บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ Ryder Cup Format With Beer League Hockey Guys in Scottsdale

changes and four brake changes, which is great. And then we got Berkeley's backyard barbecue donating some barbecue sauce. Probably gonna do some barbecue for the dinner. So yeah, man, I got some good stuff going on, and I'm pretty I'm pretty pumped up. You know me, Carrie, everyone's like, you're never gonna be able to do it by yourself. Well, I don't know, maybe I will. I don't want to do them all by myself, you know what I mean? But at least now I get the first one, get the kinks out of the way, and then obviously hopefully. People will want to help out a little bit more and it'll be pretty cool. But I just wanted to do it for my friends. you me, I was running hockey tournaments for twenty five years. Yeah. So I did that and along the way you get help and tournaments turn out pretty good. The guest we're gonna have today, Steve. You met him from one of your tournaments. What was the one you had out at Lakeview? What did you call it? It I think it was older than dust or something. Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's right. So awesome. I love I might still have some of those pucks with your face on them. I like to smash into the net every once in a while. There you go, buddy. There you go. Drivers Eve, how you doing? How you been, man? It's been a while. So good. It's great to be back in Long Beach. I was gone for a while. Where w where did you guys go? we lived in Texas for a year and then we went back to Boston for a couple years. Nice. We needed you last night. We lost by one goal. One of my best friends ever. I was best man at his wedding. He was in town or from Boston for a conference. He was here just last night. He flew in yesterday. He's flying home today. And I haven't seen him in a couple of years. He didn't want to attend an over thirty five beer league hockey game? benders. No. Well we missed yeah. I'll be in next week. Yeah. Very cool. So what's your golf game like these days? Well I'm like restructuring my entire swing from grip to swing path to you know takeaway. why? So I was living in like the low eighties for a while and all my friends who started to golf with me started to get better than I was and I don't know, I just I was never I've never been comfortable with my swing, even though I could get it around. So I've been working on a new grip. 'Cause I used to have a really strong grip 'cause I was coming over the top and slicing it a lot. And so I was like trying to strengthen my grip to kinda combat the slice. But really it was the swing path in general. So I've been working on like a steeper back swing and trying to come inside out a little bit more. And so it's been tough. It that sounds tough. How much did you get out to golf, honestly? We're still kinda moving in. I don't get out as much as I would like to. But I need an excuse because I used to go out like and play alone and like it just I don't know, I didn't really like playing alone, so I don't know. We're trying to get a foursome together. I've been trying to get a foursome with Pete and Doc and Carrie for a while. The problem is you work every day. Pete doesn't golf in the mornings. I only golf first thing in the morning. That's it's it's hard. Yeah, that's gonna be tough. Pete doesn't wanna golf in the morning and we all wanna go golf the first tea time out. Yeah. Yeah. which is ideal. We're gonna have to I guess ditch Pete and have Berkeley drive up. Yeah, exactly. So it's funny you say that you're trying to change your swing, you're trying to do all that stuff. So I never really had a lesson but on Facebook when your phone hears you're talking about golf lessons, you start getting all this stuff. So I was like, All this guy gave you a Free hour lesson over in Carlsbad. So I go over there. And next thing this guy's changing my whole swing, my grip, everything around. And I can't hit the ball 10 yards. And I say to myself, and then I hear another guy say, look, I'm not here to try to change your grip, try to change your swing. I'm going to work with what you got. And then we'll go from there. And I was like, yeah, that's a much better way for me to go about this game. Although I am serious about it, I want it to be fun when I go out there. So I am going to work with what I got. And if I need to move my legs around, do all this stuff around, I'm fine. If I shank freaking balls, Carrie's You you lose too many balls. All right. Well, you know what? I'm having a freaking kick ass of a time. So I feel your pain. I feel your pain. But Burke, are you are you having fun when you're getting shut out by me? That is not fun. But hey, look listen, you hit you you shot seventy four this weekend, so that's that's pretty good. I've never gotten a seventies. The lowest I've ever got was eighty six or eighty seven. So but now you're gonna get now you're gonna get like seven eight strokes. Yeah. Hey, I I'm not afraid of anybody. Hey, listen, five dollars a hole, you got a par to win, and then five dollar birdies, I'm good with that. Because you ain't gonna freaking well, you beat me you yeah, you're yeah, the last time. Holy Jesus every hole after that. I have a background, but My philosophy has always been just to have fun. Yeah. even playing competitive golf, I just wanted to go out and have fun. I was golfing, my dad used to cut down clubs, you know, when I was five years old. I was hitting balls at the park across the street from our house. And then my first job was at a golf course about twenty minutes away, just outside of Boston and in Weston. So I was just picking up driving range balls from six to nine on Saturdays and Sundays. And then I started caddying for the pro there and I started playing high school golf. Eventually I was co captain of the golf team in high school. And around that time I was shooting a few over par. I think my index was probably like a four or five. I shot par for nine holes once. I was usually around thirty-eight, forty for nine holes. So did you just take a break? A long break? Actually I did,

yeah. So when I went to college, I played hockey in college and I didn't even pick up a golf club for like three years. And then I like tried off for the golf team in college and I I think I had to shoot like a forty four. I shot a forty six. So I didn't make the team senior year. But yeah, I didn't play for a long time. And during those three years I lost everything. I didn't have a swing. I didn't know where the ball was going. And I joined a men's league team right after college. So I was playing with these beer league guys and they wanted to start golfing. They didn't really play golf. And I was like, Okay, this is a good excuse to get back into it. So I've sort of been playing ever since but ever since then I've been trying to get my old swing back, which is tough to do from when I was playing every day in high school and I had a swing, I had a nice little baby draw. And then, five years later, I can't keep it on the planet. So I've started to restructure my swing. My index right now is a nineteen three, which is fine 'cause I'm having a really tough time getting off the T. So I'm playing like bogey to double bogey golf, just trying to figure out my swing. It's getting better, but I only got out three or four times this year. Yeah. So yeah, it's tough. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough to restructure the entire thing. when I can't practice it. But now that I'm back out in California, I hope to start getting out a little more. You said you came back recently from a golf trip in Arizona, which we're gonna focus on. And this is something you do yearly apparently. So tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, we just finished our twelfth year of doing a Ryder Cup style boys trip. So we do ten on ten. Twenty guys to get out there then. Yeah. So well it's so it started out it's all hockey guys. It started out just like an internal team We had eight of us. This was probably fifteen years ago. There were eight of us. We did a four on four thing. And then all these hockey guys that all grew up together in like the Marlborough, Hudson, Framingham area in Massachusetts, this other team, the Hounds, and we were the Whalers. So we had at that time it was eight Whalers and eight Booze Hounds. And the first year we did it at this place in Plymouth. So year one. It was eight on eight and we sort of have a core, I'd say fourteen to sixteen guys that just go every year. It's etched in stone. We know it's happening around September, October every year. So after a couple of years, it went from are we gonna do it to just who is gonna fill in those last few spots. So same guy organizes it all the time? Yeah. Yeah, each the each team captain has been every year, I've been every year. So it's a well oiled machine by now. We sorta have a rotation. We're not sure really where we're gonna go next year, but this was our second time in Arizona. We love the Scottsdale area. There's tons of golf courses. So each team picks we alternate years. So we chose to go to Scottsdale this year and

the other team is gonna choose where we go next year. It's gonna be either Michigan or Kiowa Island. They wanna play the ocean course. Nice. So we'll see what that's it's the same whalers against the Hounds every year. Yep. Nice. Yep. And our team captain keeps all the stats like all lifetime records like for the last twelve years. Well that's fun. You guys wear whalers shirts? Do you wear whalers shirts? We we actually had whalers shirts made the first couple of years, but now we just buy new shirts. We get one new shirt every year. So it's turned into like a five day thing. Wednesday is usually a travel day. We play eighteen Thursday, eighteen Friday, eighteen Saturday, and then travel Sunday. so yeah, so we all have matching shirts, three separate shirts, for one for each day and and shorts. So the whalers wear blue, green, and gray. And or well, we wear blue shorts, navy shorts and white shorts, depending on the shirt we're wearing, but yeah, so we all match. The same thing with the the booze red, white and blue, so they wear their team colors. But yeah, we are down eight to four. you got some work to do. You need to restructure that swing for next year. I know, but we're coming back. I was three one and one this year. I had a four footer to to be four one and I missed the four footer, so I have the my last match, so it was three one and one. So I want to get back into that format, but who which courses did you play? Scottsdale. Thursday we played Trune North Monument, which looked great on all the videos that I watched, but it was pretty dried out. So it was a little disappointing. And it was very difficult. I mean, not just for me, because I'm struggling, but a lot of our guys thought it was the the toughest of the three courses for sure. Friday we played Phoenician, which is a really fun resort course, very wide open. Country club conditions, very nice. That was really fun. We actually saw the Toronto Maple Leafs. They were they had an outing there. I assume it's cause Austin Matthews is from there. But we started our tea times at ten AM and they had their outing starting at one PM. So I kind of like almost bumped into Neilander putting on the practice screen before we hit the turn. So that was funny to see the Maple Leafs there. But yeah, that's a really nice course. Ver pretty easy, tough to lose a ball. That was our second time playing there. We played there last time we were there too. And the third course was Wico Pa Sigaro, which is world class. That's probably one of the better courses I would say in Scottsdale. If you talk to anybody who either lives there or golfs there a lot, they'll say that both the Wicopa courses are probably a must play for anybody who's going. Yeah. How much how much did it cost? Do you guys all stay in the same hotel? What like what was the cost for all that for four days, whatever? So it's each team gets their Airbnb. So Well, you guys really do this team thing. you really take that to to heart. Well well,

we're well we were talking about it this year. It's tough to find an Airbnb that sleeps twenty guys, like to have twenty separate beds. Yeah. but I think we're gonna try to put an effort in next time we do last year we did Turning Stone, which is upstate New York. It's hotel casino. So When we go up to places, resorts like that, we just get hotel rooms. But Scottsdale, it's more of an an Airbnb atmosphere. So yeah, we got ten guys staying at the house. I think that Airbnb was around seven thousand dollars total. So seven hundred bucks a guy for four nights. The golf, I think they averaged around two hundred and fifty bucks around. And I think we were just barely into peak season or right before they did all the overseating. So I Could be more or less depending on what time of the year you go in Arizona. It was about ninety five degrees each day. there was a little overcast on Thursday, so it was a little nicer. And then the flights are for a few hundred bucks round trip. You're looking sub two grand for five days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Golf, golf and lodging, fifteen hundred probably tops. Yeah. And then food and beverage. Yeah. Yeah. Not too bad. That's good for five days. That's that's actually really good. Yeah. Yeah, I'd I would highly recommend Scottsdale for anybody who's looking to get into it. And it's it's pretty casual. I mean like if you go to the ocean course at Kiawa, you can't even drive a cart. So how good of friends are you? I mean, since over twelve years, rivalry I mean, you're friendly, but a rivalry can also form a little bit some animosity, competitive animosity or no? Especially if you're staying in different places and drinking with Your your boys versus their boys kind of thing. So we've all played on hockey teams with each other our entire lives. Two of my teammates I played high school hockey with. One of them I played h college hockey with at Nichols. And a lot of these other guys all played some type of high school or college or juniors with each other. And then after competitive hockey, we all played on each other's beer league teams together. Yeah. so I can say that I'm good friends with and I could text any the probably eight or nine guys on the other team. and we actually when we stayed last time we went to Myrtle Beach, we stayed down there and we did four guys to a room. They were just big suites. so we did two guys per team in those in each suite. So we actually stayed with two guys from the other team. So I mean we're all pretty close friends anyway. So Yeah it's actually easier that way to to be more competitive 'cause you don't have to worry about hurting some guy you don't know's feelings. You know what I mean? It's easier to give it to so yeah, it's it it's it's fun. I mean, obviously we look forward to it every year. we're fortunate enough, I feel like, that the wives all the wives are okay with it. They know it's happening, and so by now it's just like, all right, where are we going this year instead of getting permission? Yeah. That's awesome. So the the format though, so you do a true rider cup, like how how will the format go over the three days? No, it's not true, Ryder Cup. So the first day we do two man best ball for eighteen holes. Okay. and that's just to, get it going, work out your swings. There's not as much pressure when, you know, can rely on your partner for the entire time. And then on day two, we do two nine hole matches. The first one is a scramble. So two man teams. It's all it's all match play. So you know, you're No, we do we don't do any stroke play, which also relieves a little bit of stress. You don't have to worry about blowing up a hole and ruining the entire day. So day two we do nine holes scramble and then nine holes all shot. yeah. Okay. Yeah, alternate shots. So yeah, you gotta choose if you want the evens or the odds and there's a good amount of strategy in that. And one of the most fun parts of the weekend is we do a blind draw at the end of day two. So day three is singles. We do two nine hole matches and we just flip the Cartners. so whaler guy one, whaler guy two against Hounds Guy One, Hounds Guy Two. And just switch it. Are you not doing strategy like, okay, they're they're putting Steve, so I'm gonna put this guy against him and then they have to put the then they snake it down? Yeah, no, we literally pick names out of a hat for the la for the final day. so we get we pick two whale two whalers or one whale out of a hat, one hounds out of a hat. And that's the first match out. And then another wheel, another hound, and that's the second match out. Okay. And then after nine holes they'll switch. now it makes sense you're three one and one because I was like, three days of golf, how's that work? Because it's it's two it's four nines and then one eighteen, the best ball. The first one is yeah, the entire day is just one match. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. That's that's super fun. I like I love it. I love it. We're lucky. Tell me about the shenanigans. Tell me about who is the shit show of both teams. The guy that's annoying, getting on everybody's nerves, he gets drunk, he's belligerent. You gotta freaking babysit the guy, you gotta get him up, he's late, he's coming there to the T buc. Who's taking too many substances? Yeah, what who how many guys you got of that just shit shows? I didn't know if we were gonna get into the running around naked on mushrooms talk, but I guess we might as well get into it. Get into it, brother. Get into it. Yeah. And he was like, not there. And another guy was like, I can get you some mushrooms. So I brought an ounce of mushrooms. and so I had I had some I had some mushrooms pretty much every night. Yeah. The second So the second night we actually our entire team went over to the Hound's house and one of our guys is a chef, so he he like made sliders and hot dogs and all that stuff, whatever. And I had you know, I had s I had some mushrooms, beers we had been drinking all day. so

I was we pretty shift faced. So I got dressed like to go out and so we were gonna just eat dinner at the playhouse and then leave and go out to the bars. But they were all in the pool when we got there. So I just went I just took all my clothes off and put them aside and went in the pool. I don't know, it's pretty tame actually. Nobody was that shocked because I think last time we were in Mobile I did the same thing except I ran out of the hotel room naked and across the parking lot to the it's like a public pool slash hot tub and it was closed so we jumped the fence and went in the hot tub. But yeah, there are probably a few guys that are on my on the my same page there and then a couple of guys who like kinda like to go to bed early. Nobody this point. Everybody knows that you have to be up and out. Teams like to get to the course a little bit early. So while that's so usually everyone's up and ready to go an hour, thirty five minutes before tea time and and on the way to the course. So getting people up and out is is not a big a deal, but We got plenty of guys who like to enjoy the extracurriculars for sure. So what I'm what I'm heard is that the whalers went over to the hounds house, took some mushrooms, got drunk, and there's half a dozen naked guys running around the neighborhood at the Airbnb. Is that what I'm hearing? Pretty close, yeah. Yeah. Pretty that's pretty good. Sounds like Berkeley's hard. I guess one thing to mention too is nobody's taking it so seriously that nobody's drinking. Everybody is drinking on the course. So while we are keeping it competitive, and the stakes. So each guy puts in a hundred bucks. Last year we were at a casino. I don't even remember what happened this year. Last year we were at a casino. So each guy puts in a hundred bucks. So you know it's twenty triple guys. So the payment is two grand. So winning theme. So last year we just put two grand on black and lost it. that's those are the stakes. You can do you can do whatever want with it. So but so we were like, you know what? Fuck it, it's a hundred bucks, whatever. So last year we just threw it on black and lost it. That would've been cool though. So every single guy, almost a couple of guys don't drink, but isn't It it's not that serious, even though it's competitive, but we're having a good time. Yeah, that's that sounds awesome. Yeah. I really don't. It sounds like Berkeley's ideal Especially so I was I think on day two, once you start to realize which way the match is gonna go, you can just kinda get after it. So by like the th third or fourth hole on the back nine, like we were just I was one sipping beers in every tea box just 'cause the matches we knew the matches were gonna end the way they were trending. And so the routine was get shit faced on the course, get back to the Airbnb. We do it like a team swim for a couple hours where we all just go in the pool and shoot the shit and, you know, eat, drink, whatever. And then either go out to the bars

or go to the other team's house. So that's that was sort of the routine every day. We would golf, go to the pool And then go out. What's bar scene like in Scottsdale? Yeah. Yeah, it's fun. Scottsdale's really fun. It's one of my favorites. We've done so we did we did like hotels at this place in Plymouth the first year. second year I think we did Turning Stone, which is a resort in upstate New York. They have three courses. One of them's a PGA course, a tune yoke. We did beach Technically I think it was Parlies Island where we did it's Caledonia and Street Blue to I think they're in the top one hundred. we went to Streamsong a few years ago, which is I've heard other people talk about that on your podcasts in the past. But it's really great there. Yeah. Street Song is world class, yeah, for sure. Reunion is another golf resort down there near closer towards like Orlando, I think. So we went there one year we've done two years in Scottsdale. So we like to get around, try new places. And everybody's from either here or Boston area mostly. Every yeah, everyone's from the Boston area. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Just outside of Boston. Yeah. Yeah. So actually most of them are coming come out to Scottsdale. That's a bigger travel for them versus somewhere in the East Coast. Yeah. Yeah, obviously. I loved that 'cause it's easy. Yeah, that's amazing. That sounds awesome. That Sounds absolutely amazing. that's the dream to get to some kind of steady state like that, Humberk. You get just a core group and you just and I love that you guys keep the lifetime stats. That that makes it so much more fun too. Yep. Yeah, I'm s I'm clawing my way back. There have been a few years early on, I barely even remember some of the courses we played because I was just buckled by the eighth hole. And actually the best golfer we have, he's plus one and a half I think and he has the best record over the last twelve years. we do play with handicaps, but he still ends up winning. I actually you do do handicap well that's good. That makes it even now. Yeah. At w yeah, so I mean everybody who plays plays regularly. So all twenty guys and the Hounds actually they have a golf league during the summer. They play every Monday night. So everyone keeps a handicap anyway. So It's easy to hold people accountable. So give us the wildest for Burkley here. Give us the wildest story over the twelve years. Or the one that makes you laugh the most. I don't know. The day we ran out to the hot tub naked from the hotel was pretty wild. We got yelled at by security. And I had to stand up and and run back naked. None of the single guys going out to the bar and and picking up cougars or anything like that. No, you know what there really isn't a lot of that. At least not on our team. Well a lot of guys are married, right? Married A lot yeah. Most most guys are married with kids. So by this time we're forty years old. So I mean there's not as much of that going on. Even ten years ago, it wasn't really

Yeah now. It's it was more about it was more about both time, you know, really getting after it with the bros than it was going out and And Carrie, even if it was something going on, you think he's gonna say it right now in front of the whole damn world guy? Come on, Carrie. Come on, buddy. We'll save that for the walker. You know what it is? I Berkeley just wants to talk to himself ten years ago. He wants someone to rehash his stories from ten to twenty years ago. I was when I was ten years ago and I was on a golf trip like that, I'd have some stories for sure. We actually we we've talked about it a lot, we wish we started this ten years before we did, so right after school when we were still in our early twenties, we wish we started doing this, but no one's got money at that time, that's the thing, right? Yeah. Well, you don't have as much money, but you also don't have as much responsibility 'cause now you don't have the wife and the kids and I don't know, half the guys were probably still living with their parents when they were twenty two years old. right after college, so who knows? Yeah. but yeah, we're we're fortunate enough to to have a a tight knit group that likes to have a good time and that we we can pretty much do whatever we want. It's fine. Yeah. Well that's awesome. How would you rate it in terms of would you run it back if lightning in a bottle? Like i i is this in the rotation for you guys, Scottsdale? It sounds like 'cause it's the second time you've been there. Scottsdale would be an easy nine. Maybe maybe nine and a half. Yeah, this it's definitely on the rotation. We'll probably do this once every four years, maybe. but yeah, definitely. I highly recommend it. We're definitely doing it again. And do you do the same courses or would you go different courses within Scottsdale? Like is it the region or is it those courses? No, it's the region. I mean, you don't have a tough time finding good courses. Actually last time we were there we played the stadium course that the waste management plays at. Mm. We they were they hadn't set up the stadium stands yet. But I mean that was just kind of like a normal course. You wouldn't think much of it. But yeah, we do different courses and if we go there, we'll probably do Weeko Pa. We did that last time we were there too. We cop is kind of like a staple because it's awesome. but yeah, different courses doesn't really matter. Very cool. Well from a sick golf trip host FOMO score, Burke, what what are you ranking this as? You know, I love everything about this because number one, it's all hockey guys. Number two, these guys have known each other for years and years and years. Definitely a good way to keep in touch with all your boys. It's kinda like what we've been doing for ice hockey, right? All the tournaments that we do. I wish I would have gotten into golf a long time ago because my life right now is more consumed. I'd probably say n ninety percent golf, ten percent hockey. I'm just kinda getting rolling back into the hockey scene. But I'm giving this a straight up eight nine, you know what I mean? Because of the history that they've got. And I Whalers is one of my favorite teams. I played for the junior Whalers growing up. So I would definitely be on the Whalers for sure. And yeah, I love it. yeah, great job that you guys are doing, man. Love it. Yeah. I love everything about it too. Core group of guys been doing it for a long time. You rotate around different locations. It's yeah, that's I think that's the dream. That's you got a good thing going there. That's awesome. Yep. For sure. All right. Steve, this was awesome. I always love reliving these stories. Thank you guys. Appreciate you coming on. Yeah, thanks so much, Steve. It good seeing you, man. I haven't seen you in a long time. Bert, why don't you close us out? Well, ladies and gentlemen, another great podcast today with my big man Steve. Man, what a great, great time that these guys are having. So look everybody, make sure you hit your like and subscribe button. We are trying to get to one million subscribers. We're almost there. I think we're two away. So make sure you get on there, hit that button. Have a great, great rest of the week, and we'll see you next time.