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What We're Watching for at OTAs | Steelers Morning Rush
Welcome to Steelers Morning Rush, our new daily short-form podcast with Alan Saunders, giving a longer perspective on a single news topic surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers or the National Football League. Today, it's what we're watching for during the first day of OTAs at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex on Tuesday. It's football in shorts, but there's still a lot that can be learned from the six days of OTAs this year, starting with attendance, the reduced schedule, and including players with things to prove from 2024, and the first look at several new additions in black and gold. So what are we watching for? Alan breaks it down. #steelers #herewego #nfl CONNECT WITH STEELERS NOW: Steelers Now: https://steelersnow.com SN on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pghsteelersnow SN on FB: https://facebook.com/steelersnow SN on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/pghsteelersnow/
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By skipping practice at OTAs for the second straight year, Lamar Jackson adds to the forfeited bonus that now exceeds one million dollars.
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Dentist carries father's memory with him into dream U.S. Open debut at Oakmont
Matt Vogt is a proud product of the Steel City. Born and raised just outside of Pittsburgh, Vogt inherited his sports fervor from his dad, Jim, who loved the Penguins and Steelers and Pirates and perhaps most of all, watching his only boy play golf. From those junior-varsity days at Strawberry Ridge Golf Course in Butler County to whatever Matt could find time for on his way to becoming a 34-year-old dentist, husband and father of a 1-year-old girl, Jim never missed a tee time. Even in recent years when Jim's declining health prevented him from physically attending his son's tournaments, there would always be several texts waiting for Matt after his round. Nice birdie! What the heck happened on 4?! Good luck tomorrow! But on April 6, those messages stopped. Jim Vogt was diagnosed with colon cancer last summer, and he was gone quickly, at age 65. 'These past couple months,' Matt Vogt said, 'I've just spent so much time praying for strength and trying to find it.' He found it in the most unlikely of places. Vogt, who now resides in Indianapolis, had never traveled to the state of Washington, let alone played golf there. But when he was scouting courses for U.S. Open final qualifying, held last Monday across the country, he knew he wanted to get away from the PGA Tour pros in Ohio and Canada, and Wine Valley Golf Club in Walla Walla, with its sprawling layout and wide fairways, looked inviting for a guy who may have Doctor of Dental Surgery tacked onto the end of his name but has also piped a long drive of 466 yards, albeit off the grid. Oh, how spot on Vogt was. A man of faith, Vogt wholeheartedly believes that we carry our loved ones with us long after they've passed, and far from home, Vogt pinned a dark-blue ribbon on his similarly colored Titleist hat and set off to make his dad proud. 'I knew I could do it,' said Vogt, who drafted off playing competitor Brady Calkins to the tune of back-to-back 68s, his 8-under total earning him medalist honors and one of two tickets, along with Calkins', to Oakmont Country Club, where he'd attended two U.S. Opens with his dad, in 2007 and 2016, and in between caddied a few years at the venerable club about a half-hour east of Pittsburgh. 'You know, Oakmont, Pittsburgh and everything there, it all means so much to me … and it took every ounce of energy in my body to not think about that all day. And I'm just so proud of staying present, staying in the moment. I feel like I'm going to wake up from a dream here in a little while and this isn't going to be real, but it is real.' And now, Matt Vogt is headed home. Vogt began caddying at Oakmont, the Henry C. Fownes masterpiece, just a few months before he joined Butler's men's golf team. Though he only competed three semesters for the Bulldogs, Vogt remained in Oakmont's caddie yard, nearly every day of every summer, until he started dental school at Indiana University-Indianapolis in 2013. 'It's just a special place,' Vogt said of Oakmont. 'I have such great memories of the membership and their guests, a lot of successful people who love and are obsessed with golf. … You walk around Oakmont as a kid, and you think about what it'd be like to play in championships there. You just kind of daydream.' Vogt never really dreamed about playing professional golf. He was realistic as a kid; he wasn't good enough, so the PGA Tour was never part of the plan. He stayed at Butler to finish his undergrad, mainly because he met his now wife, Hilary, there. After completing his doctorate, the couple remained in Indy, where in 2018, Vogt opened his own practice, the Dentists at Gateway Crossing in McCordsville. He chuckles at how he's been portrayed in recent days, as this dentist who grinds away five days a week, finds some time to hit balls after work and then somehow, qualifies for the U.S. Open. 'I want to be honest with everybody,' Vogt admits, 'I work with another dentist in my office; she's awesome, and my team is incredible.' Vogt spends two to three days in the office doing his clinical tasks. The rest of his work week includes some administrative duties, plus some consulting in which he teaches other dentists how to start or acquire their own practices. When Dr. Vogt is away competing against Scottie, Rory and Bryson in his first major championship, Dr. Maria Summers will hold the fort. 'But no matter how my U.S. Open goes, I'll be back to work the week after,' Vogt says. Vogt developed the itch to play competitive golf again during dental school. He debuted in the World Amateur Golf Ranking with a T-7 at the 2019 Indiana Open, and he's since finished third three times in the Indiana Amateur while adding a fourth-place finish at the 2022 Indiana Open. He also qualified for the U.S. Mid-Amateur two years ago, though his most proud accomplishment, at least prior to last Monday, was playing his first U.S. Amateur at Oakmont in 2021. Getting in as an alternate, Vogt earned the first tee time off Oakmont's 10th hole that first day, before storms brought torrential rains and softened up the terrain. He then proceeded to open with a quadruple-bogey 8, and his first-round 81 was 11 shots worse than playing competitor Parker Coody, though only about four strokes higher than the field average. While Vogt missed match play by six shots, he did bounce back with a second-round 68 at nearby Longue Vue. 'You play your practice round and learn that golf course, and then you step on the golf course when the tournament starts and find they've ratcheted the fairways and greens to 10s,' Vogt said. 'I was just way over my skis. I was that guy who was shooting a bazillion while Parker was legitimately trying to win the U.S. Amateur.' That U.S. Amateur also holds significance considering it was the last tournament that his dad saw him play in person. Not long after, Jim Vogt, already dealing with some minor health and mobility issues, suffered a stroke. His vision then deteriorated, and as a result, the man who'd shuttled Matt that half-hour to and from Strawberry Ridge countless times and traveled to 49 states in his lifetime had lost his ability to drive. The cancer prognosis, Matt describes, was 'very bad.' Yet, Matt's biggest fan fought long enough to hold his granddaughter, Charlotte Morgan, who was born Feb. 21. 'He was starting to suffer,' Matt Vogt recalls. 'The last couple months have been a mixture of sadness, relief that he's at peace, and kind of growing up and processing that my dad's gone and now I'm the dad for my daughter. I don't know if it's a maturity or a peace, but everything I felt last week, and what I've felt these past few months, is I'm glad he's in a better place.' Kevin O'Brien can unfortunately relate. One of Vogt's best friends and fellow mid-amateurs, O'Brien lost his father, Patrick, after a four-year cancer battle in February 2021, just months before he, too, teed it up at the 2021 U.S. Amateur outside his native Pittsburgh. In early April, O'Brien and Vogt were teaming at the Champions Cup in Houston when Vogt got the call that his dad didn't have long left. 'We played that final round with him knowing,' O'Brien said, 'and knowing what it felt like when I lost my dad, we were both emotional.' Less than three weeks after his dad's death, Vogt advanced through his local qualifier at Otter Creek in Columbus, Indiana, by a shot. Then in mid-May, he won the PGA Indianapolis Open by two. Then came the dream day in Walla Walla. If only he could read those texts. On Golf's Longest Day, O'Brien was at a mid-am tournament at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas, where Vogt would've otherwise been if not for final qualifying. When Vogt threw a dart from the waste area to a foot with just a few holes remaining, O'Brien and over a dozen other guys gathered at the bar went nuts. Once it became official and Vogt was being interviewed, the setting sun illuminating just how much Vogt's eyes were welling, O'Brien shared in the sentiment. 'It was such an amazing moment,' O'Brien said. 'I'm impressed he was even able to hold it together.' Vogt had already made plans with his family to make the trip to Oakmont as a spectator, though he'd always hoped his priorities would change. Boy, have they ever. Video of Vogt's emotional reaction last Monday evening quickly went viral, and Vogt says he's received too many interview requests to count, though any unanswered questions can be addressed during his Monday press conference at Oakmont, where he's the only qualifier with formal interview time and slotted between Dustin Johnson and Xander Schauffele. On the two-hour drive to the airport on Tuesday morning, he phoned into ESPN's Pat McAfee Show. 'Nick, one of their producers, waived his HIPAA rights in telling everybody that I was his dentist,' Vogt said. Vogt squeeze in several more phone interviews on Wednesday, including which greatly appreciated the time. Vogt plans to stay with O'Brien, who lives just minutes from Oakmont, during championship week to help take his mind off the magnitude of this moment. (They'll surely spend some time discussing Aaron Rodgers' recent signing with the Steelers.) 'Overnight, this has just become something I've never dreamed of,' Vogt said, 'so I'm trying to surround myself with the people who know me best. I'm going to do my best to soak it all in but also do what I need to do to play my best.' O'Brien believes Vogt's best can contend – straight and powerful drives; Bryson-like putting, setup and all; a greatly improved wedging ability. 'He doesn't have a hole in his game,' O'Brien said. Added Vogt: 'I'm a different player than I was in 2021; I'm a better player, I know that, but I'm also playing with the best players in the world.' The pair got in nine holes, just them and the maintenance staff, on Saturday evening and were surprised at how normal it felt. 'We've both seen Oakmont enough,' said O'Brien, who sees the Fownes gem a few times a year for the Diebold Cup, an intraclub match that includes O'Brien's Pittsburgh Field Club and often serves as the testing ground for new pins and tees. 'And once the crowds get up and the cameras are there, it will take some getting used to, but we're just going to have fun and embrace it.' Jim Vogt never forced his son, Matt, to play golf. Never gave him a golf tip, either. He just cheered him on. And though Matt Vogt can no longer hear, or read, that encouragement, he can feel it, and he's strengthened by it. He'll carry that fortitude with him to Oakmont's first tee on Thursday, and no matter what this brute of a golf course throws his way, Vogt will be determined to make his dad proud. 'I wish he was here to share in this,' said Matt Vogt, 'but I know he's always watching.'
