Fore Play at Bethpage for the PGA Championship, a full recap
Bethpage Black is the people’s country club and, for us, it’s the closest thing to our country club. It’s as good a golf course as you’ll find in the country and, if you’re a New York resident, it’s $75 on the weekend. Frankie grew up playing hundreds of rounds there. The rest of us, living in the city, have taken the 45-minute train out many, many times to tee it at the Black.
A major championship coming to Bethpage was huge for us. We’ve been talking about it for years — so we requested Barstool let us spend the whole week out there. Monday through Sunday. We convinced the PGA of America to credential us, to give us a cool booth, and to allow us access to mix it up with the players and to do our thing. They happily obliged.
We think it went pretty well. By my count, conservatively speaking, Fore Play generated over 5.4 million views on original videos across social media.
Monday
Upon arrival, we went to grab our media packet and there was a little gift in Frankie’s from the PGA of America.
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Not 5 minutes later the first player we saw was Bryson DeChambeau, a guy we’ve BATTLED over on the show dozens of times. A guy who buried Frankie on the podcast in November. A guy who Frankie and Trent had never met in person, despite Bryson tagging Frankie on IG 5 times a day.
Tuesday
We had Brooks Koepka on the pod, who may be the only person who had a better week than we did. Don’t think anyone in the history of golf has ever said majors are easy and then gone out and made a major look super fucking easy. At the Black, no less.
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Tuesday morning we decided to hang around the parking lot as players arrived. What we got was pure gold.
Later we sat down in our cool driving range booth with PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh, whose name we outrageously butchered on the podcast. Frankie called a burnt cookie
Oh, and we hat a front row seat to a guy named Tiger Woods (2019 Masters champ) going through the bag on the range.
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Tuesday night was Borrelli’s night. First, we shared fine Italian dining with Kiz, his caddie Dewey, and Charley Hoffman.
Then we shared scotch and podcasted with Sir Nick.
Wednesday
We published a video of the Fore Play crew playing all 18 holes at the Black, complete with our final scores. It’s one of the longer videos we’ve put out but if you’re a golf fan, it’s a great watch. The Black ripping up a bunch of weekend golfers will never not be entertaining. Shoutout Trent tracking every single stroke (also, don’t think he lost a golf ball, which is just amazing).
On Wednesday morning Trent Daddy and I walked inside the ropes for a front-nine practice round with Kiz, Patton Kizzire, and New Zealander Ryan Fox. They would all miss the cut.
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Then we caught up for a few with Kevin Millar at our cool booth. What a beauty that guy is.
The PMT guys had Brooks on too. Guy is all over Barstool. That’s gucci brah.
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Then came perhaps the best part of the week…
Bryson DeChambeau gave Frankie a chipping lesson… on the driving range… in front of a crowd… at Bethpage Black… the night before a major.
TopTracer was all over those wedge shots.
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Bryson came over after, as we were podcasting, and offered a little more on the entire experience.
He too would go on to miss the cut.
Thursday
We posted our podcast with Sir Nick Faldo and the special cameo from Bryson.
Did I mention our cool booth?
Then we headed out to soak up some golf.
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Trent captured a HEATED altercation between a camera man and Doug Ferguson.
Here’s Kiz rolling to the first tee as serious as ever.
Trent pointing up a storm and — smartly — rocking golf shoes.
Our MLB Network debut.
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Friday
We flipped the script on CBS reporter Amanda Balionis and interviewed her on the practice green. With a fake mic not hooked up to anything.
Tiger’s team casually thanked the boys for their service. You’re welcome.
Trent caught JD in his cart.
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And we were locked in on The Boss Man.
He, too, would miss the cut, but everyone had themselves a good time out there.
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Saturday
Brooks was locked in, and by locked in I mean appearing to care so little that he was showing the boys some love mid-round.
Then we met Jordan Spettttthhhhhh for the first time. Nice dude.
Sunday
Quick little detour here. I got Bubba Watson’s caddie Ted Scott out at Winged Foot because I’m a nice guy and like doing nice things for people. And Ted Scott is a GREAT dude. Quite rudely, some guy who Google describes as an “influential golf writer” decided to take a hard turn to negative town so I roasted him.
We hung with Tom Rinaldi inside the ropes. Really good guy; real-life Tom Rinaldi sounds even more like Tom Rinaldi than TV Tom Rinaldi.
And learned we have a lot to learn.
As things wrapped up, we walked where Brooks walked.
And hung around just long enough afterwards to creepily stare at Brooks as he walked across the practice green.
Before heading out, we snagged a totally not awkward exchange with HVIII. He’s honestly the absolute man. Love that dude.
Thank You
Big shoutout to all the Stoolies. You guys rock.
Next up, Pebble.