Fairway Rollin' - Tiger Can’t Putt at Riviera, the Premiere Golf League, and WGC Mexico Bets | Fairway Rollin’

Episode Date: February 19, 2020

Joe House is joined by senior writer at Golf Digest Alex Myers to chat about Brooks Koepka’s balky knee, Adam Scott’s win at the Genesis, Tiger’s putting struggles at Riviera, and Myers's picks for the WGC in Mexico (4:00). Then, Rival CEO Nathan Hubbard calls in to talk about going to the Genesis Invitational and whether the Premiere Golf League is legitimate (35:50). Host: Joe House Guest: Alex Myers and Nathan Hubbard Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We're all together. It's another exciting episode of Fairway Rowland, the Golf Podcast. On the Ringer Podcast Network, presented by Calloway Golf, I am your starter. Joe House, lots and lots to talk about this week. We have Alex Myers from Golf Digest making his triumphant 2020 return and debut here on Fairway Rowland. We're talking all things Riviera.

We're talking all things TV Broad. CBS does not fare well. And after Alex, we have our boots on the ground, the PGA tour expert. He was physically on the grounds at Riviera. And he also has some perspective on this PGL thing. Nathan Hubbard, ringer intern. Let's go over to the first tee. Oh, the fairway is open.

We're going to go ahead and tee it up with my main man, Alex Myers. now on the team making his triumphant 2020 return to fairway rolling he is a senior writer at golf digest the author and star of the grind

at golf digest and a co-host of a brand new podcast that I've started listening to over there I think you guys are still working on a name but I've seen shows up as best bets Alex Myers, welcome to Fairway Rowland. Thank you for having me on. Yes, that is correct.

It's a gambling podcast. Let's put it that way. We were given picks for a while mixed in with the regular podcast. We decided to break it out. And yeah, the name is still work of progress. And I really like three idiots sliding money on fire. That's what I want to go with, but it hasn't been approved yet. And we would abbreviate it to T-I-L-M-O-S.

Kilmoth, kind of like a Monday morning quarterback type thing. Yes, sure. So we'll see. We'll see if that takes off. But yeah, I know it's fun. And Steve Hennessy and Chris Powers are on there with me. And they really do most of the research. I just kind of egg them on.

And then eventually they convinced me to make a few bets and I end up losing money that week. So it's a lot of fun. Well, this is why we get along so well. Lining money on fire is a specialty of ours here at Fairway Roll. Although we did recognize the trend line of guys with good past performances like Adam Scott at Riviera and why it's wise to, you know, cast a broad, make your portfolio broad enough to accommodate guys who've played well. I'm somewhat disappointed. I think I've learned my lesson.

This is two consecutive years that I've given out Brooks Kepka in an event. before the Masters, and I think I'm not going to do it anymore. Two straight years now, I gave him out at the players last year and found out after the event that he was on his crash diet and was going to get his white blood cells, white blood cells checked out. And then this week, this most recent week, it wasn't until play had already started that I heard about him saying in an interview at the beginning of the week that his knee was as bad as it's felt in six months.

I'm in the same boat. I'm in the same boat. That was my big bet last week, but only because I saw, we got him at 26 to 1. And when you think about a guy who's 10 to 1 or even I've seen 9 to 1 to win the Masters and he's 26 to 1 to win a regular tour event. So three times the odds, you're thinking, this is too good to be true. And guess what? It was too good to be true because like you said, he comes out on Thursday and says the knee, you know, feels like crap. It's never going to feel the same again. And I'm like, ah, why didn't he say that on Tuesday before I, you know, with the $20 on fire? But anyway, I'm with you with that.

And yeah, let's just, let's agree to not take him before any of the major. Actually, let's just not take him at any non-major in general. That's it. I mean, this is two consecutive years where I talked myself into the event being prominent enough for Brooks to catch his attention to to make him interested because we, you know, the players is a giant purse. That ought to be motivation. And Riviera is an iconic venue, a major venue. And he was surrounded by all of the, you know, top players in the world.

And he had just been surpassed by Rory for the number one spot in the world. And it just didn't matter. None of that mattered. None of it matters. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, well, look, this is kind of a good. good entree into one of the things that I wanted to talk with you about this week, which is

kind of a state of the Gulf Union because we can we can say the season has officially started. The California swing is in our rearview mirrors. The southern swing is staring us in the face. And folks are all starting to come together in preparation. Some might say in preparation for the players, which is just a few weeks away. And there is a giant person at the players. But really, the whole world is sort of migrating, the whole golfing world here to the United States to get the reps in, to get acclimated prior to April in Augusta, Georgia. So we have another great field this week down in Mexico, 20 of the top 25 players in the world, although the five guys missing, Brooks and Tiger, among them are all. great players. But so far

this season, we have a couple things that are jumping off the page at me. Seven events, five of the seven winners played in the President's Cup. Did you know that? I did not. I did not. Although, although I know the three Australian golfers

have won already on tour, which is incredible, obviously including Adam Scott this past week with Cameron Smith and Mark Leishman. And, you know, they were all on that team. So that makes sense. That makes sense. So they're to a good start. But what are you saying? You've got to make the, I mean, that's, that's the key. You got to make the President's Cup team to win. Well, I wish we had, you know, I wish I was smarter is what I'm really saying. I wish I paid more attention because the event taking place at Royal

Melbourne, which is, you know, a world-class venue among the top 10 by every single world ranking, anybody's ever done compilation of the best golf courses in the world. Royal Melbourne's on there. and these guys were playing super competitive golf the second week of December. So, like, surprise, surprise that they are going to go play well, you know, in the events just thereafter. And so, right, it's Adam Scott, Leashman, Cam Smith, Justin Thomas, and Webb Simpson all played over in Australia and, you know, all of them. And the one that Webb Simpson won, Finale, he beat Fenham. and to play off another guy played in the in the president's cup. Another thing worth observing, interested in your reaction to it,

five out of the seven guys over the age of 30. So, you know, we had kind of this moment a couple years ago where all these young guns were kind of blazing, and we thought maybe there is this youth movement on tour where guys are going to come out and just sort of take over and dominate. And that's not necessarily. we've had a couple years now where that hasn't really been the case

in the trend line of guys with more experience. Now you would expect guys with experience to prevail at venues like Riviera and like Pebble Beach, right? Yeah, no, I think that makes sense for sure, especially those two places

in particular with the greens that present such a unique problem for players. Although Tiger has played it a bunch of times, obviously Riviera, he still can't figure out those greens. He's just given up on going to pebble. But yeah, no,

that kind of makes sense with some of those early, more established West Coast events that the, you know, the slightly old, I mean, it's still not like the guys who are 50 years old or winning. But you're right.

No, not the young gun, so to speak, other than I guess it would be Justin Thomas and Cameron Smith in that group. But yeah, it's been an interesting start,

I'd say, because, you know, the fall was so incredible. You had just marquee player after marquee player winning. And of course, you know, Justin Thomas is a marquee player. I guess Adam Scott is kind of a marquee player too. But you had, you know, Rory win and Tiger win and Justin Thomas win. It was just incredible.

So to me, it's been a little bit of a sluggish start. I hate to say to kind of to the calendar year. But certainly, you know, there have been plenty of great storylines to follow. yeah the interesting thing that that came out of what happened in the fall to me is how seriously the guys took what i'm going to call the asian swing and i think it's we we now officially have you know kind of an asian swing there were uh four events there if you include the the skins uh event the skins challenge right um that jason day took took down but um from a mid off middle of October until, you know, the beginning of November, three straight events over there. And the

winners are, you know, it was Rory, Tiger and Justin Thomas. That's the cream of the crop. And that's something, you know, to sort of factor in. I haven't, the tour won't publish the schedule for the 2020, 2021 calendar for a little while yet. But, you know, the prominence of Asia on there. It feels like it snuck up, at least on me. Maybe you were paying attention. What did you think? Well, no, I mean, I think you're right.

I mean, I think a few things went into that. Obviously, the inaugural event in Japan and Tiger doing the Skins game, which our golf TV, we were a part of that, you know, that kind of pairing there got Tiger over to Japan. And, you know, that sort of got the ball rolling. that also got Rory over there. And so you had, you know, and then the fact that Tiger ends up winning that event, his first event back from the knee surgery, I don't think anybody was really, well, not anybody, of course, Tiger Woods, but we weren't expecting him to win.

Let's just say that. But I think that really added a shot in the arm to, like you said, the Asian swing, which now includes the Japan event. You know, they're going to be going back to Japan this summer for the Olympics. So, you know, and then of course the event Rory won is a World Golf Championship in Shanghai. It's not probably the least attended World Golf Championship, although it still gets just about every big name. And, you know, certainly Rory took that one down to that. That's a big one as well.

So, yeah, I mean, it helps when you have, obviously, Tiger coming over there, and it helps when one of the events is the WGC that they kind of sandwich these other events around. but no, you're right. I think everybody was pleasantly surprised at just how good the winners were from those events because a lot of times we're saying, well, I think we even talked about this. Oh, the golf season goes on and on and on and the wrap-round season. I kind of need a break, but you don't really need a break when it's Rory and Tiger and just Thomas winning every week. And so that was pretty good to see.

What I'm interested in, because we're both guys that like to indulge in a little forecasting, Were there any lessons Were there any lessons learned from what we just observed from the California swing from the beginning of the season as we look forward now to the southern swing

We have events in Mexico, Florida and Texas and all of this is the lead up to the Masters. I mean, I'm happy that the players championship is in March and I'm happy to see

all the great players come together there can mean there. I've never been a guy that holds that event in very high esteem. I don't think it, you know, deserves a play. In fact, I think winning at Riviera

is more compelling and prominent than winning the players. But having said that, we have this nice run-up of, you know, a series of events, the API, the Honor Palmer imitations in here.

some, you know, legendary events. Did we learn anything from what we just saw these last six, seven weeks that's going to help us figure out how the next six weeks are going to go? Well, that are going to figure out how the next six or so weeks are going to go, I would say the biggest thing we learned is Adam Scott is back. And obviously, I think we should have known that from A, as you mentioned, he was on the President's Cup team. He played pretty well over there in Australia. I think, I believe he was actually the highest ranked international team member. And now he's clearly as he's up to number seven in the

world after the winner of the era. But right after that, he stayed over there and he won the Australian PGA. And that was his first win anywhere in almost four years. And the guy obviously who has the most perfect golf swing you could imagine. And yet he hadn't won a tournament in nearly four years. Obviously, the putting is what holds this guy back. We saw he figured something out when he anchored. He won the Masters. He got to number one in the world. Then the anchor band comes. He didn't hide it. He was not happy with the USDA decision. He still wasn't happy a few years after. He's had to

adjust. And like Webb Simpson, it seems in the past couple seasons, now the sample size this year is pretty small, but he's 15th in strokes game putting. He was 13th. He was 13th. 31st last year. And it's the same as Webb Simpson, although it just took Adam Scott maybe a little longer. Webb Simpson has become one of the better putters on tour as well, a guy who had to ditch the belly putter and figure it out. But we all know how good of a golf swing again, Adam Scott has. We saw it, especially at Riviera, where you had to be so precise with your iron shots.

The balls were just bouncing through the greens. You miss a slope here or there by a foot. you're in a tough spot. And so I think that's the thing we need to look going forward. Here's the guy who doesn't turn 40 until July. He's still got a lot left in the tank. And again, look at what Webb Simpson's doing. These guys are now both top 10 players again in the world after a few years of kind of falling

behind. I think he's the guy you've got to look going forward. I thought he were going to just say what we learned in general. And I was going to say, you can't bet Tiger Woods at Riviera. he just cannot put these greens minus two strokes game putting per round this past week

had him at the bottom of the field which is why he finished dead last among the guys who made the NFL it's so weird why why can't he put those greens why it makes exactly

I mean whatever it is the sample size is there he's I hate to say it I mean unfortunately he's picked the wrong tournament to be the host of because you know he's got to go there now and play every year

this is a course which I know everybody raves about, but he had stopped coming to Riviera. He'd given up. It was not going to happen for him. And now he's the host. So, of course, he's going to go there. And, you know, all these guys struggle on Riviera's greens, just like they all do on a pebble. But with the, you know, the bumpy poa.

But for whatever reason, it gets him worse than just about anybody. It must be something in his head. And it's just a crazy stat to me that you, this is what I was going to fight back with you on, on the Polliners versus Riviera. I love Riviera, obviously. I love the tournament, but to me, a tournament where Jack,

Nicholas and Tiger Woods have played 24 times and never won, it takes a hit. That, that is just a staggering statistic to me. Because, you know, when the guy went to a tournament, they say, oh, I'm on the trophy with guys like Tiger and Jack,

you can't say that, Riviera. Neither of them have won. And they've played a bunch of times. It's just a crazy stat. It's a crazy stat for a place that, you know, Ben Hogan, you know, Hogan's a hellie. And what he did there with the historical prominence and, you know, the excellent crop of winners that it's produced. No Tiger and no, no Nicholas, one of those historical anomalies. Yeah, it's still got a great track record, of course.

And Ben Hogan jumps off the page there as well. But again, it's just, you know, it's funny to me how when. you know, when Tiger or Jack win at a course, that becomes part of how great the course is. But Riviera, that just gets glossed over the two best players in history, it's never won there. It's interesting. And again, Tiger's going to keep coming back there.

I don't know if a tournament host, can he get the course switched? I don't know how much pull he has, but, yeah, he struggles there, no doubt about it. I don't want the course to get switched. The course was the star, the course was really the star of the show, this past week and we have on this week's episode. My pal, Nathan Hubbard, whose brother's Mark Hubbard, and Nathan was on the grounds. He lives out in the Pacific Palisades, so he's our man on the ground. And the conditions at Riviera, I don't know if they'll ever be surpassed, the combination of the

beautiful weather and how competitive the field was. And the thing about Riviera that I like so much is how, and you touched on this, bit how small the difference between success and failure is so extraordinarily small there you know where you land the ball is so incredibly important and that that's the shot making uh the the artistry of shot making the artistry of saving par from awkward places from uncomfortable places that's what is is so compelling to me about rive and what what i like so much about it and it's just unbelievable that the tiger hasn't had more success there. But the transition between the golf channel sort of early part of the day coverage over to CBS, that it includes

this thing that we now refer to as the coverage gap that doesn't happen with NBC. Why the tour permits this diminishment of its product? Why? Why? Why? the tour indulges this disrespect. I mean, the explanation that we've been given and heard and I accepted is that, you know, there's a different graphics package and they have their own sort of TV tech, uh, uh, applica to, to apply to the, you know, they give it the CBS Sheen. But while that was happening this week at Riviera, the leaders were on a whole and two of the three leaders shot way,

over par, the whole leaderboard changed enormously during those 20 minutes, and there's basically no effing record of it. So like, if you can't ask me, you can't ask me to take a sport seriously, name another sport that permits, that indulges the TV broadcast to take a 20 minute fucking break. It's insane. Right. Exactly. You imagine if you're watching, you get on. I love, I love the passion. You imagine if you're watching, I'm trying to think of which

game it was this year recently, one of those NFL playoff games, I think it was the Ravens. Anyway, there was a game, and can you imagine watching and they're like, all right, there's a minute 30 left in the first half. We're going to leave you now, but we'll be back on a different channel

in about 15 minutes depending on how long a basketball game runs. And then you come back and you see that one team scored about two touchdowns before the half. And you see the score is totally different than when you stopped watching 15 minutes ago. You're right. It is absolutely absurd, especially in this day and age when we know what the capabilities are.

I mean, first of all, at Augusta National last year, if you went on their website, that you don't get announcing with it, but whatever, you could watch every shot hit by every golfer throughout the entire tournament. This year's the players. You will be able to do that as. well. They're going to have cameras on every group. So, right, I don't want to hear these excuses about the, right, the different networks or the graphics. Nobody cares about that. Figure it out. It's 2020. We've always watched every other sport in its entirety. We've never gotten golf.

We're finally starting to get golf in its entirety. And yet you still have these coverage gaps. It makes absolutely no sense. It's ridiculous. And this is for the tour and its advertising partners to figure out. I mean, you can imagine, do you think David Stern, you know, from the NBA? Rest of peace, David Stern, do you think he'd indulge the diminishment of his product in this way? So, you know, I sincerely hope we're in the midst of, you know, I think a new TV contract is about to be announced. And there are some new entrants here, including ESPN Plus, perhaps taking on some of the digital. And the thing that you just mentioned with the masters and the players where you can have some alacart viewing and, you know, be able to to curate your own television experience, I sincerely and dearly hope that that's what the future holds for us in terms of TV consumption because, you know, the era, it's just not permissible anymore. And you made the point. It's like it's the 21st century, guys, if you care about your product, you care about eyeballs, it's time to get it with the,

with the program. Yeah, I mean, I remember, oh, how many years ago? 10 years ago, I had, I don't have it in direct TV anywhere, right? Direct TV. And I remember watching the PGA Championship, and they had like six or seven channels. And they had different groups. They were kind of doing this stuff before, even, you know, way before PGA Tour Live or anything like that.

And I remember that was, that was amazing. And you still didn't see everything. But you got to see so much, so much stuff, a lot of, you know, different groups, this or that. You got to see something constantly as well. That was kind of the key. You didn't have to, you know, wait around for 30 minutes here or there. But again, that was like 10 years ago.

So the fact that, you know, these networks now haven't been able to figure it out to give us a better product. It really is ridiculous. And I would understand why golf fans, or not even golf fans, potential golf fans, would kind of give up on the sport even before they got into it. If you watched a product, that's why so many people like the Masters, by the way, hey, they jump in there and there's no commercials. where there's like two minutes of commercial every hour. That's why, you know, you get these casual people who are like, oh, I watched the masters. It was pretty cool. Yeah, well, then the next day turn into, you know, Harbor Town the next week.

And it's a disaster with all the stuff we've been talking about. It's basically like time to take a nap. I mean, it's TV for navers. It's a sport for taking a nap. Anyways, we're not going to take a nap this week. I need to get your pick. This is the Maverick driver pick. of the week. This is

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into play. Maverick continues to win on tours all over the world this past Sunday. Two more wins. A Maverick Max driver, one on the Champions Tour, a Maverick Sub-Zero driver. One on the Corn Ferry Tour, both wins by non-Calaway staffers who chose to play these drivers simply based on performance, the Maverick driver, get one in your hands. All right, let's do these picks. Alex Myers, I know that you just talked about this with your boys, Chris Powers and brother

Hennessy. Let me hear some of the wisdom for all of our birdie buddies out there. Let's share it. Let's hear who you guys got from Mexico. Well, you are going to be amazed by this. but we all like Dustin Johnson who has won this event

two of the three years it's been in Mexico he is not the favorite Rory's the favorite but we like Dustin you know it's funny because we talk about the crazy altitude and this wacky course

and how you have to really think your way around it and you know I don't maybe we haven't been giving Dustin and his brother Austin enough credit for their thinking skills and their math skills because they've obviously figured this club dig off to Polta pick out pretty well

two of the three years. Going a little deeper, I do like Tiro Hatton, who has three very solid finishes there, including the one time he was in the mix, then the stretch, and he kind of blew his stack a few times. He ended up saying Phil got preferential treatment

and all this other stuff. He's a character, that guy, but he's down at 80 to 1. He's kind of making a comeback from a little off-season procedure on his wrist. but I like that at 80 to 1 if you're going a little deeper. I like that.

Okay. Well, I won't give you a hard time for going chalk. It's tough to... I know. Justin Johnson is so, it's so lame. DJ's 7 to 1, Rory's 5.5 to 1. And there is, you know, this known trend line. All three of the champions that have at this particular venue,

the golf club de Chapultepec. They, they, they, they've all finished inside the top 10 at Riviera, the preceding year. So the, you're, you're eligible candidates, if you're looking at the top 10 guys that, that fit that trend line, it's Adam Scott, it's Cooch, it's Rory and DJ. It's Bryson D. Shambo, Ches Revy, uh, Sun Kang with his second place finish at Riv. And then my man, Hideki Matsuyama, who is my, uh, pick of the week. He has a known proficiency. Now, he finished, I think, well, I didn't, I have to pull it up, either two or three strokes out of first place at Riviera.

And he was exactly that many strokes behind and strokes gained putting because his putter is the thing that keeps him from winning. But the most important stat, it seems, at this event, is strokes gained approach. Hedecki has that in spades. 12th on tour right now in that metric. So Hadeki Matsuyama, my pick for Mexico this week. Alex Myers, always a pleasure, my friend. Yeah.

Thanks for having me on. Good times. We'll get a pick one of these days. We'll get it right. We'll get it right. We'll compare notes when the big boy tournament start coming around. Thanks for coming on. We'll talk to you again soon.

Sounds good. Thanks for having on. Take care. All right. Thanks, buddy. All right, my thanks to Alex Myers. As always, we're going to get to Nathan Hubbard. here in a second, my birdie buddies, but first I'm going to talk to you about Nobu Los Cabos, to be

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Nathan Hubbard. Hey, buddy. Hey, Joe House. How are you? I'm sad because RIP West Coast Swing. Yeah, it's behind us. It's one of my favorite golf times of the year. And most importantly, it's the best food time of the year on the PGA tour.

And so TPC out at the Amex, it's the last. of the chick filet and the in and out burger and player dining at Phoenix and it's the last of the delectable club sandwich here at the Rive in Los Angeles. So my stomach is sad. Oh, right. So you are, it's been established our boots on the ground, our tour boots on the ground. You've been in each of those venues that you just described and your belly is the better for it. I want to talk about Riviera because you attended a number of days. It is in your backyard, almost literally. And from the East Coast, watching it, it appeared to be an absolutely perfect condition. Tell us about when you went, what it felt like to be there,

what the vibe was like, and also please what you ate. I have been to that course for the last five years. My brother did not get in this year. He was third alternate, which again was bad for the food eating. the thing that didn't get talked about a lot this week was the weather leading up to the course or to the tournament because the last couple of years there has been a ton of rain in L.A. leading up to the tournament

and in some cases during the tournament. This year we did not have a lot of rain in January and February and what we had in the week leading up to the tournament was a ton of wind. And so I think those things combined to A, keep the ruby, the guys, just the last couple of years,

was too soft, and it took away, had to be done. This year, I think it is, you know, the only complaint is that the rough was down a little bit, and that made, you know, that, and look, we have a winner who hit 41% of his fareways. He was T2 and Greens in regulation hit like 71%, right? It was a different course than it's been historically, and the only other complaint was that the Baraka that runs through the course, whatever that is, I think it's a fancy word for riverbed, that the massive amounts of hay that are usually down in there were down a bit. And so it wasn't as much of a penalty to be down in there.

We saw Rory get out of there pretty easily. But the course was just absolutely pristine. And what added to it this year was there's no doubt that Tiger being the host increased the buzz around it. We talked coming in about how the field was super strong. LA was buzzing about it. here's the one thing. The crowds were sneaky light this week. Thursday and Friday at that course were dead. I sent you a picture when Brooks and DJ and Rory and Phil, those two groups were coming up through 17 on Friday. And you said, whoa, you're right up in the action. And the answer was that 18 looked great on Friday because you've got that natural amphitheater.

but the one thing that people didn't talk about was the crowd with little light. And the only thing I'll say about that is it's hard to get into the Riviera if you don't live in the neighborhood because they send you to a bunch of different places around the course. You take a bunch of shuttle buses in. And what we know about the highfalutin folks in L.A. is, and so I think if anything is to blame, it's that. But other than that, it was a pretty incredible week. You're absolutely right. LA is not a shuttle crowd.

I am interested, though. You just made a point that kind of answered the question I was going to put to you because watching the way that the course played and the setup, particularly on Sunday, to me, had a major feel. And the major that I think of, that I think would be most suitable for the venue is the U.S. Open. But what you just described in terms of the logistics of getting human beings, to that golf course in the U.S. Open, you know, to its credit, tries to, you know, make it so that lots and lots and lots of people can attend. That doesn't seem like a good match, Riviera and those big crowds.

Well, a couple things on that. Riviera is, when you look over the course of the tour over the year, it's one of our most urban courses. and by the way, it's on a relatively small piece of real estate. We're going to have the same problem at LACC, which I took a look at this week, and they have just asked to reduce the number of tickets from $35,000 to $20,000 for the U.S. Open in 23. Wow. And it has the same issue, which is that it's hard to get people onto that course. Now, at the RIV in particular, it'd be a great U.S. Open course. I think this week it certainly didn't play like that

because you think of that traditional U.S. Open course long with super tight fairways and the rough just absolutely kills you. Again, Adam Scott won this tournament being 115th in Fairways hit. More of a thinking person's course, but what was so fun about this from the major championship style perspective is, I watch Matsuyama come up late Friday afternoon. He comes up 17, dumps a chip in the bunker, bogey 17, he's one back of the cut line,

finds a way to grind out a birdie on 18 and makes a cut on the number. He finished T5. And so what that says about this course is that anybody can win who gets to the weekend, right? When you have a course that both Corey Pavan and Dustin Johnson have won on, there could not be more polar opposite golfers on the planet, but because it is a course that doesn't require you to hit at 320 just to get a look around the corner, but lets you play your game think about on every hole there's a way to make birdie there's probably two ways to play every single hole so that just as a player you play your game if you execute

your shots you play with precision you can score you can win the tournament that's what makes this you know arguably the best course on tour well that that that point is exactly why i think it's particularly suitable for the u.s. open and so funny that you would mention dustin johnson Pavin, both winners of the U.S. Open and, you know, Corey at Shinnecock and DJ was right there until Saturday the course got him a little bit at Shinnecock. But the firm and fast condition, the thing that at least watching from television, it looked like the difference between, there were so many ways to make bogey. It was so easy to make bogey on the holes, especially on Sunday because where the pins were and how firm the greens were,

and I'm sure it's 100% because of the weather conditions you described leading up to the event, it just put this premium on, you know, it felt like there was a circle that was maybe three feet by three feet to land each approach. And Adam Scott was landing the ball in the correct place. And then he rolled a few in. And that's why he was the winner. but the overwhelming thing that he did was hit, hit greens and regulation better than anybody else.

That's right. And finally, that's it. And finally, where you didn't have to, exactly what he did, I mean, frankly, you know, disappointed a bit. I mean, Rory, you just felt like Rory was coming on Friday, even Saturday. It felt like it was going to be his tournament. And then he goes out in Triples 5 with that green that just runs away from you.

And he's done. I mean, one of the things that you can't really see on television, it's a lot like the Masters, right? People who go to the Masters are like, holy crap, it's literally in a bowl, and they can't believe how much elevation there is. And it's like, I don't know why we can't get television cameras that capture elevation and undulation on golf courses, because it would make them so much more interesting visually, right?

But Riviera, it's like the reason the iPhone can't catch a sunset in the right way. Just something, it's the Achilles' heel of camera technology, or something. But what you don't get from the rib is just, it's in a canyon. One of the traditional canyons and old canyons in L.A. that ostensibly used to run into the ocean. It's in a canyon. And so from top to

bottom, there's a ton of elevation change. And it's just running super far away from you as you go out. But coming back, you know, you're really working hard to get uphill. Rory fell prey to the way that the ball just flies. And there's five

feet as you're going down that hill. where if you hit it in the right space, you're going to get a ball close to the hole. If you hit it five feet, literally five feet too far past, you're going to be off the back and in jeopardy of triple. Well, so it's very funny that you would talk about not being able to see that and experience it on television because we literally did not see it or experience it on television because the playing of that hole with him and Matt

Coucher was occurred during the coverage gap. as we transition from the golf channel over to CBS, and because it's so important for CBS to have its own graphics and whatever else part of the TV broadcast, the PGA tour continues to indulge this disrespect of its product and go dark for 20 minutes. And it just so happened that the 20, 25 minutes that it went dark this week changed the entire direction.

of the tournament, and we didn't get to watch one second of that live. I don't think that makes... Even when they were alive, they weren't showing HV3 topping it off 10, right? Well, that's right. I mean, this is... We look and say with some regret that the California swing is behind us, for all of the good reasons, the iconic venues, the iconic crowds, you know, what happens in Phoenix every year is terrific.

It really sets the stage for the golf year. that's in front of us, but we're not going to miss is the goddamn lackluster CBS production that really drove people crazy most prominently this past Sunday. And that's why I love the West Coast swing because I went out and watched my brother play in all these places. It's an excuse to go watch a lot of golf in person

at a bunch of great events. But the second, man, I don't know why the next TV contract, they got to insist on drones. Drones were made for golf filming. And, you know, the Fox tried them out at Pabell last year, and they provided those beautiful vistas and really interesting shots. But every ball at this point should be tracked by a bunch of drones. The only complaint would be noise. And let me tell you, all over a PGA tour course, they got generators powering the scoreboards from the 80s that they still have up.

And they're loud as hell. So we just got to get to another level of visualization of these two. tournaments to really bring them to life. Otherwise, you got to get off your butt and get there. Well, you said it, and you mentioned the renewal of the golf contract. I'm very hopeful because I'm a glass half full kind of guy, that the involvement of some folks who have an established track record of doing good things with sports like ESPN, their involvement, you know, it's been reported ESPN Plus is going hot and heavy after

the digital rights. if we can create, you know, another provider of the, the visuals to golf and those guys just innovate and make it, you know, so delicious to watch and create for us the opportunity to not have to be stuck with the stayed, same old BS of network. Now, NBC does a pretty damn good job. I don't really have any complaints about NBC's. NBC shows golf. you know, they're, the guys, and I don't mean to say anything bad about the crew. Like, obviously Amanda Ballionis is a pal. I'd like to see more. Nance is iconic and, you know, always love him. Nobelo is super knowledgeable.

Don't have any problem with Sir Nick. It's just we don't watch any effing golf. They don't show golf. I want to see the golf. One is, lazy is not the right word. because these guys work hard and they're all really good. But, you know, I bet we're going to talk about the PGL in a second. And what I'll say to is the field is broadening.

And the human interest stories and the things that you've got to know about each goal, I mean, go back and look at who has won since just the fall. Yoki Neiman, Sebastian Munoz, Cameron Champ, Kevin Knaw, Lanto Griffin, yeah, Thomas is one of you. Brendan Todd won a bunch of events. Like, I guarantee you, Andrew Landry, I guarantee you that the researchers, Nick Taylor, did not do a ton of work

on those guys, right? And when you get into a golf tournament now, any of 140 of those guys can win. It's not just that, hey, this is going to be the Tiger and Phil show anymore, right? So you sort of wonder if they simply haven't done the research or the work

to be able to go deep on the guys who are in the field. I mean, you know, of the top 20 guys who were on the leaderboard at the end of the day at Riviera, there are more guys outside the top 50 than inside the top 50 when all the talk coming in was about the quality of the field, right? That's right. You wonder if that's contributing on the telecast to them thinning it out a bit because they just don't have much more to say. I mean, you know, just my own brother, right? The thing that comes up every time they talk about Mark Hubbard is he proposed to his fiancé on the 18th Green.

at Pebble. And by the time, Nancy dropped that story for the fourth time in Phoenix, it was like, guys, we got to get one more thing about them. Just one more thing, right? So you wonder if that's affecting the telecast. And then lastly, the thing that drove me nuts about Riviera is there is, if they're going to do a frufey human interest story, I can't believe they didn't talk about the wild parrots, because the wild parrots that roam the course and those sycamore trees at Riviera are probably louder than any of the drunk people at the Phoenix Open or at the RIV. I mean, Max Homa backed off a putt on 18 on Sunday because he thought he heard a woman scream in the crowd.

And I'm telling you, there's a 50-50 chance it was one of these goddamn wild parrots that lives on the course. And so, CBS is going to do a fruffy story. Let's at least cover the player rattling wild parrots if we're going to go there. Well, I'm glad that you mentioned Max Homa because I'll end this, this, uh, a CBS rant with just this. There were good players playing competitive golf with a chance to win at RIV that we didn't see. If you added up all the shots, I'm not going to go back and do it.

But if you added up all the shots of Max Homa and Joel Daman, Damon, Sung Kang, you know, I don't think you get to 10. I don't, I don't. And every one of those guys had a legit chance coming down the stretch to win the event. And that's a deliberate production decision to show, you know, they have the choice. They have the cameras. They can show what they want to show. And we didn't see any of them. But you mentioned a moment ago, the Phil and Tiger show.

And that's a great segue into something I'm curious. This is still an evolving topic and evolving concept. And that is the Premier Golf League. As our tour boots on the ground, what do you hear? about this concept? Well, there's a lot of chatter about it, and the truth is, it's a bit, right?

You've got the guys at the top. Drive a bunch of the money, candidly are the ones who are getting these offers and being invited to the nice. And then you got everybody else, the BGL organizers' perspective, interesting, lightly to moderately dis, but the word that's out there now,

a couple things. I mean, look, my own take on it, let me just start with that. I think the gap between the best players in the next group of players is growing smaller than ever. It's getting harder and harder to win, even if you're Rory or Justin Thomas or Tiger Woods. And again, the list of winners that we just around season is a great example of that. It seems like there's a cluster of players who want fewer fish to shoot in a smaller barrel

and who are trying to thin out the field a little bit and take the money out of there, right? and that probably means that there's some agents behind. And so without naming the guys who were rumored to be all in, what I'll say is that at the high end, the guys who are rumored to be all in are some of the most isolated on tour. Okay, they're guys who either aren't,

they're guys who come in, they drop in, they're not sitting in player. Patrick Reed and Bryson Deschambeau? You know, they're not guys who are sitting in-player dining. And if you remember the last time that this happened with Greg Norman, it was reportedly Arnold Palmer, who stood up and said, this isn't good for the game of golf, I'm out. Right?

Yeah. And so it's been said, but I think this is going to come down in some extent to what Tiger Woods wants to do. And because if Tiger's in, it rattles and changes things. If Tiger's not in, we already have an almost bifurcated tour. These WGC events, we got one in Mexico this week. Okay, here's a chance to grab a bunch of money in a small field. We got four of these, right? If the PGL is going to play 18 events, you got four masters or four majors,

you got four WGCs, okay, that's already eight, add in the RIV and the players. now we're at 10, you know, four events to press. There's not, these players are already playing basically 18 events only, right? Right. And there is a way that the tour rewards those really great players. And they give them events like the one we're going to see in Mexico this week, where if they want to go play in a smaller field with no cut and make a bunch of money, they can do that.

Now, when we talk about the viability of that concept, there's a WGC this week that a bunch of players are not playing. I mean, there's some French guy named Mike in the field, right? I mean, who got in because half of the top guys are not actually going to go down there and do it. But the overarching word right now is you got a few guys who are ready to do this. They're not the most popular guys on tour. They're not thinking about what's the future of the game. How do I think about what's good for golf and lifting up the rest of the players?

and then you've got this tier of guys in the middle who may be adversely affected by this potentially, but who are also saying, you know what, this at the end of the day really feels like a play to give the players more control. And they're all in favor of that because at the mid-tier they feel like,

boy, if we just had some small salary and had to play for more money, you know, we could feel a little more secure, we could, you know, we could act differently, we could play different events. You know, at the upper tier, those guys are saying, every other league has owners who have control and can actually move things in the players' favor.

Here, we don't. We don't even really have a player's union, right? We got an advisory council that has some say. Fox Deal gets done, and it's 10X, what the last one was. It's Nettaker who stands up in that meeting and goes, hey, guys, why didn't the purse go up 10X? And, you know, there's some head nodding, but nothing really comes to that.

So, macro level, here's what I'll say. You got some guys who are dead. definitely in, maybe because it feels like a really good money grab, maybe because they don't love these tournaments where number 150 in the world actually beats them, right? And so they'd rather play a smaller field. But it feels like overall, this is maybe a ploy to grab some more control for the players without unionizing, but to create that bogeyman out there that scares the tour into enough a change, into enough ways that they implement some changes. So the question that we got to suss out from here, Joe House, is what are those

list of changes that really matter to the players? And how are we going to see it? Because what we saw on Sunday was a bunch of complaints from fans about the telecast and so forth. I'm not sure that's what the players are as worried about. So the question from here is, what do they want? And how can they move the tour in that direction? Because it's really hard for me to see the viability.

of 48 guys traveling around the world to play 18 events. Yeah, I think, and thank you very much for going through it in that comprehensive, thoughtful way. The two aspects that kind of, you know, rung the bell with me of what you just described and laid out there, in the first place, money, money. Money is the thing that the players want more of. And you talked about the mid-tier guys and maybe there's a salary concept. I don't have any problem with, you know, creating, whether you want to call it appearance fees, however you want to describe a kind of flat guarantee for maybe even the top, you know, it doesn't have to be the top 40. It could be even more guys.

The next TV deal, you know, across the board is going to be worth, it's being reported of a material increase over the previous deal. if the tour wanted to slice off a chunk of that and put it in a bank account and say this is the guarantee, you know, we're going to do kind of a guarantee concept and had the effect of, and this is the second aspect of what you just described, there continues to be this tension between the entertainment product, that is something that's fun to watch on television and kind of the history and the way things have been done in the past when it comes to golf. And there feels like, to me, a lack of innovation. You know, it is, it feels sort of groundbreaking when the tour takes on something like the two-man best, a better ball event that they do at, in New Orleans, exactly.

Like we're supposed to get out of our seats and the fact that they'd match play, one of the WGC events is now a matchplay event. That's not like really innovation. and it also continues to be, you know, a struggle to get eyes onto those events. Like we, you know, you have to present it in a way that's TV friendly. And that's where the elements of the PGL that were interesting, the 54 whole, you know, concept and having guys, you know, a limited field where the guys go off on one in 10 so that the entirety of the first and second rounds, you could watch in three hours or something, right? you you you redefine the television window. So some of those kinds of aspects of improving the overall entertainment value kind of resonate

with me. And I hope that's ultimately where this is headed. If you had to bet right now on whether or not the PGL is a thing in the next 24 months, what side would you put your wager on? I say no. I think this is, again, going to come down to PGA as it's currently constructed. The Tiger can use to do good in the world than he is inside. And I just think to take the risk on some, but let's go through the list of other challenges to major sports leagues and how they've fared over the last 30 years.

It hadn't gone too well. And so money is one thing. Execution is another. And does it really become a platform where you can make the impact that you want? is past the point of worrying about money. Yeah, this is legacy time. It's all legacy time, right? It's legacy time, and that's exactly right.

And I promise you, he and Jack Nichols have had a conversation about this. To see a guy like Jack who just agreed to host a tournament uses this tour as a vehicle to make an impact in the world. And yes, make an impact on his bank account. It's hard to see him giving that up. By the way, he only played 12 events last year. He had playing 18 around the world flying this way and that. So my sense is this is a bogey man created by a few players and a few agents that is real and has legs,

but ultimately is going to be used to move the tour in a direction. I think there are some guys who are in it because they're looking at the leaderboard and going, not only do I – I thought I was done with Tiger. Now I've got to deal with Max Homa and Taylor Gooch and Joel Damon and, you know, effing Mark Hubbard, give me a break, right? These guys are catching up to me. Give me an easier way to make my money. Not a ton of respect for that.

The extent to which it's used to make the game better and bring in a broader audience and make it more fun as opposed to the sedentary, you know, shit show we're in in baseball right now. Golf needs to look at baseball and be careful. All right. I like that. We're not going to do any better than that.

That's a great point. Nathan Hubbard, our PGA tour, boots on the ground. Thanks as always, buddy. We'll talk to you again soon. Talk to you soon, Joe. All right, my friends, there you go. My thanks to Alex Myers and Nathan Hubbard. As always, couple picks out there for you, Hideki Matsuyama, DJ, that's a little bit of chalk.

And down the card a little bit, Tyrell Hatton. We are off next week, my Eagle enthusiast, but we will come in hot on the heels of the Honda Classic, recounting all that happens there. and then beautiful preview of the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. So talk to you soon,

my birdie buddies. Until then, let's hit them straight out there.