Fairway Rollin' - The Ramifications of the PGA Tour-LIV Golf Merger With Smylie Kaufman

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

House and Hubbard start the pod with their initial thoughts on the merger, the timing of the deal, the reckoning of the PGA Tour’s hypocrisy in regards to Saudi Arabia, and how Tour players must be feeling (03:02). They are then joined by Smylie Kaufman, host of 'The Smylie Show' on SiriusXM, to get his perspective on the deal, how the PGA Tour will take care of golfers like Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, and the transition from player to media personality (28:35). They end by giving flowers to Denny McCarthy and Rose Zhang, and a quick preview of the Canadian Open (68:39). Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Guest: Smylie Kaufman Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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golf podcast unlike any other. Oh yes, my friends, we have done it. This is Fairway. Roll. A golf podcast on the Rigger Podcast Network. I am your starter, Joe House by Birdie Buddies

by par-saving pals, my eagle enthusiast. This is a day in professional golf unlike any other. We are going to do our very best to give you our immediate reaction and go through all of the questions that we have that must be answered. I am joined as always by my incomparable accomplice.

Our PGA tour boots on the ground. Nathan Hubbard, who's been working tirelessly to get us information. And the golf gods are good, my birdie buddies. Just by happenstance, we had this gentleman lined up to join us today. smiley coughman from the golf channel from nbc sports from serious xm he's got his own podcast the smiley show he is on to help us break this down a unique perspective as a guy who both played on tour and in the media now by birdie buddies this is a good one buckle up the first tee is wide open it's going to be a two ball for a little bit and then it's a three ball almost all the way home

let's put some pegs in the ground and get this thing going. Nate Dog, it's the biggest news in the history of modern golf, which I think makes it the biggest news in the history of this golf podcast. Other than what? The news that your brother had a knife dropped into his foot by his child and had to withdraw from a golf tournament, that news was pretty momentous. It's a big day. Hey, house. It's a big day. It's a great day to have a golf podcast. It's a great day to be in the golf content business. Nate Dogg, I want to begin by asking you some of the business questions because we will get certainly to the implications for the players, the player's reaction, the manner in which this news has been delivered. There are many, many, many tentacles to this beast. But let's start with kind of the business question.

And I don't want to presume your answer, but this felt inevitable to me. That's the way I'll begin it. What is your sense from kind of a business perspective? I am surprised that it happened so quickly. I am. And clearly, this was a very small room house. There are a lot of people who just found it out about this this morning, who had known about PGA tour schedule changes, who'd known about players that were potentially going to live.

I mean, this was an all-secret conversation that materialized now they're saying over the course of two months. Right. But from a, I mean, look, this is, was it inevitable? Probably. And the reason that it was inevitable is that for months, we have. have been on this podcast saying, this sucks. It sucks. It's not as good for the end consumer. And when you looked at the live ratings and you looked at the product, that sucked too. And when you looked at a PGA tour event that didn't have the two of the last three major winners in it,

that kind of sucked, even though there were, at least it felt like better players. And the animosity between guys for the players themselves, the idea that Sergio wouldn't be able to play on a rider cup. That sucked. So there was just a lot of this that sucked and that was about more personal interest and personal gain than the fan base at the end of the day. And the reason from a business perspective that we talked about this sucking was the golf audience ain't big enough for two tours. It's just not. That's what we learned. It's not big enough. It's not big enough. for two different tours. And I'm not sure that there was a bunch of business and eyeballs being taken away from the PGA tour.

But there was money. There were sponsor relationships that had to get restructured. There were players that were going in the other direction. There were a lot of lawyers who were on the payroll that presumably were draining the accounts of, despite what we heard from Phil in the process, an organization that was, wasn't necessarily rife with cash. Indeed. So let's begin with the timing proposition.

One of the theories that's being advanced out there is that the two principles were somewhat rushed into making this announcement because... Sure feels like that. Yeah, there was the possibility of a leak emanating. Now, I guess you would say, kudos to these principles for making it all the way up to this point. if indeed it's been two months that they've been talking and not having, you know, news of a potential combination coming out before this point. But certainly from the press release and the communication to the players, it does feel like, you know, there was a decision made short of a full onboarding,

short of a full ramp up to just get the news out and then let the consequences. in terms of communicating to all your constituencies and your stakeholders, because not only the players, there's also you know, major sponsors and so forth that are saying, you know, obviously we knew nothing of any of this.

And there's some indication that TV partners had no idea this was coming. And so this, they, they got the handshake done and boom, here we are. And they are in the, in the

interview on CNBC, Jay Monaghan and the Asser both said that they expect the, you know, the sort of outline to become a fully actionable executed deal in a matter of weeks. There is some diligence yet that they claim they want to do, some valuation exercise. And that's, you know, fine. I can't imagine that that's much more than window dressing for the purposes of a fully conceived deal, right? You know, so you can say we did diligence. But at the end of the day, the combination in the in the sense that it does give a little more time perhaps for them to sort out the thorny issues and have all those thorny issues addressed in the fire hose manner in which they're going to occur here. Is it better that they kind of announced it this way in this short order fashion? Yeah, what has to come to Lighthouse is what the pressure was on the PGA tour to do this now.

Other than the leak? Yeah, well, but so what if it leaks? Like, if it leaks, you get to test the waters on what the 9-11 families are going to say. They've had a lot to say today. Yeah. If it leaks, you get to test the waters on what some of your closest players will say. They get to test the waters today. And the thing that I would just say is we're not going to learn all the details of this.

We're doing a rapid reaction set of conversations today. This is going to play out over the next couple of days. Because Jay Monaghan could not go and just do this and stay in the position that he's been anointed in the press release if he doesn't have the support of the players, and in particular the players on the PGA tour right now. There mergers a very big, heavy word. And that's what's being thrown around. around. I think there's a whole lot of detail that's going to come out about what this deal really is

that's going to shape how we ultimately look at it. And that is, for me, the bottom line, we're going to make a lot of assumptions, a lot of predictions. I've got a whole lot of thoughts about what this might mean. What does it mean to actually have a single board seat? Yeah, you're chairman of the board, but if you got one board seat and everybody can outvote you, It actually means the PG-Tour got control of live today and that the entity that it is live is probably going to go away. On the other hand, the guys who left for live and got massively paid

sure look like they won if you just measure by money. On the other hand, the guys at the PIF, the Saudi government, who got into this just wanting influence and wanting to get some validation, they took a hell of a lot of beatings, which is why I think they were in the press, which is why I think they probably were very open to doing this. But boy, it sure looks like they may be won.

So I don't know. There's a lot of blood on the ground. There's a lot of wins. The only group of people who you can't exactly yet say got something out of this is those 20 to 50 players who matter on the PGA tour who said no to the live money, who stood up, fought for the tour on the principal and morality argument, who now have to turn around and be appeased. That's the group to watch.

Let me ask you, though, of those 20 to 50, it wasn't a big number that actually were on, certainly principal. Yes, golf history, golf legacy, golf competition, the integrity of the sport. Morality, there wasn't, there was, the number of guys that I heard actually went in that direction is a handful. And by a handful, I mean five. Like, I don't, that was not the common refrain. from many of the guys, to my recollection, to my way of consuming the stories and what we heard. Okay. I think there will be a massive reckoning on the hypocrisy side of this because the Saudi money was made to be the bad guy. It's not clear how much Saudi money has been put into this, by the way. I suspect that the press release is pretty much geared towards some face saving for the Saudis.

A, it's not clear that they're doing anything more than funding the ongoing live losses. B, all it says is they have a right to put more capital in in the future. That doesn't mean they get to. C, how you get liquidity out of this when you don't have a controlling share and you're at the mercy of your partners is super TBD. It's like being a small minority owner in a sports team. You know, it's great that Cuban has somebody who's an owner potentially, but like that guy doesn't get to vote.

That guy doesn't get to steer the ship. So we'll see what all of that means. But for those players, man, however they fought and stand for the PGA tour, they did. And they were out there. And they took bullets. And they fought. And it's a little bit like the general saying, go to war, go to go to bloodshed. But we're going to actually sign a peace treaty while some people are dying unnecessarily.

Well, let's be blunt about it. There's only two they. The two they are Rory and to a lesser extent Tiger, although, Tiger certainly carried his weight if you believe that the meeting up in Delaware went down the way that it did and the role that he played in that. House, I don't agree with you.

If I'm Justin Thomas right now, I'm going, those fucking guys got $100, $200, $300, $400 million and I stayed put and now we're all together. No, that's different. That's the money. That's not arguing for the tour as the what should be the prevailing. They still feel left out.

They still feel like they fought for the future. For now. For now. The thing that I think. That's why we have to watch them. That's right. And to your point about, you know, the role that it seems that the Piff will play and the board seat and everything. All of that is true.

You know what else they have? The checkbook. The unlimited checkbook. The purse strings. And it does seem that if you believe some of the, the way the dots are being connected today on golf channel and Twitter and otherwise, that the tour was being faced with a financial conundrum. They, the tour, put themselves in the position of being able to bolster the purses

sufficiently to offer these enhanced, you know, uh, winnings over the course of this season, but we're faced with the challenge of how to continue that on indefinitely. and there was some thought that some of the sponsors, some of the cornerstone sponsors of the events were being approached in very gentle manner about increasing their spend to meet the price of these increased purses.

This merger, this combination eliminates that altogether. It's a subsidy from an entity with a single goal that I think they've now mostly achieved, which is, and we've talked about this on this podcast, kind of ad nauseum, the goal of the Saudis to assimilate themselves and posture and position themselves into an acceptable role in Western culture. People haven't previously book trips to the Middle East to go visit Saudi Arabia as a vacation destination. folks understand the human rights record, the track record that that place possesses the 9-11

families certainly have a perspective on the role of the Saudi government and in what happened here. And all of those things have been challenges for the Saudis as they think about expanding their standing in the world and expanding their acceptance and assimilation into Western culture. We've seen them in other form, their role in the Premier League. You help me understand a lot better today. The role they play there, their F1 involvement, whatever's happening with the WWE and the Saudis. So this, this to me, is kind of a cornerstone gem for them in terms of that overarching goal of theirs. Do you think that they, that do you agree with the idea that From that perspective, it's mission accomplished for the Saudis?

It sure looks that way. I think it's TBD whether the Saudis are actually subsidizing the purses. If that's the case, we're not running a business anymore, and they basically adopted the live business model at the PGA tour. That's tracing that money and exactly what the P&L of this ongoing enterprise is going to look like on a go-forward basis is going to be fascinating, because that will mean that the Saudis have tremendous influence. The press release, that said, doesn't indicate that they're going to continue to fund it on an ongoing basis. It says that they've got the right to take more capital

if that happens, but not the requirement. So we will see what, look, the P&L of these things tells everything. It will be private, but I think we're going to get a better sense. The point is there is going to be, Jay Monaghan has a lot of explaining to do. He is in the player meeting right now as we speak, telling these guys why he did this, probably laying out the economic case. And the first question coming out of that meeting is going to be one of influence. The second will be follow the money, because that will tell us whether the Saudis bought influence or whether this really just was a face-saving aqua hire by the PGA tour to stop spending money on lawyers, effectively end the competitive threat, and then figure out how to

compensate guys who stayed behind and didn't take the big check or penalize guys who stayed and did take the big check to make it equitable. From a business perspective, everything that you just laid out there makes perfect sense. That would be the reason for the combination. It doesn't address the human rights record. It doesn't address all of the reasons. It won't be addressed. It won't be addressed.

It cannot. And that's going to be the hypocrisy point that Monaghan is going to have to answer for. And Brandel is already voiced. his, he called it the saddest day in golf history, I think, and Eamon Lynch has been out and vocal about those aspects as well. I'll say this.

The PGA Tour took a loss, not today, the PGA tour took a loss when Cam Smith left, when Brooks Kepka left, when other people who were sort of rising stars in the ranks left. That was the loss for the PGA tour. If you were dispassionally leading an organization,

from there you say, okay, how do I handle the competitive threat? Today, looks like on the surface that the PGA tour eliminated that competitive threat. What they will not ever be able to speak to, I don't think, in a way that makes intellectually honest arguments, is how when they mounted the army, figuratively, against the morality of this play on national television, Jay Monaghan did that, how they can do this today. And he may say, look, I've got full control. What I did was I took their money, but they're not getting influenced. They're on the board. They were going to go in perpetuity and continue to tear down the sport and make it harder.

You know, the live bots were going to continue to drown out the internet in nonsense. And, you know, you got to pick your battles. And this is the battle that we took. And it gives us control over the future of golf. Full stop. Here I am. I think that's going to be a valid point. But I just don't think if you made the morality argument and the PGA tour did, It wasn't just the golf channel. It wasn't Aiman Lynch. No, the tour. It was the tour itself talking about the morality of what was going on over there.

Then you have to answer for that. And that's the one thing. The business decision here at the end of the day, I think, I said this on Twitter, it's like being a chairman of a board in which you can get outvoted is like being the king of England. Nobody cares. Great. It's a largely ceremonial role. Fantastic.

But if you have influence with your money, and that is what is still TBD, that's something entirely different. And that's what Jay is going to have to answer for. Well, Nate Dogg, as we are taping this episode of Fairway Roll, and the players met with Jay Monaghan up in Canada, where the Canadian Open is occurring this week. but I'm interested in your sense of the locker room reaction. It's one thing for them to sit and listen. Jay went through the talking points. I hope those talking points included, you know, the possibility of greatly enhanced checks going into the pockets of many of these guys

for his own sake. But from your perspective, from the reaction that you receive today, your own self with an important member of your family, what do you think is happening in the locker room today? I think you got a lot of highly skeptical, stunned people walking into that locker room. I don't think there's a player who was on the Zoom or on the meeting or talking to Jay who knew this was coming.

And the first thing that he's going to tell them, have to tell them, is why this is good for them. But like most of these conversations, he's not speaking to the entire membership. He's talking to those 20 to 30 guys who, who are the only people who are unsigned in this entire situation and who ostensibly could find a different financial backer and leave tomorrow and start a breakaway tour if they want to and go do this all over again. So that's what Jay is doing. He's got to do some convincing. What's weird about this house is that almost none of those guys are in the locker room this week. We've got a

highly diluted field in Canada. They're going to be on Zoom. They're going to be on call. So some of that in-person leadership stuff, if that exists, if that's even possible for Jay to do to rally the troops, is going to be lost over the phone and Zoom. Those guys are still in there, just getting out as we're recording right now. So the way that those, it's not going to be what James Hahn says.

Don't listen to what James Hahn says, because the reason James Hahn is upset is it doesn't matter what James Hans says. I love his Twitter feed. I do, too. But he does not matter so much in this as what Colin Moracawa says, because this morning Colin Moracawa came out and said, I'd love to find out about news in the morning on Twitter.

No, that was McKenzie Hughes. It was also Colin. He said, I thought yesterday was the longest day in golf. There you go. Both good. Same sides of the same coin. We have a tremendous guest. The golf gods are very kind of shining their beautiful light down on us.

We're going to talk to Smiley Kaufman in a minute. But before we get over there, the most important player voice, And this has been the case for, you know, over a year now. What, what do you think? There's, there's been some conflicting indication as to whether or not Roy McElroy knew in advance. It's been reported that Tiger was not told in advance, but Rory is a special candidate. He has played the role really of de facto commissioner for over a year. He's been the face of the PGA tour.

He's been the most strident. He's really put himself in a position where he's had kind of the, the, most to lose reputational and his standing amongst his peers potentially. What do you think is, and Rory is in Canada, by the way. Rory is in that room. When do you think he knew? And how do you think he's processing it? I think this has been a difficult journey for Rory. He quieted himself down a few weeks ago. I think for his own golf, not because he knew this was coming in the same way that Phil was throwing arrows just last week. It's hard to believe. that any of these guys knew it. I mean, we're just getting a sense coming out of the locker

room right now that the negative positive split was 90-10 in the player meeting, that people were pretty frustrated, that there was a standing ovation when the room called for tour leadership. That came from Rick Gaiman. So this was a pretty contentious meeting that it doesn't sound like won everybody over. And at the end of the day, look, you've had Rory out there being the flag bear for this. This has got to hurt in a number of ways for him because he signed up for the principle, the morality of this mission. The money is one thing. From a pure business perspective, I actually think when the chapter is said and done that the PG tour will have, in quotes, won and eliminated a competitor and taken that off the board. But from a moral standpoint,

Rory McElroy appears to have been hung out to dry. Yep, there's no arguing that. Well, let's jump over to Smiley and get his insights and go through this with somebody who occupies an absolutely unique position as both being on the side of media and, you know, a tour player who happens to be a peer of many of the most important players in the game. By Birdie Buddy, some of golf's biggest tournaments are coming up and you can get inside the ropes with

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They look down on us and said, you know, if there's going to be the most dramatic day in the history of professional golf, then you better come correct with a guest and a perspective that is both boots on the ground ready to rock out. I'll just leave it at that. But also with a perspective that is uniquely media as well. My Eagle Enthusiast, we are joined today by Smiley Kaufman of the Golf Channel and NBC Sports. will be on the grounds at U.S. Open and also has his own podcast rocking and rolling right now. The Smiley Show on Sirius XM. It's up Monday nights. He's doing Monday and Thursday shows.

He's already had his boys, Jordan Speeith and Justin Thomas is on. Sam Burns was on. Jake Owen. Smiley, welcome aboard, buddy. Hey, man, what's happening? Thanks for having me on. Big crazy day. Crazy day. So what time did you hear the news? of the merger between Liv and the PGA tour? Oh man, I think I probably heard it around probably was around 10 or something. I don't know what time it was,

but it was early in the mid-morning, and I was looking at my phone, I got a screenshot from the CNBC saying that Liv was merging with the PGA tour, and I immediately went to Twitter and didn't see anything about it, so I was like, oh, that's fake. I mean, that's Photoshopped, whatever,

and then in the next probably 60 seconds to 120 seconds, I saw it one other place, and then I started to run with it to try to be in early on it. And it was true. And it's just, I couldn't have fathom last night to today this happening. It's one of the most crazy things I think I've ever seen as far as a merger in any sport.

It's especially the way the PGA tour, and especially the commissioner, how he talked about Liv Goff and how he talked about how PJ Tour players couldn't go there. They were threatened to go there. It was either you're one way or the other. And the fact that they merged, some people might say it needed to happen, but man, it's a very interesting time to be a PGA Tour player for sure. Well, Smiley, I want to ask you about that

because you have a foot in both worlds on the media side and obviously the player side, the way that you are speaking right now suggests that some of the messages that were burning down your phone may have been from guys that you've known for a long time who are on tour. I know that I was the first guy to tell my brother that this merger happened, but my brother is 69th on FedEx Cup and nobody gives a shit about Mark Hubbard in the big picture of who's going to live, who's staying on tour. There are a couple guys who started on your podcast and who are dear old friends of yours. who people do care about and who were part of that army that stood up and fought and wove the flag, you know, they wave that flag for the tour. You can make a case today that the Saudis won because they got some level of influence. Mergers a big word. We'll see if this is a face-saving move. And they're just, they can be outvoted. They put some capital in. We'll see it. But the Saudi's got some level of victory. You could make a case that the PGA tour may be won because they eliminated a competitor. You could make a case that the guys who took a big check and went to live one,

because they're going to have a pathway back. I don't yet see what the win is for those top players, those top 20-30 guys who decided to stay and fight with the tour. Do you? Well, first off, I am a fan of Mark Hubbard. So let me raise my hand there, say, I do care about Mark Covered. I am a Mark Covered fans. Yeah, you're exactly right. And those are the players that, that were in Delaware that I would say set what the PGA tour, what we thought the PGA tour was going to look like moving forward with the designated events, their commitment to playing all in the same place. And, you know, those guys collectively made business decisions that, you know,

were beneficial to them. And, you know, they could have easily taken the money with Liv. They all had big offers. and yeah, they have every single right to be very upset with leadership. And I keep on going back to how did this happen without any player knowing? And the fact that the PAC didn't know about this. And the fact that the PJ Tour can operate without the player's approval, It seems like it goes against everything that the players in the tour, the relationship that the two have had for however long.

I know there's been multiple times that players have tried to form a union. And if that would have happened a while back when the union talk was to had, you have to wonder in situations like this, could the tour would not have been able to have done what they did today, correct? I mean, in my mind, the union, not having a union is what effectively the players didn't have a say. And they operated the tour, operated on benoques to any of the players and operated by themselves. So I think you're right that if there had been representation for the players, then that stakeholder for sure would have had to have been addressed. and because it's so early in the news that we don't have like any of the real meat on the bone,

I have to traffic in hypotheticals. Now, they're driven by kind of the business judgment, the business experience that Nate's number one in business on here. And I'm, you know, I'm a distant second. But in any kind of combination like this, the number one thing that the principles have to think about first and foremost is how do you get the buy-in of your most important constituency. Live doesn't have to worry. The Saudis don't have to worry about buy-in from their constituency. But Jay Monahan, for sure, there's no PGA tour if the top 20 guys decide that they don't want to go play golf.

So before they made it past the first two hours of the first conversation that they may have had two months ago, It's been reported that these conversations have been going on for a couple months now. Don't you think that A number one on that list was how do we make the top 20 guys whole? How do we make them feel like they want to be partners in this thing, that they want to be participants in this? They certainly sit and look at their competitors who got giant checks out of this and now are being asked to go along with, this new framework. Do you think that that consideration was addressed at the very outset? Because I think they had to have. Well, to my understanding, the top players, and I'm not going to name any names that I've talked to,

but I think they're under the opinion that right now the Saudis are just a, would be deemed a working sponsor with the tour. They're not necessarily a, you know, like the players from the live golf tour. I think there's a little bit of, I think they're being kind of told at the moment that the live golf players aren't going to be playing on the tour. And this is just an investment, the PIF. So with that being said, then it's like, okay, that maybe this all can work out. But when the live golfers start coming back and all of the cuts that the PGA tour has been

making to the FedEx Cup and making a top 70 and basically cutting down on cards, and now you're throwing in a bunch of guys you're throwing the DP World Tour and all the cards they're getting and now you have a card coming from the PGA Tour you, you're creating so many different players and there's just not enough cards. And that from my perspective as a player

and I guarantee you at this meeting in Canada because the majority of the players there are in that range of 70 to 175 on the FedEx Cup. And there's, trust me, there's plenty of other players that are very good at that event. But just looking at the field and in the history there. Hubs is sitting in the crowd at 69 right now. Who is?

Mark is sitting in that meeting at 69 right now going, what does this mean for me? If I finished 69, I thought I was good this year. Am I still good? He should still be good. And I think looking into 2024 is where I get concerned there. And it's, I just don't see how. there's just too many players and not enough card. So I just don't know how this is going to work.

We don't know anything yet as far as how it's going to be structured. So maybe there will be more opportunities for players to not lose their cards. And nobody wants to go back to the Corn Ferry Tour because we're not even talking about that right now, but they cut down on 30 cards on the Cordfairy Tour effectively over a period of time with taking Q school away and making a mega season between one and making it too. So it's a trickle-down effect that doesn't just affect the top players,

but you go to the average PJ tour player, to the struggling PJ tour player, to the Corn Ferry Tour player. And now the mini-tour players has never had a shot to play in the States because of they created the PJ Tour Canada and PG-Tour Latin America,

where there's absolutely zero money in that, but they entice you to go play because of the cards that they offer for the corn fairy. tour. Eric Cole's going to be the last mini tour hero to make it big on the tour I think. Yeah, it's really

it's tough. It's tough to be I say it's tough to be a professional golfer right now. It is and it isn't because the uncertainty, but also you're sitting there as a PJ tour player in that meeting too and you're thinking all right, PIF fun.

Like maybe I'm going to make a lot more money now. Not that the guys aren't already doing well, but you have to wonder, right? You know, that's that's one thing that I would be walking that meeting thinking, all right, I'm all ears, but I'm not happy with you right now, Jay. I don't trust you at all. But tell me how I'm making a lot more money. So, Smiley, one of the things that's made you great in a short period of time at what you do is you have all these different perspectives. You have been on the PJ tour

comfortable. You've been on the PGA tour uncomfortable. You know what it's like from all perspectives on golf. Will you be absolutely, I mean, will you be shocked if they don't take care of guys like Thomas and Spieth. So I was thinking about how they're going to take care of them. And the one thing that I thought of was, okay, what have they done over the past year or two? It's the PIP. And what I think would happen in this scenario is all of the guys that were potentially in that meeting and they would be rewarded similar like they have by this PIP thing and continue to be paid handsomely via the PIP.

And I'm guessing that no live player that took the money would be eligible for the PIP. That is the only way to make this any, like any fair at all to these guys because they should not be getting the live players that hence kind of won the lottery, right? Like these guys, they, they, they're getting bailed out. Yeah, they, I mean, they, they, they won the lottery and the fact that they just get, they, They made a little gamble and they said, you know what? I trust that we will eventually have to merge and trust, you know,

Phil Nicholson was kind of right the entire time, not on necessarily everything, but for the most part, he was kind of right on a lot of stuff. Well, let me pose kind of to both of you guys. And I'll start with Nate and then Smiley, I'm psyched to hear your reaction to this. the news of the creation of a for-profit entity is a game-changer. Because that for-profit entity, there is no restriction, constraint, legal tax, or otherwise from that entity offering multi-year contracts to players to come play on tour. We could get contracts that look like NBA contracts that are offered by that for-profit

entity to individual players. And that looks to me, you know, we're sitting here again in an information vacuum. But if I was trying to answer the question, how am I going to make Justin Thomas and Jordan Speath feel good about, you know, the deal that Brooks Kepka got and that Dustin Johnson got in this combined entity, Nate, you know, because the most important thing right now is avoiding brand impairment, right? You cannot have right out of the box a bunch of of dissent and a bunch of confusion and guys out killing the tour around this, right? Well, two things. One is the initial press release from the tour made a bend over backwards effort to say

that they're going to keep their 501 status. So if it was as easy as just creating an entity above them, I think that would have happened a long time ago to give these guys contracts. So let's wait and see. What's fascinating to me is what Smiley's pointing. out and smile, I want to hear your point of view on this. But like, the only guys who haven't signed anything and don't have a contractual obligation to anyone or anything are those 20 to 30 guys on the tour that matter now. They got a lot of leverage. They got a lot of leverage. They've had a lot

of leverage this entire time. That's right. That's why they reach this entire year has been basically whatever they said goes. And in continuing into next year, all the things we've been seeing and talking about as far as the designated events go. and being cut down to 80 guys and maybe having a little bit of a cut now to those events. These aren't decisions that are being made by the PGA tour. These are decisions that are being made

by the top players with the tour agreeing. And they have proposed all this, and for the longest time, Tiger headed pretty much this charge and Rory headed the charge. And Roy was a dang spokesperson for this whole thing. And I just, I feel bad for Rory. I feel bad for Justin. bad for Max. Those are three guys that stand out that stood on the podium last year and had to answer

hard questions. And that's where I get really frustrated with Jay and the fact that I don't remember ever seeing him do an interview where he had to answer the questions besides really scripted stuff. And I would have loved for Jay to say to the membership, I don't want any of you guys answering anything about the live golf tour unless you feel obligated to. I will be at every single PGA tour event sitting there at the press conferences or have somebody underneath me answer those questions about Live. And the fact that Rory had to carry that weight within the entire year and play as well as he played was incredible because it's so hard to play golf and juggle things going on your mind and dealing with people that are saying hateful things about

your opinions. And that was happening from the Live crowd and it was going vice versa. So I do feel bad for Rory in that. And I don't know if all the stuff that's kind of been related to his play kind of in the last couple months from Augusta is related to that. I doubt it because we just kind of all found out about this. But still, it's, it's just crazy. So to follow on, you know, if we talk about the possibility of the top 20 to 30 guys who've been carrying that, that weight. and, you know, there is, the PIP does have a kind of model. There's a structure in place to compensate those guys. It's also very important to the tour going forward to have guys from 31 to 150,

I think, still competing to make ultimately the entertainment product, the television product. And this is the way that we've talked about this on this podcast quite a bit. the thing that always killed Live is that it was a bad TV show. It wasn't a TV show that I wanted to watch. I tried. I tried to watch it, but it sucked. So, but the PGA tour this year turned out, it was a tremendous TV show,

especially the designated events. The competition amongst the top players with the frequency with which it was occurring, awesome. I'm all in. I'm a sports fan. I love seeing the best players play more often. but we also need the guys further down the list. We need Kurt Kittiyama to have access so that he could show up at a designated event

from what feels like to, you know, a casual sports fan out of nowhere. Now, we know who Kurt Kiyiyama is, Smiley, and we know that he had the chaps, but the casual sports fan might not. We need those guys on down the list. We need Mark Hubbard. How else would we see a look-away, no-look putt at the PGA championship? A birdie putt at the PGA championship on Sunday, Nate, dog. A look away.

We need Mark Hubbard on this tour. Is it possible if, if indeed, again, I'm sorry to be trafficking hypotheticals, but if you offer those guys 31 to 150 contracts, I'm going to pay you a certain amount. And it's not chump change, right? It's a sizable amount. And you can go ahead and scale it based on the way the guys have performed and what they've earned. but some kind of assurance to those guys that going forward, they have a place,

they have a role. It will always be determined. It's an ultimate meritocracy. So you will need to play well, but we're going to cushion the blow with some kind of guaranteed money. Do you think that that's a path that the tour might consider and that it might work with the players? Man, it's hard to say, right?

Yeah. The one thing that comes in my brain is, you know, I think what makes the tour. great is the competition and the need to perform year in and year out. And that's when you talk about contracts.

You know, the PGA Tour doesn't have contracts. You have to earn it every single year. And I think that's what keeps the top players motivated. Even when they're not motivated, you know, they still know they have to go and do the work or they're not going to be playing

on the PGA Tour for a long period of time. You know, you've seen plenty of players that have had 10 to 12 years of success on the PGA tour, but it's very hard to play on the PGA tour until you're 50 years old. There's only a certain amount of guys that have been able to keep their card that long because of the competition. And if you start guaranteeing things,

that's when it's a trickle-down effect. Then it's less and less guys getting opportunities to play their way in. So from that standpoint, yes, I do think we have to have the names that sell playing in events, but I'm with you. I love, there's nothing better than the stories of the guys that are battling, you know, for instance, at the American Express this year, Davis Thompson, a guy that not many guys are familiar with, great player, battling out with John Rom. And nobody knows who Davis Thompson is and everybody knows who John Rom is. And if most people like cheering for the underdog, it's just your human, human nature when you watch TV.

So if you're watching the best PJ tour events every single week without an underdog story, and maybe that's why I really love Michael Bach because it was such a great underdog story. But, you know, it's tough to guarantee things in our landscape. But boy, does it kind of seem like that we're kind of trending that way in some different areas? Smiley, who won? Who does it look like one? Today, who won? Man, man, I feel like the tour think they won

because they still had the upper hand at the moment. And I don't know if the players feel that way, but I think they still feel like they had the negotiating power that Wiv knew they had to commercialize in the United States, and it just wasn't going well. And that is exactly what the BGA tour does have. So from that standpoint, I feel like the tour feels like, yes, we won in this.

we're bringing in this public investment fund and we're going to create so much more opportunities and money for players that it won't be quite as much of a financial burden as since COVID, really. They were in a really good spot and then you start having to dish out a lot of money during COVID to finance events. And it's just been, I think, with also the added money in some of these events that the tour has also had to kind of pitch in. It's financially, I think, competing with Liv long term. I think a lot of folks felt like Lib wasn't going to last. And maybe this was the sign that the PGA tour felt like, you know what, these guys aren't going away. And we don't want to get into litigation with these guys for six years and all the

discovery that comes within that where they don't want to lose their 501C nonprofit. And I don't know if that had a big reason why that they said we don't want to lose this tax exempt status. So we're we don't mind kind of letting you have a seat at the table here. Yeah. It feels like this could be like the Instagram Facebook. When Facebook bought Instagram, everybody was like, holy shit, they spent a billion dollars. And in five years, you're going to look back and be like, that was the smartest move they ever made. We'll see.

There's still a lot to do. But for you, Smiley, you wake up. Your phone battery is already drained at this point. You got some of your best friends who are having a pretty big meeting as we talk. Today, do you miss being a golfer or are you glad you're in media? You know what?

That's such a good question. I played good this past weekend and I haven't played much golf lately. So I'm like, I wish I was a player. You know, because I just kind of found a little something in my swing this past weekend. But I loved being in media so much this past year. For me, I needed to get away from the game of golf.

It was just too taxing for me at the time. You know, it wouldn't surprise me to see myself play again. You know, I've never lacked the ability or talent. I just kind of ran into a period that was, I just struggled mentally, physically, and it just kind of bled into it all. And I'm happy to be where I'm sitting today. It's been really fun just, you know, because days like today, I would have been pretty quiet on it, maybe just one tweet.

But now I'm reporting podcasts. You know, I'm opinionated. Like, I would never say that anything, about Jay Monahan, but here I am saying, like, I'm not happy with this man right now. So I would have never said that before, you know, but here we are. Well, we're psyched to have you on the media side for today. But dude, you are so young. If the golf is still in your blood and you can go chase it, like, you know,

keep thinking those big thoughts because we're here to root for that, man, 100%. But we very much have enjoyed having you. out on course because it's a voice that really came out of nowhere, right? Like, we haven't had a voice where it's a guy that was, you know, in a final group on the Sunday at the Masters that's a peer of the guys that are playing right now who can just walk us through immediately your intuition of what's happening out there. And you're like, here's what he's going to try and do. Here's the place to aim.

Here's the, you know, the miss to avoid. When you put the headset on for the first time, which was, what the PGA championship last year? Yeah, correct, Southern Hills. Yeah, Southern Hills. Did it feel natural? Like, you know, how did it feel? Oh, man, the first time was tough because I, it was, I don't know if you've been to Southern

Hills, but I started on the 10th hole with Victor Hoffman and Wills-Atauris's group, and it goes down the hill there. And it was, we had tremendous amount of static on 10, 11, 12. And I've never worked with a headset or anything, so I didn't know that was a thing. and I get down to the bottom of the hill and it's just like, wow, I can't hear anything. And at Will's Aalotaurus,

it was my first call and, excuse me, Will's ball was behind this small, small tree kind of buried in this Bermuda Ruff and I've played out of Bermuda Ruff my whole life and, and I knew exactly the shot he was facing and I felt like he couldn't get it inside 30 feet. And Will Zalotaurus gets up there and just goes,

just like rips it over this tree, comes down like a butterfly to four feet. And I was like, wow, I really suck at this. And it was, I don't think I've been that wrong on a call ever since. It was literally one of the craziest shots that I just did not see. And, you know, I think in situations like that, I was like, man, props to the player because I didn't see that. No, it's been fun.

It's been a fun learning curve. I've had a lot of people give me some good advice along the way. I'm forever will not get to watch a TV broadcast the same way, unfortunately, because I know exactly what I'm listening for, and I know when the production side gets

screwed up, and I know when guys are calling shots on tape, and I know kind of just the general flow of what the producer, what the guys announcing are thinking. So I'll forever not be able to watch a broadcast the same, really, in any sport, because I'm always thinking from the TV

perspective now. But it's been a lot of fun. It's still early, but one of the things that is a gift for you in doing this job is that you've got deep relationships with guys who are playing in the moment can also be a curse because there's a line there that you've got to respect as a member of the media. There's also a line there that they've got to respect. Have you run into that tension yet? It feels like it's old hat for you.

But have you run into a moment where you're like, man, I got to hold this one back from the fans or, man, I got to say this about one of my guys? I don't know. I would say the closest I've had, and I went and told Michael Greller about it, was I thought the first round, and this kind of goes to strategy. I think questioning strategy is always something that is the job of the on-course reporter to say whether it's the correct strategy or not. And I felt I was in the booth working for CBS and the master's coverage on the 13th hole. Jordan's in the Pine Straw. And he's having, he has a great round going. And I just felt like he shouldn't be going for the green and two. I just felt like it was too early in the week to hit a shot out of the pine straw, even though he's 200 front. I just thought this is a layup to a back right pin and you make,

you most likely make birdie. He ends up making double bogey and loses the masters by however many shots. It wasn't, wasn't many. So I told Michael, it was like, man, I just didn't, I didn't think that was the right call on Thursday. and he's like, you know what, we've never laid up from 190-yard front or 200 yards front in his entire career. Would you have said that to him before you took the mic? That's a good question.

Probably, because I'm good friends with Michael. I would just ask him, like, hey, man, why don't you go for that? But also wouldn't have been watching that closely, you know? So I would have probably never been in that situation of thinking that deep into a golf tournament, but because I was covering it, I definitely just felt the need to say it before the shot, and then he hits in the water and doesn't get up and down mixed doubles. Well, yeah, I mean, I understand that. So speaking of strategy and speech, let me ask you this.

Why can he not hit the green on 17 at Baker's Bay? Oh, I don't know if I've hit it either. I think we just give him crap because he literally can't hit the club face by 17. I mean, it's right behind you. I mean, it's literally you've just hit it for the fourth time. We haven't been back there and it's which which is crazy. We haven't been back there since as a group since 2017. So honestly, I'm having to go back in my head.

Remember what it all looks like. It's been so long. But it wouldn't surprise me to see our entire group get back there in the next year. Well, we saw you guys all there with their kids, you know, with the family, extended families down in South Carolina this year, right? and that was husbands and wives a very nice very genteel you know we we enjoyed those pictures and family is important but you know it's important to get together together with the boys every once in a while as well so so please make sure maybe you could be families every other year got to got to get got

got to keep it going with the boys yeah no we we had babysitters which helped a bunch we uh we had the babies with this so having babysitters we were able to kind of uh really just you know not have to worry quite as much as we normally would with the babies. Indeed. Now, you are working this upcoming U.S. Open at LACC. It is sublime. Every picture that I see, every every every overly, it's just outrageous how good it looks. You've been there. Have you played there before? I have played there one time before I went to Japan. Justin and I played out there. And it fantastic. We both loved it. So do you know yet on course where you're going to be next week? No, I don't. We won't get assignments till Wednesday, but I'm not really sure what our hours

yet are either. I think there's going to be some early coverage on, I think normally USA Network catches some early coverage. So there's a good chance the walkers are going to be working a good bit that week. So we'll have to see. I'm stoked. It's going to be really fun to get back with the NBC team. I miss being there on Saturdays and Sundays. I've been on there on Saturdays and Sundays with the Golf Channel since our NBC swing, but it's just not

the same as being there, you know, down the stretch, calling some, you know, some potentially historic shots. And that, for me, I get juiced up like I'm playing, coming down the stretch with somebody that's chasing down of, you know, whatever it is, US Open, and it'll be the Open Championship.

I get to work that this year that I'm stoked. And then the Ryder Cup later, like, I'm going to be so jacked up, ready to go. You've been extraordinarily generous with your time today of all days, possibly the busiest media golf day, certainly in my adult life. We appreciate it. Before we let you go, give us some liens. Who do you think has the kind of game that's appropriate for LACC?

Who do you like? Man, that is a great question. I want to hear who y'all have first, so I don't pick. No, it's fine. I mean, we on this podcast, I mean, I'm a degenerate. Like I already, I have bets, you know, I've been betting the U.S. Open since February. I mean, obvious. Do you have any good value?

That's what I want to know. No, no, because it's chalk. I just bet chalk. I mean, you know, I'm a clown. I have Scotty. Like, you know, shocker. I have Scotty Sheffler winning the U.S. Open at LACC. He's played it 15 times in competition.

How am I going to sleep on Scotty? Wait, Scotty's played there 15 times. with the Walker Cup, right? He has all those competitive loops from the Walker Cup. Man, that's such a good point. I need to do some recon on who I'll play in that Walker Cup. Thank you for giving me that. That's what we're here for.

I need to dig into that a little bit. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Smiley, you've tried to read those screens. The way Scotty's putting right now, it's a little bit of a liability. Don't you talk that slander. I'm not listening to it. I don't even understand. I think Scotty's ball striking is the first time that I watched Scotty play.

I've seen him play when he was a junior golfer, but not as a pro golfer until the U.S. Open this past year. That's the first time you saw it. Well, I mean, I've seen him play on TV, you know, but I missed him when I was coming up. We kind of crossed it, never crossed past. So when I saw him play at the U.S. Open and watched his ball flight, and I said to me, myself, holy crap, because at the time, I was wondering, was the master's thing just kind of like a fluke thing? Like, how good is Scottie Shephy? Because he wasn't talked about like when Jordan

won his master's. It wasn't just like this PGA two were holding him up and saying like, this is our guy and everybody else kind of just rallying around. This guy's the best player I've ever seen. And I didn't ever get that sense from Scottie until I watched it live for the first time. And I said, oh my gosh, this is probably the one of the best ball fights I've ever seen. And there's a reason why he's basically breaking every ball striking statistic we've seen this year. What he's doing, the last 15 events finishing top 12 every time, he would generally probably could have won 10 plus times in those 15 starts. That's how well he's hit it. And the putting, yes, it's...

That's golf. He just, he needs to spend a lot of time between 10 to 20 feet. and if he can make one put around from 10 to 20 feet, he's probably going to win because he does struggle inside of 10 feet. Like he's a little worse than two or average, and that's kind of most of his putting stats this year. But I think you can kind of wheel those in, but you've got to have some feel from that 10 to 20 feet,

and those are the putts that get the momentum and keep the momentum. But to answer your original question, sorry, I've kind of got on a tangent with Scotty because he's, I had a lot to say there. I've been on Victor Hovlin the whole year. Great call. I've been on him the entire year, and this is before Memorial,

after I left Bay Hill, and really even going into Bay Hill, and said, this guy's going to have an unreal year because I started to watch him practice his short game, and I could see that he started to figure out the why and how to do things and not have to think around the Greens as much and can play fun shots,

be so worried. You could see the worry on his face when he used to hit short game shots. Don't sense that at all. Was that between the ears or did you see something technical that he was able to make natural? Technical. What did you see the change? Yeah, technical. Joe Mayo convinced him that he did not have to roll the face open to be a good pitcher. And he's a very strong face player with his full swing. One of the stronger club faces on the PJ tour arguably. And if you tell a player's like, wait, I can kind of chip from shut, not crazy shot, but I can chip from shot.

And he learned how to have the correct mechanics that go along with that. And that has been a huge change for him, because now he understands downhill lie, uphill lie, and what type of shot to feel. And once a player gets a feel for how to play every shot, and then you have reps on reps on reps in tour environments and starting to see success,

then it gets to the PGA championship where he got up and down to keep the round going to still stay in it with Brooks Keppkin. That's what I saw in 8 and 9 there was he was able to get it up and down to keep the momentum going because he's not going to be able

to hit every green even though he's probably capable of hitting every green he ever plays. He's that good of a ball striker. And ironically, he misjudges the bunker on 16 to probably just pull himself out of it at PGA.

But is that just really quickly on that? Is that an insight that you would have seen looking at him or was that something unique to the guy that he found? Is it just a matter of mostly that was between the ears and he found right guy to deliver information in a way that he could receive it? Or was that something that truly was a unique insight?

No, I think he feels like he got the correct information. That's to me as a player, some guys can... There's two types of players. And I had Jordan Speeth on my podcast, and he kind of said this as well, and it made perfect sense to me. There's kind of two types of players on tour, one that really needs to kind of know everything,

and they want to know the why and everything, and then there's players that don't really need to know anything. So, like, that would be the Dustin Johnson on the end of the spectrum. He probably said the same swing thought and same thought for his entire career on tour. And maybe there's some things that he works on, but for a guy like Victor Hovlin, I feel like he was kind of stuck in the middle there with his pitching.

It's like, okay, I want to not think at all because the more I think, the worse it gets. But if I start thinking too much and not really knowing what I'm thinking about, it's going to be even worse. So he was kind of stuck in, okay, do I don't really know how to do this. I don't really, I can't explain to you. If he was going to tell you how am I going to hit a pitch out over a bunker, I don't think he could have told you, you know, six months ago or nine months ago, what exactly he would do. If you had to write it down on paper, I don't think he could tell you. But now he would tell you, I'm going to put the ball right here. I'm going to take it back to here.

I like to feel maybe the butt of the club is the first thing out of the top. And I've got to make sure my chest is moving forward, and I've got to make sure to deliver my hands and thump the ground. I think he would probably be able to tell you that right now, and he could tell you that for every different shot around the green. And that's why he's improved so much. So I would say the information and just the amount of work combined with just seeing the proper stuff on the golf course to be able to execute. It gives you confidence.

Smiley, speaking of information and amount of work, please save some of these nuggets for the broadcast. That was amazing. Could not have enjoyed that breakdown of Victor anymore. The only thing that's a bummer is that he won Memorial and all the value is gone now off of Victor Havon. The whole, well, I mean, he did play great in the first two majors as well. But look, everybody, other than when Smiley has is pressing his service to do an emergency podcast on a Tuesday to address groundbreaking, you know, industry changing news, you can catch his podcast, The Smiley Show on Mondays and Thursdays on all podcast platforms. It's a serious XM pod. It's also aired on Monday nights at 8 o'clock on series.

XMPGA tour radio. We'll be looking for you wherever you are on the golf course all week next week, Smiley, we'll be looking for you and looking forward to hearing you break things down the way you just did with Victor Holland. Thanks so much for coming on, buddy. Thank you. Thank you.

Good luck on your best, man. I appreciate it. All right. Big, big, big thanks to Smiley Kaufman. He has a standing invite to come on this podcast anytime he wants tremendous conversation with him, Nate Dogg. There is golf this week. mentioned a couple of few times here.

The Canadian Open. Now, it is a diluted field. Rory is there, though, and that is probably the most important person. He is the two-time defending champion of this thing, looking for a three-peat of sorts. Before we talk about the Canadian, obviously, you know, the news of today dwarfs the extraordinarily impressive performance of Victor Hovlin. smiley's insights into Victor's short game stuff so so juicy so good but you know kudos of Victor hoblin we've been watching him around the hoop and all of these you know the the

the stiffest of challenges right top 10 at the masters you know and we watched him right down the stretch battle brooks kept at the at the pGA championship not a shocker to see him at at jack's place Memorial, which was playing as tough as any kind of major venue, you want to identify, right? What was the feedback from boots on the ground about how that place was playing? I mean, incredibly difficult, I think, probably to a fault. I think what the players don't want to say out loud is a lot of them are kind of over it. Yeah. And I'm not speaking for my brother here at all.

I'm actually speaking for other players who just feel like the tinkering has gotten a little silly. You heard it on the hot mics. You heard Jason Day call 16, just a terrible hole. And to Jack, to his credit, he's listening. But I think the firmness of that place, the sort of firm and fast, which became just a weird repeated line through the course of the week is fine. There's just, there isn't a hole on that course that I love to sit back and watch. I like to see the player's struggle. I like to see them handle the pressure or not handle it. But I don't feel like that course in and of itself is this masterpiece of design in the way that this U.S. Open course that we're about to see

is a masterpiece of design. Yeah, I cannot overstate how excited I am to see it. Hey, Lipski, we gave out, we gave out. Ricky made a nice little run there. Ricky was there. Yes, that's right. There were some people to pay attention to who you could see some momentum building from the week before that we spoke about last week.

and this is another one of those tournaments where, you know, if you're paying attention, Eric Cole's having a great year, everybody. This is a tournament, this is the kind of tournament. Now, he's playing a lot of events in a row, including the U.S. Open, but this is the kind of tournament that a guy like Eric Cole is going to do well at this week.

If you're paying attention, you got Ludwig Aberg who's starting this week, right? The number one amateur in the world, right? Absolutely. We haven't seen incredible play from him yet, but, like, you got to be paying attention. if you're a better, this is your kind of tournament because you can go into results of late,

look at some of those guys who've been trending and sort of outperforming relative to the field, even go look at some of the U.S. Open qualifying numbers from the beginning of this week and see guys who are trending up versus guys who maybe are better to step away from. Yeah, I kind of wanted to play Tommy Fleetwood. I've been playing Tommy Fleetwood, you know,

kind of quietly every week. It'll probably be just, he's not like, cracking top 10 territory with enough frequency, but a little top 20 on Tommy feels okay. The names that I have, Sam Burns isn't really going out on a limb. He's just in form that I like, sixth that colonial,

16th at Memorial. And, you know, so I like the forum and he's got, got the game for it. There is a corollary. I've seen some of the analytics folks, draw some similarities between this venue, that's never hosted an event.

Yeah, it's tough. Oakdale. But there is, because of the combination of the green sizes and the grass combination, that there is some comps with TPC River Highlands, the travelers. And so I have two guys who perform well at the travelers. I have Sahith on here, who almost damn sheer, damn near should have won last year's travelers. So every week we're looking for the breakthrough.

And then Ches Revy, who, you know, is. is a short track specialist. And this place is going to play short. You're looking for guys that are accurate with wedges in their hands, the 100 to 125-yard category. So just a couple of names to put out there. I wish I could think of another guy who does well at TPC Highlands, who performs well on short track,

who's played decently well. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Well, you think on that. I do want to make sure before we go, shout out to Denny McCarthy and shout out to Rosang. We talked about Danny McCarthy last week because of the three-point contest.

Remember, buddy? We put a little down on the DMV boy. Well, I mean, I can't give him too much credit for his hoops game. He went to prep. So, I mean, you know, he wasn't in the WMAC. But look, I mean, you know, he was a score at prep, at least his senior year. And he certainly was a score. There was a lot of people here in the DMV rooting for him.

Like what I saw. Like what I saw. Big putts. under pressure. You know, it's one thing to have great stats. It's another to be standing there with those crowds in front of Jack Nicholas and make putts on, on, yes, the greens were rolling true, but under pressure, like, that tells you that when that guy has a good ball striking week, ooh. That's it. I mean, just got to stay out of the rough on 18. It's really the only thing that that got them. Hard to do. Speaking of hard to do, um, winning the NCAA individual

title and then 13 days later making your pro debut and winning that professional tournament, which is what Rosang did this weekend. Hasn't been done since ever, I think, in the women's, and it's been 72 years since the debutante showed up. And I can't remember. Her first name is Beverly. I know, I know Beverly did it. Beverly did it 72 years ago.

Yeah, in 51. Right. That's 72 years ago. But she hadn't won the NCAA tournament twice in a row. I mean, this is unprecedented stuff. And the hello world social post from Rose is the right parallel. You've got a superstar coming out of Stanford who's got gaudy numbers who has a swing that is blowing people's mind, who seems grounded in a way that you're not used to. She actually feels a lot more mature than Mr. Woods was coming on.

And listen, it's early. It's early. that swing on that golfer is something to learn from. Yeah, you said, Hello World was emanated from, from Rose's account. I know you were talking about the Tiger. Yeah, but she said, I guess, hello world. To mimic that. Yes. No, I understand. It was wonderful. I got it. I'm sorry. Don't, don't listen to me. Anyway, my Bernie, buddies, my par saving pals, my Eagle enthusiasts. We have a U.S. Open in front of us. Nathan and I will be, together in Los Angeles, California.

It'll be four boots on the ground, two belonging to Nate, two belonging to me. We will break everything down, as is our way, on the Monday podcast and Fandul TV program with Justin Ray,

our beloved buddy, that helps us get these majors sorted out. And then show Wednesday, after Nathan and I have traversed the George Thomas, Billy Bell, classic iconic venue. And then a recap show Sunday night after the cup is in somebody's hands.

Now, I also want to hold open the possibility that we will invite ourselves on to the Bill Simmons podcast and any other podcasts that will have us next week. We will call everybody's attention to that. Speaking of the Bill Simmons podcast, probably making appearance on that this week, Nate Dogg, to share with BS and get his reaction to this merger news because it really is the first genuine sports merger to occur in our adult lives, a major sport in the United States, and the first of its kind in history to have a foreign investment, a foreign investor as the merger partner. But we'll break all that down with Bill Simmons.

Thanks to Nate Dogg. Thanks to Smiley Kaufman. thanks to our producer Eduardo Ocampo. We will be back. It'll be a busy week next week, my birdie buddies. But in the meantime, if you have a chance to throw a peg into the ground, please. Let's hit them straight up there.