Why Golf NEEDS Rory McIlroy to go back-to-back? | The Masters - The Sports Agents

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast. It wasn't just the masters where he would come and he would be reminded of his failures. It was every single major and that's gone now. So his menu was the most expensive that has ever been served, apparently, at something like$374 a head. He made$87 million just in one year. So he's worked so hard to host that dinner, to be in the center of that photo. a photo that he will, I'm sure, look at forever. And Tiger and Phil aren't in it.

0:37Gabby:Hello, Mark. Hi, Gabby. Excited? Very, very, very excited. Yes, I am in Augusta in a house. I don't know whose house. I haven't just wandered in. We rent a house. I've no idea whose house it is. This is the first morning. The first round starts in a little while. I've managed to work the coffee machine in a strange house so that's always a always a positive uh and i'm ready to go it's it's one of my favorite times of the year just doing this i'm so lucky not that you are not enough but we'll also have the brilliant dan rapaport who you may know as dan on golf uh from netflix's full swing series coming on as well to get a different take on things we sometimes we get a bit eurocentric yes we can we can yeah we can but you know to be fair the other way around trust me when watching a lot of coverage out here the USA get quite USA centric as well I'm sure they do um I know that this is one of your most you know coveted things that you do and the thing that you enjoy the most um up there with a few other things I'm sure oh I love doing golf on the radio it's just a joy to do but also I love this one because this is always the signal for me that we're going into a different phase of the sporting calendar so the summer is the summer is coming the grand nationals always around this time as well the football season's getting towards the business end so that excitement ratchets up it's just always that point in my diary where i think now it gets serious for a bit i think the end of the six nations is kind of like that for me which is a bit earlier in the year but i know what you mean they they they kind of signal something and hope spring we've had gorgeous weather by the way actually i haven't because i was in lisbon for the champions league it was awful but the uk has been absolutely basking in sunshine um so the big storylines obviously rory coming back after his incredible victory last year but with that stress and that pressure that he's he kind of carried around for all those years gone that's one of the storylines there's no tiger there's no phil mickelson that hasn't happened for 30 odd years so that's another storyline here and some of our younger europeans going back to being european centric some of our younger Europeans who are in good form as well.

2:50Gabby:There are so many storylines, so I can't wait to talk about it. Welcome to The Sports Agents.

3:03The Sports Agents with Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman.

3:09Gabby:So you're going to have to help me here because I haven't seen any football for 48 hours through travelling and work and whatever. So you're going to have to help. So you've seen the results. I've seen the results. Yeah, you've seen the results. I'm not doing any spoilers for anybody listening, including you. I would say that everybody feels that the Real Madrid by Munich was the best game, the best contest, if you like, of the week. I was in Lisbon and the first 45 minutes of Arsenal's performance there were, they didn't perform badly. It was just a very dull 45 minutes of football. Yeah, I mean, Sporting came out and gave it a go for about 10 minutes.

3:43But I guess they had, Arsenal's mindset must have been, we've just lost two cup games, important cup games, won a final. We have to get back to some kind of either winning way or not losing. And did it with the two substitutes, Martinelli and Havertz combined. And they have done that more than any other team in the Champions League this season, which is a testament to the strength and depth of this squad now, isn't it? And how much they've brought in, not just players, but players who can finish games. And that sounds easy, but as other clubs have worked out, it's not.

4:13Gabby:actually the strength in depth of the squad being seen as a positive on Tuesday night, because I did the game at Southampton on Saturday night and a lot of their sort of second string players played there and didn't have very good nights at all. Obviously they were not, they were knocked out by Southampton. So the fact that I think they did what was necessary, they did what they had to do in Lisbon. And again, the changes helped and coming off the bench and the squad and all of that kind of stuff. There are more positives to come out of that. Job done, home leg, into the semi. You can't, you cannot.

4:49Arsenal fans can't breathe at the moment though because coming out of the ground that night, all they're thinking about now is Bournemouth on Saturday, Saturday lunchtime, you know. And it is a nervy, tense two weeks for them, isn't it? Because they've got Manchester City at the end of this two-week period where they will have either qualified for a Champions League semi-final for the second year running, potentially beaten their main challenger and really on April the 19th could potentially say, we're champions elect or it could all go horribly wrong. So yeah, it is a big 10 days from now.

5:20Gabby:There are a couple of members of the team out here behind the scenes as well who are Arsenal fans who were already last night trying to work out where they watch Saturday because it'll be half seven kickoff here before we get to the course. They are like so nervous the whole time. I wouldn't exploit that, obviously. So we haven't mentioned Liverpool, who managed to keep a scoreline down to 2-0. Averaged about 78 % possession for PSG, but at times it was up to 82 % to 84%. Yeah, and they set up with a back five or a back three, depending on which way you look at it. So they played this very defensive game and yet looked like there was no defence at times.

5:59I mean, the drop-off from their last 16 performance against PSG last year, and then they went on to win the league, obviously, after they got knocked out. But the drop-off is just incredible, really, for this group of players.

6:12Gabby:But from what you've said, and when we were talking before we started recording, there are a lot of European teams who are just playing the more exciting football at the moment. You mentioned Real Madrid and Bayern being end-to-end. Paris Saint-Germain doing what Paris Saint-Germain did. Even Barcelona, who lost. Marcus Rashford, in the first 44 minutes before the sending off, Koubasi got sent off, the first teenagers to get sent off twice in the Champions League. And Rashford was all over them. He just did everything but score. I know it's a cliche. It looked great. And they could have been 2-3-0 up.

6:44Anyway, Barcelona are a bit of a kind of basket case, aren't they, really? They had the same stats once the sending off happened. Did they? As they did, yes. Which is incredible. It doesn't change their game plan at all.

6:55Gabby:That's the one that I don't think is necessarily over. I still think they might go there, go to Atletico and cause them a few problems. Do you know that's the first time Simeone's ever won at Camp Nou? Camp Nou, depending on how you say it. Yeah, in 18 attempts. So he did win at Montjuic when they briefly went there when they were doing the renovations, but he's never as a manager won there before. And they hadn't won there for 20 years, Atletico. Wow. I tell you what, you had a good brief impact for the Highlight Show last night, didn't you? Yeah, I've been immersed in the Champions League this week.

7:28You really have. You're telling me everything. It's brilliant. You just said, I haven't seen anything. So now you don't need to look at any clips. I sent a clip to our editor this morning of Daniel Medvedev smashing his racket on court after he'd lost six love, six love to Berrettini in the Monte Carlo Masters, which is one of those pre-French Open tournaments that, you know, they all, because obviously they don't play much on clay. And actually, Irina Sabalenka had said that they should have rage rooms. Because remember, we had this conversation about Coco Goff thinking she was around the corner smashing her racket and Sabalenka's in a rage room.

8:05No. Where they can go smash rackets. No, I'm not thinking this is going to take off. Look, if you're going to smash your racket, I want to see it.

8:16Gabby:That's part and parcel of it. That's the deal. I want to see a player losing it and smash their racket. If you're double bageled, I expect you to smash your racket. Yeah, go on. And I'd be quite disappointed if you don't. Remember Nisimova in the final at Wimbledon? yeah I you know I would if a double bagel you've got to smash your racket that's that's the deal you can see any smashing of rackets on centre court so oh god you'd never be you wouldn't be allowed back no you're not allowed that's it imagine what Annabelle Croft would say to you it would just be the wrath of Claire Boulding I mean it wouldn't be worth facing

8:56so so you are missing of course the Grand National as well while you're away oh yeah is the Grand National then the weekend after Easter or something like that is that why maybe um maybe we should get our sporting archivists have a quick look for oh we haven't got any and maybe we should look on the internet later and find out um

9:13Gabby:i didn't get i didn't get a briefing pack for the national like you did for the champions well i um this weekend um one of those kind of quirky kind of ways schedules fall i'm doing match the day on sunday and i originally was doing saturday and i got a text from our lovely kelly kate's a few few weeks ago asking me to swap over shifts would i do the saturday sunday and swap and i said yeah actually i can do no problem and obviously you're away so she's probably got a live game to do on on sunday and so i uh i said yeah no problem anyway saturday was going to be free and then um your sale rugby team have qualified for the european cup quarterfinals and so uh we're going to leinster because ruben's in the squad so he's the team so so um so yes so I'm going to the Aviva to watch Sale probably be soundly competed against.

10:04Careful. It'll be soundly competed against by, well, they are a top class act, obviously, Leinster, and Sale have been decimated with injuries and, you know, they're in a state of transition. But hey, it's a quarterfinal, isn't it? They've also signed, did you see this, Friend of the Pot?

10:19Gabby:Courtney Laws. Courtney Laws. Yeah, yeah, which has come quite, I think, left field. I got the tip off from Master Logan from training the other day when he heard, and then it was announced that 24 hours later. Thank God it was only 24 hours. Because it would have been on a podcast somewhere. You know it. By accident. Oh, sorry, Reuben. I didn't realise that was a secret. So being brought in for experience, clearly, at 37 years old. But he's really got fighting talk, Courtney Laws. He wants to be back in an England shirt as well. Yeah, it's brilliant. He's had a surjan in Brieve and absolutely loved it.

10:53And his family have loved it. But what I didn't realise was his wife, Jess, is from Cheshire. So it's a coming home for her. Her family are sales supporters. So, yeah, watch this space.

11:04Gabby:Really good. And also, so we've got Rugby Union Champions Cup quarterfinals, Challenge Cup quarterfinals in Rugby League as well, which, do you know what? I won't even get on my high horse with scheduling for that tournament. I'll just say it's the Challenge Cup quarterfinals. There you go. So a huge sporting weekend. The Premier League is back as well. and all eyes will be on the Masters. In a moment, more from Augusta ahead of this year's Masters with Full Swings, Dan Rapoport. And don't forget, you can catch up on our previous episodes, YouTube, Global Player or wherever you get your pods.

11:40So, Mark and Dan, it's very early in the morning in Augusta. I'm not at all jealous that you're about to enter what could be four days of wonderful sport. and fantastic entertainment. And if it's going to be half as good as last year's final day, then we're in for a treat. Yeah, I think the stage is set for an incredible Masters. You know, I think the weather has been so perfect so far this week. This is the least humid I can ever remember Augusta being. I think it's my eighth Masters. So it's just dry, it's sunny, and the golf course is going to be really, really firm, really bouncy. And I think it's pretty wide open, you know.

12:20If you would have looked at this Masters a month ago, two months ago, you would have said Scotty Scheffler is the prohibited favorite by far. The way he played last year, winning those two majors, starting the season with a win. But in the modern media ecosystem, a guy has three tournaments, not horrific tournaments, but tournaments where he doesn't finish in the top ten, and all of a sudden, Scotty's slumping and the tournament's wide open. So there's probably ten players who really, really like their chances. and genuinely believe that they can win this tournament, maybe even more than that.

12:54The golf course is perfect. It's going to be sunny all weekend, and it's time to get it going, yeah. It really is, Gabby.

13:00Gabby:It's as wide open a one as I can remember. The beauty of this tournament more than any other is that whilst form does play a part, if you know what you're doing here, because this is the tournament that comes back to the same place every single year, if you know what you are doing here and have won here, you are automatically going higher up in the odds or rather have lower odds because of your expertise and your knowledge because you know what you're doing. The noise around Rory McIlroy this year is very different, isn't it? And he's had a patchy year, probably you could say at best, although he says, I saw the last interview he'd done that he's had a great few weeks of practice and he feels really prepared for this and he's got that mental kind of anguish and that noise around his own head has gone because he knows what he's doing.

13:50He can enjoy this. Is there as much noise down around Rory, you know, kind of in the general golf media as there would be, say, in the UK where we're looking at him thinking, can he be one of only a handful of men to retain the Masters? Yeah, it's an interesting, there's a sort of two sides to the Rory coin, I would say this week. I mean, number one is I haven't seen him this unburdened in a really, really long time. Because everyone talks about the chase for the career grand slam and how enormous that was for him and for the sport. It wasn't just winning the Masters. It was just winning another major, period.

14:29It wasn't just the Masters where he would come and he would be reminded of his failures. It was every single major. And that's gone now. So it's all gravy for him at this point in his career. And you could see just in his sort of comportment in his press conference and yesterday when he was at the par three contest, he just seems like there's a massive weight that's been lifted off his shoulders. And we know that Rory McIlroy seems to play his best golf when he's sort of free flowing and almost kid like. And I think he'll be much more in that sort of headspace than he would have been last year or any of the 10 years prior to that.

15:06The other side of the coin is his form last year coming into this was so good. He'd already won the Players' Championship. He'd already won at Pebble Beach. And he was solid throughout the West Coast here in the early part of the year. But there was a significant bump in the road with that. He had to withdraw from Bay Hill, and then he kind of didn't do anything at the Players'. I was a little bit surprised that he didn't play one of the two Texas events just to try to get some reps in. So, you know, I would have liked to have seen a little bit more from him in the lead up to this tournament to believe that he's a serious, serious contender to repeat.

15:46And no one's done it since Tiger Woods in 2001 and 2002. So it's very hard to repeat at the Masters. You know, it's an emotional week. He's back here. He was here on Saturday. He went to the ANWA. He did the drive, chip, and putt on Sunday, Champions Dinner on Tuesday. So, I don't, I mean, look, he's Rory McIlroy. he absolutely could shoot 66 today wouldn't surprise anybody um but i just would have liked to seen a little bit more on the golf course in the lead up the thing with mackleroy now is and

16:16Gabby:maybe dan can't talk about this because of his netflix allegiances but me and gabby can because the the rory mackleroy documentary is on amazon prime so you could definitely talk about it um have you watched it it's it's fantastic it is so good it really really is and for years and years and we do this in all sorts of sports, Gabby, you know, you ask people, you know, about how they cope with this thing mentally or that thing mentally, or how do they cope with this failure, or how do they, you know, recover from this. And more often than not, they try and bat it off. And you sort of think, well, all right, maybe they are just dealing with it very well, and so on and so forth.

16:51Gabby:And there's a line with McElroy in that documentary, because of what happened in back in 2011 every time i was playing i was waiting for something to go wrong but i think to to now not have in your head oh this is where it goes wrong oh it hasn't gone wrong yet this is where i will duff it into raise whatever it may be i think that's the difference not oh i can i can die happy i've won everything my takeaway from watching that documentary was it went wrong so many times even in that final round. Yes. I couldn't. I mean, I remembered it, but, you know, he gets off to this and double bogeys. Terrible stuff.

17:32Terrible. Double bogeys the first hole. Bryson catches him right away. Then he plays this incredible next sort of eight holes to get way ahead, you know, and then disaster on the 13th, right? Then he hits this incredible shot on 15, misses the putt. Then he hits this incredible shot into 17, makes birdie, dumps a gap wedge into it's almost like he tried to to have it go wrong so many times and he still won so now you're right it's it's got to be a completely different feeling being back here on the dinner a lot is always made of that what the menu is um the thing i read yesterday i hadn't realized they pay for it themselves oh yeah so so his menu was the most expensive that has ever been served apparently at something like 374 a head yeah i saw a post yesterday though that he He made$87 million just in one year.

18:24So I'm not worried about... I'm sure we can write it off with tax as well. I'm not worried about, you know, and Rory's also, you know, off the golf course has made incredible investments. He had this investment in this thing called Let's Get Checked, which was like sending medical tests to your front door, you know, which seems like, oh, that's a good idea. Then COVID happens and it like explodes. becomes a massive massive business so that was pre-covid he did that yes and and he had um he's one of the first investors in whoop you know the the wearable was he yeah and it's yeah you got one on and so does everybody else in the entire crowd at augustan national so i'm not i'm not too worried

19:05Gabby:about him paying for that dinner he's basically gone a bit cheap then gabby he could have gone he could have gone 200 ahead well the thing that was made about the actual content of the menu was how eclectic it was and um he got a little bit of stick from some of the irish press saying it could be more Irish. Maybe there wasn't enough soda bread. And, um, yeah, what was it called? Skink? Uh, that soup. Yeah. It's like a kind of fish soup. Um, I'm going to just Google it and make sure I get the right name. Anyway, none of that was on there. I'd not offend a whole country. There was, yeah, there was sushi and sashimi and various other things on there.

19:37There was peach and ricotta flatbread. Was, is that, is that nice? It was very eclectic. And he said, I wanted to have a meal I actually enjoyed. So fair enough. It's, you know, it's your, it's your meal, isn't it? I don't know if anybody else enjoyed it. Um, but there were a couple of missing members of that elite group, obviously. Um, and you know, he did make reference to that, Dan, didn't he? That Tiger Woods in particular, obviously was the, the one who has recently had his trials, tribulations and troubles. Not just Tiger, but Phil. I mean, if you think about the family issues with Phil Mickelson.

20:12Yeah, it seems to be that way. There's some stuff, you know, kind of rumors that going around, you don't know what's true or what's not true. But, you know, if you think about the three greatest major champions in the last 30 years, you'd say Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy. and you know Rory completes the career grand slam after so long he's worked so hard to host that dinner he's worked so hard to be in the center of that photo a photo that he will I'm sure have blown up and put in his house and look at forever and Tiger and Phil aren't in it you know it sort of didn't really hit me until I saw the photo it it feels incomplete without those two And that's not an excuse for Tiger's behavior.

20:59That's not saying they should be here, they should be playing. It's just a really unfortunate situation and kind of amazing when you zoom out that two of the three greatest major champions of the last 30 years have had their reputations, have had their narratives. Legacies. I think that's the best word. Completely derailed by scandal, by, you know, tragedy. And it does sort of highlight, you know, for all of Rory's, you talked about, you know, a controversy with Rory McIlroy is when he makes a joke about not having Irish food at his dinner. You know, it's not the same sort of scale as what Tiger and Phil have both gone through.

21:44So, I mean, Tiger's won the Masters five times, Phil won it three times. So you cannot tell the history of Augusta National, and certainly not in the last 30 years without those two men. This is the first time without either of them for? Since the year I was born, 1994. Okay, that's depressing in so many different ways, Dan, you would have no idea. Cole Cannon, apparently, nothing like skink. Cole Cannon is the name of a traditional Irish soup that has cabbage and potato in it. And I don't blame him for not actually putting that on the menu. Not that it's not gorgeous, but there's plenty more foods in the sea.

22:18Gabby:He will have such support this week because he is the champion, because he is Rory, because the other two aren't here, actually. I mean, that's another thing. It'll be interesting for the Europeans, I think, Gabby, this week. I think there are lots of Europeans who have a chance. Fitzpatrick has a chance. And McIntyre has a chance. Ludwig Herbert has had very good tournaments recently up until the final round when it's then gone all over the place for him. and the other interesting thing in all of this and we haven't we haven't mentioned live at all but but live for so long which nobody really knew how to judge has changed this year from being 54 hole tournaments to going back to 72 hole tournaments and in that bryson de chambeau and john rahm have dominated haven't they dan really now it's gone back up to to 72 holes and Rahm is a former champion.