Pay Your Nate Bargatze Golf Bets

Nate Bargatze has been working too much to play real golf, so the only time he gets out is when the stakes are public. The American Century Championship in Tahoe is it.

He tells Rich the first two days were not good. Then he shot 80 on Sunday and beat Ray Allen. The punchline lands quickly. Ray Allen owes him money. Rich asks if that is still outstanding. Yes, Bargatze says, and Ray Allen is good. He is a plus one handicap. He gave Bargatze a bunch of strokes. Ray did not play well that weekend, maybe had something going on, but that last Sunday Bargatze flat out rocked him. He has seen Ray since, brought it up, and Ray just kind of pivots the conversation because he is a charming man. Bargatze adds that Ray still has a quick first step.

The other groups get mentioned. Bargatze played a round with Joe Buck. He played a day with Charles Barkley and Larry the Cable Guy when Barkley shot 82. That was the day Barkley pulled a string, and Bargatze assumed from the video that it bounced off the stanchion or the fans and caromed into the hole. It did not. Barkley put so much spin on it that it held. Bargatze calls the group unbelievable and says Barkley was on fire. The old tape delay swing is gone. Now it looks like Barkley is about to stop mid swing, but he does not. Bargatze remembers when the original swing had so much pause you could run and grab a sandwich before the ball got hit.

Then the best story in the segment, which is not about his own golf at all. It is about his friend, comedian Jon Crist. For Crist's birthday one year, Bargatze bought him two dozen golf balls with Crist's phone number printed on them. Standard friend gift. But then Bargatze bought four more dozen with Crist's phone number on them and gave those to two of the worst golfers he knows, who play at the worst golf courses. Because, Bargatze explains, those are the ones that are going to matter more. Those are the balls that get lost. The targets, he says, have wide open courses, no trees, and they still somehow lose their golf balls because they do not want to walk over there to get them.

The image he paints is clean. Strangers finding a ball in a backyard somewhere, calling the number, and Jon Crist picking up to explain why his number is on the side of a Titleist. Rich calls it a great gift. It is.

The segment is looser than most. Bargatze is telling stories, Rich is doing cleanup, and the Ray Allen unpaid bet hangs out there waiting to be collected.