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2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont

"Tron Carter joins me (Soly) to pop the champagne and celebrate Dustin Johnson's breakthrough at Oakmont. We talk about DJ slaying the dragon, the USGA disaster, Sergio, Lowry, Oakmont..."

1018: Previewing Oakmont

1020: U.S. Open Preview

1021: U.S. Open Happy Hour

Preview

1022: Thursday at the U.S. Open

Thursday

1023: Friday at the U.S. Open

Friday

1024: Saturday at the U.S. Open

Saturday

1025: J.J. Spaun wins the 2025 U.S. Open

Sunday

2025 U.S. Open Content

2025 - PGA Championship - Quail Hollow

1003: 2025 PGA Championship Preview

1004: PGA Champ Happy Hour

"Golf Adjacent" with Neil and Big Randy – PGA Championship

1005: NLU Live | RD 1 PGA Champ Recap 

1006: Friday at the PGA Championship

1007: Saturday at the PGA Championship

1008: Scottie Scheffler wins the PGA Championship

2025 PGA Championship Content Hub

Welcome to our hub for all of our 2025 Masters content! Here, you can find podcasts, videos, writing, and other musings about the week!

 members can sound off in the Refuge thread below!

The Masters 2025 - Zero Productivity Week

Our favorite week of the year has finally arrived! Join us as we run down news and notes, One-and-Done picks, play some trivia, answer audience questions, and more. Presented by FanDuel.

Live recording as we kick off the 2025 Masters week with our traditional preview podcast. We run down storylines and favorites, check in on some Odds, run through some questions, and more. Plus trivia, head-to-head match ups, and a lot of fun. It's Masters Week!

981: NLU Special Projects - Our Favorite Masters

For this edition of NLU Special Projects, KVV canvassed Team NLU with a simple question: which Masters tournament is your favorite and why? Some of the answers are predictable. Some will surprise you. All are deeply personal and reveal a unique connection to this golf tournament held each April in Augusta, Georgia.

Let's revisit one of our favorite KVV pieces from Masters week: The journey to golf's greatest destination comes at the risk of its greatest heartache — and even golf's best know it all too well. 

827: Soly Played Augusta National

814: Masters Deep Dives - '77, '80, '89, '11

: After all the scar tissue from going IN the water, he had to basically aim at the water on this one/ His drive on 18 - absolute seed and sets up an awesome second shot and birdie.

: Starting with second shot and then him playing it from the water.

It's such a sick angle and shows you just how much that front pin puts the fear of god into you. This was probably the highlight of his round - he got up and down for bogey.

: This was dirty from Akshay, I thought. 

Laying the face open and pulling this off was really impressive. I didn’t know Akshay had hands like this!

985: Thursday at Augusta

986: Friday at Augusta

987: Saturday at Augusta

988: Rory wins at Augusta National! 

989: NLU Presents - Sounds of the Masters

2025 Masters Content Hub

Welcome to our hub for all of our 2024 Presidents Cup content! Here, you can find podcasts, videos, writing and other musings about the week!

Got something to say? Nest members can sound off in the Refuge thread below!

Presidents Cup: Weir out here

904 - Presidents Cup Preview

902 - Presidents Cup Deep Dive

905 - Presidents Cup Happy Hour

906 - Presidents Cup Thursday

907 - Presidents Cup Friday Recap

908 - Saturday Presidents Cup Recap

909 - Sunday Presidents Cup Recap

2024 Presidents Cup Content Hub

Welcome to our hub for all of our 2024 Solheim Cup content! Here, you can find podcasts, videos, writing and other musings about the week!

2024 Solheim Cup - (Young) Hitters Only

896 - 2024 Solheim Cup Preview 

898 - Solheim Cup Happy Hour

899 - Solheim Cup Friday Live Show

900 - Solheim Cup Saturday Live Show

How attending the Solheim Cup symbolized the relationship between KVV and his daughter, Keegan. 

901 - Solheim Cup Sunday Live Show

2024 Solheim Cup Content Hub

Welcome to our hub for all of our 2024 The Open content! Here, you can find podcasts, videos, writing and other musings about the week!

Got something to say? Nest members can sound off in the refuge thread below!

152nd Open - Royal Troon

For his debut GHIN & Tonic, Cody chats Lauren Coughlin's inspiring finish at the Evian, what Scotland means to him and shares what he's been up to this summer. 

Three Things I Learned from 48 Hours in Troon

Troon, in all its simplicity, beautifully defies everything a host city of a major sporting event is expected to be — and a few other defiance-themed observations from the start of KVV's week on site. 

866 - Royal Troon Open Championships Deep Dive

868 - 2024 Open Championship Preview

869 - Open Championship Happy Hour

Royal Troon Golf Club - Soly Vs. Tron | No Laying Up Film Room

TROON — On Wednesday of the Open Championship, I walked nine holes with Bryson DeChambeau, hoping to get a little insight into his #process, and how it might conflict with the elements expected to greet him the following day.

After every shot, Bryson studies the readings on his launch monitor, and someone from his team takes a cell phone picture of the numbers. Every swing is then cataloged. Multiple shots get hit, and the process repeats. His swing coach, Dana Dahlquist, offers occasional suggestions, but for the most part, DeChambeau works through his thoughts out loud.

“How is it possible that is 1.4 right?” DeChambeau said Wednesday, watching in disgust as a drive peeled left, deep into the rough. “There is no way. No. Way.”

Maybe there is a glare on the ball that’s affecting the launch monitor, someone on his team suggested.

Maybe the temperature is messing with the readings, someone else mused.

“That wind should not affect that ball that much,” DeChambeau said, and several members of the team shrugged. DeChambeau reloaded.

The science did not support what he was feeling.

I’m not a betting man, but if that’s your vice, I would highly recommend fading DeChambeau at the Open Championship for the foreseeable future. What happened on Thursday was as predictable as the Scottish sunrise. (Which is to say: Mostly predictable.) DeChambeau, arguably the best overall player in the majors this season, looked like a glitching laptop in need of a Control + Alt + Delete reboot, particularly on the front nine. He went out in 42 and looked headed for a disastrous round before salvaging it a bit and shooting 76.

He was flummoxed by the wind change, the temperature change, and in general, the mysteries of links golf. He was even flummoxed by the English language afterward. When asked by Brendan Quinn of The Athletic if there were certain elements of links golf that were incalculable, he was quick to correct what he assumed was an error.

The Open Championship may not bring out the best in DeChambeau, but it does bring out an endlessly entertaining version of him.

“I'm going to go figure it out,” DeChambeau said. “It's something equipment-related. The golf ball is … look, I'm not at 190 ball speed, so particularly when I'm hitting driver or 3-wood, those clubs are built for around that speed, that 190 ball speed, and my 3-wood around 180, so colder, firmer conditions the golf ball is not compressing as much. So it's probably something along those lines.”

If only we could play every major championship in a simulator.

It sounds like I’m making fun of him, but his success is often predicated on never accepting that user error might have been part of the problem, and I kind of admire it. He believes if the numbers are right, the ball is going to be right. And while that goes against everything we’ve come to know about links golf, that you can remove the magic and replace it with science, that delusion might help him win a lot of majors. (Just not this one.) I want him stubbornly trying to fight the Scottish, English and Irish wind for another decade, convinced he can be the first man to defeat it.

Bryson DeChambeau in the Open Championship is a gift that I want to unwrap every year and find new ways to be surprised. He wasn’t angry this year. The two-time U.S. Open winner answered every question with a smile on his face. There will never be anything quite as entertaining as his declaration back in 2021 that his “driver sucks.” In fact, he seemed very much at peace with it all.

“That's golf, my man,” he said. “It's frustrating.”

Amen, Bryson. We can absolutely agree on that.

870 - Thursday Open Championship Live Show

871 - Friday Open Championship Live Show

The first two days at the Postage Stamp have proven plenty entertaining. And in the final major championship weekend of the year, one of golf's great par 3s deserves to be a messy plot point. 

872 - Saturday Open Championship Live Show

The Open 2024: Scenes from Xander Schauffele's Victory

Xander Schauffele is once again a major champion: Illustrating what capturing the Claret Jug meant for him, his challengers and his place in golf. 

The Open 2024: Every Reason to Get Out of Bed Early Sunday Morning

Even as we approach the final day, this Open Championship is far from over. Here's every reason why sleeping in until the final group would be a mistake. 

873 - Sunday Open Championship Live Show

2024 Open Championship Content Hub

Welcome to our hub for all of our 2024 U.S. Open content! Here, you can find podcasts, videos, writing and other musings about the week!

Got something to say? Nest members can sound off on the refuge thread below!

2024 U.S. Open @ Pinehurst No. 2

A little bit of Pinehurst, a little bit of nostalgia, a little bit of vacay: D.J. returns for a timely GHIN & Tonic. 

One decade and 37 major championships in between. How it all looked, and felt, as Rory's quest continues. 

850 - Pinehurst U.S. Open Deep Dive

852 - 2024 U.S. Open Preview

853 - 2024 U.S. Open Happy Hour

U.S. Open Pinehurst No. 2 Retrospective: 1999, 2005, 2014 | NLU Pod, Ep 850

Pinehurst No. 2 - Neil Vs. Ben

Patrick Cantlay was never here to offer anything theatrical — exactly what a major championship demands. But his lack of remarkability is what put him atop the leaderboard on Thursday. 

854 - Thursday U.S. Open Live Show

Five Observations from Friday at the U.S. Open

Missed cuts, Mickelson memories, merch: Here's five scenes from an action-packed Friday at the U.S. Open. 

855 - Friday U.S. Open Live Show

Yes, Bryson DeChambeau is back and better than ever. And his last act at Pinehurst might be his best one yet. 

856 - Saturday U.S. Open Live Show

By the Minute: The Back Nine at the 2024 U.S. Open

The tension, the heartache, the happiness: Relive every moment and the ones you didn’t see, from the back nine between Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy. 

857 - Sunday U.S. Open Live Show

2024 U.S. Open Content Hub

Welcome to our hub for all of our 2024 PGA Championship content! Here, you can find podcasts, videos, writing and other musings about the week!

Along with content on our own platforms, we're back for another Megacast with ESPN this year! We'll be broadcasting each competition day on ESPN2 and ESPN+.

 members can sound off on the Refuge thread below!

2024 PGA Championship - Valhalla & Louisville Jail

Viktor Hovland is Searching for His Old Self

Viktor Hovland has been on a manic pursuit to fix things. But the same curiosity that made him a star may be fueling his slump. 

835 - PGA Championship Preview

836 - PGA Championship Happy Hour

Previewing The PGA Championship

Happy Hour: PGA Championship

837 - Thursday PGA Championship Live Show

Live from the Kill House: PGA Championship (THU)

838 - Friday PGA Championship Live Show

Live from the Kill House: PGA Championship (FRI)

839 - Saturday PGA Championship Live Show

Live from the Kill House: PGA Championship (SAT)

Putting the 2024 PGA in writing (so we believe it later)

Xander Schauffele won his first major championship, but that was only a fraction of what happened this week at Valhalla. 

840 - Sunday PGA Championship Live Show

2024 PGA Championship Content Hub

Welcome to our hub for all of our 2024 Masters content! Here, you can find podcasts, videos, writing and other musings about the week!

members can sound off on the Refuge thread below!

The Masters 2024 - Homa House Party

There’s more to the Amari Avery story than a small snapshot of her life suggests. Instead, two years in college – something that almost didn’t happen – have redefined everything. 

The 2024 Augusta National Women’s Amateur marks the arrival of a new generation in the women’s amateur game. 

ANWA 2024: Sights and Scenes Heading Into The Final Round

Survival was on everyone's mind on cut day. Now, 35 players will have plenty to think about going into Saturday's final round. 

Bailey Shoemaker never let Lottie Woad or Augusta National scare her. Instead, she entered Saturday and found her old self: The intimidator. 

NLU Podcast, Episode 813: LPGA Match Play & ANWA Preview + Rachel Heck Interview

ANWA

The journey to golf's greatest destination comes at the risk of its greatest heartache — and even golf's best know it all too well. 

Jon Rahm wants you to know that he loved the PGA Tour. He has a lot of great memories from the years he spent playing there. He doesn’t have regrets, but he has … feelings. He’s not too proud to admit that. In the months leading up to the WM Phoenix Open, he would drive past the course fairly often, see the grandstands going up, and the weight of his decision to join LIV Golf would return to the forefront of his mind.

“Knowing that I wasn't going to be there was quite hard, right?” Rahm said Tuesday. “I still love the PGA TOUR, and I still hope everything [is for] the best, and I still hope that at some point I can compete there again.”

Rory McIlroy gave what had to have been the shortest press conference in the long and tortured history of Rory McIlroy press conferences on Tuesday. It felt like a less-than-subtle attempt to cut down on distractions but still fulfill his press obligations, McIlroy arrived three minutes ahead of his 12:30 press conference, answered seven questions and was done by 12:33. At past Masters, he’s been willing to open a door to his brain and let everyone look around inside, and the results have been mixed, so perhaps this strategy will offer better returns. He did, as he often does, get briefly philosophical.

“If I cast my mind back to 18-year-old Rory and I'm driving down Magnolia Lane for the first time, how would I feel and I think, it's just always trying to go back to being grateful and feeling incredibly lucky that you can be a part of this tournament and you get to compete in it every year,” McIlroy said.

“Thankfully, I've improved a bit since my first start here, and I feel like I've got all the tools to do well this week. But, again, to bring those tools out, I think one of the most important things is to enjoy it and smell the — I guess not the roses, the azaleas along the way.”

This is my fifth Masters, and every time I step on the property, I realize just how miserably addicted I am to my cell phone. There are some Masters traditions that I find a bit overwrought, but forcing people to actually be present and not have their face buried in a screen remains one of the best things about this place. The first hour you’re here, you feel minor waves of panic because you can’t resist patting your front and back pockets, looking for a phone you’re convinced you dropped or left behind somewhere. But eventually, it fades, and a bit of serenity washes over you. The urge to look up stats, or names, or take pictures of every little interaction disappears. You wonder why it’s so hard to untether yourself from online bullshit in your everyday life. A lot of cynics think this is the only sporting event where this would work, and maybe they’re right, maybe Masters tickets are so hard to get that people will agree to anything, but it sure does work here.


You can count Jordan Spieth as a fan. At least at the Masters.
“It's amazing,” Spieth said Tuesday. “But I also understand how advantageous cell phones are for the growth of our sport. So, it's nice for a week, but if it was every tournament, you know, we would -- our growth would be limited.


“But what's really cool about it is you just feel that everyone's very, very present. They're not focused on if they got the right shot that they're sending and maybe they don't even know where your ball went, right? And here the patrons are -- just like at the Open Championship, they're just highly educated, they're very involved, they're very present.
“So you end up having those kind of roars and stuff that may be similar but might not be, you know, with the phones out. It's very nice because you feel like everyone's there with you all the time.”

Group 5: Soly reacted: “Thorbjorn’s special exemption came with an asterisk - *has to play with Bryson

Group 7 and 8: Sneaky strong groups of flushers. Big Tex Sergio, Chris Kirk and my guy Foxy. And then Glover, Ben An, Harris English.

Group 9: Mickelson gives Finau varying degrees of legal advice on the pending litigation he’s embroiled in out in Utah with businessmen who funded his early career, while Sepp minds his own business.

Group 10: Oddly keyed in on this one, despite my ongoing beef with Canada. The more I watch Nick Taylor the more interested I am. Grouped with Henley and Joaco, two guys who should play well this week. This one punches up.

Group 11: Interesting/would watch. Min Woo Lee, No Hat Pat, Rick. The Unstable Compound juxtaposed with the Apollo-backed stability of Cantlay. Also, Rickie’s been playing some bad golf since his win in Detroit last year - weird arc going from contending at LACC and winning at Rocket Mortgage to complete his resurgence, to missing 4/9 cuts so far this year and no finishes better than 35th, and the issues seem to be 

. I’d say we’re at a crossroads, but then I remember he’s only 35.

Group 12: It’s like an addiction support group, but for putting: Hideki, Zalatoris, JT.

Group 13: V intense. Rahm, Fitz, Dunlap. Not a lot of chatter there.

Group 14: Scottie, Rory, Xander not being a feature group is so sick. I respect them for pairing the three of them up and then not hiding it a bit.

Group 15: Does Cam Smith put the hard sell on two guys who have been long-rumored for LIV, the Blow Pig and Vik? Do the 

Group 19: Vijay, Si Woo, Grillo is a case study in deep ball striking tendencies.

Group 21: Team Rose, Country Music Sensation Eric Cole, Peter Malnati is a play on the age-old “England or Alabama?” question.

Group 22: Akshay, Poston, Lowry: I’m weirdly captivated by this one, though the revelation that Akshay’s shoulder “injury” stemmed from a pickle ball debacle a few years ago makes the events of the physics appearance in the playoff on Sunday that much less palatable.

Group 26: Keegan, Pavon, Hatton. Shades of the revolutionary war. A guy from the beating heart of Colonial New England, a dyed-in-the-wool, tempestuous Englishman, and a French guy just sort of hanging around. Also, do Keegan and Hatton rue what could have been with the Ballfrogs and reminisce about their time together as teammates?

Group 28: Harman (slow; current Champion Golfer of the Year), Koepka (fast; reigning PGA Champion) and Global Superstar Tom Kim (allegedly a “Global Superstar”) just doesn’t sit right with me. This guy is getting thrown in a premium pairing that should be reserved for one of the ams or even the Blow Pig, as the reigning US Open champion. Between the pants thing at the PGA, the way he played up his ankle injury for cameras at Hoylake, and the breathless hype before, during and after Full Swing Season 2, the TK stuff feels like a bit at this point.

Group 30: DJ, Morikawa, Tommy. /would watch. And I was saddened, but not surprised, to see 

people hating on Tommy’s lilac cardigan

 today online. Could’ve been sized better, but I like the concept.

One thing about the Masters that always makes this week stand out is how much it means to every person involved. Player, family, caddie, patron, green jacket, media member, TV viewer.

My grandpa LOVED the Masters. I'm not sure we went a single Christmas without him telling stories from 1986, when he picked up a 46-year-old Jack Nicklaus on the 10th tee and followed him all the way in. He loved telling me about where he was standing for each shot, and I pored over highlight films and footage over the years to try to get a glimpse of him. He always said the best chance to see him would be when he stood on top of an electrical box behind the 17th tee, just a few minutes before he poured in another birdie and Verne gave his iconic call. I never did find him in the footage, but I took a minute on Monday and stood behind the 17th tee and thought about him standing almost in that exact spot, witnessing history that he got to tell his grandkids about.

Many years later, he temporarily gave the badge to my mom with a note that read:

"If you go to the (Memorial) tournament, take my Masters badge, and IF you see Jack standing around with nothing to do... try to have him sign it. You can tell him I started following him on the 10th hole on that Sunday afternoon in 1986 and followed him all the way in. It was the greatest sporting thrill of my life. Tell him if he signs it, it will probably be on my lapel in my casket.. if some kid doesn't take it off...!"

It sat there on his lapel in his casket as we honored him in 2016. I couldn't help but softly giggle when my mom removed it before the casket closed.

We've still got the badge, and the memory.

Stunned, Ludvig Aberg withdraws his hand from the microphone, grimacing at a room of twenty people watching him in the press room of Augusta National. He’s just hit his hand against it, deep into an explanation about the preparation for his very first Masters. He resumes his answer, and after many questions, is sure to forget those three seconds of a 20-minute press conference.

An hour before, another PGA Tour rookie can be found searching for answers, too. On Tuesday, Nick Dunlap is paired with Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns once again for a practice round. It’s the first of many this season, and he’s managed to find comfort in the duo. Though he’s three months into his job, as he walks in unison beside Burns and Scheffer on the fairway of No. 3, Dunlap’s gaze toward both resembles someone who understands just how surreal the moment is.

“He's a guy that asks a lot of really good questions,” Scheffler says.

Half-joking, he adds: “He’s in a difficult spot where he should be in college right now. He should be going to class and instead he's playing in the Masters.”

Ludvig Aberg and Nick Dunlap’s journeys have run perpendicular, but their humility parallels. Aberg ended his amateur career as the best player in the world, but played a full collegiate career. Dunlap ended his amateur career as the best player in the world, but played nearly half of a collegiate career. One had a college career’s worth of accolades earn him a PGA Tour card. The other was the first amateur since Phil Mickelson in 1991 to win on a PGA Tour exemption.

Life has changed a lot since college, but there’s a noticeable desire for most of it to remain the same.

“I think my life on the golf course has changed a lot over the last couple of months, but my life hasn't changed a ton off the golf course, which I think is really important. My personality is the same. I don't try to do anything different from what I did last year,” Aberg said.

Dunlap’s own hints are more specific to his week at Augusta National. Before his fateful victory in January, his invitation to Augusta was merited by his U.S. Amateur victory in 2023. Originally, he planned to vie for low amateur and stay in the Crow’s Nest. The 19-year-old is now a professional with changed expectations and new accommodations.

“Fortunately and unfortunately I'm in a new position and grateful to be here,” Dunlap said. “I wish they would let me pop in there for a second, but it is what it is.”

Playing in the Masters requires that they accept this brand new world; one they likely aren’t departing from any time soon.

No Laying Up

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