
01:57We're in a live lighting environment right now.
02:00It totally is.
02:00And the first day to start to pick up around here.
02:02It's about me to pop in.
02:03This might be an after-party spot.
02:04I've lost the trees behind you.
02:05Yeah, it's just – this reminds me of our Sandhills episode where we started – we had five minutes of, like, the river behind us.
02:12And then it was just me and – might as well be a black drape behind me.
02:16Yes.
02:17Well, what I was saying was just that he put too much pressure on himself early in his career.
02:21Yeah.
02:21You can go back and look at Port Rush at the Irish Open.
02:23Just wasn't quite ready for it.
02:25Wanted to play well for his fans because he has more support than anybody.
02:29I mean, if you think about players that get support like a Rory McIlroy, especially when they go home.
02:34I mean, I know these guys play in front of the United States audience all the time.
02:40So you can really only probably relate it to European players.
02:43Like Aram goes back and plays in Spain or Rory goes – plays in Ireland.
02:48You know, Scotty always gets incredible crowds wherever he goes in the States.
02:52So it's – it is cool to watch these national opens for these top players to see the amount of respect and how much these guys really love playing in front of these fans.
03:03And he showed up this week, Charlie, with the green jacket on, toting it around, proud to be a Masters champion from Ireland.
03:11You know, and I think it's interesting – we didn't talk about discussing this on the front of the episode, but it all kind of ties together of the importance of these national opens.
03:20And the way that the Augusta National and the Masters have now realigned their qualification criteria alongside what the R&A has in place to award winners of these national opens.
03:30And I think it's in some ways we're looking at a professional golf landscape that is fractured between PGA Tour and Live, right, and trying to kind of figure out how do we bring that back together?
03:40How do we get these guys in majors?
03:42There's certain governing bodies that create pathways, but I think that another added piece of that, and we've discussed it on the show recently, you had a conversation with Ian Baker Finch about Australia.
03:52And just how do we – how do we create weight for national opens?
03:56And so I love that, you know, this – Rory winning this event adds a little bit of juice to that.
04:03Winners of these events getting the Masters adds juice to that.
04:05And you hope that that can become part of, you know, whatever the future pro golf calendar looks like.
04:11These things are the lifeblood of that, and these things are the way you make it global when you're actually talking about growing the game with big air quotes around it.
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