Fore Play - ‘Normal Sport’ featuring Kyle Porter

Episode Date: December 15, 2022

CBS golf writer Kyle Porter (00:09:37), now author of two books — Normal Sport and Normal Sport 2 — joins the show. We spend 90 minutes reliving 2022, from DJ pledging allegiance to the PGA Tour to Rory declaring LIV “dead in the water” to Bryson battling the gallery rope and much, much more. We also delve into: golf twitter, why books are cool, temperature, geography, evolving opinions on LIV, the PGA Tour, and players.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/foreplaypod

Hey, 4Play listeners, you can find us every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Oh, Rick! What's up, my brother? I got a buddy who struggles with that shot. A lot, his name's Frankie Borrelli. So the guys actually gave him a nickname of Butter Nives because he was nice to the cross the green. Nice to be here, boys.

Congratulations on all that you're doing is as mediocre as a lot of. it is. Bro your 100. Now you've got to break 90. We appreciate what you guys do for golf. It's really cool. Thank you. You're making it cool.

We appreciate it. After watching you this year, I'm very much thinking about getting so I have a fusion surgery. Skip that. I was like, hey, Phil, you only fucking $29.99. And he grabs 100. He's like, yeah, I won 90,000 of these yesterday. Oh, my God.

Take 100 and to fuck yourself. What? What are you guys taking with? It's a hobby. Foreplay, brought to you by Barstool. Sports presented by the great American car company that is now dominating the EV and EUV game. Chevrolet. Great show.

We're joined by CBS, Golf Rider, and author of a normal sport and a normal sport too, which is out now. Kyle Porter, he joins the show. We sort of just, once he jumped into the chat, we just recorded. I don't think we introduced him until about 15 minutes in. So we're doing a quick pre-entro to the actual intro of our chat. about golf with Kyle Porter. Yeah. He was great.

He was really great. That guy thinks really hard. And it's a lost quality that goes underappreciated these days. Yeah, he does. He's a very critical thinker about the world of golf. You can tell it oozes out of the book. So people should go read it. He mentions at the end that if you use the code bar stool,

when you go to a normal sport.com, use the code barstool at the end. You'll be entered to win a gift card to the pro shop. and win a bunch of merchandise and gears. So you might as well get the book that way. But it's an amazing stocking stuff for coffee table artifact. We get into all this stuff during the chat, but we kind of go through the whole year.

We talk about a bunch of random stuff, and we just get a different voice that's never been on the show. I have seen Kyle and you and Dan and Kyle were talking about it at majors. We just kind of run into him. We're in the media center. He's one of the younger guys. It's obviously kind of in this golf media sphere covering the game and whatnot. So always been incredibly nice to us, obsessed with the game of golf, loves to think about it and write about it.

So yeah, it's nice to get them on the show for the first time. So if nobody has anything else, I would like to remind folks that tonight, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. We got TPC Myrtle Beach on our YouTube. The final episode channel, final episode. And it's a TBC course. I mean, before we go to that, I just want to say I cried last night. I got to get this off my chest. I definitely a man cried.

I felt I was in an old world setting. I went and saw Andrea Bichelli and I can't stop talking about it. He still got it, huh? It says he still got it. I don't know that I've ever witnessed anything like that in my entire life. And I know I get very dramatic and I know I am exuberant and I just completely just over whatever, do everything. But this is like one of the greatest live performances I've ever seen in my entire life. I've legit when he would hit a note you got to kind of look up at the stop yeah I would look up at

the top of ubs arena and just go who like you're just not going to start weeping I mean the man makes you weep and he's singing in italian you don't even know what the hell he's saying he brings his daughter around she sings somewhere over the rainbow she's like eight and fucking tears the roof off the place I mean I don't know what's the guy's blind he doesn't even know the thing that kept getting me was like I was sitting on the side of the stage so I had basically his view like I would look ahead and then to the left and you saw 18,000 people and all these heads and everyone's dressed really nice. It's an old world type opera old school same music you would have heard 300 years ago with Beethoven. He have a huge orchestra and he's standing in front of 18,000 people singing and he has

no idea what's in front of him. He could be singing into a closet. You know what I mean? And all these humans are sitting there in awe of this guy looking at him like he's a fucking larger than life being. And he has no, I mean, he lost his vision when he was 12. So I think he does know like somewhat of what he's looking at. But it just,

it was blowing my mind the whole entire night. And I just couldn't, I just can't stop thinking about it. You know, it's one of those things I can't stop. I can't stop thinking about it. I got no qualms with that. A phenomenal live performance should touch you like that.

Game time is actually on this show. as a sponsor. So we're not going to get to that right now, but I want to preview the GameTime ad read by saying that a live event, performance, anything like you're talking about right now, Frankie, it is,

it is life changing and we've spoken about it before, but that is what going to work, doing what your boy Big Rob does, going through the stresses of life, you're filling out paperwork. You do all that so that you can enjoy things like you got to enjoy. Big Rob was there last night. I ran into him and his family.

Oh, my God. It was insane. He was in our second. right behind us. They were all crying. I knew that it was going to be something special when one of my buddies texted me. He goes, dude, I saw him in MSG and I like cried. And I'm like, you never fucking cry about shit like this. He's like, dude, it's hard to like, it's hard to step away from it and not feel moved. He brings his son out. His son's name's Mateo. He's 25 years old. The hottest guy of all time. The ladies go fucking nuts. When he comes out, he sings, have yourself a little, merry little Christmas,

goes out into the crowd, touches a couple of women's hands and like winks into the camera that's on the big Jumbotron, place goes nuts he's got us in the palm of his hands there's people out there that are just doing it better than the rest you know what i mean i don't get it and the song porti volaree i mean that's like his it's for you i will fly i mean it just doesn't get any more poetic than that and i guess because he is i want to actually read a little bit about him because like i guess because he's blind he needs a lot of like sensory touches and stuff so like he's singing with this woman and she's fucking beautiful and her voice is insane. And like as they're doing this duet,

after huge notes that they belt out, they like hug and embrace each other. She like puts her head on his chest and he like kisses her forehead. And they just like hold on. And I don't know if that's part of the performance. Like love. But like,

and I don't know who she is to him. But like you could just tell like after she would hit a note, she'd like grab his hand and like put her, his hand on her face. And he would like feel resonating. And then he would hit the note. And you're just like, dude, this is the same shit that people in 1750 would sit there. And like, that would be their entertainment.

And prior to last night, I'd be like, that's fucking shitty. Like, show me like whatever. Like Harry Potter flying on a broomstick. That's so much more entertaining. Let me tell you something. The people back in the day knew what the hell they were doing. That was, it was insane. So it was absolutely insane.

I love it. I love how touched you are by that, Frankie. Yeah, I just had to get it off my chest. All right. we're going to throw it to Kyle. Great. It's not even really an interview, just a chit-chat about the year of golf and kind of our version of a year in review, I guess you could call it. Throwing a new voice in there.

So enjoy this chit-chat with Kyle Porter from CBS. Electric vehicles, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, the future, well, you've got to be at probably 15 and a half or older than when you get your permit in most places. I got my permit when I was 14. What? Wow, Iowa, man. You can have a permit for two years. Yeah. And you can't drive, well, you can't drive without your parents, but you can drive.

Yeah, 14 was the year. For sure. I got mine, I think at 15 or 16, and you could only drive to work. And I remember I was driving to the Garden City Men's Club. I was caddying. And I was in my car. The judge? So you caddying for the judge?

It was probably on my way to go for the judge. And I was in a and I remember I was listening to music really loud. I was listening to like Mac Miller or something. and I was listening to music really loud, young kid. And I remember it was like five o'clock in the morning, six o'clock in the morning. And I just like went through. I, like I didn't realize that an ambulance was coming.

So, and their sirens were on. And I just kept driving. Everyone else was honking at me that I'm about to go over this fucking, this crossway. And I just, I almost got clipped like, like T-bone by a fucking ambulance.

And I'll never forget, like, that was such an introduction to like, you got to fucking pay attention when you're driving. I'm pretty sure. If you were in a shabby, EV you probably would have had infotainment system that would have at least helped or alerted you to your idiocy. And you could have avoided even more.

That was the point of me saying that I was in another brand because they just didn't have the technology. They just didn't have the technology to help me. So they got the Bolt EV now, EUV, you can go check out an order on Chevrolet's website. And then they've got Blazers, Silverado, that you can jump on their website, which we highly recommend. And just go toy around with that puppy. You go toy around with the interior, with the colors, with the different gadgets. I do it every night. You can add to it.

I trim it out. It's very, very fun. So fire up your phone, your iPad, your computer, whatever you're on right now. Go look at Chevrolet's website and get ready to get yourself an EV. They're not. They're not crazy expensive. Like you might believe they're affordable. They're for everyone everywhere.

Chevrolet, EVs and EUVs. I'll tell you a thing I don't understand about whether I was looking at this morning. the feels like um part of it like isn't that honestly like isn't that just what it is like isn't all temperature what it feels like yeah i guess unless you're like a tray of ice or something i don't like what's the difference what's the difference the wind chill like but but isn't but isn't that just the temperature i guess they're saying the temperature in this room is this but if i like blow if i like take this fan and blow it's going to be just a little colder for that they don't even doesn't say wind chill it says feels like right and like Trent's

like what would the difference for you like the actual versus feels like all that matters to you as a human is feels like what are you going to do unless you're a science experiment like what but but i think feels like can change right because the wind can stop or start or whatever i guess it probably is wind dependent feels like is more versatile i guess and the actual is more reliable the real question and i was talking to a canadian about this is why the hell do we why don't we just do what the rest of the world does when it comes to Celsius and Fahrenheit and just like freezing should be zero. Like that

just makes sense. Like why do we choose why do we don't just a random number? Now it's don't tread on me. You're going to start pushing the metric system on me. Like I don't know what you want me to do. It's just insane that like we just change it everything up just for it's like crazy if you think about it. No one actually talks. It's fucking wild.

It's a little arrogant. Yeah. It just also doesn't make sense. Like why would freezing be like and I've been dancing around the number is it 32 degrees it's 32 yeah um why would that just know come on you i did i did i didn't want to say 30 i didn't want to say 34 and that's like a top 10 i would say is is 32 like a top 10 just general thing you're supposed to know is the temperature of freezing yeah but like it could be it should be zero yeah below zero should just be like freezing but now like when we say if now imagine like in fairbanks alaska my brother lived up there for you when it's like 42 below zero

Think about how cold that is. Right. That should be standard. I don't know. Doesn't that make you, everything's a little too tidy when it's that way. Like 32 degrees feels like we're living in it. Zero feels too perfect to me. Like if we go by the way we go now, it's like, oh, it's 32.

Now it's 31. Now it's freezing. Zero seems a little bit too. Welcome to Foreplay, Kyle. This is, yeah. I certainly don't know. Well, I certainly don't want my scientific numbers to be perfect. I like some variance in there.

See, I agree with that. Is there anything, is like 100 degrees Celsius boiling or is there any? I think it is. Yes, it is. Yeah, that's right. Celsius fucks me up, right? Because doesn't it like not, isn't it not uniform as it goes? I can't like nine fifths plus 32.

Yeah, that's, that's not a problem. Well, it's because it actually makes a lot of sense because zero is freezing and a hundred is boiling. That's really what should be. What grade do you think you could up to what grade do you think you could pass a math test? I think as soon as we get to algebra. Algebra, yeah. So whatever that is. What about geometry, dude?

You're telling me, mine's geometry. Geometry is a pro would be a pro. I think it took geometry after algebra though. I think geometry. I think algebra was seven days. No, no, no. You take, you take like basic geometry pretty early on, like sneaky early on. I want to say in like middle school or something.

Right. We're talking like, are we talking like triangles? Yeah, yeah. Acute angles and all that. Obtuce. I imagine you had to calculate. an angle, the degree of an angle right now based on somebody gave you the long line on a triangle. And they're like, yeah, just give me the degree of that angle.

I'm going to say, I'm going to say fourth grade just to be safe. You're getting a fucking zero on that. Once you go to send DOS at me, it's over. I was going to say, uh, six. Sixth I feel like, well, I don't, maybe fifth. I don't know. I don't feel great. There's a whole show with like Jeff Foxworthy, like, are you smarter than a fifth grader and people lose all the time.

What's Pem Doss? What? Parentheses, exponents, multiplication division. Is that order of operation? Order of operation. Yeah, but the MD and the AS are, they flip, whichever one's first left to right. I got a question for you, writers over on the right side of my screen. When you do, if you finish a sentence with a quotation and a period, do you put the

quotation inside the quotation or the period inside the quotation? Or is that just a personal preference? It's a US first. Go ahead. It's inside. It's not. I don't think it's personal preference. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Inside's the grammatical rule. But if you're in the UK, they do it the other way, actually. Do they really? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. We've got a well-actually off between two journalists. I'm going to fucking call myself.

I asked the question. That's on me. That's on me. What has the foreplay turned into? My fucking God. We just got a well-actually off about journalism. He asked. I know.

I asked the question. That's also five minutes after we talked about how we couldn't pass a third-grade math. Dude, have you ever watched him I smarter than a fifth grader? Are you smart of the fifth grade? The questions are impossible. I would be dominate the adults, like legit professors. But is it one of those things where they go into like the really niche stuff that you're like, I don't know, man. Like you would only know this if you were studying it.

Yes, that is it. Yeah. I woke up the other morning and I, for whatever reason, I wanted to see if I could put how many of the 50 states I could put on a map. So I found like a website or whatever. I was at a hotel. I was just laying in a hotel bed doing putting states on the map. And I got different websites and hotels. I got well,

this is the morning, mind you. I was, I was, I was, I think I got 39 of them or something. It was a lower number than I would have. So you're just looking at a blank map and saying like that's North Dakota and

you're like clicking on it. Right. I will say when we remember before election night coverage, 2016, that was the Olash incident. But we had that big blank map in the office and we were doing contests. And I actually was, that's one thing. I suck at trivia on the dozen, but that's one thing.

I think I got all 50 blank. Wow. Just from a blank map. Middle America, I get screwed. What did you miss, Trent? I missed Wyoming. I missed, uh, Mississippi. I missed, um, I got screwed up on like Kentucky and the Virginias and the, and the

Carolinas, those kind of screwing here. What about the northeast where you get like the, like the, the, you get Vermont, New Hampshire, like all pretty quickly. Did you get all those? I did that. Yeah, like you do Maine and then you come down. You do Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, like Massachusetts, those I got most of.

But it was, yeah, sort of in the southeast corner where I just got things a little screwed up. And then Wyoming, I stared at Wyoming for 15 minutes. And it was blank and it was just a perfect square. And I could not figure out what it was. The old ash, the old ash moment. when we're doing the election night coverage and we went to call Florida for Trump in 2016 and she takes the head of Trump

and then she just looks at the map and just doesn't know where it is and Dave just goes, you gotta know Florida. Come on. You gotta know Florida. And she just put it in Massachusetts and he goes,

Oh, no. Boom. The worst part was like we were giving her the benefit of the doubt. Like I think like fucking Rhode Island got called or like Wyoming. And we're like, all right, I get it. Like that's kind of a tough. one and then Florida were like all right we she got one this is it this is this is a layup this is a softball and then nope she went northeast on us oh and I missed Indiana for whatever

reason I couldn't get Indiana which I was disappointed in myself where's Oklahoma right above Texas right below Missouri yep right above Texas got the really narrow part so like it goes Missouri Arkansas Oklahoma Texas oh Arkansas I never would get I miss that one looks I think if you saw it though you might get it it looks I feel like for what reason in the is like the Minnesota Iowa Missouri Arkansas Louisiana no no Oklahoma's in that line well you got Kansas and Nebraska in there too true they're kind of off to the side yeah yeah you guys should do and and report back with with how you do so I did this this summer Trent and I don't know why we were we're on vacation or something which a very normal thing to do on

application. But I could, you know what I messed up was, uh, Vermont, New Hampshire. Yeah. I, that's a coin flip for me most times. Yeah. And Alabama, Mississippi can get a little like that, but Vermont, New Hampshire for me is like, I, I just screwed up every time. I almost didn't get Georgia. And the reason I got it is because I thought about Florida Georgia line. Yeah. And I knew it was right above Florida. And I was like, I got that. Dude, I got that. Whatever it takes, whatever it takes, man. baby you was song you're just like i know where that i was like thank you you country hip-hop mix artist for allowing me to get that state are we doing the show is this it oh we've been recording haven't we yeah let's put this in the show i think this is fine florida georgial line made me think

uh rascal flats and we had my buddy in college who looked exactly like rascal flats and we called them rascal fats all the time that made me think of great name is rascal flats one person yeah I was always under the impression it was a band. I think it's multiple. Rascal Flats is not a singular person? I wanted to be clear that I don't know. I always thought it was a band, but it might be... Oh, wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is mind-blowing. You know this shit, too. You're our music boy. Dude, you're telling me that guy who I always... Are they still around? You're telling me this guy's name isn't Rascal Flats. So is it, it is a band?

Dude, it's a band. Their names are Gary, J, and Joe. What? Dude, that me, life is a highway was not saying by like one guy named Rascal. No. Dude. That's the mind-blowing fact of the day from me. There's no denying that.

Woo! The guy's name is. Gary Levox. We're calling him rascal. Honestly, I think riffing on temperatures and states and bands might be more entertaining than the golf. So we just keep doing

this. This is like 90% of our show. You know, I was going to say, I think we found that on the show. That's what we do. That's what it's kind of become. We almost never. Especially when it's, this time of year, when it's like, yeah. Yeah. Yes. There's a lot of funny stuff, though, that we can recap. It was a good year. I've been recording

for 15 minutes and we just have a started the show yet. I haven't even introduced Kyle. Nope. Um, all right. Are we going to start, are we counting that or no? Just keep me rolling, dude. I think we count most of that. Can we figure it out? Slice it in and do like the intro and everything. Yeah, we got it. There's the boys can figure it out. Where's Alex Bush, by the way? Are we on the Jake Bass? Um, um, Alex Bush has been moved off the podcast. He's added too many videos. We have too many videos. Uh, all right. I'm going to do an official intro. Uh, Trent, you want to clap just for, for, for vibes old time sake and vibes when trent claps kyle we get into serious mode oh okay okay yeah yeah

going to live events is a experience unlike any other that you can have as a human being frankie just experienced one he described it being in the show is so touching and fantastic that it brought our dear frank brelli the third to tears yeah man live live events just hit you differently everything's so overstimulating where it's like you're sitting there. It's like sensory overload where you're like you're watching the same Netflix shows. You're in your bed. You're on your couch. It's the same setting.

All of a sudden you go on game time. You make that decision with your significant other. You're sitting there. You're like, do we have time to get to that arena? What are we doing? It's four o'clock. What's in town tonight? I love looking at what's in town.

You got a lot of arenas around. You got little places. You got venues. What's in town tonight? You check, Andrea Bacheli's in town tonight. What are you nuts? Yeah, we're going to go there and we're going to fucking cry. And that's exactly what happened.

Give the gift of an awesome experience this holiday season with Game Time. If you're nervous that you're present won't arrive in time or simply forgot to holiday shop, game time tickets, get delivered to your phone and inbox instantly. Game Time has all the best tickets and you'll get an awesome price on them. If you haven't given Game Time a shot yet, now is the time. Download the GameTime app. Go to the account tab to create a login, redeem code 4 for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. You can use it for comedy shows, concerts, games, you name it.

They got it. Download game time. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. All right. We're joined for the first time ever, I believe, on this show. Kyle Porter, great follow on golf Twitter at Kyle Porter, CBS, Golf Rider at CBS Sports, author now, which I imagine is still crazy for you to hear a little bit, author of normal sport and normal sport too, which just came out.

I've been reading through it the last couple days. First Cut podcast, so you can find Kyle. He's big on golf Twitter, which I like. We talk a lot about golf Twitter on the show. But anyways, welcome to the show. And I want you to describe a little bit normal sport because I think the way that you described it in the email that you sent to us was kind of the best way I would say to describe talking about golf in general. Yeah. First of all, thanks for having me.

But it's normal sport is just this silly phrase that I started using. obviously tongue and cheek to talk about what I think is the least normal sport, which is golf, which, you know, you watch golf. It's this idea of, and it actually started with, of all people, Phil Mickelson at the 2020 U.S. Open at Wingfoot. Phil's in a bunker up against the lip. He's got like his body contorted all over the place because he's got one leg out. His hands are on the shaft.

He's trying to hit a ball out. And I was thinking about how if you just were walking, like taking a walk, like taking a walk in the woods and stumbled upon this person doing this. You'd be like, what is wrong with this guy? Like, what is he doing? And that happens 50 times an event, right? Like different situations like that. So it became this silly kind of Twitter joke that is eventually going to play itself out. Maybe already has. But, you know, I kind of use that as a Trojan horse to write a book about golf and about the golf year and about both the silly things that happen like, you know, re-spray painting a line at the, the match play like basically respe spray painting the out of bounds line in a in a sporting event while

the event was going on which is completely absurd but to talk about the silly stuff but also the the serious stuff like scottie shuffle crying after winning the master or talking about crying after winning the masters and you know the open championship week which was incredible so it became a little bit of a trojan horse to talk about all all of those things which i think is kind of the fun stuff of golf it is cool because it's organic i remember when you were doing the normal sport stuff before you would turn it into a book and before you were writing about it. But you would tweet it out. And then the cool thing about something like that, because I think everybody on the internet who works for a company like we do or is trying to make content is looking

for something to put out there that other people then start doing. Like people then would send you normal sport pictures. And that's when you know it's a good idea. When you have people who on their own are just taking these pictures and sending them to you and saying normal sport, I that's when you know it's it's an idea that is going to catch on. Yeah, you kind of got crowdsourced in a way that I didn't envision happening. And all of a sudden, you've got, you know, a former master's winner, Trevor O'Melman, sending you tweets on like early on a Thursday morning when somebody's lying on top of a, of Will's Alatoris trying to stretch his back out. And it's kind of a weird, surreal thing that has caught on. And again, it's there, there's a hundred golf Twitter.

jokes like that, right? And it's, you know, I think it's been fun to hear other people kind of talk about it and and to use that as, again, kind of a Trojan horse to talk about all the other stuff. But that's the best at its, right? Like, that's what Twitter at its best. There's a lot of Twitter controversy right now, but Twitter at its best is that. It's when you pop on on Thursday morning and people are in on the joke. It's funny. Whatever. I think about the normal sport thing. Actually, quite a bit like this scenario when we're playing golf you're out and you know like you're saying other sports you're kind of within the the confines of the arena of the sports so nothing really is going to stick out as like weird where you're like you're saying golf is among nature you could be in a

tree or in a pond or in a pit of sand or whatever and it's like when we play with our buddies and you're all kind of collectively together on the tee box or something you are within that arena but like when you play a lot of courses where there's just among neighborhoods. hoods and people are walking their dogs, whatever. When you, like, hit one way left and you're away from the group and you're, like, grabbing a club and standing about to hit something like left-handed and then like, just an elderly couple with their dogs, like, walking by. Like, hey, hey, hey, they.

Just trying to get back over there with my friends, you know, real quick. And it is just kind of a preposterous sport. And then, you know, you, like, one of my favorites is the rules disputes when you, you look at, like, a screenshot and it's just like seven grown adults and a tiny ball. and a line and a giant pool of water. And you're just like, what are these people doing? This happened at the Ryder Cup last year with, I think it was Sergio and Brooks Kepka at Whistling Straits.

And they had to bring in, they had people driving in, driving carts in from all over the course and just like these adult men just staring at the ground. And like this, you know, one inch thick piece of plastic that was sticking out that was affecting, you know, Brooks cursing at, at rules officials. And I mean, the whole thing, it become, and I think this is the part that it becomes normalized for all of us because we're watching it all the time. You're like, oh, yeah, there's a, there's a ruling. There's, even if you're playing with your buddy, it's like, I hit a ball off line. Like, it's just a normal thing. And then when you step back and, and you think about the person who hasn't experienced professional golf or doesn't

play golf, and you think about, like, my wife doesn't really follow this stuff. And I think about her kind of stumbling upon some of these just random scenarios. You're like, this is actually really weird, and maybe we shouldn't normalize it as much as we do. My favorite kind of moment like that, and I actually forgot about this in my wrap-up, was at the players this year, remember when Daniel Berger tried to take a drop? And Victor Hovlin stepped in, and he said, I'm just, you got a guy from Norway coming across the fairway time.

I'm really just not comfortable with you dropping there. And then you've got slightly overweight Joel Damon with his glasses over here, acting as like the guardian of the of the honor of the tour yeah it was just a wild scene i want to ask you about your background because you got a pretty unique one you know we're we're fellow writers here i took a very like straight path this was always what i was going to do you you've you had a kind of a circuitous journey to where you are now so how'd you get to where you are i did big word there that's that's uh bonus points i came to play today pal francis alice francis it's francisela's word there uh so i went to colma state uh for college i got an NBA there

actually. And, yeah, were they really good when you were there, golf wise or usually are? They were, I was there. Oh, yeah, I was there right before Fowler was there. So they, their really good team was like the U-line Fowler. Morgan Hoffman, like that whole, that whole crew. And then until I think the Hovlin Wolf team ended up probably being their best team ever. But they were always, yeah, pretty good while I was there.

Anyway, got an NBA there, got into, I actually got a job in Dallas, which is where I live now, working for a company that does insurance and retirement for churches. I worked in their marketing department, of all things. That's a sexy marketing job. Big time. And I was, it was fine. I liked it. It wasn't, I didn't want to work in a corporate job forever. And so I started an Oklahoma State website that was kind of, I would say it was, I was trying, it was trying to be kind of a tantamount to 11 Warriors or M-Go blog or techsags or something like that. Kind of got into it.

I was naive and I thought, oh, well, maybe this will lead to getting a job in sports writing. Like maybe I can just use this as my resume someday to, and I didn't know I was going to get into golf. I just was trying to get into anything. So I ran that. My wife and I said, okay, let's do it for two years and see what happens. And she was very kind to kind of let me do that in my free time, maybe a little bit of

corporate time in there as well. But at the end of two years, the 24th month, I think I was running that website. I had kind of met some of the right people. Jonathan Wall was one of the people I met. It covers equipment, you know, kind of globally. And I just kind of providentially met some of the right people. Shane Bacon was at the job at CBS Sports that I have now. And he left for Back Nine Network, which is obviously no longer in existence. And I don't even know what that is. Do you know what that is? You've told me that story before. I've never heard of it before. Back 9 Network was like,

it was trying to be golf channel, but kind of like lifestyle. Like a like a like honestly, a little bit of what the, this has become like the playing golf and the filming it and putting it on YouTube and, you know, some of what the no lineup guys do.

Just a bunch of stuff like that. And it just, it didn't. I don't think the financials worked. And so they like flamed out after six months, nine months, something like that. So Bacon went there. I took his job, and that's what I've been doing for the last 10 years now.

I got that job 10 years ago this month, actually. Wow. Well, congratulations. I like, so going through the book, I liked your commentary early on about golf Twitter, because we talk a shit ton about golf Twitter on, on this show. And it's interesting because we're in meetings with the company with Barstville time about how Twitter is basically,

the least important social media app at this day and age. Like people are on it the least. It's growing the least TikTok, Instagram. They're way bigger, whatever. But it does feel like for whatever reason in golf, that Twitter is sort of the, like the community. And I don't really know why that is.

I mean, I guess like each like hockey as a hockey Twitter, but for whatever reason, it feels like golf Twitter is sort of the place to be for golf on social media during golf events. I think that's right. I think a little bit of that is probably generational where it's just like, you know, those of us who are in the generation that probably all of us are in. That was kind of where we put our stake in the ground 10 years ago, eight years ago, six years ago.

And I don't know that it's necessary. I do think Twitter is, man, it's pretty horrible some days. But then there are other days where it's kind of, I think about the back nine of speed at Burtdale in 2017. and you're like, this is, this is awesome. Like there's no, like, I want to be on Twitter for the next two hours and just experience all of this with these people that I kind of know, maybe don't know a lot of them. It was just, there was some kind of magic to that.

And I think there are times like that where it's a ton of fun. And I just, I don't know that Twitter as a medium necessarily. Like I could envision five years from now, the next generation that's covering golf. maybe they put their stake in the ground on an app that hasn't been invented yet. Maybe it's TikTok. Maybe it's something else. But I think that was just sort of what those of us in this generation did. And then everybody kind of jumped in.

And that's what it's become. And, you know, as bad as Twitter can be, it's also, and I think I said this in the intro, it's also there are times where it's, I mean, I've made friends from golf Twitter. And I've, I've gotten to know people from it. And it's led to being able to write a couple books. and there's a lot of good that's come from it as well. It does seem like the only place where a conversation can happen. Now, like you're saying, a lot of the times, the conversation is horrific and it goes off the rails within the first two responses.

But I don't think any other app, at least to my knowledge, like TikTok, you can't do that. Instagram you can't do it. Instagram is pictures, videos, and you're throwing things up. Twitter is the only place that I have found where people can interact over and over and over again and have. a real conversation. And I just don't see that going anywhere. And again, maybe I'm a dinosaur because I did put my flag in the ground 10 years ago being like Twitter is the one. I love Twitter. It drives conversation. That's where people form their opinions on things. I just don't see that going anywhere because none of the other apps do what Twitter does nearly as well. Well, here's the thing,

Trent. I think I think Twitter is also a tell for who kind of knows what they're what they're talking about. Right, because on TikTok or Instagram or YouTube or whatever, you can, you're not, you're producing content, but you're not doing it in the moment. And when you have to, when you have to write something or say something or produce something in the moment, that's a real tell of like, who knows what they're talking about and who doesn't. I go back and look at some of the stuff I wrote 10 years ago and you're like, that guy didn't know what he was talking about, right? Yeah. And hopefully that's evolved and changed. But I think there's a there's a real separation of like, okay, I can actually tell who I want to follow very quickly because I can tell very easily who knows what they're actually talking about. That's a good point. Live tweeting is a big part of it. Like when your instant reactions, like whether like I do The Bachelor or not, obviously, but also when golf's going on or any sports, you find out who's on it and who's going and who's there and who's like who's saying the funny stuff. Like I, that is a really interesting.

Great point on the tell, right? Like of, because even I'm amazed at our, some of our social guys at the main barstool account with some of the videos that they'll pull up in real time that are so relevant and perfectly hilarious. And it's the same in golf where like someone will make a really clever, you know,

and you got to be quick-witted. You don't have time and you miss it. It takes, what, 90 seconds and you've missed it if you don't fire off like it's week because the coverage is switches somebody else or whatever. that's a really good point that you got to be pretty you got to be pretty quick and people can tell pretty fast if you're not with it yeah i think there's some and this is a kind of a corporate silly phrase but like there's some institutional knowledge there that if you remember oh tiger did this uh eight years ago and i'm going to pull the photo or the video or whatever and connect the dots to something that happened in 2022 like there's not a lot of people that can do that and it's

of a skill and I think it's a skill that we don't really think or talk about a lot, but that people, even if they are not able to articulate it, I think they appreciate it. Dudes, we need to have a serious chat about your bathroom habits. It's time to quit shitty, scratchy toilet paper and switch to dude wipes. It's quite simple, ladies and gentlemen, if you came up with an idea to clean something up, would you just use the driest, scratchiest substance that you could possibly use to try to clean up something? No, that would be a bad. There's also an element to this. I have dude wipes in my bathroom. Um, and it rattles me when I run out so much so that I think I ran out recently and it's on

top of my toilet and the way that the bag is still sitting, it looks like it's full. It's filled. So, and I continuously just keep forgetting to just put a new bag there. You know what I mean? So like the air inside makes it look like it's a filled thing of dude wipes. It's driving me insane. The good news is you could go to dude wipes.com, Frank, you could use the code 4Play 20. You could get 20% off your entire order. You could also find everything, dude wipes at Amazon or dude wipes at Walmart and Target nationwide. I like the way of feels personal care products. So do I. Like dude powder, dude powder and dude shower body wipes, perfect for other sticky situations. The shower wipes I keep in my bag, I'm big sunscreen guy. So you're out there on a hot day. You're sweating. You get the mix.

of sweat and sunscreen into that like gross substance on your body. And then you don't want to just disappear from the golf course. You want to maybe tell the significant other that it was slow out there and you're only on the 14th or 15th hole. And you can go over and grab a beer, a truly hard seltzer with the fellas, with the gals, whomever you're with. But you don't want to sit there for an hour, disgusting watching the game. Grab those dude shower wipes, clean yourself up real quick in the bathroom, takes five

seconds. Boom, you're ready to go. So dudewipes.com, use the code 4Play20 for 20% off your entire order. I think you have a skill that I am in awe of, and that is not making interactions with people that you've known or met through Twitter, not be awkward. Because I never know whether to act like I know the guy or I've never met the guy. I don't know whether it introduced. But I remember the first time we met each other in person, you just gave me a fist pumped and acted like we were boys. I never know how to handle that.

It's a very uniquely 21st century interaction where you're like, I've been. in the DMs with this guy. I've retweeted this guy a million times. Do I act like we're meeting for the first time? Yeah. I think I think you, it is weird. You do have to lean into a little bit of, of like, I do know some things about this person, right? It's not as if I'm, it's not as if they're, uh, so Chuck Clostruman has this great thing about how he used to think that people in real life were who they really are and who they were online was, was not who they really are. And now he's flipped to where he thinks that people put up a facade in real life and who they really are is who they are online. And he's talking, I think, more politically than anything. But I think that speaks to the

fact that we do kind of, you know, like we know each other in as much as you can know somebody online. And I think that to ignore that in real life is just to kind of ignore reality a little bit. Yeah. And I mean, think about it now, right, like especially with the younger generation, but we're pretty victim, pretty much victims of it too, of like, you almost spend more time being who you are on your phone and through the internet than you do in real life. Like you're, you know, like most of my friends, I've probably texted with more than I've actually hung out with them in real life, or at least a lot of the people in my phone. Like the conversations that I've had have been more through digital and through like DMs or through, you know, tweets or whatever. So it's kind of like,

that's kind of who you are. on some level. I think the in-person stuff is almost just an extension of it. So when me and Dan hang out and play, you know, this round of golf together in Scotland, it's the greatest round of golf of all time, maybe. It was. It was my, I think I mentioned that in the book. It was my favorite round of golf that I've ever gotten to play.

It was just so many things conflated to make it so amazing. But if we ignore the fact that we know each other from the internet, then we're missing out on just extending that friendship and that relationship. in a meaningful way. So I think that's, I think that's right, Riggs. I think that's a good point. It's just addressing.

I mean, it kind of turns into a rogan episode if you start talking about the extensions of your digital life and whatever. But I mean, I spent, we just got on the last episode, I talked about how I didn't open my mouth

and say words for a whole weekend, but I was tweeting the whole time. I was tweeting. I was on Instagram. 52? Is that what we came up with? 52 straight hours? Something like that.

I'm more online than I am in real life. So it's absolutely true. Trent, after that, do you feel the need to just go talk for two hours straight? Or do you feel energized by the fact that you haven't talked? I definitely don't feel the need to. You definitely don't feel energized either, I would say. No. I mean, it is nice when after a long weekend and then we hop on the podcast and we start talking.

Like, it's nice to know I haven't forgotten all the social cues and how to interact with people. But I would say I don't feel that. I, the more I think about it and I've been thinking a lot about this recently, I am very online. I've been very online for 10 years and I'm very comfortable with that. And I'm not necessarily sure that's a good thing. But it's my job and that's just kind of the way I've been rolling. So I don't have an answer. So to bring it back to the book, you kind of took this whole golf Twitter and online version of golf to a book.

And reading through it, I was expecting it to be a little bit more silly. is silly at times for sure. But I was, um, I was very intrigued at how much of an interesting sort of reliving of the year. It is. And I read, you know, the, uh, who was it? Shane Ryan's writer cut book, um, that came out, which was fantastic. And it reminded me of that in a lot of ways of like, there's so many quotes and context, um, throughout the year that you bring up in the book that looking at them now and how things have panned out and the quotes in real time and how we took them then versus what they're like now, like Jay Monaghan's, you know, press conferences during the players championship and saying, we're moving on. And then I, and it was great because

I actually in real time, as I was reading through that in the book, I was like, oh, this would be perfect for the mission accomplished. And then the illustration that came with it was the George W. Bush mission accomplished and said, we're moving on. I was like, fuck, they nailed it. But I thought it was such an interesting readthrough of the year because you forget how many things happen and you forget the details with which they occur. Yeah. So this is not necessarily specific to golf, but I think in all sports, and this is just like the sort of world that we live in, Everything's so immediate and you have to provide context around, okay, LeBron just won round one against the, you know, thunder. What does that mean? And you're like, I don't know, man. Like, he just won round one. Like, he doesn't mean anything. But we, but we're, we feel this need to provide context. And everything just sort of goes into this black hole of the internet. It's just gone after, you know, an hour or 12 hours or 24 hours, which is a little depressing when you think about it. And so I tried to pull out the stuff that I was like, okay, this, there's some silly stuff,

but also this thing actually mattered. And now we have the context of being able to look back eight months later at Phil's crazy quote from Riviera. What did? It was hard to kind of grab. I mean, at least for me, it was hard to wrap my mind around like, what is going on right now? Eight months later, you're, you don't completely have the full picture, but you have a better picture of like, okay, that's what this meant. And I'm able to. to feel like I can explain it a little bit better looking back on it than I was in the moment. That immediacy was something that really bothered me about my old job was feeling like you had to feed the beast every single day and trying to have an angle and trying to have a take after

Friday of the U.S. Open. And it's unique in golf because the writers aren't, you know, basketball writers aren't writing halftime articles. Maybe they are now. They probably are on like athletic and doing these little blog posts. But that's what's been so nice is like when I've, which to Barstool, there's less of that, like, you know, the business isn't so much like page views, page views. You know, that was what it was before. It was like page views, page views. There's

obviously more things now. We still would like, you know, page views. These are great. Pages are great. But I'm saying, like, having, having just an extra couple of days, and this is what I, when I look back at the golden age of golf writing, right? We talk about like the 80s and the 90s in Sports Illustrated and you had Rick Riley and you had, you know, Alan Shipnuck. And they, a lot of the times they would write one article at the end of the of the week. And that would be the cover story. And it's like you would think that having more content, more content, more content is going to make something resonate better and make, you know, you more of a presence. But it's amazing what a little bit of time to actually craft a narrative to read something over to write something for me.

It's to write something and then and then leave it and then come back to it. Even just that little thing is so important that you can't do at the end of a tournament because you're on a deadline. You've got to get something out. And you got to capitalize on the SEO juice. So I would think that for you, you know, a lot of your job is getting this stuff up early and getting it up immediately. Having that time to sit down and write probably allowed you to develop thoughts and develop narratives that probably didn't make themselves available to you immediately. Totally. And you're, you're sort of, the way that I look at is you're sort of marrying this modern idea that we, we are able to watch PJ Tour alive and catch Sergio waiting in these like neck high books. and like screaming at rules officials that he's leaving for a, uh, a, a, a, a,

monarchy that is like super antagonistic and aggressive. And like he's, he's really excited about that to these like rules officials that have done nothing but cater to them over the last 20 years. So we have the ability to to have all this content at our fingertips, which is, I think, fun for like, like we were talking about golf Twitter and things. But it, it almost makes it, I want to marry that with this. idea of creating an artifact, a book like this that doesn't just fly off. Like, I remember this year, we're at the US Open day and you're writing, I'm writing after the first round about like, oh, what is what does Rory's 68 mean?

You're like, I don't, I don't know. It doesn't mean anything. It's the first round. And yet you have to feel, you are you have to feed the beast. You have to do. And listen, like that stuff can be good. some of the best writing that maybe I've done has been first or second round of these events. But I don't want to just leave it at that. I do want the in like looking back artifact because I think it's,

I think it's a meaningful way to kind of marry the present with the past where, you know, the Dan Jenkins's and the Rick Riley's did only write like one thing a week. And it was amazing. How do you do that with the amount of content you have in the modern era? And this book is a humble attempt at, at trying to do that. Right, because what immediacy does is it leads to unearned hyperbole. Like you were saying with the first round of like when LeBron beats whoever in the first round, the fact that you have to feed the beast and put something out and you want to get page views leads to people saying that was the best first round ever that LeBron has ever played.

It's the greatest first round defeat of all time. And what that does is it waters down things that are actually great. So when something great happens and someone says that was great, they're then comparing that great to the first round defeat great that LeBron accomplished. And it completely screws everything up. That is partially what the internet has screwed up is that you have to feed the beast so often that you've got to be outlandish and you have to use these huge words like awesome and amazing when these things aren't necessarily awesome and amazing.

So when those things happen and you say that they are, people don't buy into them as much. Isn't being a fan about like being reactionary in the moment though? Like like being a fan and being a, you know, a writer and a journalist are two different things. Well, okay. No, I know. I know. So the trucks of this show if you're really honest with each other. Right.

I think the thing, my thing with that is it's, it's exhausting. Like it doesn't. Yeah. It doesn't need to be a 30 minute show on ESPN, right? It can just be a tweet. Like, hey, well, Brown was awesome in the first round. And so, you know, it's weird. because a lot of our jobs are making the quote-unquote 30-minute show on ESPN or whatever in the moment reactionary.

But when given the opportunity to step away from that, and I think the book is just, it's a little bit quieter than a lot of the other stuff that I've created or that gets created. And I don't mind, like, Frankie was talking about the reactionary, because I think that is part of being a fan. But if you can also create the thing that I think is better, which is the artifact, the, the, the, the thing that stands the test of time, hopefully. I think I want to pick any opportunity to do that that I can. Did you know that driving high is considered driving under the influence? You guys know that? I don't think that I did know that.

Really? Well, now you do. That's right. Driving under the influence of marijuana is against the law in every state, even in states where marijuana is legal. That means driving high could get you a DUI, a DUI, a DUI. You don't want to get one of those. And if you think law enforcement officers can't tell when you're driving high, you are wrong.

Your friends can tell. Your coworkers can tell. Even your parents can tell. Everyone can tell. So what makes you think that law enforcement officers don't know when you're driving high, driving under the influence of marijuana, can slow your response time and change. And change how you perceive time and speed, which is not good if you're driving. So even if you think you're fine to drive, when you're high, you are not, you are wrong. We're trying to help you out there.

We're trying to save lives. Trying to make sure you don't get a DUI. Remember, drive high, get a DUI paid for by our very good friends at the NHTSA. Is that NHTSA? Is that what the hell? They want us to say that? I believe so, yes. Because when we would do the don't get hit by a train ad reads, I think it was the same. That's the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration doing great work.

NHTSA, NHTSA. They want to remind you, drive high, get a DUI. I like this ad because they're not asking to buy anything. This is just a public service announcement. They're just trying to help. people to be safe. That was that's exactly right. So, remember, do not drive high. That will get you a DUI. Books, I'm going to say in general books, we've talked to good. We've actually debated

a lot, uh, books on the show. And we go through phases and reading and I wouldn't say we're considered like the most well read podcast in the world. But, uh, what I, what I do like about books is, is what you're talking about now, because today there's, we, we view on the internet that there's very little archival value to, a lot of things, right? It's like in the moment, you fire stuff off, you get your page views, you get your interaction. And then within the news cycle, 12 hours, whatever it is, like there's really no value to that. And what a book allows you to do is kind of contextualize everything. But it must be, I would guess, it must be difficult to get people hyped up about reliving stuff over the last year.

And like I kind of felt that way too of like, okay, like it's been less than a year. How I'd up could you get? And then once I started reading through, I couldn't stop because you want like, you really truly want to be like, oh, I forgot in February that like, Rory not only said like who's left, who's left to go. He's like, there's no one. It's dead in the water. Oh, I remember it was dead in the water. But he went through and said like, who's left? Who's left to go?

And he was in that moment, we all were like, yeah, that's a good point by him. because DJ and everybody had just released statements that were like, we're staying with a PJ tour and you look at it now and all you would think of is like, I can't believe he said dead in the water. What an idiot. Now after the, you know, 10 pages it took me to get to that point, I was like, well, of course he said that. Like, obviously he said that.

He said they're going to have to ask Greg Norman to play if they want to fill the field. Yeah, which was sick. And then Greg Norman tried to fill the field at the open championship. and they did not allow him to do that. No, they did not. They were not. Yeah. Listen, Riggs, I think, I think you're right.

Like, I don't, I actually, the irony of this is I don't really love sort of rehashing or end of your recaps or anything like that. And yet I've written two books that are, that are kind of that. And I think, I was talking to Shane Bacon about this. Shane Bacon did the audio. And he was like, I think you've created something that, you know, and this is like, this is him saying this, not me, but he's like, I think you've created something that people can read 10 years from now and say, here's everything that mattered in 2022 or 20 years from now. And we don't, we, in some ways, it's a little bit of a collection. Like, there are quotes in there

that somebody gave to Dan or there are quotes in there that, you know, somebody gave to me, like individually or whatever. So it's a collection of a bunch of different things that not just I created. And I think if somebody reads it 20 years from now, they'll say, oh, this was like, this was 2022 in golf. And maybe that is not meaningful from a financial standpoint. Maybe it doesn't like kill financially. But for me, it's meaningful from creating again, like meaningful artifacts that last a long time. And for me that it was actually during COVID in 2020 where remember when COVID started and you get, you know, like 500 articles a day about like, oh, well, this is what's happening. And I'm like, I can't, I can't do all this.

Like, I can't handle it anymore. I just started reading a ton of books. And it really clicked my mind into, hey, books matter because somebody took a ton of time to put them together. They put a ton of effort and energy into it. And it's their best stuff. It's the best stuff from this time frame or this subject or whatever. And that was kind of what I tried to create here, even though the chronology of it, you're right, is kind of like, not the most appealing thing I think you could write about.

No, but I remember years ago, Grantland, the now defunct website, would print out volumes of the best pieces from a year or however, there you go, exactly. That's exactly what I'm talking about. They would print those out.

You just showed it on the, and it's what you're saying. Like, it may not make sense, like, I don't know, logically, but putting that Grantland book or putting normal sport on a coffee table,

and then someone comes over and they, pick it up and they're like, oh, this is from the year when Live like became a thing. And then you can, you get context and it's not just throwing things into the black hole that is the internet. It's having a thing. It's having an artifact like you're saying that people can read and be like, oh, that's what it was like at this time. I think that's great. I'll give you an analogy that popped into my head is like the golf Twitterverse is like being at a loud bar and everyone's like taking vodka shots and trying to be the funniest guy. And you're trying to sort through all the noise. Whereas a book,

is like some learned man offers you a glass of bourbon and tells you to have a seat next to him and he's going to tell you a story. And I think it's actually the books are the perfect antidote for our online brain. And I'm constantly reading for that reason because I feel like there's so much overstimulation and you don't know where to go and then there's this tweet and this guy retweeted it and that guy replied and do you reply to that guy? Whereas a book allows you to just quiet your brain. And like you said it's quieter than the work that you do online. I think that's a really rich descriptor. Yeah. And honestly, Trent, my two inspirations for the book were one, this Grantland thing. And the weird part about that, Trent, is I have the, I have, I think I have all of them. And I haven't really

read them all a ton. Like, I'll pick them up and read a chapter or whatever. But I just like having them. I don't know. That sounds like a stupid thing, but it's true. And then the other inspiration, at least digitally, was some of Shea Serrano's work. You know, Shea Serrano has written, And he's written these sort of the rap, the rap book or whatever. Rap yearbook. Yeah, but he's, he's also written these digital PDFs about the office and about scrubs and about these different TV shows. And he just kind of made what he wanted to make and did it with a ton of cool illustrations.

Our illustrator, Jason Page, I think is super talented. Just really nails a lot of the designs like, like Riggs was talking about earlier. So those were kind of my two inspirations as I thought about trying to put all this together. It actually made me think. So I've been relisting to Dan Carlin, hardcore history and his King of King's whole, like, episodes where he goes through basically the Persians. And it's amazing because there's hundreds of years that they are literally trying to piece together what happened through carvings on fucking walls, like literally just trying to piece together

how like entire civilizations and kingdoms took over others. And then they also have like Herodotus, who's obviously the Greek writer Velasper who like 200 years later basically did what you're doing for one year of golf. He basically spent his life being like, all right, I'm going to try to go everywhere and piece together everything and try to write like the most accurate recount of what actually happened over the last like two, three, 400 years that allowed like the Persians to take over the world and that ultimately like Alexander the Great to take over the world. And he, and so even now, like 2,500 years later, they're trying to go through and be like, all right, he was Greek. So he was a little bit biased. But like, so they're trying to cut through that. And so it's really interesting when you said like in 10, 20 years, there's a chance that this book could stand as like, oh, okay, this is a very comprehensive and and legitimate and quieter sort of way to walk your way through.

what was 2022 actually like. Yeah. Golf Twitter. Also, if all the server is, Herodotus, that's going to be on my. That's good. That's pretty good. Because also, if all the servers just go away, then everything we've ever done online just goes away. You got to have books.

You got to have the books. I'm worried about that. Books are, yeah, I love books. I think they are, again, like you're not going to, there's a hierarchy, right? And there's a hierarchy of content creation. whether we admit it or not or whether we acknowledge it or even see it or not. And books, I think, have always been, you know, since the, since the printing press have been at the top. Like, we just, we view books more, we view them differently than tweets.

It's the same thing. It's just writing, right? It's just words. But we view them differently. And I think that, I think that matters. Dan, I'm curious about the best book you read in 2022. Not to put you on the spot. There's a pile of them behind.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been on kind of a Michael Pollan kick, if you know who that is. He wrote. Yeah. Yeah. I would say how to change your mind is pretty. That's the psychedelic drug one, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I read that. I read Omnivore's dilemma also to start the year, which I thought was just fantastic. Did Pauline put out the Netflix series. Did you watch that? I have not watched that. Is it good? I mean, if you read the book, I'm sure, it's pretty much everything in there.

But he's really interesting on camera, too. Yeah. I'm about to finish his, his newest one, which is. your this is your brain on plants, which I actually think, I mean, it's still really entertaining, but probably third out of three. But yeah, that would probably, that jumps out to me. I also really, I have a really soft spot for like, I don't want to say trashy fiction, but like the sort of gone girls of the world. I read where the Codad sing and I was, I just thought it was just beautiful. I loved it. Okay. So I should confess that I will, I love books like that also. And I actually, I love,

my wife makes fun of me, but I love the young adult fiction category. Like the Nicholas Sparks. No, not Nicholas Sparks, more like the Hunger Games. Some banged movies, we're honest, Nicholas Sparks collection. Divergent, like that whole collection. Like, I can't, even Harry Potter, I'm reading Harry Potter to my kids right now out loud, and I can't get enough. It's amazing. Look at Frankie.

Frankie, you know, tell them, Frankie, about your village? I do have a village. I have a village. You know, just bought a house. So it's like that was the first thing that we purchased was a, for the Christmas season, was a village, got it before we got the tree. And it's just, it's hog or it's a part of the village. village oh yeah it goes from hogsmee to all the way so you have ron and hermione and harry they're

walking on their way and you see i do a whole video series through the village too with my phone i like to drive through it goes from hogsme and all the way up to hoggworth it's an incredible village i have not i had not read through the whole series and i wanted to wait so my kids were old enough to kind of go through it and so we're reading it out wild together and they have they've loved it's it's been super fun to do it together you brought up closerman he is he is he's the best. Like, I've read all of his books. I got a couple right here. That, that guy, him and Bill Simmons were like the reason that I wanted to get into media. And Closterman, his writing is, speaking of books, like he, his books, having those around and just like flipping through them

every once in a while as like a pop culture writer in that way is, it's so good. So I haven't read any of him, but is, I'm a huge fan of David Foster Wallace. Is he kind of in the same like vein of that where it's like kind of essays? Yeah. I think, I think David Foster Wallace is more ethereal. And Closerman's more, he's thoughtful, but he's more kind of on the ground. More grounded. Yeah. I would say.

But Closterman, I mean, I made this point to somebody the other day. I think a lot of us are just, and I mean this in a good way, I think a lot of us are just derivatives of the Simmons, like Simmons coming up. And what I meant by that was like, we've sort of entered this. phase of covering sports where it's it's okay to be a fan of of the sport and to root for like this idea of of people oh well sports I've gotten this tweet a lot like oh I remember when sports writers were were objective and you're like well they weren't they just covered it up right like they just they just they just hit it better than we do now like everybody always had their favorite guys or their favorite teams or whatever and I just think it's silly to sort

of not disclose that. It doesn't mean you can't be, you know, realistic in and still cover the sport in that way. But I think I think a lot of that is a byproduct of kind of the Simmons era. Well, I also think like if you're if you're not a fan of the game, then what are you doing in the industry? What are you doing in this game? Why are you covering it? Like you, you know, you should be a fan of it.

Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be critical of certain elements of it, certain players. fine, but like you're saying, like, that's always baffled me if you get, for whatever reason, it feels like people inevitably, a lot of folks in journalism, golf journalism, inevitably get to a crumagony stage where it seems like they don't like anything about what they're covering. And it's like, well, then why are you doing it? Like, what's the point of life? What are we doing here if you're covering something that you hate? It just doesn't make any sense.

Yeah. And I think that comes through, whether it's writing or podcasting or video or whatever, people can tell if there's a joy there for what you're doing. And I think, you know, I can't believe it's worth 55 minutes in. I'm just now bringing up Rory. But Rory talked to this summer about we were talking about how do you maintain joy within golf? Because, you know, I think fans kind of look at pros and they're like, man, that's the coolest job in the world. And pros look at fans.

They're like, this is like, this is, I remember Charles Hout telling me one time. He's like tournament golf is not fun. It sucks. It's stressful and hard. And Rory was talking about how do you maintain joy? Well, you do it by going and playing with your dad. And you do it by going and taking your off days and taking your kids out and playing and different things like that. And I think in the same way, there's a path for people that are covering sports to like, hey, you can just go to a game, take your kid to a game, go to a game with your dad or watch a game that.

you don't have to cover. And I think it sort of re-engenders that joy that we've, that we all had, I think, growing up for, for sports. And like you just said with a writer, you know, you can, you can sense it or feel it or it comes out in your work if you're not enjoying it or you don't have the same fandom of it. Same with golf. When you're watching somebody out there and you can tell they're not having the joy that they used to have playing the game, it's incredibly evident when you're watching them.

Totally. I mean, it's the difference between a Scott Piercy and a Jordan Speeith, right? Just to call out two people who, one, loves golf and is obsessed with it, and the other does it for money, you know? And I think you can, you can tell whether you're out there, you're just watching on TV. Speaking of doing it for money, I really enjoyed your internal struggle, it seemed even with Live. and talking about your, not even internal struggle, but your sort of journey. And I was, I love the part where you were like, at one point, I was just reading everything I could because I had, you know, basically had this opinion of the beginning of like,

they're bad. We know where the money comes from. That's bad. People just playing for money and for that cause and understanding that you're just fulfilling an objective that the Saudi Arabian government's trying to achieve is bad. But I'm going to like read as much as I can. can to try to understand this better and better and that your perception of the whole thing has changed to some degree from now till then because I think every person has kind of gone

through that journey throughout the whole thing of like evolving to some degree their takes on the whole live situation. Are you constantly consistently finding yourself with 50 tabs open a day hopping between tools just to do your job. Notion is the most customizable tool that helps teams organize information, manage projects and get more work done together, all in one place, more than 70% of teams that use Notion, stop using two or more tools because they don't need them anymore.

So clearly this consolidates, this cuts out wasted time, jumping from tool to tool. It's all done under Notion. For companies of all sizes, Notion provides one central and customizable workspace that can be tailored to fit any team and brings all teams together to get more done and move faster. Notion is an all-in-one team collaboration tool that combines note-taking, document sharing,

wikis, project management, and much, much, much more into one space that's simple, powerful, and beautifully designed with powerful integration and seamless navigation. You'll have everything you need in one spot so you can make speed your advantage without the silos and context switching that slow companies down. Plus Notion as a worldwide network of millions of users creating templates, tutorials, and new inspiration. The product is getting better all the time. And you always have the support that you need. You, my dear 4-plate listeners, can learn more and get started for free. That's right, for free right now at Notion.com.

Take the first step towards an organized, happy team today. Go to notion.com to get started today. That is notion.com. You know, I was joking to somebody, it's, it's looking at things from a different perspective, like on golf Twitter, like the fun kind of like, oh, this is absurd that these eight people are standing in the water reading a rules book. Before it was just humor. And now it's actually become a useful skill to kind of look at live from a different perspective and try to see what's going on. I do think I, I saw those eight people, those eight people in the water, like that their perspective is like, this is really important. I'm like, we got to get this right.

For sure. I think I softened on, I softened on the idea of the public investment fund using Live as a way to launder its government's reputation. I don't think that is like one of their OKRs for 2023. Well, if that's the objective they're doing, we talked about this on this show. They're doing a horrific job because we're talking more. about Saudi Arabia and we would never mention it. We never would never talk about Jamal Khashoggi on the show. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I think is the public investment fund's goal broadly,

like across all, everything that it does to sort of move you away from thinking about what its government does? Maybe. Probably. Probably so. But do I think it's like a lead objective of live? Not really. And so what kind of came of that is two things. One, it became, you know, Phil Mickelson I saw was the highest paid athlete in sports this year or whatever. What was that? 145 million. 50 something, yeah. 150 million. It's like, congratulations, man. You may have broken apart this sport. So I think what Liv does is they, they want you to presume that there are a ton more people to kind of bring in and make money from so that the pie as a whole can grow.

And I just don't know that I believe that. I sort of feel like everybody that's in is in. And what happens when you start creating different leagues and different choices for sponsors to make or for organizations to tie themselves to is you actually lessen the amount of money that are in each one. And so in 10 years, it's not going to become a parent right away, but in 10 years or 15 years,

all of a sudden, the PJ Tour, which has grown a ton over the last 20 years has receded a little bit because live has taken away some of his sponsorship. which it makes the entire organization as a whole not as strong as it would have been. And so I think there's a fracturing there in a sport that, I mean, how many people are following regular season golf? There's not enough. There's not enough fan interest to sustain two basketball league.

You know what I mean? Or football leagues are definitely not for golf. Yes. Exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying. And then I think the other thing that I started thinking about is, and I mentioned this on another podcast, but what if the Koshogi thing happens again? So maybe you're not sports washing. Maybe Pat Perez going to live doesn't change what people think about NBS.

Actually, I'm sure it does not. But what do those guys do if another Khashoggi happens? What does Phil Mickelson get up at a press conference and say when the guy that's signing his checks is in the inner circle of NBS? You know, that becomes, you're taking a political risk. And so I think those two things really started to stand out to me. But in terms of the way that I cover the sport, it was more the first one of like, I don't want this sport to go away. And it's sort of congratulations to Phil.

You got $150 million, but you might have split a sport that for the next 15 years, 20 years, that you claim to be wanting to help. And that really started to bother me. Yeah, I think the Phil one is an interesting case, but because he's the face of it. But kind of the next level of guys who went to live, I don't know, Matt Wool. the walking Nemans. My perspective of their decision kind of changed when I went to live because I went to, sorry, I didn't go to live. I went to some live events. Breaking news. Yeah, breaking news. I know. A lot of people did try to draw that parallel when I went to Barstall, but not really the same thing. But you were talking about how press conference, right? That's true. It's a really good point. It's a super good point. You talked about how tournament golf isn't fun and it's super, super stressful. It's not the case at live events. And I remember I was on the range. at the event in Oregon. I was walking down there and Liv lets you walk wherever you want. So you're right behind the guys.

Some guy peers a three wood and I make a comment like, you know, that'll work. And he turns around and he's like, yeah, but if it doesn't, then like, who the fuck cares? And this gave them an opportunity to escape that stress. And I think a lot of people online look at that as a demerit, right? Like you're going to voluntarily take yourself out of this race and this meritocracy and this every week, you know, eat what you kill. but that wears on some people and some people just aren't cut out for it. And Matt Wolf watching him at a live event and watching him at a PGA tour event was like night and day.

Yeah. And who are we to tell that guy that he should make a decision that makes him happy? And everyone's decision process is colored by their own experiences and their own biases that we, by definition, can't understand. I think you're right. And I think it's a good point that each individual is incentivized. I understand why each individual went to live, right? because they're incentivized in multiple ways to do so, not just financially, but what you said about sort of the way they compete. I think my thing was more with, okay, I have to convey this

to fans of golf. And the fans of golf that were like, actually, this is great for golf. Like, actually, here are the 25 reasons that it's not. You know, and that, that was the part that frustrated me was fans saying like, not, and it wasn't even the individual decisions, but it was more like the thing as a whole like the people that that the thing that I do not understand and never will was the you know the rob low meme of when he's wearing the NFL hat the hat with the NFL shield yeah there's a thousand people like that now but with live and you're like what why are you like you who's a fan of a league well it's there's a lot of political undertones I think for sure yes and that became a really apparent and I should have seen it coming and I didn't I

I did. Bedminster was a rally, dude. It was chance. It was, I was there. It was really strange. I think we, I think we've kind of pointed at that as the turning point where people

decided to become a fan of the league. And that's something that we have mocked a lot on this show. It's like, it'd be the same thing. If you were just wearing a PGA tour hat, I would mock you. That is, that's ridiculous.

Why are you just a fan of the tour that doesn't make it set? Shitting on the PGA tour. So it would be so hypocritical to be like, I wear this emblem proudly because I love every. everything they do. He's so strange. It's like one of the reasons for play became a thing is like, we can't stand the PGA tour. They don't like let us do anything we want. And then all of a sudden it's like, I'm going to, I'm going to plant this flag in front of my house. It's going to be the PGA tour logo. It's like, what are you talking about? Right. Yeah. It, yeah. And that was the other thing

is there's so many things that, um, I think, uh, I'll categorize golf Twitter, uh, broadly has said over the last 10 years of like, hey, here's how the PGA tree could be better. And then all of a sudden it flipped and people are like, well, you guys just, you might be, I mean, I got a tweet yesterday. It was like, you're, Monaghan's paying you. Like, really? Like, tell me how that works, you know. Everybody knows, Kyle. Yeah, for, you know, they do now that I said it on the podcast.

The whole thing was, was strange. And I think ultimately, like, it wasn't even, I don't, it might have even been good for golf in 2022. Honestly, like, the attention that it got, it made the majors more important in 2020. which I thought was an unintended benefit. But I think a long term and people won't maybe see this for 10, 15, 20 years, I just don't see how it can be a good thing. Yeah, I think it'll be, I'm excited for the majors even more so now.

Like you kind of mentioned this year going forward, I think next year. I am surprised to hear you say that you've changed and don't necessarily believe that their main goal with Live is or was or whatever to sports wash. So I guess the only other option would be their goal is they genuinely thought they could create like a viable business. I think it's a couple of things. I think it's viable business, diversify their oil money. But I think it's also this idea and you guys kind of mentioned it with Bedminster of

creating a vehicle for aggregating political capital and Golf is a good way to do that, but a better way to do it is by going to courses that that politicians, a certain politician owns. And I think that, so I think there are multiple goals with Liv. I just am not sure that the one that emerged at the beginning, which was, hey, this is to change your opinion of MBS is necessarily the primary one. I think getting involved in golf is huge for business and relationships because it Power brokers love golf.

If they can get in the room and have a relationship with the Rolex CEO or the Mercedes CEO or they can do business with insurance companies. You have to spend $2 billion to do that. You can. I think they've probably decided that that's the cheapest way for them to. I mean, it's hard. It's hard to. The cheapest way. It's hard for you.

$2 billion for them is not a lot of money. I mean, let's just. I get that. But I'm saying like there's like other companies will do a $15 million sponsorship and they get that shit. But it's not, it's not, they're not just going to be able to pay $15 million and, and have a relation. Like, it's, it's a way for them to get into this circle, I think. So it's, yes, I do think that that being in that circle is a way for them to sort of nullify

or to downplay what's happened in the past. But I'm with Kyle where I don't think it's like such a direct relationship. Yeah. I, no, I, he's making a lot of sense of the, the multiple benefits and it not being as clearly primary objective number one is just cleanse their reputation globally because like Trent said that clearly I don't think has been working up to this point I think that's like really not gone well for that when I think for guys that like Yasser that are obsessed with golf apparently I don't know Yasser I don't know the who's the who's the other guy that was written about a jeet Majette

yeah I don't know those guys but they clearly are are in I don't know never been on the show yeah But they're clearly into golf. And I think there's, there's a thrilling aspect of being able to say, hey, we created this thing that Phil Mickelson wants to be a part of. We created a team that Brooks Kepka is a, you know, that these four, five, six-time major winners are a part of. I think there's, there's some maybe, I don't think, there is some ego involved with that as well.

And so I think that that plays in. What's something that money can't buy? It's like access and, and this sort of hanging. They want to be on the boat with DJ and Paulina. It sounds silly, but it's actually true. These people have unlimited money at their disposal. So they're like, what's the coolest thing I can spend money on? Oh, let's take Phil Mickelson away from the PGA tour so we can play in the pro

am with it. And I think some of that, sorry, Riggs, but some of that, according to the New York, the New Yorker article, I mentioned this in the book, is allegedly they went to the PGA tour and said, here's a bunch of money. PJT. was like, well, now the PJ tour says that didn't happen. That's a huge, that's like one of the great parentheticals in golf history or will be, whether that did or didn't happen.

And so I think that, I think that part of it was like the diversification of their money. And once the, once they were unable to do that, they're like, well, let's just have some fun with this then. And let's just do our own thing, you know. And screw those guys. And screw those guys for not taking, for not answering our call. Where like, where in this amazing year of 2022, do you think the. Bryson Gallery Rope scenario will kind of rest in the annals of time.

Like in terms of where does it rank among the moments of the year? Yeah. Just like what do you, how influential in our memories of this year do you think that moment will be? Hopefully it's at the top because it was an incredible moment. It's the funniest thing of all time. Yeah. I think I called him in the book,

the high king of content because he's this sort of perfect character in that he creates unintentional comedy at every turn. But he doesn't know that he's doing it. And so it's just, it just keeps on, it just keeps on going. It's, it's like this endless circle of content. And that was, that was among the, the funniest video was not the actual broadcast, but somebody in the gallery had a phone from behind him. And that's where you could hear him like screaming and cursing it. I mean, it was shit. I saw that live was tweeting out their moments of the year.

If that's not in the top five, then they're, they're doing something wrong. Right. He is, he is the rare internet personality that when they're not trying to create content that we're all going to love, they make the best stuff. And then when they try, like when he recreated the rope situation,

it's the worst thing on the internet. It's a negative. It's so bad. He really is the king of content when he's not trying to make content. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's number one for me. I think that's like that's far. He's only funny when he doesn't think he's being funny. Yep.

He is the dog. He's Nate dog. Yeah. Just a really, really interesting year. I think that that that kind of summarizes everything for me. It's just the Bryson Rope incident. I'm like, this isn't that serious, but some people are making it way too seriously.

Like Bryson? I loved it. I loved every part of it. This is what I wrote in the book. I said, Bryson is the rarest of players, good enough that what he says and does almost always matters, but also the high king of both intentional and unintentional content creation.

He's the triumvirate. Plenty of players tick two boxes, but the trifecta is so atypical and so valuable that whoever produces it must be protected at all cost. I think that I'm like I'm being earnest when I say this. I'm legitimately going to miss Bryson on the PGA tour. Yep. And, you know, he was sort of the through line of 2021.

He was what everything revolved around in the same way that Liv was that through line in 2022. And I'm just going to miss his absurdity, his antics, all of it with him not being on the tour anymore. Yeah, it's true. I mean, Brooks Kepka, I won't really miss, right? He doesn't really do it for me that much. You know, I'd say, Dustin, I'll miss. Like, watching him play at his best is very, is very. fun, but there's very few people that I will genuinely miss. And Bryson is absolutely number one. He

dominated 2021, which we call the forgotten year all the time. I mean, that'll be just a year in general, not even golf, everybody will just kind of forget about. But he dominated 2021 every week. He's sprits in golf balls. He's attacking himself behind the driving range. He's got fire ants that he's yelling at. I mean, it was just. Dude, he's so interesting that the only reason Brooks was super interesting is because he was at odds with Bryson. My driver sucks. That was when Brooks sucks. Right. Like Brooks obviously was super interesting when he was winning every other major. But his like his content creation, if we're going to put it in that category, was the most interesting when he was toe to toe with Bryson. Bryson is so interesting that he can, anybody he touches

then becomes more interesting. Yeah. He's the midas of golf content. He really is. It's interesting though. If you, if you would have made a list at the beginning of the year of like the big name players who would be most likely to go to live. I think Bryce and Phil and Brooks would probably be in the top three or four. It kind of broke. And Patrick Reed, you know, it broke down on personality lines. It did. And it, it, I touched on this a little bit, but it became, I, I think it's reductive to say, like, this is a good versus evil thing or good guys or bad guys or white hat versus black hat or anything like that. But it's not, it's not like that big of a stretch, right? And so I think when you're a fan and you're saying, okay, am I going to ride with those guys or am I going to be with J.T. Rory

Spieth, Morcawa, Tom, Tiger. Like, if the choice is binary, I don't, I don't really see like how you would choose the former. Right. Right. Yeah, I'm going to miss Bryson, man. I'm going to miss Bryce. I'm excited for him at the majors because he can't really be protected. He'll be out there.

There's going to be things that just occur. So, yeah, I'm pumped. I appreciate anybody. You got anything else for Kyle? I'm excited to finish the book. I haven't finished the book yet. It's a great read, like we said. I think a quieter recap of the entire year is a great way to put it.

So yeah, normal sport too. If you haven't read normal sport, go check that out as well. But it's available where. Tell me where I can tell everybody to get it. Yeah, a normal sport.com. And if, if Barstville listeners, we don't have any, We don't have any discounts this year because we ended up having like 11 people working on it. So I had to pay all them.

But if people put in Barstool at checkout, they'll be entered into, I'll be given away some Barstool Pro Shop gift cards at the end of the year. So December 31st, we're doing kind of a drawing if you put in Barstool. So if you do use Barstool at checkout, you'll be automatically entered into that. Guys, buy the book. Buy the book. Like we tell you guys to buy merch because it allows us to do what we do. buying Kyle's book allows Kyle to do what Kyle does.

Buy it. Throw it on your coffee table and then people read it. It's a great thing. I love the artifact aspect of it. I really do. Stocking stuff for great gift. So yeah, the bars to let checkout at normalsport.com.

Go get it. Normal sport two. Get the first one as well. And yeah, Kyle Porter, CBS. Great follow on Twitter. Golf Twitter. We talked about it a lot. We appreciate it, man.

That was fun. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it. Thanks, guys. See you soon, man.