Smylie Kaufman and Charlie Hulme break down all the action from day one of the 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon, where Smylie is on-site broadcasting the major for NBC Sports. On a day with wind, rain and cold dominating the early wave, it was Daniel Brown who surged to the first-round lead near the conclusion of the late wave, while Smylie called the action from the booth on Peacock. SK and CH reflect on the day that Shane Lowry had sitting in solo second, a guy that Smylie loved as part of his weekly picks. Rory McIlroy's round got away from him quickly on Thursday - Smylie offers insights as the walker who was assigned to follow Rory's group. Finally, Smylie and Charlie discuss another hot start for Justin Thomas on the strength of an excellent putting performance, and whether he can sustain that momentum for the next three days.
The Smylie Show
Open Championship Day 1 Journal
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Welcome back to the smiley show and as we do for all major championships, we're doing our daily journal recap coverage and love it when those majors feature smiley coffin on the coverage. As it was today, smiley here with NBC sports on a little USA network today on a little peacock. I'm told this is cocktail coverage. Is that correct? It was at the end of the day and turned into actual legit coverage when we had Daniel Brown, maybe bringing us home and now the first round leader of the 152nd Open Championship. If you had Daniel Brown on your first round leader, cast your checks. Jane Lowry as your first round leader, you need to quit gambling forever and close all of your accounts. I feel so sorry for you. Hopefully all your friends buy you beers because that's one of the worst beats I have ever seen. Wow, smiley. You've got a little British gravitas in your voice and delivery. I mean, I love it. It's like you've been over there for a week now and your broadcasting cadence has already transformed. We got coverage, man. I'm still in the zone. Still in the zone. Daniel Brown has me hype right now, which I love it. I think, look, I obviously want to talk about. Shane is someone that you picked and had playing great this week. I want to talk about your buddy JT because this is one that I leaned a little bit too much to the data and not enough into the gut because I was feeling good vibes out of him. I want to talk that. And then of course you were with Rory the morning. My one and done pick and I guess unless he goes out and shoots a couple of low sixties rounds, I might be out of luck this week. But let's start right there with where you close the peacock coverage with Daniel Brown for people who don't know this guy, 29 year old Englishman where he came from. I mean, I don't know how much of a bio you can give for us, but I think at the very least, maybe just talk about what you saw on the broadcast and what he did well today. So we kind of have a sense of who our first round leader was at the open. So my takeaways, he plays quickly. Very, very fast player. I mean, he, he was putting before we, the other guy who tapped into like on the 18th hole. He drove the absolute crap out of the ball today. So he's in the fairway, which is why he played so well. This is a golf course. You're just not going to shoot in a par. If you're, if you're missing a ton of fairway. So that was impressive from Daniel Brown. What else I got? He putted really well, made some keypots. Nice downhill slider on 15 he made. Let's see 29 years old. He's missed six out of his last seven cuts. And he is a one time DP world tour winner. He won the English M as well. Other than that, that is probably all I got on the guy. Let's see what happens. I mean, crazier things have happened in open championships or just majors in general where, you know, unexpected guys. And it's just weird because this golf course, it feels like to me, you have to be in form. You can't fake it around and he wasn't coming into the week with any form. So we'll see what he shoots tomorrow morning. I think the late early draw seems to be a little bit better than the early late, but we'll have to see because the weather forecast looks to be similar that we saw today. Maybe a tick warmer. It was, it got pretty chilly out there for the most part out there today, especially when it was raining. But I think kind of middle of the day is when it was really difficult. Kind of that one, two, three o'clock time was pretty brutal. To your point on Daniel Brown, just looking at the stats for the day, the category has really popped in where he led the field and strokes gain off the tee. And he tied for a second and strokes gain putting. So obviously those two, he drove for show and he put it for dough. And I guess he, he drove for dough as well too. A good day off the tee and on the green for Daniel. He doesn't look like he has a ton of speed watching, watching his action. Doesn't look like he hammers it. So I do see him as a guy that probably can find some fairways. And he obviously today, but these fairways, if you are hitting them, you get an extra 40 yards. So you're saying down and downwind, it could roll 70 yards. So that's maybe a strength. If he's keeping it in the fairway, you can, you know, it's not that crazy hard from there. And I want to get into that aspect of it a little bit later when we talk about the player you covered this morning or just some club selection strategy off the tee, things like that on the weather. Cause I'm looking at the forecast right now. And it, it looks like the, the, the temperature to your point, it should feel like it's high fifties, maybe even low sixties, starting the day and that six am to seven am window. But for those first like three or four hours, the wind is going to be a little bit down. Like it should be six and 10 miles an hour and the gusts, you know, anywhere between 17 and 26 miles an hour, where it really starts gusting like crazy is 11 am. And then from then on out, it's like gusts above 30 miles per hour for the rest of the day and a steady wind in the 11 to 50 mile per hour range. And it's that same south to south, south, west wind direction that we talked about that we didn't see in the practice rounds, but then flipped and sort of the normal prevailing when you see a royal trune. So that haven't been said, you just kind of alluded to it there. We're thinking late, laterally kind of came out the winter in this draw. Yeah. It's, it's a little bit. So I mean, I wouldn't call it just this crazy difference in the draws. I think you saw players play good in both sides of it. But I think you saw some of the higher scores earlier in the day versus later in the day. Like what I just finished watching, a lot of players were still in it. I think the front nine is, was, was tough for him, but the back nine was, was pretty benign. Let's move to your boy, Shane Lowry. Well, I guess you got multiple boys we got to talk about. We're going to talk about your first boy, Shane Lowry, because you noted him as a guy you loved and wanted done this week, a guy who has, you know, extremely good long iron play. Something you felt like would be called for this week at Royal Trune. I was texting his putting coach earlier, Steven Sweeney, because I'm hoping to have him on a sports grid live show we're doing on the weekend on Saturday and Sunday from nine to 11 AM Eastern. And how about this? The guys he has this week are Shane, Colin Workawa, he has Bob McIntyre coming off a win there too. And Akshay Batilla pretty saw a little run there for Steven Sweeney. So with Shane leads the field, the strokes game putting. So that's awesome. And then 2.18 strokes gain approach, which was near the top of the field this week. Would you see out of Shane, you know, on day when a lot of guys, the elements just kind of beat him up a little bit. What does Shane do well for you that kind of kept him there near the top of leaderboard until Daniel Brown pipped him right at the end. It just looks like a typical Shane Lowry major championship around when he's got it going, you know, he's, he's so good about putting the ball in the fairway playing shots off the tee. And I think it suits his game open championships, being able to kind of change trajectories, not only off the tee with the driver, but just being able to hit it up in the air with irons, but also bring it down when he needs to and control a distance. But he's a gritty, tough player that enjoys the environments. He joked with Kara after that he lives in Florida. So it's just a typical iron one day, but but still I think he's built for these conditions and it's a golf course that I think just suits his game perfectly. Because the fairways roll out so much so the distance for the longer guys it won't be big of an advantage because the fairways are going to run into these pot bunkers so if you're, if your goal every single day is avoid the pot bunkers and give yourself opportunities from the fairway, Shane's, Shane's the type of player that can take advantage of that because he's a very accurate iron player, especially with the long irons when he gets to these par threes he's not going to be at a disadvantage that he can't hit it up in the air because he can, because he is a guy that can flush it. I talked to his manager too before the week started. He just said, this is the best form that Shane Wowery's been in since 2019 and the week in which he won. I poured rush. So good vibes from Shane. Gosh. I thought the funniest thing that he noted to Charlie listening to his interview with Kara Banks was that he felt like it was a Saturday or Sunday. That's, that's the type of support he felt like he was getting and they had to kind of settle himself in because, you know, it's only a Thursday. There's still three rounds to go, but he was already feeling the juice of, of man, just get me in contention. I think he's ready for the, to be a part of the storyline here over the next 54 holes. Man, that's fantastic. Love that you have like a fan favorite. I mean, obviously not British. She's Irish, but I mean, still the, the, the love remains similar or not the same for a guy that, you know, from that side of the pond. They like to see when and kind of to your point on form. I mean, for a guy that, you know, is, is, he's not super young, obviously. And last year, Mrs. Adam, the FedEx Cup playoffs and you're wondering what direction is he going to take it. The season he's had playing great in the Florida swing parlaying that into a nice little run of form here and putting himself in position after one round to win a major. Shane's got to be thrilled with all the work he's put in, the time he's put in the way he's playing now and definitely feels like he's built for this specific test of this week with these conditions. Cause he's gone out and done it before Royalport rush. Another Irishman that you followed around this morning, Rory McElroy. I, you know what, I kept trying to remind myself as the Rory McElroy wanted done picker. Nobody's more frustrated about the way Rory McElroy is playing than Rory McElroy is. As much as it may, it may sting for me. I'm not going to try to get too worked out about it. Here's what I want to know is. What, what felt like the issue for you this week, or I mean, not this week. I'm sorry today, because it was it, was it a club selection thing? Was it a strategy thing? Like I know he, he probably would have liked to play the postage stamp a little different. I think pulling driver on 11 and hitting it out of bounds. Probably would have liked to have that one back. What for you? What was it? Or was it an execution deal? Was he just not hitting it the way that you were a custom C. Rory McElroy hitting, hitting it. Like how did it get so far away from him today, having watched him play those 18 holes? I think he was playing in the toughest conditions. I think you got to throw that in there. He had a couple, you know, shots today that I'm sure he wants back the postage stamp making a double there. The ball is hanging up on the back of the green ends up in the bunker ends up leaving in the bunker makes a double bogey. So you have, you know, a wedge in your hand at a par three and you end up making a double. That's one that, you know, if you give them 10 balls, he's probably hitting on the green, you know, eight or nine times out of 10, you would imagine, right? So, you know, it wasn't a bad start either. It looks like he was, you know, flushing it for the most part early in the round, making a birdie up a weave. It was on the third hole to, you know, kind of get himself off to a nice start. But, yeah, it just, the, the tenth hole, which is understandable, a lot of guys were hitting the wrong club on that hole because they haven't played that hole with the down off the left breeze and it was humming so much when they got to that 10 T. It's a blind T shot. The fairways, firm and fast slopes a little away from him hit the wrong club on that T, but so did so many guys. So many players hit it through that fairway into the fast queue ends up with a pretty crappy lie. I will say too, but he had a ton of crappy breaks today and I'll run through a good amount of them on the back nine, but makes Bogey 10 11 hits a driver, which a lot of guys did. I think if anything, he's so good with this T down driver shot that it's kind of like this, you know, fairway finder, his second gear, if you will. And for a fairway in which you can't see anything, you, it's just a blind T shot. It seemed like that would have been the time to maybe hit the fairway finder instead of the high, the high bomb, which he tried to hit. And the second one, he, the provisionally hit perfectly, but, you know, just left it out a little right. The wind kind of hangs it out there next thing, you know, you're hitting three on a T and on a day in which that 11th hole was somewhat, I mean, it was driver wedge if you pulled it off, he only had 125 yards for a second shot, which is why I felt like he didn't need to sacrifice, you know, you were only talking about 10 yards, most likely, if he just kind of plays the just a little shot off that tee. But there was two high bombs, he tried to, you know, take, take on a bit of a challenge playing it more aggressively on the backside. And you heard him talk about this in Sky Sport, you didn't watch Sky Sports, but I was watching. He did interview with them after the round and he just said that he kind of got caught being a little too aggressive on the backside because he felt like, you know, trying to find a birdie here and there and it actually led him to making a bogey or two on the back, which is understandable because he had the, he had the link to, to try to take advantage of some of these holes on the back, but just, you know, walked into way too many easy bogeys on the back nine, which escalated the score from probably, you know, we're talking about two double bogeys who were already at four over and then some, some just silly bogeys on the, on the backside as well that, that escalates that round to a seven over par. It's interesting because, you know, watching a guy like Daniel Brown, like you mentioned, the guy was the longest guy in the world, but a guy that's finding those fair ways and then using the rollout to his advantage, you know, how early on do you think guys can get a feel for understanding for the way it's playing on a day? Like, do you think there should have been a point where he did audible or I guess it's tough to say, right? Hindsight's 2020, but just looking at it and realizing, hey, I can almost get it to the same place with a fair way finder or three wood, then I'm hitting it, you know, that I'm where I'm trying to hit it with my driver because the rollout I'm going to get on the ground. Yeah. And like at what point, you know, do you think a guy can register that and say, all right, let's kind of, you know, we can save the round that way rather than trying to go out and chase birdies and make some big numbers of the process, you know, if he doesn't make double bogey date, maybe some, he makes some different decisions. I think 10 you never knew how it's just a weird tee shot, but I think if there's anyone to play Monday morning quarterback on, it's just a shot at 11, you know, you could hit our off that tee and hit seven iron in the green or three would and have a nine iron. That would be the one that gets you look at because the rest of the day, I didn't mind the decisions on the back to hit driver on all the holes that he did because, you know, if he pulls off the driver, he's, he's got flip wedges in and, and really, if you can take out and eliminate one side of the course with the bunkers, especially on some of the holes on the back, you could do it. But he unfortunately hit two poles with his driver on the backside where he was trying to eliminate the left side and didn't do it and just hit good tee balls. It just ended up on a day where everything's going wrong and ended up in bad places. Yeah. And it's interesting to hear you talk about that it might still be a driver. It's just a different type of driver instead of the high bomb draw. It's like a T down cut and just kind of kind of get a feel for, you know, what he needs to get in those situations. Yeah. Especially at 11. But I mean, he pulled it off on the second one. It's just, you know, if he hits the fairway, we're probably not talking about it. But since he ended OB, you know, that I saw that ball was way up in the air and that surprised me seeing him try to hit the high bomb there. Well, it is late in trune and there's just one topic I want to cover before we get you out of here. Yes, your other boy, Justin Thomas, this is a second straight week in Scotland where he's we've seen him open with a really solid first round and specifically put the ball well. He gained a 3.1 strokes, putting he switched to that, I guess it's that that new Scotty Phantom like 9.5. I'm sure he has a prototype that's different from others, but I think I saw maybe Jordan speed through messing around with this putter and a couple of different guys who've changed to it. And it seems like he's found something there. I mean, and then, of course, his approach play was excellent today to gain 2.62 strokes approach. Of what you caught, I know you were on the course with Rory at this time, but just watch most of it. Okay, great. So, I mean, what are you seeing from him because to me, it's like this guy's one of the best win players in the world when he's on. I always go back that shot, he hit the players on that crazy wind day where he feathered in like a five-wood straight into the fan 200 yards was unbelievable. So it's like he's got all of those things and if he can roll it well, like you did today, there's no reason why he shouldn't be at the top of the leaderboard in these conditions. It's totally. And I think last week, talking with rev Matt Minister, his caddy, he just said that it was just really important to have a round in which, you know, everything went in because they haven't had that round where they just go out and just blitz it off. Of course, like they did the first round to Scottish. They felt he felt like that was a really nice turning point. He said the, you know, the ball striking got a little loose as the weekend went on. But I still think if you, if coming into the week, you could have made a case for Justin that, hey, if he, he's a guy that plays well in Winx golf courses, it hasn't really shown up in open championships, but you know, he has the creativity and the ability to play well in this type of golf at the strengths of his game. What is it? Irons. And if he's able to have a putter be able to bail him out this week, because his ball striking is going to be elite, but it's also going to put him in some interesting places at the same time because I think with Justin, what you've seen from his game recently is that there's going to be one or two loose type of shots. Are they going to be on holes that it's going to cause him a double bogey or is it going to be on a hole where he gets into a situation where he's able to, you know, craft out a shot to be able to get into a position to get up and down and make a par. And I think his week is going to be determined by the breaks that he gets because he's going to hit loose shots, but he's also going to play good enough golf with his ball striking to win this tournament. Now, I think that, that to me is a thing I'm looking out for, right is, is can he develop kind of a go to shot, you know, as this week goes on, can he get that little low cut that he can just find a fair way with, because if you give him enough opportunities with the irons and he knows his putter is good enough to make a 20 footer once a day. That's the formula for him. So just get him in the fairway, wet his iron game shine, and then you now have a putter that you know can can barely out sometimes. Yeah. I think I have this star. I was checking. I think you had 20 putts or he had 18 putts inside 20 feet today, made 16 of them. So that's pretty good stuff. You're trying to get a major. So that's his, that's his formula. Yeah. But that is his, as mentioned, very late there. Any briefly before we let you go, anything from the ABC sports coverage you want to tease tomorrow? Do you know who you have yet for your group? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm excited about kind of some of our guys we took though. I was, I had this hilarious graphic that I'll show you right now that I sent you and you and Jackson that because I had Blue Big Oberg and he shot four over some obviously upset. He was in the, in the tough draw as well. So I, I expect him to play well tomorrow. So this is no, this is nothing against Ludwig. This is just some boys in the group jacket going. So I recommend a Tony Fienau, Shane Waurie, Adam Scott all having nice days and then Ludwig Oberg. So if you can see it, it's, I don't know if he, it's probably kind of blurry, but it's it's, we'll do like a verbal meme here. It's, it's the classic, the three dragon meme and one of the dragons is the goofy googly eyed one. And that today was Ludwig Oberg. Hopefully he's the other dragon tomorrow. He's going to have a good day tomorrow. I think he'll be, I still feel confident about Ludwig this week. I, I, but I do feel really nicely about obviously Shane already spoke about him. Tony Fienau, just still feel awesome about him and Adam Scott had a great day today. How about the ox, AKA the microwave, 700% great play, Tyro Hatton, I was with him all day. He was, he's close. Honestly. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to take a little bit for some of these guys and we'll see how, how they're because they will be the late wave tomorrow. So still playing in the wind, maybe a little bit warmer, maybe a little bit less rainy. So we'll see how that pans out, but definitely, definitely have some guys. We have some horses in the race this week. So love to see it. That is all for our round one journal. We will of course be right back here tomorrow, recapping the round two action at the 152nd open championship. So we appreciate you watching and listening and we will talk to you today. Your dream of a three row SUV where everything for every passenger feels just right. Introducing the all new Infinity QX80 with available features like biometric cooling, electronic air suspension and segment first individual audio that isolates sound right to the driver's seat. Discover every just right feature in the all new QX80 at infinityusa.com 2025 QX80 is not yet available for purchase expected availability summer 2024 individual audio cannot buffer all interior sounds and you will free details. [MUSIC PLAYING]