Fairway Rollin' - Discussing all the LIV Golf News and Early U.S. Open Story Lines With Kyle Porter

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

House and Hubbard are joined by CBS Sports writer Kyle Porter and they start by giving props to Minjee Lee and Billy Horschel for their victories at the U.S. Open and the Memorial. Then they get into all the news surrounding the upcoming LIV Golf league tournament in London (8:38). They wrap up with some early U.S. Open story lines (44:40) and briefly preview the RBC Canadian Open (55:40). Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Guest: Kyle Porter Producer: Kaya McMullen Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. We're not just reacting to the NBA playoffs on my podcast. We're also doing it on the Ringer NBA show and the Mismatch podcast. They are coming after some of these NBA playoff games. Check it out, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights on the Ringer podcast Network. Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf podcast. Unlike any other. Oh, yes.

We are back. This is Fairway Road. A golf podcast on the Ringer podcast. podcast network. I am your starter. Joe House, my birdie buddies, my eagle enthusiasts, my par-saving pals. What a week in professional golf and a week in unprofessional golf. We can't wait to dive right in. We have a terrific three ball headed to the T as we speak. Of course, our PGA tour correspondent on the ground, Nathan Hubbard is along for the ride. And a first time, long time, a guy we've admired for a super long time from CBS sports.

Kyle Porter is along for the ride. Let's throw a peg in the ground and get this jam going. All right. Kyle Porter, senior writer for CBS Sports, co-hosts of the first cut podcast, really an elder statesman on golf Twitter. Welcome to Fairway Rolling Boy. Yeah. I appreciate you guys having me.

You saved me for like the busiest week of the golf year so far. I appreciate you leaving leaving the closer in the bullpen until we got the lead. So there we go. There we go. Nate Dog, how you feeling? I feel like all of these team names sound better if you put the word donkey in front of them. Donkey Punch.

Donkey smash. I will say one of the bits of feedback that we received after last week's show was please use less fart noises when you talk about, you know, the Jared Kushner tour. Okay. So we're going to try our best to, you know, honor the requests of our faithful audience. And, you know, one of the things that's a challenge today, guys, is we usually begin this show with, you know, some accolades, some kudos to the previous week's winners.

And there were some incredible stories over this weekend. The women's U.S. Open down at Pine Needles, Minji Lee just dominates the place, you know, puts herself at the very top of the world stage. women's golf. The Ingrid Lynn, Lynn Blad's performance was unbelievable. The amateur from, she's from LSU, right, Kyle? That's right. Yeah. So, like we want to, and Billy Ho-ho,

wonderful job by Billy, you know, at the memorial, definitely a guy. One of the things we talked about, Kyle, was who can we imagine walking up and shaking Jack's hand at the end? And we went through a list of folks. Somehow we left Billy Ho-ho off, but boy, did he deserve it?

Especially. You're right about Max and Meadow's top 20 though. So we did get those correct. That's true. And we got some thanks from some folks out there on those points. But so let's just go ahead and make sure that we give some credit where credits do before we go over to nonsense land. Kyle, for that U.S. Women's Open, you covered it quite a bit. Try and help us understand historically how Minji Lee's performance kind of ranks from your perspective. Yeah, I think the two things that summed up for me, or she she took the few of strokes ever in a U.S. Women's Open, and she made the most money ever in a women's golf tournament. So it was actually...

She seemed unfazed by that pressure, didn't she? It was extraordinary, and people were pointing this out. I mean, I think part of it is the juxtaposition of we saw... We saw seven-stroke comeback from Justin Thomas at the PGA. We saw it with Sam Burns at Colonial. And then, so you're kind of going into it with that momentum. and then like the opposite happens. The lead on Sunday was never in doubt.

She didn't four put 18 like Sheffler at the Masters. She did miss a butt on 18 and it reminded me of Sheffler at the Masters. But she she eventually made a bogey and set the scoring record. And it was a phenomenal performance. Her second major win in her last, I think it was four major championship starts. And, you know, even though she was the number four ranked player in the world,

I think her trajectory is definitely. upward. So it was fun to watch, even though it was kind of a ballout. It feels like there's momentum in the women's game right now. How do we measure it outside of purse volumes and ratings? Do you feel that? There's just more chatter in the golf, Twitter world. Podcasts are picking it up. People, you know, there's more crossover with the males sport. Like, how do you measure success here? Well, I don't know how you measure it. I definitely agree with it. And I think some of it is because, again, you're comparing it to what else we're going to talk about today,

which is this fracturing of the sort of PGA tour. Yeah, the PJA tour regular season, as it were. You know, if you're looking at the PGATR regular season and it's on the men's side and it's completely fracturing as we speak, it seems like the women's side is actually becoming more streamlined. And I think there's more, like that's compelling, right? Like, I don't want to have to cover and watch and think about 28 different things.

on the men's side, when I can just watch the women's side and have all the stars in the world in one place. So I don't know if there's a great way to measure that. I think subjectively, I'm more into women's golf now than I was when I started this job. And that's because of stuff like the U.S. Women's Open purse growing. It's because of stuff like the knowing up guys making a documentary on the Stanford women's team. There's just, I think a lot of that is good momentum forward for,

for, you know, even introducing my kids to like the women's golf, which is to them super intriguing. It feels a lot more like growing the game than the donkey fireballs, doesn't it has? Yeah, that's for sure the case. Nate, now I don't want to give us full credit, but anytime there is like a little bit of a fairway roll and bump, I'd like to call it out on the pod. We did enjoy at the Masters. I'm glad you mentioned it. We walked, walked with Minwu, and Minji Lee because Minji caddied for Minwu at the par three course. And we both were struck by how charming it was, clearly that close relationship. And then Minwu went out and had a top 10 finish at the Masters.

Or did he finish top 15? I know. I think you finished tied for eighth. And it makes me think I need to have a little bit of a sprinkle on Minwu for the U.S. Open. I kind of think I have to. Is there a reason not to do it? Can you imagine if a brother and sister held the,

the women, men's and women's U.S. Open titles. And they're both pretty cool. Like I, golf channel did a great job with a long form interview with Minwu, talk about their relationship, how they grew up as kids, their interest in the game.

And I mean, that that would be both a great story because of, of that brother's sister angle, but also they're cool, I think. Yeah. And I think that like one of the other things on the, on the women's side that I wanted to bring up is that those,

a lot of those women are, just more accessible in ways that like Tiger and Phil and all these people we grew up following and covering are not. And I think that makes it, it just makes it more relatable. And I think that that's an important point. And I think, I think the women's side has done such a good job of maintaining that sort of relatability and accessibility in ways that fans and people want and are drawn to, especially in, you know, kind of the current, like, era and culture that we're in. So speaking of the current era and culture that we're in, this time a week ago, well, around this time, Nate and I were taping this podcast,

and we were, at the top of the show, we were said, oh, the list for this live golf adventure hasn't come out yet. We don't know who's committed to playing. And then while we were taping, the list came out. and we saw a DJ on it and we were like, whoa, look at the big dummy. He wants the money. The big dummy wants the money.

It costs a lot of money to keep Paulina in those diamond panties. Okay. I got it. I see what we're doing. Yeah, yeah, Kyle, we cross lines here, a fair way rolling. But look, in a week's time from that moment till now, a lot of stuff has come out. There was, you know, a week ago, a lot of open questions,

and now we have answers to a ton of of those open questions. I'm not sure because of you posted earlier today sort of the tricking from a fire hose meme because that's the way that this information has come out and we've the full revelation about how this live golf endeavor intends to proceed at least with the London event. the headline probably is the announcement that Phil is going to indeed go ahead and commit to it for $200 million. He gave an unbelievably candid, I thought, interview to Bob Herig. And, you know, that I think is probably the headline here, but there are so many other elements. What's jumped out at you over the last, you know, week or so?

Yeah, I think the thing that jumped out to me initially is that Live golf kind of fell ass backwards into this perfect spokesperson, which is DJ. Because I think live golf gets into problems when it tries to roll somewhat intelligent people out there to try to explain away the geopolitical state of Saudi Arabia. Because they can't. And because you can't. And if you put DJ out there, he's like, I don't know, man, like I'm just playing golf. And it's like, it's like the perfect, I don't know if they meant to do that. I don't know if that was the plan all along. Yeah.

I don't, I don't know if there was a plan at all all along. But DJ is the perfect person to be the front man because he's going to, he's not even going to like go down that road. He's not even going to entertain the questions. And you get into, you just tie yourself in knots trying to entertain those questions. And DJ won't even, he doesn't even think about them. And it's, it's so perfect for them. in ways that are kind of disgusting and also, I guess, amusing if you're amused by stuff like that. So I don't know, that for me has been like the one thing.

Yeah. And there's a ton of others that we can talk about, but that's been the one thing that stood out the most over the last week. And Gooch today in the press are saying, you know, I'm not a smart guy. I just hit a ball. It felt a little inauthentic relative to DJ. And I think if Gooch had gone first, you might have, it might have taken more heat. I think it's a great point that DJ was the perfect one. because it's actually believable that he's just there to play golf.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. The thing that we've been talking about, you know, sort of each week when we touch on this, and now I think we can confirm it beyond a reasonable doubt, that, you know, the point of this thing doesn't have anything to do with competitive golf because not one aspect of what we've seen up to this moment supports a credible effort at a genuine sort of competitive league. it is the predominantly white-faced western arm of the Saudi worldwide PR campaign.

And that's, you know, in and of itself a goal that the PR folks that Saudi Arabia clearly have. But I just sort of wonder that the last 24 hours especially, the press conference earlier today, if the goal is simply to make a spectacle and create a sort of. circus and get eyes by any means necessary, then mission accomplished, right? It is mission accomplished. And I think that, you know, there's been some, I think, pushback or blowback on those of us who are covering it of like, why are you giving oxygen to any of this? And I actually think that's somewhat fair if that's sort of our position in the long term.

I think in the short term, you have to cover it. It's such a big fork in the road for professional golf. But I do think there's some validity to what people are saying in the long term. The other thing, House that I think it's done is, and I wrote about this for a call on CBS Sports today, but it has, it is made, there's never been a point in time since I've been covering golf where the majors have felt this much more important than everything else. Like this is a complete and total, if you follow Kevin Van Valkenberg, I know you guys had on. I think it was last week, but he's in London right now,

and he's tweeting out, like, everything that's kind of going on. It's a, it's a vaudeville side show. Like, the way, the way everything's being handled. And I was thinking about how different that is than on that same island, you know, way far to the north in six weeks, they're going to play the open championship. And it's going to be the complete opposite of that. The major championships just feels so far, so far removed from everything else.

And what live golf has done. in creating this circus act is they've almost empowered the majors. They haven't meant to do this, but they've given empowerment to the major championships that they feel even more important than they did six weeks ago. And the problem with that for live golf is that the majors, I think in some ways, and we can talk in detail about this,

are going to control whether they are, live golf is successful in the long term. And how do they do that? well, they're part of the board that hands out official world golf ranking points. And if LivGolf can't get official world golf ranking points, then they're eventually just going to cycle guys out because nobody's going to go. Nobody who's serious about professional golf is going to go over there and play and not be able to play in the major championships.

What did you make of the U.S. Open statement? The U.S.GA statement? The USDA, yeah. Yeah, the U.S.GA said they're going to allow players to play in 2022. I thought it was a little bit, it doesn't, it, the PJ Troor is probably like, yo, like, can you help us out here? And I think the USGA is like,

it's kind of a you problem, right? Like you, you know, like we've been supportive, but we don't want to get pulled into the litigation that could take place here. And they're kicking the can down the road of saying like, we're not going to ban guys in 22. We're just potentially not going to give OWJR points to these events. And guys will eventually just cycle out.

There'll be like two guys that even qualify for the US opening. won't even be a big deal. So they don't have to, they don't have to handle it in the short term if they don't have to give OWGR points out in the long term. What is the, what is the, the general murmur that you're hearing? Are they going to give out those world ranking points or not? I honestly don't know. I have some calls in with some different people that I'm trying to get more clarification on that. I did see a statement from the CEO of LiveGolf, uh, whatever, investments with their organization that said, we put our application in,

but the people who controlled this stuff are the same people who are threatening to ban players from their leagues. It's the PGA tour. It's Augusta National. It's the R&A. It's the USGA and it's the PJA of America. And I don't,

I think it'll come down to like the legality of whether you can ban a professional golf organization from applying and being accepted. My thinking is that there's less legal risk there for the USGA and all those organizations to ban OWGR points than to ban individual players from their events. I just, I think they're taking less of a risk there. So I personally, like if I had to bet on it, I would say they will not hand out OWGR points to these live golf events. Again, I, I've got some calls into some people that I'm waiting to hear back on some stuff on that,

but that's kind of the direction that I think it's headed in. Well, there's two, there's two ways this dies. It's the world ranking points. And I don't think it's going to die anytime soon. And that's sort of what we're all dealing with a week later is, oh, man, regular season golf is going to suck for a while. But it's not really fair to call this an upstart or a competitor. This is something completely different, right? There's not measurable economic benefit to the salary that's going to these players. There's a joke in business when a new competitor comes in that slashes prices, which is like, well, they lose money on a per unit basis, but they're going to make it up in volume because, of course, they never do. The question here is how much money is the Saudi Arabian government willing to lose?

Is there any sense for whether this thing is going to be capped or if now they're just in so deep that even if it's the fire festival, they're going to keep throwing money at it just because they're going to treat it literally like a war? Well, and I'm going to let Kyle answer, but I don't think it's either money that they intend to lose or that it's a war. It's a PR campaign. And if you have unlimited resources, then why wouldn't they just keep paying for as long as the intended goal of assimilation into Western culture and having these faces and the goodwill that these faces have generated and the brands that these fellows have carried on their backs?

All of that lends an imprimatur of credibility and legitimacy to this regime. why wouldn't they spend $40 billion on that? Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think there are two things. One, it reminds me a little bit of sort of the early days of online advertising where you're like, I don't really know if this is working, but I think it's like getting, there's no like good metrics for it, right? But it's sort of getting our name out there and we're like being talked about.

And like, I don't know, it's just like this weird kind of ambiguous thing. But I think the other thing that we've talked about, a lot is we're view like all of us are viewing this from the perspective of individual golf fans or just individual people. And I think I think for the the public investment fund and everybody that's behind this, they might view it more from like a corporation standpoint. Can we pull corporations in that want to celebrate inside the ropes with Dustin Johnson? And like are there business relationships there that we can develop that are beneficial to both us and them. And we don't care how many people are watching on YouTube. We only care about landing a corporation that we can do business

with. Right. And I think like none of us view it that way or even really ever think about it that way. But I think that's a lot of their thinking behind like what they're trying to do here. I've been thinking about it all week from the opposite side, which is the player's perspective, because I've been on the phone with my brother, Mark, just sort of like, we're sort of marveling about this, right? And Gooch was the one that for a lot of guys, you know,

I mean, Gooch has had a great year and a half, but before a year and a half ago, Gooch was like Mark Hubbard, right? And Gooch, Gush just took 20, 30 million bucks to go do this. And, you know, from a brother of a player perspective,

you just step back, and you can see yourself getting to a point where like, okay, what are Mark Hubbard's lifetime earnings on the PGA tour so far? And if somebody comes in and drops a 20 spot on him, are you going to fault him with a, you know, young baby and a wife in Houston for taking that money? Do you think differently about what Mark Hubbard does versus what Justin Thomas does in terms of, you know,

he's sort of fill in the field versus a guy who's a real face and a name taking it over? But then, as you said, from a fan perspective, that's the part that all week has just bothered me. Because we're not getting anything substantively different. The bottomless pit of money did not do very well on the graphic design. It did not do particularly well on the media center. They've got a robot serving drinks. This is not. And that was the hypocrisy of the press conference today.

by the way, led by Ari Fleischer, guy who tweets about 9-11 every year, which is why I follow him, all of the events of his recollection of being Bush's press secretary during that time. Oh, the rich irony. But it just didn't feel like what we got over the last, you know, three or four days was something that's different or about advancing the game. And yet here these guys are up on stage, not sort of just being direct about what this is, which is the choice that any player would have if you, you were Mark Hubbard or Dustin Johnson, where you go, holy crap, $125 million, for me and my own personal value said, I'm okay saying yes to this. That's what this is about, right?

Yeah, it's the facade of DJ saying, I want to grow the game, but also I'm getting $125 million. And like, nobody cares about that. I think, if anything, this entire exercise has proven that the PJ Truer is actually somewhat vulnerable, right? They're very. They're kind of in a, in a weirdly vulnerable state compared to other major sports organizations in the United States because they don't essentially own their playoffs. It would, it would almost, it would almost be like if, if the NBA ran the Rayor season and then outsourced the most valuable part of the entire league, which is the playoffs to another

organization. It's, it's a, it's a very odd place to be in. And I don't know. I don't know. know that three years ago, I would have realized or recognized that the tour was seemingly as vulnerable as it is. Now, you're going to have to bring a lot of cash to capitalize on that, as we've seen. But it's not a business to compete with. But it, yeah. Right. But it does seem like this is proven like, hey, the PJT tour can kind of be, not manipulated, but like you can kind of get in, you can kind of wedge yourself in there a little bit. But this is like not the, this This ain't it. Like, this is not the way to do it. You know, and I don't, I'm just frustrated because I don't know how long this is going to last. Are we going to have to deal with this not like this just ridiculousness for seven years? Is Saudi Arabia going to be in it for that long? Is that it? How long will they do it? Right. Yeah, that's the part that frustrates me. But we would only be dealing with it. And this goes back to one of the original points you made. It is necessary for us to talk about it and, you know, contemplate it because of the impact. on the genuine tour that we're all fans of,

the genuine, you know, majors. Yeah, that's right. And so the net, whatever the duration of this thing is, the only moments in which I think we will be talking about it are where other players make the decision to jump over and, and grab the money. But that's coming, isn't it, House?

There has to be a second wave now. Do we, do, do, does anybody think that Ricky Fowler is not going to go do this now? I mean, yeah, I think, I think, I think, I think eventually you're going to have Bryson and Ricky and maybe the Chileans other other stars. I think one thing that's interesting, I was thinking about this is, you know, one of their sort of propositions has been to grab the top amateurs. And whether that's in Asia or in the United States. And I think people have been like, man, that could be a problem. But it's only a problem if those guys become stars.

And I don't know that you can become a star devoid of playing. like devoid of the context of the PGA tour and the major championships. Like even if you're one of the five best amateurs in the world, if you go shoot a bunch of 64s at Pumpkin Ridge with nobody watching, like, I don't, that doesn't mean anything to me. Like it doesn't,

there's no contextualization of your star power. And because of that, I just don't know that a place like Livgolf, if it's not given oxygen, if it's not given attention, can kind of have homegrown stars that build up its league from the ground floor. used to think that they could, but now that I've thought about it more, I don't think that that's a

possibility. It doesn't feel like the presentation around it. I mean, we're all sort of, it's easy to dunk on, but just objectively, KVV's reporting today suggests they got the players, they didn't think a whole lot else about the presentation, right? Do they actually have the execution? Right. And ultimately, do they care? It seems like the answer is no. And, you know, that just confirms what we've been talking about all along, which is the point is not, you know, to be this viable enterprise, to be anything that looks like a business. The point is the public relations. I do want to put to Kyle this question in terms of if you're, if you're a glass half full kind of fellow like I am, and I'm looking for some silver linings, what are the aspects and

potential sort of opportunities out there for the tour to shore up, it's supposed to. of its product and its players. I mean, because there is an intended consequence for sure where, you know, there are aspects of what the live golf folks are doing where people, I think, will be sort of surprised don't already exist on PGA tour. For instance, the travel expense thing, like the idea that all of these guys, you know, are just fending for themselves. I heard a story about poor JJ Spahn who won, you know, the tournament in Texas, Valero and qualified for the masters and then, you know, had to spend all this time and energy trying to find an effing house within, you know, an hour and a half drive of Augusta

National because, you know, they didn't make plan six months in advance. Like that's a tour problem with a tour solution, I think. Yeah, I think that's, yeah, that's interesting. And I, I don't, Nate could probably speak more to the behind the scene stuff in terms of just knowing more of that side of it. But I do think there are things in front, like out on the public stage that LiveGolf is getting right, even though they're getting there the wrong way. And one of those is, I think the team aspect of it is so intriguing. And we've all talked about like the F1 stuff and all that. And I think the other thing to kind of coincide with that is just fewer. events. You know, if you, if, if everything is important, then nothing is important. And there's only like eight

events on the tour that are like the Riviera and the Bay Hill and the stuff and obviously TPC sawgrass that is super important. And I just, there's got to be a way for them to kind of consolidate. They're, they got their spread so thin right now that if you can consolidate it down and say, okay, this is, and maybe even that's like a version of live golf. this has been talked about with the PGL with just your stars and you have like, hey, these are the 50 guys that matter and they're still going to play Riviera, which matters.

And we're going to play in a shorter amount of time. We're not going to have these 14 hour days where you've got, you know, a bunch of guys that are uncompetitive. And if you're Mark Hubbard, for example, you can play your way into those 50 guys and you can be in that league for a period of time, but you might fall out of it.

And I don't know. That's almost like creating another structure to your order to like the corn ferry PGA tour organization. But I think I think something like that, some sort of consolidation of how spread out they are right now would really benefit them going into the future. If they're not careful, they're going to have to dissolve the BGA because, and sort of restructure, because it's non-profit status is what gets in the way of them being able to take care of those top guys. And you think about guys, you know, 51 to 125

on the FedEx Cup list. Like, you know, they're not all interchangeable, but they kind of are in some certain way. And you could see a world in which there is a tiering system that they just have to restructure the way that the thing works. I come back to, you know, I look at what Liv is done. It still, to me, looks like they're publishing their org chart and that it's the lawyers who are leading the way, right?

They were super savvy in understanding that if they got these guys to all resign their tour membership, that they could avoid the suspension clauses, that they could actually reapply. And in fact, it appears they have the right to be reinstated if they've got exemption status. So they have been, you know, and understandably, this is, they knew they were going to have a legal challenge. And so it looks like lawyers have been running the thing and maybe even doing the designs in the, team names. I'm just not entirely sure yet that, you know, what makes the team stuff fun in F1 is sometimes you've got guys who work together. Sometimes they don't. The question is in golf, are we going to see a way for them to actually work together? Or is it still an individual sport and nowhere is it better exemplified in how sort of individually and self-focused a golfer is

than what DJ just did at the press conference, which is to say, I don't care about anything else. It's $125 million. Who says no? I think to your point, like, do I care about team stuff? I want to say that I do because I do a lot at the writer cup. So much. But then when the Zurich comes around, I'm like, I don't know. I don't really care. And it's almost like opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of like I care way more than I feel like I should during the Ryder Cup and way less than it feels like I should during Zurich.

So I don't know. Maybe the team stuff doesn't work. But the tour has clearly started to integrate funneling money to its stars in ways that it should have been a long time ago by implementing the PIP. And, you know, just I think, I think they have to think of as many ways as possible to continue to do that, to funnel money to the Rories and the ROMs of the world. Because that's how these leagues work. There's only 11 guys that matter. right and and and how do you do that they have some more hoops to jump through than an NBA or NFL or major league baseball would because if they're non you know all the like charities that they have and

the way that they are designated as an organization because of that yeah but they have to figure out how to continue to do that and they should have been doing it for a long time I do think there there's a bunch of low hanging fruit in terms of the team thing like you you could get really creative, like, you know, guys who went to the same school, guys who work for the same manufacturer, folks from the same country. I mean, there's a bunch of ways you can innovate the team thing. The important thing is coming up with an identity that makes sense, not just two guys who are bros for whatever reason. I just think in most cases, constraints breed that kind of innovation and creativity. And what we're seeing coming out of Saudi Arabia, there's no constraints. They're going

to spend whatever money they have to. And so it doesn't really foster this environment. in which you've got to scrap and claw and figure out a way to be innovative. All of the focus has been on let's land the talent and figure it out later, which is exactly what the fire festival did. I mean, sure, except for, you know,

unlike the fire festival, they have unlimited funds. I was talking about, you know, the tour trying to come up with some team innovation. I mean, who cares about the Saudi aspect of it? The thing that,

the Livgolf, the thing that they actually got right was doing like a team draft and everything and they're not they're not they're not they're not televising it or anything like that would be super fascinating i would actually be interested in in seeing players draft each other and you know choose teams and pick their opponent and stuff like that so do you think rory and j t and spith and the rest who all said and brooks who man i followed a couple of their friends on instagram this past weekend that wedding looked like a good time. Ludacris.

Ludacris made appearance that wedding set. Brooks is the least interested in what's happening in all of

golf world right now. He's just focused on his wedding. Yeah, they had a better party than the live golf people. Absolutely they did.

Holy crap. Turks and Kankos all the way. But separate from that and happy for him, did any of those guys wake up this week going,

maybe I feel a little bit differently than I did the other day. Does the reality, of it change the psychology? Or do you think they're dug in and the lines are drawn and we're going to have this fracture

in golf no matter what? I think they're dug in. Those are guys that, you know, the JTs and the Rories. I think they actually care. I don't want to go too far in saying this, but I think they actually care about what people like us say

and think. And they're in the prime of their careers and they care. I mean, Rory and JT just care so much about major championships and to jeopardize competing for major championships. It's just not a risk that any amount of money really is worth it for. And maybe that's just like my desire to believe that their worldview is like the correct worldview or whatever.

But I genuinely think that they care about what people think about them and what their perception is and all of those things in ways that. you know, guys that are, I mean, if you look at the demographics of this, of the Live League, it's like, it's more Beer League softball than, you know, Cape Cod Summer League. Right. I wonder if it's not

because they're not making them plane rich. Like, there's a point at which you've just got a lot, a lot of money, but you can't actually own the plane. You just are doing the net jets. And none of these guys are getting paid own the plane money. So that feels like what, like JT doesn't,

like, does it matter if he makes $70, million or $125 million, it probably matters to a lot of charities that he's going to give that away to. But it's not like overarching completely change your life money. It is to Lee Westwood who's, right, who's

packing up shot pretty soon. It is to Polter, who knows he doesn't have anything in front of him. It's almost like if they offered 400, maybe they'd listen. Well, the tiger didn't apparently. Yeah, why would the number matter? That's the thing. So if you believe in legacy, you believe

in, you know, the basic tenets of competition and you believe in the history of the sport that you're competing in and you like the idea of measuring yourself against the all-time greats. If all of those things matter, and I think that they do to, you know, a lot of us raised here in this culture with sports in our lives and the role that sports has played, how we measure, you know, the folks that have competed, I think all of that matters to the names that we've been talking about. And there's no difference between 50 million and 450 million to those guys on that basis. And I think, you know, we're going to have a bright line between guys like DJ who, who, you know, is satisfied with what he's achieved so far and may never, you know,

he'll compete in this year's US Open and this year's British Open. And then my money is on the majors coming up with a way to disinvite the live golf participant. going forward. And the lead number one will be the masters because that's purely an invitational. They have no obligation to invite any of those dudes under under any circumstances. It's their rules that they make up every year based on whatever they imagine, which is their prerogative. For who? Why is it good for the majors to not invite the best players in the world to come play? What best players are going to be missing? Well, I mean, let's just say that they're missing. We only have one

so far. But let's say there's a second wave and Bryson's gone and Neiman is there and DJ's there. Let's just say there's 10 guys who you would not be shocked were in it on the back nine on Sunday. Well, I mean,

Bryson is, I'm not ready to concede that he's ever going to compete successfully in a major again. I mean, wow. What he's gone through physically over the last 24 months has been radical and unprecedented, both in terms of all the weight that he put on and the technique that he tried and that he succeeded with. And then all of the impacts, the consequences of

trying that, that innovation and the price that he's paid over the last 10 months and how his body has changed and the ability of him to sustain that particular approach, I have my doubts. So he might be capable because he is a relatively decent athlete, it seems. He may be capable of thinking of a new innovation that fits his body type that's more sustainable. But I'm just saying, like, big picture, I'm not ready to concede that Bryson's on that stage. That's fine. I just think that Liv's going to get five guys who you might see in the, you know, on the

leaderboard of the back nine of Sunday. And the question is, you know, as Kyle said, I think the tour probably would have liked a stronger statement from the USGA today. And it may be that the reason they didn't get it is because the majors are going to have to step back and go, wait, why? You know, again, as you said, why is this my problem? Yeah, yeah. And they may reach that conclusion. It might make it better for us because this is the only place you see all these guys together.

Yeah. Ticket revenue goes up, TV ratings go up. All true. I disagree with House. I don't think the majors will sort of coalesce to make that announcement. I think if they do something, they'll just reject the OWGR points and let those guys cycle out of. playing in the majors. The decision that they will have to make is what do we do about past champions that are exempt for, yeah, Phil. I mean, it's the Masters is is very, and rightfully so, very proud of

its past champions. And that's like a cool tradition to have the past champions there and all that. Like, do they make a decision about that? I don't know how that's going to play out. I think the other thing we're talking about money, at some point you have to decide, like, am I a golfer or a hedge fund manager, right? Do I want to, do I want to play golf or just like, and I think the thing, the thing since I was a hedge fund manager. Well, he needs a hedge fund manager, I think is a problem. But I think since I've been covering sports and you guys have, have seen this as well, before when I was a fan, I thought that all athletes and professionals only cared about championships and rings and trophies and titles and all this stuff. And you get in it and you're like, I don't know. Actually, most of these guys care just about money, about measuring their worth

based on how much money they make. And we see for sure. And we see this actually in our own lives as well, like people that we know. Some people care a ton about their work and they're like how good they are at it. And some people measure their self-worth based on how much money they're making. So I don't think it's really that different to see somebody like, I mean, a lot of the top stars, you hear about, they care only about becoming billionaires. Like, that's true of a lot of these guys that are not a lot, but some of these guys I've heard of that are young and have won majors. And other guys are just like, I don't know,

I just want to win major championships. Like, I don't, you know, it's the Warren Buffett thing. You can only wear one tie at a time. Like, how many ties do you need? How many, I don't know. I just, I think that there are, I think we're, and I think there are differences in the way guys, view the world. And I think we're seeing those differences play out. And we will see

how those differences play out over the next several years based on what some people's choices are. Birdie buddies, the PGA tour is in full swing. And as you know, the best place to tee off is on the Fandual Sportsbook right now. This is a great deal. New customers get $200 in free bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. So that's great. Five bucks gets you $200. That's the kind of ROI we like here on Fairway Rowland. Just sign up with promo code Rowland.

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free bets that expire 14 days after receipt. You can see full terms at fanduel.com slash sportsbook. If you have a gambling problem, you can call 1-800 gambler or visit fanduel.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Virginia. 1-800 next step or text next step to 533342 in Arizona. 188-78-9-7-7-77 or C-P-G.org slash chat in Connecticut. Indiana, 1-8009 with it, W-I-T-H-H-I-T. Louisiana, 1877-7-700.

Stop in New York, 18778, Hope N-Y, or text Hope N-Y to 467-9. The Tennessee Red Line is 1-800-889-9-9-9-7-8-9, or you can visit Visit www.1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. So we are 10 days out from the U.S. Open. We've given a lot of airtime to the U.S.GA's announcement today that they're going to permit the folks that have qualified that are participating in that live golf thing. To come over and compete, let's do some like early storylines at the U.S. Open.

And I want to begin, Kyle, with a question that Nate and I sort of considered and contemplated last week, which is, what do you think the reception will be of Phil Mickelson? Because it'll be the first time that he's stateside, the first time he's in front of U.S. fans, his reappearance on our national sports scene. In front of a bunch of massholes. I think enough time has passed that I think it'll be normal.

You know, and enough time has passed. And also sometimes we get too close to this stuff that we forget that 80% of the people there don't even know like who the crown prince of Saudi Arabia is. Yeah. Right. Nor do they care. And so I think because of that,

the reception will be just very fill-like at every major that he goes to, which is massive and raucous. And I think it'll be mostly, you'll get some jeering, but I think it'll be mostly normal. Interesting. So Tiger announced today also, what a day today.

that he that's his fire hose tweet yeah i know i know that uh he's not going to compete in the u.s open um i know i'll just speak for myself i'm sad because i think i'm going to be up there and i like watching him although was somewhat painful watching him at the masters just the physical sort of duress he was under was the kind of i just you send a little bit of a shiver but um His goal is to play the British Open, the Open Championship, on 150th anniversary of St. Andrews, that's a goal that speaking of people who care about legacies and making their mark and being on the right side of history, you know, we like that. So that trade-off, you support that trade-off, obviously.

Yeah, I think the thing that concerned Tiger at the PGA was how erratic his body reacted. at the Masters, it was very sort of incremental, where it was linear, where he just kind of wore down as the week wore on. And at the PGA, it was like Tuesday, he was fine. Wednesday, it was like, I don't know if I can play. Thursday, he was fine. Friday was crazy. And I think that's erraticness of his body reacting like that

was worrisome to him to the point that it's like, I haven't really competed at the U.S. Open. It's not a great setup for me. I just want to play in the Open Championship. I think Tigers probably thought about how this is maybe his last to open at the old course, right? Because it won't go back there until at least until he's 50, maybe 51. And you're like, are you going to, are you even going to play then? Are you going to be able to play then?

Yeah. So I think that he's thought about, hey, this might be the last one at the old course. I need to not take any risk before that so that I'm able to at least compete for a couple days. You touched on a branding thing around the U.S. Open that I want to get your thoughts on, which is there are some players who really lost their love for this tournament over the last five to ten years because of some of the setup that's gone into it. I mean, Damon gave a very candid comment this week about, I mean, he ended up qualifying, but that it wasn't really a good use of his time because it's always super long and brutal and it just doesn't fit his game. And we had, we got ROM last year, you know, Bryson winning certainly got some attention, but we obviously didn't have the crowds there that we would have. Before that it was Woodland. This just has felt like the tournament that is the loosest of the majors as the PJ has sort of grown a little bit in stature since it made that move. And we had some good leaderboards and the like, do you agree that it's had a little bit of a branding issue or is it still, does it still hold that prestige? And do, do you? you expect the USGA to do anything different this year with the setup to try to make it a little bit more of a rational test of golf?

You know, it's hard. I still hold it in very high esteem, but I think that I think it's gotten a little bit, I think sometimes the USDA has made some mistakes and because of that, players just sort of pin everything on them in ways that are a little bit unfair to the USDA, but it's like artists blaming their record label. Exactly. At the same time, I don't understand. understand why they don't like the pcha championship has done such a good job of their core setups at keowa

at southern hills i don't remember what number what what does the score to par was at any of these tournaments i just remember whether the setup was was good and i i don't understand why they've made it this sort of setup where you can brison the course and just overpower and destroy it or is like at a place like Southern Hills. I mean, look at the way JT won by hitting just extraordinarily exquisite golf shots. And I just don't know. And I don't know if they still care about sportapar as much as everybody thinks that they do. But man, I think they could really do themselves some favors by going to courses where they can set them. And they're doing that with Pinehurst and places like that, but just wing foot felt like it was set up for Bryson and only Bryson, right? I mean, it was the perfect thing

that only he could win it. And it's just like, I don't know. Why does it have to be like that? I don't know. Maybe they should hire Carrie Haig, because Carrie Haig's done an unbelievable job for the PGA championship of setting up their courses. It has been this phenomenon lately, and we've talked about this in the lead up to the PGA championship, the last handful of years,

really since the move to May and the change in venue. They are playing what I think my mind's eye imagines as U.S. opens. Like, you know, the Southern Hills is a U.S. open kind of venue. the scores to par felt like a U.S. and the challenge coming down 16, 17, 18 is exactly a U.S. Open kind of challenge. Like really going all the way back to Brooks at Bethpage. And each of the venues and each of the way that it's kind of played out has been that way. I do wonder, I do think the country club at Brookline, because of it's, you know,

they have to borrow some from one of the courses to make it, you know, fit kind of the configuration of a U.S. open. I feel like it has the opportunity to be like closer to like an Oakmont kind of kind of vibe where the challenge of the venue speaks for itself and you know everything they don't have to do any sort of trickeration. They don't have to shinnock it, right? They don't have to bake it out. It's just the challenge of the venue all by itself. Maybe that's wishful thinking. Yeah, I hope so. I've not been there. There was a media day a couple, I guess it was about a month ago. I didn't get up there. Is it? Have you been there house? I've laid eyes on it.

I haven't played it. Is it short? I think it's shorter, right? It is. Yes. Yes. So it'll be, you know,

all the premium will be, we repeat ourselves every week, the shot making, the ball striking. That's, you know, but you mentioned it in connection with JT

and the way JT won, the PGA championship. That's precisely what we want to see in our major champions, in our major championships. And even like, if you look at last, here with Brooks and Phil at the PGA, that felt what, like, if you would have taken away all the

branding and all the logos and the signs and everything and just said, hey, you're watching a US Open. I would have been like, yeah, I'm watching a US Open, right? I don't, again, I don't care like if it fills seven under five. I don't even remember what do you want at. And I just, I'm hopeful, but not optimistic that that will, that'll be the case in the near future with the USGA. Kyle, you follow this sport every day. We are in a relatively unprecedented moment of noise, of fire hose stuff. There are a bunch of stories from Tiger to the live stuff that are going to sort of suck the oxygen out of the room.

Is there a story that's going to go unnoticed that you're seeing this season in golf that deserves a brighter spotlight than it could possibly get given these sort of overarching thunder. thunderous gongs that are happening at the macro level. Is there anything that you've taken notice of that's worth a talk? Yeah, I think that in a lot of ways, Sheffler season has flown under the radar as everything else has sort of risen to the top. I mean, if you look at guys that have won five times or that have led the Turin wins, and also that number has been five or more in a season, I think since, I'll probably get this wrong,

but I think since 1980, there's only been seven guys that have done it. And it's been, uh, Speeth and Jason Day won five times in 20, what was that, 2015, JT won five times in 2017. Nick Price did it in like 1993. VJ Singh did it in, in 2004. And then Tiger's done it 10 times, of course. Um, but to win five times and Sheffler hasn't reached that yet.

He hasn't gotten there yet, but he's at four. And I don't think anybody would be surprised. if he won one more between now and the Tour Championship. That's a big deal. And that is a, you know, to do so at 25. I mean, I think you even look at just the, and I wrote about this a couple weeks ago for CBS Sports. Like the American, and not even the Americans,

but the group of guys at 25, 26, 27 that are winning a lot. I mean, Sam Burns has won three times. You could, I said this today on somewhere. You could replace DJ with Sam Burns. And I don't know that the, the, the Reader Cup is that different. I mean, it might not be 19 to 9, but I don't know that it's that different.

So I think some of the young American guys and young players in general are just getting, I mean, winning three times for Sam Burns in a season, that's a huge deal. And nobody, you know, like my dad, the average golf fan, I don't even know if you knows that Sam Burns has won three times. And one of them over Scotty in a playoff, right? Exactly, exactly.

So I think some of that has gone, has gotten just a little bit overshadow because we've had to deal with Phil who's dominated the sport even though he hasn't played in five months and all the live golf stuff. Well, KP, this is a great segue. I know you and the guys, Rick Damon, your other partner in crime on the first cut podcast,

you guys are getting ready to dabble a little in the speculative arts in the same manner that Nate and I like to do each week. We have the RBC Canadian Open in front of us, speaking of Sam Burns and Scotty Schaeffler and Roy McElroy and Justin Thomas show of force by the PGA tour going to a venue that a venue and a tournament that has, you know, previously not received all of this high star power star wattage. Yeah.

We are at a venue that that hasn't been competed since 2010. The inimitable Carl Peterson won the Canadian Open in 2010 at the St. George's Golf and Country Club in Toronto. It is a tree line. Short courses. Yes. So 7,000 yards. It's tree line. It's parkland and it has tiny greens. We like to just try and name some names. Try and give out a little bit of value to the birdie buddies out there. How's your research going? And what kind of names are you seeing? Yeah, it's good. We talked about this a little bit on our first guy podcast today. The guy that is popping up a little bit to me has been Cam Smith. Cam Smith has been, I know he's, I don't know, I think 14 to 1 or something like that, 12 to 1.

The thing that's interesting about Camp Smith is I think this course, if he can just keep it in the fair way at all, his driver's been a little bit erratic, but he has been the top guy in this field in terms of iron play over the last two or three months. I mean, his iron play has just been unbelievable. He's gained most of his strokes ball striking with his irons because his driver, he's not super long and he hasn't been super accurate. it. These greens are so small that I think that that iron play is going to be, there's just going to be a greater emphasis on it. And I would add in there,

a lot of guys are going to miss greens too. And I don't know that there's a better short game guy in the world than Camp Smith right now. So he's somebody that that really stood out to me. Torell Hatton is another guy who's an unbelievable iron player that kind of pops out. So if I'm looking at the Canadian Open, these small greens, just the way the course is this week, I'm looking at those guys who have who've had great iron play over the last few months. Nate, Doug, what kind of names are you seeing for this one?

I'm weirded out by this field because it's super top heavy. Mark Hubbard is 45th on the board. So it just, it sort of falls off quickly, right? Which means there should be some interesting top 20 type bets. I always burn myself on this,

but this is the short course. Brian Stewart just finished first in his sectional for U.S. Open qualifying. So over the two days, I think he shot nine under and came out first. He's plus 8.50 to top 20. He hits it straight. He's the shortest driver on the PGA tour, but this is the course where it doesn't matter, and he puts his face off.

So he's coming in, clearly playing well hot after this week. I love him at plus 850 to top 20. That category, I also like JT Poston, who's like 125 to 1 to win. I don't know what his top 20 is. but if you were to throw JT. Post in in top 20, that's the guy that I would say there. Yeah, he's plus 410 top 20. Okay.

Those are the kind of plays we love to make on this show, KP. We love to find some of those sort of names that are not jumping off the top of the page and just top 20 them and try and pay for all the losers that we otherwise like collect. But I will say this. This may feel like kissing a little butt, but I give a shout out to Rick Gaiman.

I love the Patrick Reed angle. I love, you know, he shared a stat in his golf, he does a weekly golf digest, um, sort of ranking of for, for DFS purposes. And he mentions how Patrick Reed is second only to Roy McElroy on strokes gained on what we're terming small greens. And it's a long course history for, I mean, a long history of success with these types of courses for Patrick Reed. He also has been showing a little bit of form, both at the PGA championship and at the, at the

colonial. I think a little dabble on Patrick Reed could make some sense. This is you just trying to get back for last week. You talked a lot of Pat Reed last week. And he did not perform well in his head to head against Russell Knox. So you're just doubling down on Patrick Reed. You don't think his, you don't think his head is full of live golf stuff right now. You know he's in the second wave. I am using the occasion. This is hashtag positive vibes only. Because if we are really going to talk about what happened last week. Not only would I say bad things about

Colomorcawa, who can't shoot under 70 all of a sudden. What is going on? I don't know. But you would hear a level of invective in vitriol that is unbecoming of a podcast star like myself when it comes to Joaquin Neiman and the

way he played the 18th hole on Sunday in his head to head against Patrick Cantley. And I mean, the headphones are about to bust off my head. I'm still hot about it, but I'll leave all that alone and just say positive vibes only. Why not dabble on Patrick Reed? Reed's been, Reed's been good since he, uh, since he won it, since he switched drivers. I mean, he's, he's played, he's played a lot better. So I love Parsons, but man, make a drive.

got to, got to go steal a driver from somebody. He's, he's an interesting play for, for the US open as well. That, um, I love it. I really do. Yeah, that, that should be a kind of a set up that he thrives in. I don't know. We'll see. But before I go, I got to get you guys to answer the question that I threw out on Twitter a couple of weeks ago about who ends their career with the most majors. The names that I gave for Rory, who's got four, Brooks, who's got four, Speed has three, JT has two, Morikawa has two, and then Bryson and Schaeffler, both with one. 50 years from now, which of those guys are we looking out with the most major championships? Nate, do you want to go first? It's Thomas for me.

Wow. Well, that makes perfect sense. So he's got he's got to get three. He's going to get to five. He's got to get three more. I think he just got over a huge hurdle psychologically winning the PGA. He figured out that he doesn't have to play his best to win. And I think it's, this guy's the limit. I hope it's JT because I've got a, I bet market woman, I think a case of wine that JT would win 25 events in the in the 2020s. So I'm more long-play. I'm more of the long-term play guy. Yeah. Like, clearly.

Forget the U.S. Open. I'm looking at 2030. Well, I'm a creature of the moment. So my answer to your question is none other than Scotty Schaeffler. I feel like I inadvertently already made the case for why it's not going to be Bryson. I fear that we did. You sure did. I didn't know we're going to have this opportunity.

But I am afraid. to say this, I think Brooks is done. I really, I don't, I don't expect him to win another major. I really don't. I, I, whatever happened to him physically over the previous 18 months, it looks like it's finally sort of taken a toll. And he just, he doesn't look, um, psychologically competitive. It can come back. He is young enough. But for a guy that, um, has, you know, sort of self described as having a hard time keeping his focus on golf, um, once that sort of, seeing that. I mean,

yes. Instagram story tells you all you need to know. There you go. And he's going to have a great life in front of him. I mean, maybe his, and if he runs out of money, his brother Chase can loan him some from Saudi.

Yeah. I mean, I would really like to say Rory. I've been a Rory truther for years and years. And he keeps doing things that make me say bad things about him because he hurts my feelings. but I just think the style of game that Sheffler has is so sustainable and is the kind that I could see him looking the way he looks right now for another 10 years and I could see him playing at this level-ish, not at this incandescent level, but around it getting hot at times for another 10 years. So Sheffler is my answer. What's your answer?

It's really hard because I'm with you on Kevko. I wouldn't be surprised if he's done. but if Kepka or Rory gets to five, then you're like, that is, that's a lot. Like, I don't know if anybody can get there.

I think ultimately, I think I'm going to go, Sbeath, because, oh, that would make me so happy. He, we love him.

He just, he gets so many rips at Augusta and the Open championship, both of which he just thrives at. Yeah, it's a great call. I don't think it won a US Open again. He might win a PGA.

That would be tough. But the open, and Augusta, he just, he takes so many runs there. And I wouldn't be surprised if you got two more combined at those tournaments. Yeah, one Masters and one Open. I can absolutely see it. Then he's at five and he's, he's at the top. That's a, it's a great call.

Well, let's end on a great call because this is a hashtag positive vibes only podcast. I'm glad that we got all the way through all of the news, virtually all of news, um, worth, worth considering. We were way overdue to have you. on, thrilled to have you on. Now you're in our rotation. You're in the rota. We're like

the majors. We have a rhoda now. So you're in it. You don't really have a vote, buddy. So that's great. It's going to hit you up. It's like all the live golf players. You don't actually have a say anymore. Yeah. Yeah. We actually own you now. And that's

all you need to know. That's it. The Fairway Roll and Fireballs. You're on the team. Kyle Porter. Thanks for coming on. Birdie, Everybody's, Eagle Enthusiast, Paras, Pard Saving Pals. There you have it. Nate and I are back. Next week is U.S. Open Week.

We're going to do it big the way we always do, multiple shows, multiple stars, analytics, gambling advice. And you know what? I might go up there and have a bull, clam chowder, Nate Dog. Will you come with me? I'm in. All right. We're going to do it. Okay.

There we go, my friends. In the meantime, please, everybody, let's hit them straight out there.