What did you learn from a, an interesting week with a really colorful winner and also one side storyline that r- that, that threatened to take over the whole championship?

Yeah.

Uh, just loved it.

Loved the golf course.

Uh, was first there in '91.

G- had a chance to play it.

And, uh, you know, w- when they came with the, the name Open, they really had Birkdale in mind because it's windswept, it's open.

Yeah

What was it like being at Sports Illustrated and being on the side of the table of journalism, watching Tiger's arrival and ascension in the game? What was it like from your side of the desk as a journalist?

Incredible.

So Tiger, you know, as most of your listeners would know, he's won 15 majors.

I've covered 14 of them.

He won three Am's.

I covered one of them.

And, uh, he was 19 when I first started covering him.

How do you feel about it personally, about the game and its role in your life?

[laughs]

Uh, yeah, you teed it up.

You know, these press conferences, you know, th- that particular one was sort of m- morning and Rory sort of rolled out of bed the way he looked, and there's, uh, lots of other things going in his life.

You know he's gonna respond in a sort of a goofy way, but really with intent.

I followed up your question with one to Rory.

Just very briefly, Gary, uh, uh, for the audience, would, which wouldn't necessarily know about, I'm sure.

Uh, my idea is make the PGA Championship the first major of the year.

What did he like most about the tour toward the end of his life?

Yeah.

Different spelling.

Now, I've played all over.

I've been lucky enough to play a lot of golf in England, Scotland, a little bit in Wales, and, uh, uh, that Rai Golf Club, uh, uh, they got a beautiful, beautiful golf course there.

But anyway, I digress.

Um, uh, Aaron Rai's thing was, uh, pure love of game, not a bro golfer, like the opposite of the bro golfer, and, uh, very self-contained.

Uh, making decisions, of course everyone knows now about the iron covers and the two black gloves, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, mid-1980s.

Uh, the movie Trading Places.

For anybody who hasn't seen it, absolutely mandatory must-see movie.

So the joke here would be that Duke and Duke, these two old-time commodities, uh, traders, would definitely belong at Merion, because, like, why wouldn't you belong at Merion if you could? But they would play their golf at a place called Gulph, G-U-L-P-H, Mills, which is this really old-timey, very quaint, very charming Donald Ross course sort of in the middle of nowhere.

But you know you're at Gulph Mills because when you walk into this very charming, cottagey kind of clubhouse, there's a letter on the wall, and the letter is from Bob Jones, his, him, his own self to the membership saying, "I've got a train going down to Augusta, Georgia to check out, if you wanna check out my new golf course and think about joining, come along." You know, and then he's gonna get everybody liquored up, and they're gonna write their checks for $100 and show up in Augusta National.

No.

No. They're just ...

Yes.

I, I don't th- I don't think maybe in any athletic life we've ever seen anybody who had the hyper-competitive gene as Tiger Woods did.

Maybe Secretariat did, but, you know, tough to interview Secretariat.

But to me, one of the most telling things that was just like a little comedy made, uh, uh, when he, he was being interviewed by Charlie Rose on PBS, so, like, not a likely p- not a likely place to see Tiger talk about golf in the first place.

And Tiger said, you know, "You know, it's great to win.

It's great to li- win by, by one..." I'm paraphrasing.

"Great to win by one or two, but I'd much rather win by five or six." And I, like, I don't even think that thought ever occurred to, to Nicklaus and Palmer and, and, and other golfers of that generation.

[laughs]