Fairway Rollin' - Scottie Tops No-Stakes Tour Championship, Ludvig Aberg’s Knee Injury, and Presidents Cup Captain's Picks

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

House and Hubbard tee off by recapping Scottie Scheffler’s win at the lackluster Tour Championship (02:00). They discuss the lack of stakes during the tournament and why the FedEx Cup format isn’t working. Then, they talk about their frustrations over the reveal of Ludvig Aberg’s knee injury (22:08) before discussing the captain’s picks for the upcoming Presidents Cup (30:00). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out rg-help.com to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join me, Craig Horlebeck, along with Danny. Fuck. It would be really funny if we just left that in. That would actually be pretty on brand. Fuck! Join me, Craig Horlebeck, Danny Highfits. Nice. And Danny Kelly on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show

for all things, fantasy, NFL, and more. Hello, friends. This off podcast, unlike any other. Yes, my friends, we are doing this. This is Fairway Road. A golf podcast on the Ringer podcast network. My birdie buddies, my par-saving pals, my eagle enthusiast. I am your starter Joe House, joined by our incomparable accomplice, our PGA tour boots on the ground.

Nathan Hubbard, this man was smart enough, of course, to not have his boots on the ground in the 100-degree heat down in Atlanta. And from the looks of it, not very many people made the trek. But look, let's jump in. It's a two ball. Scotty Schaeffler has a giant infusion of cash into his bank account. He earned it. He played great. Let's get this thing going.

Nate dog. How you doing? Well, not as good as Scotty $62 million Schaeffler. Well, nobody's doing as good as Scotty $62 million Schaeffler. It's a tough, tough thing when the guy who has a legendary season on tour. I mean, he won all of the Ackleads House. And there was some question coming into this, whether maybe Zander could steal the player of the year award.

If he won this, Eastlake was supposed to be his spot and not Scotty's on and on. But it's just at the end of the day when Scotty wins this, thing, but he starts the week and the week before that by, let's just say, throwing shade on the way that this tournament is marketed its purpose to begin with, at least as publicly declared, when you and I both know the purpose of this tournament is to throw money at people to keep them from going anywhere. It just is a bad look. And this, to me, I think as we're going to talk about, it sounds like we're going to get basically

a zombie year of golf in 2025 where none of this will be changed. But on a go forward basis, this just can't continue like this. It was the least interesting golf tournament of the year in a bunch of ways, wasn't it? It was the no stakes open,

followed by the no stakes open the week before, the no stakes weeping the weekend before that. I mean, this is exactly the issue we had our good pal, Brendan Pohrath, from the shotgun start and fried egg on with us last. week trying to sort of get at the existential crisis of this event and of this close to the year

and how the approach does not line up with the stated goal of the tour, which is to reward the players that perform the best over the course of the year. And in addition to that, have something that they use the word playoff. It resembles no other playoff. It resembles no other playoff in any other sport that we're familiar with. But really, it doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter because it's most of the best players in the world, but not all of the best players in the world. And it's at venues that are mildly interesting, but not the best venues that the guys play on tour at a time of year when golf could grab the American Sporting Public's consciousness and do something.

they're willing to seat it to college football, to the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament. Other events that have genuine things at stake. Just ask Florida State, who flew to Dublin to get their ass handed to them by Georgia Tech and followed that up with a double-down Monday Night know, in any event.

This is the bed the tour has made. And here's my question to you. This is the challenge. And this will be the curious theme of this upcoming season for us in the upcoming year. We keep talking about the investment by smart business people in this thing, a money in investment, but also an ideas investment, and innovation, the potential for innovation.

And yet we are going to, you just said it, live in this flaccid world that the tour itself has built for another year. And the challenge to me, and this is the question to you, can they survive? I mean, the ratings for this event are going to be brutal like the ratings throughout the playoffs and the ratings for most of the PGA tour season. And we're just running it back next year in the exact same kind of style and format, tiny tweaks. Will people who have lost interest in this come back when the thing gets right tracked in 26.

I hope so. I think that is the grand bet at the moment. I think the answer is ultimately yes. And I think it's just going to suck between now and then. I mean, there is so little reason. The early events of this season were down. Then postmasters, you had some events that year over year, the ratings got better.

And then as we switched over to the, NBC broadcast, it seemed like. I'm not putting this on NBC, but the ratings started to sag again. And my hope is that ratings being down is good for finding a deal, that it pushes the monahans of the world to get real about just swallowing pride and pushing something across the line so that we can get best players playing together. That's really the best case scenario. But, you know, House, we thought there was going to be, we thought there would be more interesting changes to the schedule. It didn't happen.

We thought there might be some additions outside of Utah for some new tournaments and some cities where there are media markets. It didn't happen. I think the best possible reading of this is that the tour is just so completely hamstrung by existing contracts that are in place. That 2026 is the year. and that we just as golf fans have to suck it up.

We are the most passionate golf fans out there. I spent very little time watching this tour championship. I watched some of it. I got all of the highlight stuff online. I tracked it through the app. I looked at all the statistics. But man, the proposition for this thing just wasn't good enough. And I worry that without the excitement,

that frankly, Bryson DeShambo himself and himself alone, generated, starting really at the PGA through his win at the U.S. Open that brought the eyeballs back. Without that, this could be just a wet fart of a golf season we're looking at ahead of us. Yeah, this is the challenge for 2025. The tournaments that matter are the masters. Well, I'll acknowledge the players because the players does get a nice concentration of talent, and it occurs on this schedule. As people, you know, their sort of golf awareness starts to arise again

because the master starts running commercials. So you have players, but then the four masters, this year in 2025, you don't have the Olympics. So this is the challenge, right? We had some very organic, compelling storylines

that kind of came out of nowhere. Bryson was one. Scottie's dominance was another. and, you know, Zander, a guy, you know, around the hoop that couldn't get across the goal line, winning two majors, that's excellent, that's a great storyline. And then just the sheer, you know, competitive spirit of the Olympics. The Olympics really, to me, took the whole enterprise up to a whole other level. You know what?

Didn't distinguish itself in any way, shape, or form other than Scotty's comeback was the tour. What were the best tour events of the season? Hidecki at Riviera, you know, there was like five or six guys all around the same score over the last six holes and Hadeki just went out and grabbed it. Okay, that's cool. Hadeki reminding everybody that he's a super duper upper echelon guy on that stage. That's, that to me, what other tour highlights were there, right? You know, our buddy Sobel tweeted about this. Here the victories for the top seven finishers in the FedEx Cup.

Sheffler 1-8, Morikawa, Z, Sahith, zero, Adam Scott, zero, Russell Henley, zero, Xander 1-2, Sung-JM-Zero. And Xanders, too, were not tour events. Again, just to emphasize the point. Right. It was a hodgepodge of a year in which I think the fact that a bunch of first-time winners and Peter Malnoughties of the world won golf tournaments actually saved the tour from being embarrassed in terms of their own analysis

of how much turnover there would be out of the top 50. And because it kept guys in the top rankings only because of a win. Without the random stuff, without the Nick Dunlaps that they definitely didn't predict of the world getting wins,

without Morikawa and Tigala not delivering in some moments when they could have won golf tournaments, the entire makeup could have looked very differently. We could be criticizing them heavily for the pole point system that they put in place. I think they got by by the skin of their teeth in hindsight here. But we're heading into this year where we don't really know what these guys are playing for, House, because if you think there's going to be a deal and a new season in 2026 that brings guys back together

and that they're going to go to some new markets and that there's going to potentially be, some tiering of the tour and there'll be an upper echelon of guys. How do you qualify for that? We don't actually know. And so by keeping all of this the same, there is the game within the game. Yeah, you're going to

try to go win the FedEx Cup next year. But what you're really trying to do, if you're not Scotty Sheffler, who's going to be involved in the matter what, is I mean, like Bobby Mac, Bob McIntyre may or may not be in the future of golf, depending on how he plays

over the course of the next year. And so I think for some of these guys in the back of their mind, they're not exactly sure what they're plan for. They just know that if you're not around the tops of leaderboards, if you're not around the top of these FedEx Cup points, whatever they mean to people, when they do put these two things together, you may have a very, very different future in golf.

It's just so weird to be heading into such a zombie season where we know that that's the eventual outcome. We just don't know what guys, actually have to do to qualify to be part of that future of golf? I do wonder, I'll point this to you as the business mind of this podcast. And I do very quickly before I pose this question, I do want to acknowledge your great observation about Nick Don Lap. That was a great story.

That was a great storyline. That came out of nowhere. That's the best the tour can hope for in terms of, you know, storylines from its own native talent, its own talent pool. So kudos to Dick. But here's the question, the business question. Do you think we are yet at the point where FedEx looks at its investment in the tour and starts to wonder about the return on investment?

Because these numbers that are about to come out for the TV are going to suck. They're going to suck, suck, suck. And what they have, and maybe it's just the bubble that we live in as like the deep golf nerds that we are and the folks that we are in contact with and that we talk to, that we're highly skeptical, highly critical of this product, this playoff product that is supposed to be the time when FedEx gets its most shine. It's its biggest exposure that has been diminished over the years

and now ends up in these grill room conversations. What is this again? why is the, how are they doing the scoring? And it's perpetual. Do you think that FedEx is, you know, sitting back and taking note? What do you think their feeling is about their investment in this product at this stage?

You know the answer to that. The answer is, yeah, they're stepping back and going in the same way that the tournament that is next on the schedule in Napa has gone from the safe way open to the Fortnite championship to now the ProCore Championship over the course of just a couple years,

sponsors are going, what is in this for me? And whether it is a relatively small eyeball event like the Napa tournament or whether it is the entire FedEx Cup, the product has been diluted. The value of what you signed up for is being diluted.

And what you're thinking about as the CEO or CMO of FedEx is my job is to allocate marketing dollars, and get the best return for those dollars possible. I could run TV ads. I could put up billboards. I could pay influencers to talk about FedEx on their Instagram stories and TikTok.

I could sponsor a sporting event. By the way, I could sponsor a lot of different sporting events if the one that I'm putting a bunch of money into doesn't work for me. So I think there is that ongoing question of ROI, return on investment of the marketing dollars, that these guys are putting out. And you just cannot imagine right now

that they're thrilled with it. I think they believe there is a future that they want to be a part of. And probably what the folks at Pontevideo are pitching is you stay with us and you're going to be a part of the big, the grand return to golf that reunites this with higher stakes

and better markets and better courses and all of the players you like. If you stick by us now, there'll be a future for you. If not, you're going to miss out. And that, I think, is probably the only reason that some of these big sponsors are hanging in there. Yeah. And just to like get real direct about it, I don't think FedEx is listening to anybody in Pana Vida. Because Pena Vida, over these last handful of years, hasn't demonstrated itself as really capable of being, of navigating the icebergs that are, you know, in these waters.

Some of which, the biggest of which is not their fault, always, you know, fair enough to, observe. But for sure, I imagine that John Henry and Arthur Blank or they're the smart folks associated with the money investment by the strategic sports group, those folks reached out to Federal Express. There are cohorts. The other members at the clubs that those folks tend to occupy, right? The golf clubs that those guys play at, they find each other on the T-box at the same

time with the FedEx again. They're like, guys, hang, like maybe we'll see some TGL, right? TGL for sure is coming out. It's going to be rolled out this winter upcoming 2025, first part of the year. So maybe we'll see some, you know, real FedEx enthusiasm that comes out, you know, in that space. But those are the guys that are making the compelling case. Certainly not anybody associated with the tour, in my humble opinion. Well, it is a zombie season that lies in front of us where the competitors are playing two different games. They're playing, yes, for all this money that just got loaded into Schaeffler's pocket and how weird it would have been in retrospect if it didn't. It is weird that Russell Henley walked away with that much money, but good for him. He did the thing that he was asked of him,

which is, you know, play good. Like that could be a storyline, right? That's what playoffs genuinely sort of delivers, like something unexpected associated with some performer having a performance that's hot at the right time. That's playoff like. Henley delivered a playoff performance. Sure, sure. I think you said it though, which is, hey, Colin Marikawa ostensibly won this tournament. The reason that Colin Moracawa won this tournament is because Sath Tagala called a two-shot penalty on. himself. Amazing. With just the integrity that you want from a good guy like that, that in hindsight

cost him $2.5 million and what would have been recognized as an official World Golf ranking win, even if he wouldn't have caught Schaeffler, he would have passed Morikawa. But look, what is the big takeaway from all of this other than the dysfunction? And I do think the dysfunction is the headline. This event, I mean, a couple of years ago, we were like, Why do we have the FedEx Cup and the Tour Championship and two different winners? I think that was at a time where it wasn't really that much money.

And now that it's that much money, I do think you can have two tournaments at once. I do think you can have the dollar signs going on that say, hey, Scotty's not technically winning. Colin is winning the Tour Championship, but Scotty is winning the year-end bonus of $25 million. You just lean into the money. If it's going to be about the money, just stop being intellectually dishonest and just own it. And let's make it about Scrooge McDuck jumping into his basement full of coins. It's fine. I can get behind that for a week.

Well, we will have opportunity to see the innovations as they develop. It just won't be next year. We mentioned all of the guys that played well enough. Eastlake as itself, you know, they had to set. that venue up. They defanged it. You know, we were, we were, uh, I was anticipating when I clicked on to see some of the renovation, to see some of the restoration to the Donald Ross, but they, it wasn't ready for tournament golf. Like, you know, here's the little secret. Like, there wasn't grass, you know, six months ago, whatever. So they did the best they could with

the surfaces, but they let it, you know, the guys were all shot 20 under the top. It was a little bit weird that they talked about how much harder it was going to play. And then it did not play. It did not play harder. Yeah. Well, shocker, you know, that was mainly Victor Hovlin, who got a lot of stuff wrong this year. Yeah, fair enough.

Fair enough, but I think a lot of the guys felt like it was not, I mean, even the guys in the Creator Classic played the course better than I think most people expect it. I mean, it just, I don't know what we're doing here. And it does speak to just the problem of the old school

people who are still running golf. Like the creator classic was so interesting in that it was almost done. I mean, first of all, good idea. Love that they had the courage to do some things differently and bring some people who bring new audiences to golf onto the course. That was really smart. We can quibble with how the event happened. And Joe House should have been doing the commentary on the TV as opposed to Emelman.

Absolutely not. You know, like go all in on it and start. learning what that experience could be. But I just, why are we still at East Lake? Why are we still holding on to some of these old traditions when it is very clear from those, the audiences that are engaging with the folks who played that Creator Classic,

that there is a new way. We have got to, again, blow it up, keep the same guys. Like, the players themselves are not the problem. You have interesting stories. You have interesting people. But they've got to be on the same, courses at the same time, and they've got to be on the best courses that lend themselves

to sort of the love of golf. I've heard it from all kinds of different places. Like, the tour championship should be at Pebble Beach, or the tour championship should be a Riviera, or the tour championship should be at Shinak, some place that people can relate to that has real history and lore. East Lake doesn't matter to the average golfer. So why would they tune in to watch it? Yeah. Well, especially when there's nothing at stake. In any event, one last bit of criticism. And then, you know, we have in front of us a President's Cup coming at the end of this month. The Solheim Cup will precede that. And I want to make sure that we give some shine to the Solheim Cup because it will occur here

just outside of the nation's capital. But the President's Cup on the precipice, the captains are making their announcements kind of as we're taping. this. I'm not sure if you took the pulse rate of Mike Weir and Jim Furrick together, if you could get to 80, but those guys are trying their best to talk about how excited they are for the President's Cup. It's up against both college football in the heat of the season and pro football in the first five weeks of its season. So best of luck to that product. But I will, I do want to quibble with one last thing as we sort of talk about this tour stuff. This is a small thing, but it's a big

thing to me. And I think to you as well, but I don't want to put it on you necessarily. The announcement within hours after the conclusion of the tour championship that Ludwig Oberg was going to get his torn meniscus repaired drove me off the cliff.

I mean, I lost my shit in a way that was outsized. I should not have cared one bit on a Sunday night. And for folks who may not know really what I'm talking about. Oberg in the spring hurt himself,

pulled out of a tournament. There was news about him having a knee issue. He wore a brace at the PGA championship. There were even reporters. There were even reporters in real time, including Todd Lewis of the Golf Channel, who observed that he had damaged the meniscus. He went on and played through the balance of the season.

And over the course of the season, a curious phenomena tracked his performances in the tournaments after this injury occurred. His Sunday finishing rounds went straight to the toilet. His average score was above 71. His Sunday scores were on average about a stroke and a half worse than his early rounds. Why am I going through all of this? Yeah. So he finished 77th on tour in final round average scoring because of the five or six tournaments that he played after this injury and the final round scores that he had. And I'm not going to sit and read through them. Why am I focusing on this? I'm focusing on this because all of the betting platforms have Ludwig Oberg available at odds that you can play him in a whole variety. of ways, finishing position, head-to-heads.

And it is a matter of integrity to have an injured player who would not, his own self, acknowledge the full stature of his injury, the full sort of scope of it. And the tour itself sits there idly by the tour who's gladly taken on as a partner, betting platforms, has no mechanized. by which to alert the betting public, folks that might want to sit down on a Saturday night or Sunday morning, take a look at a leaderboard, and make an investment. There are plenty of folks associated with the tour, the entire tour organism that do have a perspective on how hurt Ludwig Oberg is and what that injury might really be and what kind of impact over four rounds. Those folks

possessing that superior information, Nate Dog, drives me fucking nuts. You can bleep that, Eddie. I know that I use the giant F-bomb. Producer Eddie, please feel free to beep it. But I... Don't beep it. Beside myself, I literally am going to tell folks,

be very careful gambling on golf. If we're going to live in this space where the tour's own product, the players that participate on their tour, are not going to provide people that wanted to, you know, speculate in these markets with accurate injury information. It is buyer beware. I really, really, really am going to reexamine how I bet on golf in view of what we experienced this year with the obergnate dog.

Well, we tried to lead people to it because there were signs that he was hurting. He stepped away from a tournament or two and all, But, you know, I kept asking you, how, is something wrong with Oberg? Is it just that, you know, it's at the end of his rookie season and he's running out of gas? Or is it that he doesn't have that dog in him? Like, what is it? And of course, there is a third, which is that he's hurt. And I think to your point, when you're going to ask people to invest in this product,

you've got to put in place the guardrails to give some level of transparency and information. Otherwise, there becomes a huge. gap. And the worst part of a gambling ecosystem is when there is disparity of information, right? That's it. It's just not fair. That is what drives people away. That's what drives me bananas. It's not fair. It's not fair to a regular person who doesn't know that Ludwig Oberg is playing with a torn meniscus. That his, by the time he plays on Sunday, he is going to be, likely be many strokes worse because of the, you know, in our layman's perspective, I mean, all I can do is look at the final rounds, right? He opened up, I'll just do this. You know, the four tournaments that he

was in position to really distinguish himself, the U.S. Open 66, 69, 73, final round 73. The Scottish Open, where he was right there ready to win on the precipice of winning, 64, 64, 64, 65, 73, 73. The Olympics, 68, 70, 66. His third round 66 put him right there in contention for a potential medal. He's only a few strokes back of a metal. Fewer strokes back than Scotty Sheffler was of the gold. And a final round 72 locked him into, you know, tied for 18th. The point is there is this trend if you examine what his scoring looks like over the course of the year

where his final rounds by comparison to his early rounds sucked. And it seems like one of the possible reasons for that. that is the effing injury to his knee. And like we just observed, the information, people had certainty about the nature of that injury. Most folks didn't have access to that same information. And I'll be goddamned if I'm going to. I mean, this is the thing now.

If we hear anything about any player having any injury whatsoever, at least with Hideki, you know it's buyer beware with Hideki at all times because, you know, the prevalence of his injuries. But if we get wind of anyone, and it's not just anyone, this is the problem, it's Ludwig O'Barreg, a guy who showed up for the first time at Augusta National and finished effing second, a guy with talent, a top 10, a rising star on tour. And for the tour to have this partnership with the betting platform and not have a mechanism by which to share with the general public what's going on, it's deplorable to me.

That's it. That's it. So be careful. Be careful out there. to tell all the betting buddies out there, let's be careful. One thing, though, on the horizon that we will be able to gamble on and will not involve Ludwig Oberg is the President's Cup. As mentioned, the announcement of the captain's selections has occurred. Captain Weir, so the automatic qualifiers for the international team were Hedecki, Sungay, Adam Scott, Tom, Tom, Kim, Jason Day, and Benny on.

and Captain Weir very quietly, but with the utmost enthusiasm and pride, but very quietly in his way, announced Cory Connors and Taylor Pendrith, Canada's own, alongside McKenzie Hughes, which I think he was the one that jumped over Nick Taylor. Nick Taylor didn't make a cut at any of the majors this year,

so McKenzie Hughes at the goal line, nosed them. Then the Beezer, Christian Bezauden-Hoot, Minwu Lee, You know, lots of excited game there and Siwu Kim. So that's the international team. Yeah. I mean, Cam Davis would like a word.

And I think Nick Taylor being the guy who won the Canadian Open in Canada and the guy who won the waste management, also a big spectator, high crowd energy event. That's one, you know, Nick has not played great the back part of the season. I get it. but it's hard to leave Nick Taylor off that team. Nick Taylor has large Canadian maple leaves. Yeah. Well, he's not going to, I bet they'll figure out a way to have him involved.

They have to figure out a way. And I will say I am actually looking forward to this event because it's in Montreal. And I do think that the Canadian enthusiasm, what we've seen at the Canadian open these last handful of years, has been top-notch. Like that will, at least on Friday, in some portion of Saturday,

when I'm not interested in whatever college football game is going on. I will turn over to the President's Cup because it will feel live. It will feel like the genuine energy, the passion of the Canadian fans for that international team. The U.S. team, the automatic qualifiers, were Scotty, obviously. Zander, obviously.

Colomorakawa, Wyndham Clark, Sahith. Good job. Patrick Cantley, those were your autos. And then added to the team. good job by him, Keegan Bradley, because he showed up at the FedEx Cup playoffs

and won the BMW. Great job by Keegan. That's a good storyline, right? Rider Cup captain playing in the international event. Sam Burns, Tony Feenele, Russell Henley,

top five at the Tour championship. Good job, Russell. Brian Harmon and Max Homa. So there's your U.S. team. You don't seem like, you know, beside yourself. there is only one tour event between now and then one U.S. tour event, and that is the Napa Wine Fest,

which is in two weeks. And there's at least one Euro event. How many of these guys, I think there's like a BMW event in Europe. Yeah. You know, how many of these guys will be, you know, motivated to go grind to stay sharp for this international competition? I mean, here's the thing that we'll remind everybody of, no live guys because the President's Cup is owned by the tour. And since the tour and live don't have a deal, there is no participation by Bryson D. Shambo. Or I guess, Joaquin Neiman, who did play in the 2019.

And probably, I guess, would have been. Or Cam Smith. Yeah. Yeah. who may or may not be playing well enough or give enough of a shit to earn it anyway I just like Jim Furek this was a remarkably

uninspired pick I mean I would say in that the 12 the six guys that he picked were the next six guys in terms of points for qualifying yeah and you know I mean McKenzie Hughes was 15th in the standings he got the knot

over Nick Taylor who was 12th in the standing so at least over you know Cam Davis was eighth in terms of points. So he got stepped over. I don't know. Why not Samakshay Batia? Or why not a little bit of young blood to just sort of mix it in if we're going to go? But to me, it just sort of makes the event.

It's going to be fine, House. We'll tune in. The international team is better on a relative basis than they have been. historically. Adam Scott, who by the way, bounced back after just an awful putting performance in Colorado to lead the field in putting last week. So Adam Scott is playing well. You've got a bunch of Canadians who are going to get some of that tailwind, I suppose. Is Brian Harmon going to drive eyeballs? You got to put Max on the team because Max is a dog and he's been a leader of these teams and you need some carryover consistency. It's just the same.

second half of that roster otherwise doesn't doesn't get me too excited i don't know about you they all earned it and qualified and it's fine they're just there's no drama here well i feel like where it's the um a hamburger that's been you know cooked well enough that's now going underneath of a heat lamp for a little while because what you're really doing is incubating some of these u.s names to see uh get them some more reps in this in this unique match play format so that they could be ready for rider cup 25 because that's the other storyline that will really predominate next year will be the qualification for the Ryder Cup. But we would expect that names like Sam Burns and Max Homer will be, you know, right there

around the hoop. Russell Henley, if he's going to keep playing this well, he's going to put himself right in the mix. He's right on the cusp of it. Now, Kagan will be capped and I don't know, top 10 Tony, just keep collecting them top tens. It's like, get himself into rudder cup conversation. The most fascinating part of this list is really who's not on it. There's no Speeth and there's no Thomas. And Spieth, we know, is having his wrist surgery. Thomas had a decent year, but for crying out loud, Tom Hogi

and Eric Cole and Denny McCarthy and Billy Horshull and Chris Kirk and Akshay, they all finished with more qualifying points than JT did. And that's really the most interesting part of the year ahead is whether those two stalwarts on the team. team can claw their way back up the standings and make their way onto the team. You know, who would you replace today? I'd probably put J.T. in over Brian Harmon. No disrespect to Brian. I just think J.T. in these events is an important culture carrier, you know. Well, not just culture carrier, but also, you know, eyeballs carrier. Like nobody, again,

all due respect to Brian Harmon, the Bulldog, ain't nobody tuning in to see that dude play golf. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll, this is large. the Ryder Cup team a year from now, save for a few spots. We'll be interesting to see if J.T. and Speath can figure out their way into it. We'll be interesting to see if Cam Young has something to say about it. We'll be interesting to see if Nick Dunlap finds a way. Right. Youngblood.

To sort of inch his way in. And I think that could, the way these guys are playing right now, that could only really happen at the expense of probably Henley, Keegan himself as a player, Brian Harmon. Max Homa, unless he absolutely regresses in 2025, is going to be on that Ryder Cup team. So there's really only probably the Harmon Henley and Keegan spot that is up for grabs based on the way that everybody is performing right now.

Well, I have the Fanduosports book open. I've been hitting refresh. They don't have the odds out yet for the President's Cup. I will be speculating in that market. And right now at first blush, Nate Dogg, I'm just telling you, I'm going to put something down on the international team. I'm going to do it. Because you think these guys are just tired and they don't get a crap on the U.S. side.

Yeah, we've got to lose at some point. They've won nine straight and the U.S. is 12, 1 in one. and the only hope is that that Canadian crowd is so crazy that it like catches the guys and wakes them up, the U.S. guys, I mean. But otherwise, you know, we kind of watched this show last year in Rome where they showed up were like, oh, my God,

let, if we have to keep playing competitive golf. And they just weren't really ready for it. You know, all due respect to all the guys. I don't blame any of them for trying to get as much rest as they can between now and the President's Cup at the end of September. But as soon as these odds open up, I'm going to get a taste of the international team. Look, the most interesting part of this is going to be how Kegan interacts with the other guys as not a captain, but a player here, and whether he starts to grab the mantra of leader through

the course of this. I love it. The locker room dynamic there is the thing to watch. How does he play with these guys? I love it. That's, well, I think that will be one of the. the things that will point everybody towards my birdie buddies, my part-saving

pals, my eagle enthusiast. There you have it. Another stellar scintillating, fairway rolling, even if the no-stakes tour doesn't provide it, we're here to do our best to give you something that makes you want to throw a peg

in the ground. I hope you're able to do so. We shall be back as the President's Cup arrives. We might have some things to say about Napa. Nathan will be in Napa. exploring and enjoying all that that region has available, including maybe some interesting golf. We'll see. But in the meantime, man, the weather's changing here on the East Coast.

We're not quite ready for fall golf. It's still, you know, sort of late summer. But the evenings are getting cooler. It's a great time to throw a peg in the ground at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and go get one of those glory hour glory hole rounds in. If you're able to do so, please let's have them straight. out there. You must be 21 years old or older, 18 years old or older in Washington, D.C. And present in select states. Bandul is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler or visit

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